Postcolonial Theory Through Cultural Loss

              The novel Things Fall Apart contains a great deal of postcolonial topics. Post colonialism often refers to the “Others” during the era of colonization of countries such as Africa and India by the British.  These “Others” tell the stories, thoughts, and opinions of the minorities during this period of colonization; “postcolonial studies excludes literature that represents either British or American viewpoints and concentrates on writings from colonized or formerly colonized cultures . . .that were once dominated by, but remained outside of the white male, European tradition” (Cultural studies 236). Things Fall Apart reveals the viewpoint of a tribe in Africa during the period when settlers came to try and ‘civilize’ the tribe.

                The British commonly displayed amounts of cruel treatment to the tribes in an attempt gain cooperation.  However, “the colonizers justified their cruel treatment of the colonized by invoking European religious belief” (Cultural Studies 236). Postcolonial theory provides a way for the Others to write about these beatings and their opinions and often much confusion. The colonizers felt that cruel treatment was necessary to help get the colonized to cooperate so that they could eventually be enlightened through Christ. However, the Church went against many religious beliefs about treatment of others by torturing those who did not hold the same faith.  In Things Fall Apart the settlers tell the tribe that its god is false and that its custom is wrong.

                “Only after colonization occurs and the colonized people have had time to think and then to write about their oppression and loss of cultural identity does postcolonial theory come into existence” (Cultural Studies 238). With that said, the postcolonial theories can be directly applied to the novel through much of the hardships the people of Umuofia faced; the tribe experienced many converting to Christianity and losing faith in its own customs. The main character, Okonkwo, represents much of the grief dealt with during the colonization period. Okonkwo does not understand the reasoning’s and beliefs of the settlers; which leads him to taking his own life out of insanity that he felt was coming from such situations. Okonkwo’s tribe was slowly beginning to lose its customs and traditions which drove him to insanity; the point in the novel at which Okonkwo began to feel much anger and hatred for such loss of customs is the point that the piece can become part of postcolonial literature.  

                In writing about the novel and the postcolonial applications, much of my discussion will revolve around the topics above: about the loss of the culture that leads to a postcolonial theory and how the tribe was oppressed through the settlers degrading the tribe’s customs and beliefs.  

Technopoly

America has made some of the greatest advancements in terms of technology; Neil Postman’s term technopoly describes what Postman feels America has become. However, Postman’s view of this technopoly – differing from Kurzweil’s view on technological advancement – is one of low appreciation. Postman’s description of America’s technopoly is defined as a place where all decisions are based on greater advancements and efficiency.

                A technopoly abandons all values and morals of the ‘Old World’, according to Postman. Before America evolved into a technopoly Postman describes how America was a technocracy first. “Technocracies are concerned to invent machinery” and that people should be treated “as if they were machinery”; whereas in a technopoly, people are rather replaced by machinery. However, even before technocracy was the ‘Old World’ or the time that people used tools. Postman’s article describes and condemns the transitions of the techniques used by our forefathers to a technocracy and then to a technopoly. With that said Postman in Technopoly is attacking the characteristics of America to solve human problems through technology and argues that a country ruled so greatly by technology is only becoming a totalitarian society through technology.

                Postman discusses the theology of Frederick Winslow Taylor in correlation the development of a technopoly. Taylor’s view on the world holds much scientific value, as discussed in his book The Principles of Scientific Management. Taylor argues that science is more fundamental to society than faith, such as religion because he believes that “human judgment cannot be trusted, because it is plagued by laxity, ambiguity, and unnecessary complexity.  Taylor’s theology represents how the values of a technopoly shift from spiritual religion to technological religion, in other words technology, science, and faith are becoming the values of society and that ‘faith’ is in technology.

                Postman’s article represents a lot of the main satirical points of Brave New World. The setting of Brave New World is in fact the description of Postman’s Technopoly; the New World in the novel holds much scientific values, for example the fact that humans are no longer born but created because science can produce a much more ‘adequate’ and ‘efficient’ human. In describing how people are created in the novel a scientist in the book exclaims, “Ninety-six identical twins working ninety-six identical machines!”. The efficiency of this fact is not only exciting but viewed as largely progressive.  Brave New World also reveals Postman’s descriptions of the ‘Old World’ in comparison to the ‘New World’ – the society in Brave New World. The Old World in the novel is similar to the reservation of the ‘savages’. In the Old World people not only functioned without technology and used tools, like shovels, hammers, and etc., but they had faith in a god and spiritual aspects such as the soul. In the New world – the technopoly – that is considered nonsense; Science and technology are the key to production, progress, and sensibility.

The Rise of Technology

                Mans’ increasing dependence and usage of technology is a great detriment to society, and yet technology continues to evolve and progress faster than ever before. An article titled, “2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal”, on Kurweil’s invention in 1965 of a computer that writes music explains how Kurzweil predicts that society as a whole will be generated by technology – i.e. robots. I believe that this article can be found as highly credible; however, although the article can be considered realistic, I do not find these facts pleasing.

