Feminism literary theory

For many years now, women have been treated very poorly and haven't been shown much respect. Men have felt that they are more powerful and are much higher in society. This is also Okonkwo's attitude in the book Things Fall Apart. He feels that masculinity should be shown by anger and aggresion and he shows these emotions by beating his wives and even threatening to kill them. He did this just to show how masculine and selfish he is and to make himself feel powerful. In our feminism literary theory packet, there are many quotes from famous writers that prove that women did not deserve the same rights as men and they would never be in the same category. One example is Kurt Vonnegut Jr. who said, "Educating a woman is like pouring honey over a fine Swiss watch. It stops working." People have many different opinions about women, but as you can see, some very harsh ones that could really hurt people. Women have never been respected and have always been treated very poorly. However, Respect for women has improved dramatically in the past decade and many women are now considered in the same class as men. 

Technolopy

    The idea of technocracy is basically the idea that religion, tradition, and social customs are not what drive our society today. Rather we are driven to invent and create better technolgy and keep improving on it. Richard Arkwright was one of the first, and most famous, people to practice technocracy. He did this by "training workers, mostly children, to conform to the regular celerity of the machine." he would eventually own 20 factories by doing this and was "knighted" by a grateful nation. Technocracy is the basis of technolopy which is basically a "totalitarian technocracy" according to Postman. Technolopy is almost what the people in Brave New World  are living. Their society is based on inventing and imroving on those inventions to create a technology driven society. They think that this kind of society is better and more futuristic, but it is really destroying them.
    In the chapter, it says that in technocracy "people are conceived of not as children of God or even as citizens but as consumers". This shows that people in this kind of society, the society of Brave New World, are expected to love technology and have a desire to imrove it and make it better which they think will make a better society. Technolopy is an idea that seems very dangerous, but is seeming more real as we read Brave New World and as we look at our own world.

singularity

    The idea of humans merging with technology is very interesting, and rather scary, in this article. The way that Raymond Kurzweil predicts that "the end of civilization as we know it is about 35 years away" sure is a bold statement, but you almost can't help but believe it. It seems incomprehensible that technology could pass up human intelligence in that short of time. The reason that you almost have to believe this is that you just have to look at how technology has come in the past few years. For example, the computer that Kurzweil built in 1965 that could compose music much faster than a human. With this being all the way back in 1965, that shows what computers are capable of doing with the technology to work with today. That could give them the capability of "...driving cars, writing books, making ethical decisions...", which would virtually give technology consciencness and life. That is incomprehensible within itself and would make us less human because of the idea of not even being able to make ethical decisions for ourselves. If we dont even have to use our own brain and our own conscience, that makes us lose our originality and our humanity. We are all the same and our choices will all be the same. If we lose our humanity and if we let technology become smarter than us, that could end up being our ultimate destruction. There will be no more use for our own conscience's and we will become less authentically human. Like in Brave New World, we will be used as assembly lines and for creating even smarter technology and there will be no need for authentic humans.
   

living toys

         Almost everybody in the world, including me, think that toys and inanimate objects could never come to life and are stuck in their "frozen" world. In the article "Fictional Creatures Becoming 'Real'", by Jeremy S. Page, it explains that in this "in between state" these toys can become real even though they dont have the options or agency to do so like the real things that they are imitating. Page claims that by combining their current state with their desired state that this is possible. Page also claims that it is "entirely possible to exist in a state that exists between the lines of life/death or living/not-alive."
         Jeremy Page gives three examples of this with three articles called The Velveteen Rabbit, Sunshine, and The Steadfast Tin Soldier. All these stories have one thing in common which is having toys or inanimate objects that are in an "in-between state" but all desire to be real like the real things they are portraying. For example, the rabbit in The Velveteen Rabbit desires to hop and use its hind legs like all of the real rabbits, but he knows because of his toy form and lack of agency he has little or no chance of this happening. However, when he is played with, the Boy thinks of the toy rabbit as 'real' and therefore he gives the rabbit agency and he eventually is able to hop and be accepted by the rest of the rabbits that are real. The rabbit does this by being "physically manipulated" by the Boy and it was also done out of love which helped the rabbit to be able to hop.
          In The Steadfast Tin Soldier, the title basically speaks for itself in that the soldier only knows how to show courage like a real soldier even though he is physically bound. However, he only seems to be showing courage because he cannot move, or run away, because thats all a tin soldier can do is stand still and stay strong.
           In order for these stories and examples to be true there must be some kind of event that has to occur that causes them to break free from their liminal existance. They can redefine their existance into a new one by combining their current "in-between" state with their desired state. They can also be transforemed by love as proven by the rabbit when the Boy plays with it and he thinks that the rabbit is indeed real. Even though most of us are fixed on the idea that toys cannot change states, Page proves that with enough love and determination, it is entirely possible.

http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/355/1/fangbangers-tin-soldiers-and-living-toys-fictional-creatures-becoming-real