Yes, We're Finally Done.

In the last paragraph of chapter 11, Neil Postman writes, " For in the end, he was trying to tell us that what afflicted the people in Brave New World was not that they were laughing instead of thinking, but that they did not know what they were laughing about and why they had stopped thinking."  Postman's message in this is that people are watching television and following the media.  But while doing this, our society has simply stopped thinking.  We are being so entertained that when we watch television and laugh or find something entertaining, we don't even know why we think it's funny or why we are so entertained by it.

I never want to be silent ever again. Ever.

Friday. Had two days off that week for snowdays and it was almost the weekend, but I was still dreading it Thursday night.  I knew the next morning I would have to wake up and the moment I walked into school, I had to be completely silent all day long. To be honest, it was awful. I couldn't get any point across in any class. One unusual experience I had was that there were only three people in my whole entire Spanish class that were able to talk. Everyone else, including me, were silent. Mrs. Remy was trying to talk to us and get understand us, but it was impossible. We ended up taking notes silently from the over-head. It was an awful experience to not be able to talk all day and I did try really hard.  Even though i put in a lot of effort to stay quiet, there were multiple times that I slipped up and talked. This task and experience was really hard, but after it was all over, it made me really think.  There was no way, in our society, that we could get our points across that way. Talking has helped us develop thoughts and without it, our culture would be very different. It was a good experience after, but while it was happening, it was like torture.

Dr. Postman Speech & Book Parallels

       The whole purpose of Dr. Postman's speech at Calvin college and the theme throughout the book is that we, as a society, are starting to head towards a time when we almost completely rely on media and entertainment. While I was scanning back over the first chapter to connect some of the ideas brought up from the speech, there was an example that did not directly state the same thing, but had the same meaning behind it.  Dr. Postman talks about in the book Amusing Ourselves to Death that time has become something of greater importance to people over time.  Before the clock was made, people had no sense of time. They did not pay much attention to it. The invention of the clock brought people to a new age where everything was timed and every second counted. Therefore, overall, the clock developed something new in society. Just as time shed a new light on society, so did the cloning of sheep, frogs, and monkeys. This was, just like the clock, a start-up to a more technological and scientific world. They both changed a huge aspect of society.
       Another similarity that I found between the book and Dr. Postman's speech was that he uses the phrase "we  will become pets to our computers."  In the book, he says that we are literally amusing ourselves to death. We don't care about how technology is taking us over, we just want to be entertained by it. Both of these statements make the same conclusion:  We will, sooner or later, become so obsessed with media, entertainment, and technology that we will essentially let them take over our lives and control us. Dr. Postman had the same points and meanings in both his book and his speech. His opinion of society and how we communicate will never change.
      

Civility Not Censorship

1. Chavez's intent in the first six words, "Civility in public discourse is important" is telling us, as a society, that how we interact and communicate with one another is something we should all be very conscious and cautious about. People in society should take the way they act due to things that have been said very seriously.


2.  Chavez used the word "bellicose" in her article because it gives a stronger meaning to the context of what she is trying to get across to people. She was talking about how metaphors and phrases for politics have come from certain words that have an aggressive or hostile meaning.  Instead of just using the word "hostile" or "terms for fighting", she enhanced the article's meaning by her good choice of diction. Knowing what bellicose means, it gives a stronger meaning to the word.  


3. A)  Chavez is trying to persuade the reader into believing that the media and politics should not have to start censoring what they say. She is saying that what happened in Tuscon had absolutely nothing to do with what has been previously said in politics. Also, she points out that not do the words themselves affect the society, but it is the context and intent of the words that causes issues.


    B) The best example Chavez uses is the example where she shows that the word "gay" has been turned from meaning happy to being a term of slang toward homosexuals. Over the generations, the word has taken on a new meaning.  That does not mean we should refrain from saying it. We can still use "gay" as another word for happy and society can take that however they would like.

4. I agree with Chavez's arguments and examples. I think she did a very good job using those examples to explain and persuade why her opinion should be the one people agree with. My opinion is that we should be able to say statements, phrases, and words freely. Things that people say are how they express their feelings and just because society takes the context of it and may spin it around, take it offensively, and blame terms or phrases that people use on negative things that happen in our country, does not mean we should be have to sensor what we say. We are a free country and should be able to use freedom of speech in the media and politics. Issues do not come out of what we say, but come out of how people interpret what was said. This doesn’t mean we should stop using certain phrases.