            If technology runs society humans will lose all sense of morals – work ethic morals more precisely. This would lead to an even lazier society than the country is today.  Kurzewil’s theory presents the idea that “[computers] would keep on developing until they were far more intelligent than we are”; thus causing humans to not feel the need to necessarily do anything since practically anything could be provided by technology. Not only will this affect society ethically but I believe it will make us less ‘human’ because, with the rate of technological process taken into consideration, humans will becomes robots themselves in a sense.

            This can be connected to the idea of progress in Brave New World and the slogan of the ‘new world’, "Community, Identity, and Stability". The ideas presented in Kurzweil’s theory leads to a society much similar to the idea expressed in Brave New World. However the idea of singularity presented in Brave New World differs slightly from the idea of singularity in Kurzweil’s theory; Kurzweil believes that singular will be found through artificial intelligence, meaning that “composing piano music but also driving cars, writing books, making ethical decisions” and etc. will all be done through computers. In fact Brave New World is a satire in itself about technological progress and the corruption of society.

Society is – and always will be – so caught up on the need for more efficiency and more progress. Of course this is not necessarily ‘wrong’ or ‘bad’, but it can be taken out of hand. Searching for new and better methods, research, and etc. is indeed not only good but necessary; however letting technology become such a strong basis of our lives is not – in my opinion – a very progressive move for many reasons that can be compiled into one idea: technology is and never will be completely reliable. And there is also that factor that “Maybe the computers will turn on humanity and annihilate us”, as expressed in the article “2045”.

Kurzweil’s theory provides much insight on the future of the human race, unfortunately that insight should be taken as a warning. The thought of creating a world where humans will become immortal is completely absurd. Without death there is no progress, although this can be taken as ironic, death – as we all know – is an essential part of life. Without new people born into the world, which will essentially bring in new thoughts, ideas, and creations with them, there can’t be a whole lot of progress. Now this is aside from the fact that computers will provide these new ideas for society; however, this can also be brought back to the fact that computers cannot be reliable for some factors mentioned above.  Overall a singular society that will be virtually ‘ruled’ through technology will in fact lead to an end in the human race, maybe not in terms of death but in terms of the authenticity of humans.

Below is a link to an article that also explains another form of satire in a commonly known movie on the idea of technological progress and the ideas presented in Brave New World.

http://www.pontification.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/223-Wall-E-Anti-capitalist-or-surprisingly-subversive.html

Rhetoric Analysis

Rhetoric is a type of writing tool that can help to produce very effective types writing in any subject. Such tools draw in certain types of readers and present a certain tone in writing, such as: Logos (logical appeal), Ethos (ethical appeal), and pathos (appeal to emotion). However English consists of some writing ‘guidelines’ that are – for the most part - universally well-known and hard to stray away from. This includes things such as using quotes, questions, MLA format, or Schaffer writing. All these tools can produce effective writings but can sometimes lead to a lack of variety in style.

                The essay I chose from the StudentPulse website is “Postmodernism in Vonnegut’s 'Cat’s Cradle'” by Derek Miller. In this essay the author presents the idea of satire in Vonnegut’s novel.  The author begins the essay with a quote, which can be recognized as a traditional ‘rule’ for beginning an essay. However the quote is not a mere inspirational quote from some other source, it is derived from the novel the essay is based upon. On the other hand I feel a lack of connection between the quote and beginning paragraph only because at that point in the essay I am not sure what exactly the quote means. Along the same lines as this the author also uses the basic method of questions to draw in the reader. Questions in the essay such as, “First off, what is postmodernism” effectively draws in the reader to be curious about the question and want to know more. The author also uses ethos and logos within a few sentences to make the writing more efficient. The effective questions can be recognized as logos to bring logic through questions for factual answers, and then answering the questions with quotations from other sources to present the credibility.

                Through description of characters in the novel the author brings about more ethos in the essay by presenting ‘fake’ ideas or people and connects those fictional aspects with real information. The author utilizes characters and dialogue in his essay to present a solid break down of the usage of satire in the novel.

                The author’s set up of the essay also provides an accurate back bone to prove his thesis. He begins the essay with an explanation postmodernism and background to help support the argument that he is trying to make. In other words it is set up by facts, descriptions, and then supporting evidence from the novel or other resources. The only thing however is that the start and middle of the essay provides a great amount of information and descriptions to set a nice flow to the writing, but towards the end of the essay it begins to feel a little ‘chopped’ up. The level of supportive information does not lose effectiveness, but the amount of writing seems to begin to dwindle as the essay goes on.

                The diction of the essay is very effective and seems to fit for the audience that the paper is aimed for. The quality of writing is not low but it is not so high that it cannot be comprehended by majority of people. The author’s writing has a strong ethos and logos but I did not feel much pathos from it mainly because the writing and topic contains a more factual basis, which seems appropriate for the topic of the essay.