What Postmodernism Says of Narratives

To everyone who is reading this blog, I should forewarn you my ideas are probably going to come off as unstructured gibberish, but nevertheless I am going to try my hardest to mold my beliefs into words that will be comprehendible to everyone in this class. So, with that all said here I go.

This week in Dominguez’s class we focused on the theory of postmodernism in relation to the viewpoint of Lyotard. Although we learned much more from Lyotard than just his theories on narratives, I’m going to focus on his theories of “Metanarratives” and “Local Narratives”. Okay, so really what is the difference between these two? I guess the best way I would explain it would be that Metanarratives are used to explain the Local Narratives., or better, Local Narratives are only a small piece of the bigger Metanarratives.

So, now that we understand the difference between these two, let’s figure out why they are so vital in societies. To me, I would say that the Narratives function to explain a phenomenon of the world without getting into the scientific elements of the subject. We must remember that there was a time when people did not have the technological resources available to explain some things occurring in the world. So, for the sake of everyone’s sanity, when a question came up like: “How was the Earth created?” it was natural to come up with a huge Metanarrative that would explain how it came to be. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that these Narratives all presented truth in their telling, but they served as acceptable answers to the people who had no logic or science to back up their questions. Also, it is much more soothing to the minds of people to have an answer to these sorts of questions than to simply say “I don’t know how that came to be.” Even in Brave New World, we see this happening. Recall if you will, when John asks Linda of the process on how to make chemicals. Her response of uncertainty makes John uncomfortable, he wants an answer and so he goes to the old men of the pueblo for answers. The men tell him a story of how the world came to be with “the Fog of Increase” and the “Four wombs”. Recall again what John says in his thoughts to this, “The old men of the pueblo had much more definite answers” (pg.130). As you can see, people are more willing to accept answers to their questions, no matter how illogical the answer seems to be, it is easier to accept that than to accept an abstract concept of “I don’t know”.

So, with all this said let’s find out some actual situations where Narratives actually have controlled societies. Well, in ancient tribes such as the Aztecs, Narratives served as the cornerstone of their societies. Narratives were told about everything, such as: the weather, the harvests, and the health of the tribe. So, if a bad harvest took place that year, it would be natural to come up with a Narrative that explained it. Such as, “The Gods are angry at us, and therefore we have been plagued with this terrible famine.” This was much more likely to be accepted in the society than the realization that maybe the plants were just not capable of being grown in that area. And due to the tribal belief that the Gods were upset with the people, more human sacrifices would be made that year. As you can see, Narratives had great power in some societies. Not until the human population becomes more civilized will scientific discourse be able to overrule the narrative discourses

Better Put, Twisted New World

From what I have read from this novel has already disturbed me greatly. This whole idea of "progress" is what gives me the most trouble. After reading about the typical day in this society I was completely and utterly disgusted. The whole "decanting" process is just wrong. How can taking away individuality and uniqueness be qualified as progress? It can't be. It seems to me that this new society has "progressed" in the wrong ways. I suppose that technically speaking, the society has become more technologically and intellectually enhanced, but they are using it the wrong way. They use it to strip the humans (I use that term loosely, for how can they be qualified as human beings when they have no individual conscious?) of any chance of deviation from the structured social classes that they set for them.
Furthermore, I was bothered by the whole concept of the words mother and father as "smut". I especially found it amusing how the director said,"...in those days of gross viviparous reproduction, children were always brought up by their parents and not in State Conditioning Centres." If you ask me, the children are better off without these State Conditioning places. What they do at these centers is cruel and wrong. They electricute babies for crying out loud! How can any mother or father-oops I mean "crash" "crash"- be raising a child worse than that!? Okay, I understand that the whole concept for the electricuting is to keep these children from developing any individual mind frame in which they may acquire traits that are not beneficial to the society as a whole, but honestly this concept is ridiculous. Also, I was really disturbed when I read about these kids already involved in "erotic behavior"! This was seriously twisted, I literraly laughed when the director was explaining how in the old days children didn't start erotic behavior until their twenties and the D.H.C. was stunned about this crazy concept. This whole concept of early sexual behavior was just perverted and wrong, I was kind of disgusted with Huxley for including this.
Lastly, I was amused by the fact that in this society they relate averything to Henry Ford. To me, they seem to take him as their God. I also realized that Christianity no longer is existent in this new world. Once Ford came along, he seemed to have taken that place. Also, it was interesting when the Director used the phrase: "Oh Ford!" I related it to how people in today's society say "Oh my God". This quotation made me realize that God no longer has a place in this new world.
As I have said about twenty times within this blog, this new world that Huxley creates for us really disturbs me. I'm really both interested and a little bit scared to read on.

subject to controversy; debatable

The question of how much religion should be incorporated into the schooling system is controversial. Due to the fact that it is a controversial question, we should probably remind ourselves on what controversial actually means. The dictionary refers to the word controversial as: subject to controversy; debatable. Therefore, a controversial question will never truly have a set in stone correct answer. Although everyone would like to say that there is a middle unbias ground, this "ground" in reality is unexistent. Everyone has their own opinions on this subject, and no matter how much we would like to believe that we are capable of being totally objective, we are not. Naturally, everyone likes to believe that he or she is correct, and therefore this hinders humanity at any real chance of creating this "middle ground". Therefore, as I am a typical human, I will be realistic to what I personally believe; even though I wish I could say that there should be no bias in school education.
I believe that religion does have a vital role on American history. Therefore I am not saying that religion should be completely left out of our histories. Rather, I believe that religion should be taught in relation to history, not as the foundation of our history. I know, you may argue that religion is the reason why American history even came to be, but this technically is not true. There were other reasons to the foundation of this great nation also, such as political and economical. Therefore, how can we teach history as if Christianity is the sole purpose of America's existence today? We can't.
While reading The Wall Street Journal's article, I perceived the social conservative's goals and aspirations as to censor any part of history that seemed to taint the Christian faith. For example, the quote "The curriculum...should clearly present Christainity as an overall force for good", this alone is what seemed to give me the most trouble. This "editing" of history is only manipulating history to make Christainity more appealing. Therefore, this is not the right thing to do. I can understand incorporating the Christian faith into history as it relates to it, but censorship is an entirely different concept. History should be told as it happens, whether it gives Christianity a positive or negative outlook. To be fair, not incorporating religion into history is also a censorship, therefore both sides pro-religion teaching or anti-religion teaching must try to be represented.
When it all comes down to it, there will be a bias no matter what. The subject of religion's involvement in education will always be debatable. After all, we are all human, and part of the beauty of humanity is having the capacity to hold our own viewpoints even if they vary from one another. The way I view this subject, religion should be taught in schools only if it has a direct "cause and effect" relation to history. The rest of religion, be it Chritianity or not, should be taught outside of the educational environment.