Cultural Relevance in Present Shock (Also, an Appearance by "Isaac and Ishmael")

While I did not find Present Shock to be as personally compelling as The End of Education, I did enjoy the work thoroughly and find validity in many of Rushkoff’s claims. At first glance, I was dubious as to whether or not Present Shock would provide a rational and level-headed discussion on the subject of modern society. Yet when I really got into the text, I found that Rushkoff had plenty of support from very real and very relevant examples for his arguments. Even his most basic claim, of society’s conflict with modern culture and technology, is developed and shaped nicely as the five core facets of “present shock” are elaborated upon. Narrative collapse (which fits snugly with Postman’s work), Digiphrenia. Overwinding, Fractalnoia, and Apocalypto all contained respectable and thought-provoking claims.

As I said, Rushkoff provides a multitude of examples throughout his work (sometimes an exorbitant amount), but I feel as though this really helped me get behind the book. When discussing narrative collapse, Rushkoff cites shows such as Battlestar Galactica in describing the fragmented meta-narrative that has come in to replace older methods of storytelling. When Rushkoff explains how competitive games are losing their effect in the present age, he turns instead to the notion of “infinite games”, referencing Dungeons and Dragons and World of Warcraft as examples. By providing such culturally relevant examples, and being responsible and knowledgeable in his treatment of the material, Rushkoff makes his points incredibly lucid for me. Of course, what works for me may not work for others, but the sheer amount of support in Present Shock practically ensures that no reader is ever left in the dark.

I suppose the cultural relevance that Present Shock brings to the table is what makes the reading so refreshing. Postman’s works possess valid claims, but Amusing Ourselves to Death was not written in the past decade. Present Shock, conversely, is so steeped in our modern culture that it almost gains credibility by being current. At one point, during the Digiphrenia section, Rushkoff mentions the Gawker media group and its affiliate blogs like Gizmodo and Kotaku. These are sites that I regularly visit, and I grew much more engaged with the text when I started reading the passage. In discussing the tense and overloaded work schedule of the sites’ employees, Rushkoff mentions how “… bloggers, designers, lovers, and programmers all sacrifice their connection to natural and emergent rhythms and patters in order to match those dictated by their technologies and the artificial situations they create” (Rushkoff 97). From that point on, I have looked at the material I have been consuming in a different light and really begun to consider the implications of Rushkoff’s words.

Still, there were passages without immediately relevant examples that still felt poignant for me. Just like Postman in End of Education, Rushkoff has a number of moments where he makes truly provocative comments on human society and how we might cope with our situation. Two particular comments come from his Overwinding section, in which he is discussing human communities and the “tragedy of the commons”. Rushkoff states that “the greater community becomes the way we bank our time and experience” (Rushkoff 194). After a long haul through passages of investment and currency exchange, this comment stood out. Suddenly, the myriad of contexts and ideas that Rushkoff had presented during the chapter came around full circle, wrapping up in a recommendation of how to better ourselves. I enjoyed the optimistic, humanist remarks that Rushkoff made with the ending of each chapter.

I would be remiss not to mention the “Isaac and Ishmael” episode of The West Wing that we watched in class. Overall, I found “Isaac and Ishmael” to be a fairly interesting and engaging piece of television. The episode had a message that it wanted to make clear, and it wasted no time or energy in skipping about its blatant lesson. But I did not mind the obvious nature of the story or its presentation. In connecting the episode to our recent reading of Present Shock, I feel as though some observations can be made.

In Rushkoff’s section on narrative collapse, he mentions how television has become more focused on fairly present-minded narratives (examples in CSI or Heroes, where the characters are working with particular moments in time). I think one can tie this notion of a sustained moment to “Isaac and Ishmael”, where the narrative is not presented over a sustained series of episodes, or even events, but takes place over one short window. The “crash” forces the students together, and in a contained lunchroom (and contained moment of time) the messages that the show writers want to convey are made. There is no pause for development as the narrative is delivered, bam, over an instant. Of course, this is largely on purpose, as the specific episode was a black-sheep amidst the season in its play-like nature. But the ability for the show-writers to take West Wing mid-season and create a sustained bubble of time demonstrates a trait of more modern, presentist media and narratives.

