Hi everyone!
So honestly, I'm liking this book so far! Although, the first paragraph seemed a tad ignorant, for lack of better words.
"Imagine you are a member of a typical postmodern family, living in a typical house, in a typical neighborhood, in a typical North American city. You're overleveraged and overworked. You eat a lot of takeout, your kids holler for Nikes and the TV is on five hours a day. One day it dawns on you that, as a family, you're failing. You aren't so much a family as five strangers sharing power and water." Page 3, paragraph 1
Harsh right? I mean, I find this ultra false. A typical family nowadays consists of a single parents going through divorce, or perhaps not even, with a child. Isn't this passage a tad ignorant toward the updated social society? It's sort of frustrating.
On a different note, the passage is attempting to portray how the use of technology affects society. I know lots of people who actually don't allow their children to watch TV. Personally, my aunt and uncle only allow TV on weekends, and not for long at all. Madonna actually doesn't allow TV in her household at all. This statement just seems a tad ignorant, and a little harsh!
Aldous Huxley
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The current society that we live in today is full of problems such as world
hunger, (as mentioned by Aldous Huxley in the respect of possible shortages
in ...
14 years ago
It is like you read my mind. I felt the same way when I read that. Today's "typical" family doesn't exist. Today Americans come from so many different backgrounds and have so many different beliefs that we can't judge. Americans have freedom to act how they want, to life their lives on their own terms. So how can we even begin to judge, or point fingers and say that someones life style is wrong. We were all created equal and that's how we should be labeled, as individuals.
ReplyDeleteWhen i read this paragraph in the book, I was thinking about what would happen if my family went on a camping trip like this and honestly I think we would be fine without technology for a few days. My mom doesn't even own a cell phone and neither of my parents are very good with computers. Technology does not keep my family from getting to know eachother and i agree with your post.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on this topic. I believe that every family is different, and have different core values that is set out for the household. But some families are grouped together in they may or may not fit in that type of catgeory. My mom doesnt allow that much tv when I was growing up because we had other aspects to focus on. Futhermore I believe that technology gets the best of some people and not the rest.
ReplyDeleteI definately agree about questioning what is "typical." Who can truly assume what that means. It is different for everyone. That is not to dismiss that these families don't exist. In a small way they do. I think the author was just trying to jar the reader with something so offensive that it got them thinking. That's just what it did. It made us all look at our families and say, "No, my family isn't like that!"
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. They way its portrayed that every family is mindless I believe to be wrong. yes some families are like this but not the average family. I know personally my family and i rarely watch TV if we do its the news or weather.
ReplyDeleteLike everyone else here I completely agree with your statement of the first paragraph being ignorant. I can say for one thing that my family is not like that. We hardly ever eat take out (maybe once a month). My mother makes home cooked healthy meals everyday. When i was younger my parents regulated the amount of TV i watched and could only watch it when i got older if i were to have completed my homework AND had it checked by my parents to make sure that it was completed fully. Ultimately in a total week i would only watch about 2 hours or less of television. I correlate my lack of television watching with the fact that ever since i was little i was always overly active in sports and frankly just did not have the time or desire to plaster my face against a glass screen for hours on end. So yes, Kiersten the book did "jump in" pretty quickly and ignorantly but all in all its the authors opinion. But everyone has a different mentality to what is "typical" or what is "normal". A typical family for one person may be different from another. After all what is "normal"? There is such a high pedastool nowadays for what people consider the norm of things. Some people think that eating meat is normal and on the other hand vegetarians think that it is not normal and then some vegetarians frown upon eating meat because of how the animals are treated. So i ask, what is normal? What is typical?
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