So as we close on a few novels this week I have been distracted by the attempt to make sense of this class. Our discussions seem to bounce around, and I don't really get the point.
We have this virus, this small organism that can and will bring down our entire way of life. It is unlikely that we can stop it (ie "the oil treatment"), and as we watch our impending doom we can only hope that the success of the virus does not totally erase our history.
From there we add The Filth, Ribofunk, and Dust. These books have all explored the idea of nano technology taking over in one way or another. They have also, surprisingly, drawn into their stories a sort of religious moral. The Filth gave us love, Ribofunk the all one, and Dust a smattering of Christian archetypes. So my question is, why?
This nano apocalypse seems to allude to the same question we have been trying to answer since the dawn of man. Nanotechnology takes the question of "why are we here?" and twists the perspective to "why were we here?". There is some intrinsic value to human life and concisousness that we cannot explain. The reoccurance of archetypes in these pieces of literature illustrate this nature of patterns in thought, that we can relate to in so many different forms, but in the end we have not answered the question. We acknowledge that patterns exist, and we act in a fairly predictable manner, but why?
I want to write more, I want to say something in class that will make everyone stop and think about the big instead of the small, just for a moment. The more think about it the further I stray from inspiration.
So BLAh.... you can't plurk to save karma, you can't flirt when you don't feel confident, the real inspiration hits when you don't expect it, and it will always be the small that drives the big.
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nice
ReplyDeleteyeah, I agree that nano is in a certain sense an ideology. the TED talk we watched had this nano ideology: investment of resources, capital, and art towards technology and science. Juan Enriquez is clearly arguing for more investment in bioengineering, genetic research, and robotics.
While I haven't read dust I am intrigued by the notion that nanotechnology and christian archetypes coexist within the book. Do they ever conflict?
were the morals you read into these texts really there? or are you encountering yourself in your observations? both are valid... I don't see a message of love in the filth. rather the notion: no matter where we go technologically, there we are, filth and all.
Yes, I absolutely include my "self" when looking for meaning, and was about to make that disclaimer, but thought "It's my blog, so of course"
ReplyDeleteI was surprised that Tony agreed, but the point that I saw was that the Filth is always there and it can be treated with hostility or - loved? The iLife represents life. To me. So it was killing itself if it devoured the carrier, just like the junkies in the ticket, but when it is reprogrammed it becomes symbiotic. The Filth didn't really illustrate a lot of love because we were witnessing the internal destruction of Slade/Feely, and the turn around is really that last page of iLife working to fix Feely's hand and potentially the handicapped pot-head, with the last bubble reading "we have love" and flowers blooming out of decay.
So here I find a happy ending, perhaps some unanswered questions, but there was love. The love of UltraHumanitarian by Eve, Slade and Tony, Max Thunderstone and Spartacus Hughes love of power, these are all destructive because there is no symbiosis, so it destroys itself.
So this ideology infiltrates everything and that brings in Jung (and I should have included a Campbell reference). The archetypes are bigger than christianity so I don't want to get too caught up in that, but it is everywhere when you look for it. They work well, they generate value, and it resonates so well, because we need heros and we need good to prevail. We have comedy and tragedy and within these two fits the archetype of the hero. It is the reason burroughs rocked my world, but it is even tucked in there as well.
The moral... sad, of course love is cliche, I much prefer the alternative, and I hope more will comment on this.