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.
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