Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Assignment # 1.3 cont...

Introduction Revision

In Charles Baxter's essay Shame and Forgetting the Information Age, he covers a wide range of people and how technology, forgetting, memory, print, and shame ties into one. Throughout the text he talks about his brother Tom (at the beginning) and then ventures off into mentioning others and how they react to the information age. He also includes text from others writers like Walter Benjamin, who wrote "The Storytellers" (1936)to help explain his concept on the information age. Shame and Forgetting the Information Age really goes in depth about the whole concept of memory and technology, and how they can fall into both negative and positive aspects. Another factor in Baxter's writing, I feel, is to show the two different kinds of memory people can have, the first being personal memory and the second one being information memory. When it comes to the part in the essay about forgetting or shame Baxter's thought is that we should not be shameful, if something is forgotten. Even though his brother Tom had a learning disability he did not want him to be shame if he could not remember things of the information age well, because his memory of experience (or personal) was excellent. For many of those who grew up in the age of print this new era of technology is more difficult for them. Memorizing information was a bit more complicated and challenging. Now in today's world you have all the computers and technology that is accessible to help you with all sorts of things even memorizing. In the epigraph there is a quote from Neil Postman who states, "We have transformed information into a form of garbage" (141), what I get from this quote is that we have taken the power that we have in technology and over used that power. Technology is no longer just used for business but for pleasure as well. Both memory and technology can be “forms of garbage”, you as an individual just need to understand when and when not to apply the two.

No comments:

Post a Comment