Assignment #1

When reading Baxter's Shame in the Forgetting Age i was a bit confused at the beginning but as I read more I came to understand the piece a little bit better. After glancing through the rest of the text I saw quotes from other writter's and book's he gave refernce to. I think Baxter also wants us to understand the differnce between memory and undestanding information. Some people can do both understand and remenber well, but others may only poses one of those qualities. Baxter was showing us how some people (i.e his brother Tom) was only god in memorizing.


Each one of the 5 sections lets you know what Baxter will be addressing. In the first section In memeory of Tom, my brother, Baxter talks about how his brother did not do well with inforamtion but his memory was excellent. His brother was 59 when he passed and I could understand why it was easier for him to remeber. When he was growing up computer's and other easy learning tools as such were not out so everything you learned you had to learn it the hard way and you had to memorize the informantion and do things on your own. You did not have things like computers and calculator's to figure out the information for you.

In the second section Memory, shame and forgetting : An intoducton, Baxter gives you an insight on hiow computer's play such an important role in today's society. Computer's are used for numerous amounts of things today and are used in all types of fields. When using computers and other things often you tend to forget even the simpliest of things. "Is it forgetfulness or is it Alzheimer's ?" (145), is a good way to address the issue on how our brains can be so abosred in thechnolgy that we can forget things easily, such as the young woman who forgot the words to the Candian national anthem.

Section three On Information and memory:Walter Benjamin is about Walter Benjamin's book "The storyteller". Through out the third section Baxter talks about information and experience. Benjamin says "Experinece has fallen in value". In this section Baxter was addressing people in the work space. Many individuals jobs are to be surrounded by computers that they never get to experience anything but working with computers. Experince is lost in the many businesses becasue you are not living you are just stuck on computers.

The forth section Shame,innocence,and tbe memoir addresses how a key way for some to remeber things of the past is to write them in a memior. Memoirs are persoanl stories and experiences that someone wants to tell andfora way to remeber them down the likne before they forget.

The fifth and fianal section "Maybe erasure is neccassary ": The Literture of forgetting, shows us different pieces of literature that adress differernt literature that may help in understanding why others forgert. One piece in section five I like is when Baxter says "if memory stands agsinst death, forgetting stands against data. To me tihs is saying memory is as good to forgetting as death is to data. Onca an individual dies their memory is no long good same to data ,where when someone forgets the information it is no long good.

Baxter's piece on Shame and the Forgetting age was an intersting piece. By the end I felt that Baxter was trying to address that inforamtion and memory go hand in hand but when one is lost the other may be too.

Little about me

My name is Dalia Johnson. I live in Milwaukee I am 19 years old and I have a 5 month old daughter named Myla Imani. Besides taking care of my daughter I work at The Limited, and I enjoy hanging out with my frineds and having tons of fun.I am very fun and love to go out and kick it. I am a student here at UWM and I am sophmore. I plan on earning a degree in Business-Supply Chain Managment.I have fututre plans in becoming a buyer in retail because of my love for fashion...... So that's a little about me!