Rushkoff, Douglas. Present Shock. New York: Penguin Group, 2013.

Print.

A Moveable Feast: An Impression

            Hemingway was a complicated man with a simple writing style. Those who have read The Sun Also Rises, or any other book by Hemingway, will likely agree with this statement. Living in a post-war era of abandoned tradition, forgotten values, and a lost generation, Ernest Hemingway was one among many who felt adrift. His interaction amidst a society of exiles in foreign countries (in Hemingway’s case, Paris) fed both his problems and his inspiration. Within A Moveable Feast, the conflict and satisfaction that Hemingway experienced in his early writing career become apparent. The reader is afforded a glimpse of an integral part of Hemingway’s life, a blurry and streaked vision of the civility, hostility, and humanity of Hemingway’s Paris.

            The narrative within A Moveable Feast is difficult for me to form an opinion on. But perhaps such difficulty is a mark of the text’s success. For despite the direct, declarative nature of Hemingway’s writing (which eschews adjectives in favor of conjunctions), his A Moveable Feast remains rather confusing. This quality is not due to the construction of the content; rather, it is a quality created by the delivery of the content. All of Hemingway’s life-changing, disastrous, or mundane memories of Paris are not meant to be provided in his memoir. Instead, A Moveable Feast appears to be designed as a rush of memories with an express purpose of creating an impression. Surely Hemingway himself could not vividly recount every major detail of his Paris era. Yet he was able to isolate certain choice experiences and throw them together.

            In weaving such a fragmented tapestry of life in Paris, Hemingway creates meaning without even writing a word. The sentences are there, yes, but they represent something greater. The passages of A Moveable Feast coalesce into a fireside chat, echoing the sensation of one’s grandfather telling a story. The room is darkly lit, the cold air is being warmed by the cozy heat of the burning logs, and you are receiving a long, calm tale of some long-gone age. At least, such a notion is what I receive. Throughout Hemingway’s simple, subtle text, I experience a vague feeling of nostalgia, as well as an indistinct passage of time.

            Admittedly, I was rather perplexed when I first started reading A Moveable Feast, as I could not really connect the text to current studies in AP Lang. Hemingway is all well and good, but I was unable to connect his work to studies of articles, arguments, and use of language. Then I realized that A Moveable Feast is rooted deeply in concepts of language use and how words affect meaning. The book is not “1920s Paris as it was” but rather “1920s Paris as portrayed by Ernest Hemingway”. Hemingway is very controlling in his portrayals of his friends, acquaintances, and undesirables. For instance, Ford Madox Ford is presented in a very particular light, as his presence is described as “heavy, wheezing, ignoble” (Hemingway 86). In a subsequent chapter, “The Birth of a New School”, Hemingway relates an entire conversation with an unknown critic. The description of the critic speaks unfavorably against the unfortunate man. Hemingway’s closing remarks, that “It would be interesting and instructive if the young man had turned out to be a famous critic but it did out turn out that way” (Hemingway 96) leaves the unnamed critic as an embarrassed footnote in the broad scope of Hemingway’s memoir, almost as an insult.

            Truly, given Hemingway’s reign over his own memory, any recounted conversation or event is bound to have partiality, prejudice, or plain error. By studying the ways in which Hemingway creates definitive tones and impressions, we study use of language in affecting and influencing the reader. Given the nature of A Moveable Feast, separating fact from fictionalized truth is a very difficult task to take up (impossible without consulting outside sources). If I were to describe the work as any one genre, I would likely declare it autobiographical. However, as I wrote earlier, A Moveable Feast is more a sensation than anything. It is a blurry and nostalgic story of another time and place.