So, its finally happening. I'm doing what I've waited desperatly for for several weeks; I'm travelling with my family! Beside from the fact that it is amazing, it has also almost made me be in favor of dictatorship. We are 6 people travelling together, my parents, my two brothers, my cousin and me. Only 6 people. It shouldn't be so hard should it? Well, it is. Everything takes time. Deciding where to eat takes time, deciding what to see takes time, deciding weather or not to go back to the hotel to take a sweater takes time. Basically, efficiency levels are quite low at the moment. I hate to bring up MUWCI when I'm in such a realm of freedom sitting in an internet cafe in Varanasi( though writing these blogs) but this is exactly what is going on in MUWCI. Our efficiancy levels to get anything done is almost equal to zero just because everyone wants their saying and their personal wishes to come forth. So when I'm in the hotel arguing with my brothers weather to eat chinese or indian, I get deja vu's back to countless student meetings where noone is willing to compromise.
In the case of my family I would suggest dictatorship( with me as the despot of course) but as in MUWCI, the personal ego is too big in everyone to let someone else decide what is best for them. Which I guess can be reasonable since I myself don't trust someone else to know exactly what is best for me at all times either. In society today most people are too much aware of their rights and focused on individuality to let someone else take complete controle over their lives.
The actual problem of efficency is not created when people refuse to be dictated by some one, allmighty character but when this personal ego comes in the way even of choosing representatives to prsent their views in a collective gathering or to an authority. This system, it seems, is plausible to make function in most developed countries, where representatives are chosen by the people in some way or the other. So why cannot this function in MUWCI or in my family for example?
I think this cannot only be explained through huge egoes. According to Mill, though talking about a dictatorship, the less power the people feel they have over their own destinies, the less they care about taking part in desicion-making regarding their own life. I think this notion can clearly be shown in smaller and larger groups of people like let's say MUWCI vs the US, to create a proper contrast. While in the previous US selection only 56,8% voted( despite the huge focus on the election in both media and around the country) in MUWCI, everyone wants to say their opinion on weather to vote or not or weather we should have a student council.
My conclusion is that we in MUWCI are not just a bunch of big-headed people( slightly maybe) but that due to the massive influence we know we have over how things will be conducted on campus, everyone wants to take part because they actually have a saying about what's going to happen( like in other smaller groups like families, small communities etc) compared to again the US or other democracies where people might feel that their vote counts for so little that the effort of getting engaging is not worth it....
søndag 20. desember 2009
onsdag 16. desember 2009
Limbo
Another topic which is brought up in 1984, perhaps more in the book than in the movie, is language. Does language shape who you are, and does the limitations of language limit your thoughts? Obviously in the book it is taken to the extreme with a language created to shape a certain way of thinking, but you can also see this in real life, maybe especially here in MUWCI where a lot of us comes from a different language background than English while here we speak it everyday.
Personally, Im currently in a state of limbo. I realized it all too well when I tried to write my World Lit in Norwegian and when my family came to visit me. I dont speak my own language anymore. Ïm searching for the words, maybe finding them in English but not in Norwegian. And, at the same time, my English is not good enough for me to adapt it as a first language. Basically, Im screwed.
But the combination of this state of limbo and living in India, getting to know concepts that does not exist in my language, has also made me realize that I can actually think without words. When youre at home and everyone around you speak your mothertongue, using only familiar expressions, it is harder to be aware of this area where langauge does not play a role, simply because your sourroundings are so familiar and you dont need to expand your notion of conceptions. Your language is adapted to your suroundings.
Exactly because I have this gap of missing words and expressions somewhere between Norwegian and English, Ive realized that even if I dont have the means of explaining it and expressing it orally to other people, be it my friends here in MUWCI or my family, I can formulate thoughts in my head that are abstract and not connected to any language. Obviously it is quite frustrating, because most of your thoughts and ideas you want to communicate them to other people, but it does weaken Orwells idea of that simply by creating a new language, one can shape how people think. Just as I have concepts that I cannot express in any language, even if a completely new language was taught to a child, he or she would still have conceptions and ideas that are outside the range of this language. Of course, the idea of that a society can be controlled by means of language is not that far-fetched, because even if one can formulate ideas, the words are not there and thereby not the communication between people either. And without being able to communicate these ideas, action is difficult and the idea of a government controlling a people in that way is not at all impossible...
Personally, Im currently in a state of limbo. I realized it all too well when I tried to write my World Lit in Norwegian and when my family came to visit me. I dont speak my own language anymore. Ïm searching for the words, maybe finding them in English but not in Norwegian. And, at the same time, my English is not good enough for me to adapt it as a first language. Basically, Im screwed.
But the combination of this state of limbo and living in India, getting to know concepts that does not exist in my language, has also made me realize that I can actually think without words. When youre at home and everyone around you speak your mothertongue, using only familiar expressions, it is harder to be aware of this area where langauge does not play a role, simply because your sourroundings are so familiar and you dont need to expand your notion of conceptions. Your language is adapted to your suroundings.
Exactly because I have this gap of missing words and expressions somewhere between Norwegian and English, Ive realized that even if I dont have the means of explaining it and expressing it orally to other people, be it my friends here in MUWCI or my family, I can formulate thoughts in my head that are abstract and not connected to any language. Obviously it is quite frustrating, because most of your thoughts and ideas you want to communicate them to other people, but it does weaken Orwells idea of that simply by creating a new language, one can shape how people think. Just as I have concepts that I cannot express in any language, even if a completely new language was taught to a child, he or she would still have conceptions and ideas that are outside the range of this language. Of course, the idea of that a society can be controlled by means of language is not that far-fetched, because even if one can formulate ideas, the words are not there and thereby not the communication between people either. And without being able to communicate these ideas, action is difficult and the idea of a government controlling a people in that way is not at all impossible...
Selfinflicted censorship
Since we are watching 1984 in class, I thought it would be appropriate to adress the issue of censorship. Not censorship related to government but to the media and its influence on the information we are provided with.
We like to believe in these liberal time that censorship is something that existed in the past and perhaps in dictatorships like North Korea or communist China. Of course you have the theories of Noam Chomsky saying that media is in fact still censored, but that is not what I would like to adress. I would like to talk about another type of censorship that is more subtle but still influencal as to what information we receive through the media.
The type of censorship Im talking about is happening through the choice and viewpoint of different information related to events reported by media. A good example of what Im talking about can be shown through an article in one of the biggest newspapers in Norway where a political youth organization has decided to sue the Norwegian press association for bad coverage of the climate conference happening in Denmark. The accusation is tsating that Norwegian newspapers only wrote articles concerning the violence and arrest of 200 protestors, not mentioning the 100.000 peaceful protestants that filled the streets of Copenhagen to get their voices heard.
This is only one example of how coverage of an event can be completely focused on a minor detail. And why is this? Because the minor details contain the x-factor that is supposed to and do in fact sell newspapers or attain viewers. It seems as if catastrophe is what we want to hear about, so catastrophe they give us. It makes me wonder if Nietzche was right when claiming that humans find pleasure in other peoples suffering, because it seems as if the greatest entertainmentfactor is people being imprisoned, killed, beaten up etc. And this need for death and destruction leads to what can be called self-inflicted censorship or filtering, that leads us to, in a case like the climate conference in Copenhagen, get the details of how many people were arrested for what violent actions, rather thn what is actually going on and what can have an actual influence on our lives, more than just entertainment...
We like to believe in these liberal time that censorship is something that existed in the past and perhaps in dictatorships like North Korea or communist China. Of course you have the theories of Noam Chomsky saying that media is in fact still censored, but that is not what I would like to adress. I would like to talk about another type of censorship that is more subtle but still influencal as to what information we receive through the media.
The type of censorship Im talking about is happening through the choice and viewpoint of different information related to events reported by media. A good example of what Im talking about can be shown through an article in one of the biggest newspapers in Norway where a political youth organization has decided to sue the Norwegian press association for bad coverage of the climate conference happening in Denmark. The accusation is tsating that Norwegian newspapers only wrote articles concerning the violence and arrest of 200 protestors, not mentioning the 100.000 peaceful protestants that filled the streets of Copenhagen to get their voices heard.
This is only one example of how coverage of an event can be completely focused on a minor detail. And why is this? Because the minor details contain the x-factor that is supposed to and do in fact sell newspapers or attain viewers. It seems as if catastrophe is what we want to hear about, so catastrophe they give us. It makes me wonder if Nietzche was right when claiming that humans find pleasure in other peoples suffering, because it seems as if the greatest entertainmentfactor is people being imprisoned, killed, beaten up etc. And this need for death and destruction leads to what can be called self-inflicted censorship or filtering, that leads us to, in a case like the climate conference in Copenhagen, get the details of how many people were arrested for what violent actions, rather thn what is actually going on and what can have an actual influence on our lives, more than just entertainment...
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