Blogging Around: Lizzie and Hannah

I commented on Lizzie's post, "Dialectics: The Blurred Lines Between Ignorance and Ignorance." I loved this post because it brought up two theories about the origins/types of ignorance for us as humans: we are either inherently ignorant, or we choose to be ignorant to gratify our "sensual desires."


Hi Lizzie!

First of all: wow. You're blog entry was incredibly powerful; I loved how you examined the relationship between human nature, human ambition, and ignorance. That's good stuff!

I wanted to comment on this post specifically because you took a rather brooding approach to explaining ignorance among humans. This is so different from the common person's outlook on the human race—most people try to romanticize our own instincts in order to make ourselves "feel better."

I have a question to raise: is that romanticism an example of the ignorance you pointed out? Certainly making ourselves sound more appealing than we really are is ignorant. In my view, this falls under your "ignorance for the sake of sensual needs" category. 

I think that our rapid expansion and rapid industrialization has left us with a world that we are not ready to handle. In response, we pretend that we ARE ready (by being ignorant) and so we romanticize ourselves.

Thank you so much for writing this post. It really has me thinking about the role human nature has on ignorance!!

-Alex

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I also commented on Hannah's post, "Metacognition: Jane Eyre Mashup." In this post, Hannah examined her experience with her Jane Eyre Mashup project. She explained that although it was difficult, she gained an incredible amount of insight when she grouped her elements together and re-contextualized them into an effective mashup.

Hi Hannah!

First of all, I loved your blog entry. Your experience with the "Mashup" project was very genuine and unique, and I'm very glad that you achieved so much new insight as a result.

I was very intrigued when you stated that the difficulty of fitting your elements together helped Shea and you further define your topic. I was interested in this because this was not necessarily the case when I wrote my mashup. As Ethan, Ross, and I worked, we were able to bring our topic into further depth before we actually organized the elements.

However, we found that our "thesis" that we had carefully planned turned out to be very ambiguous and irrelevant as we grouped our documents. After we realized this, we (like you) redefined our claim and the process got easier from there.

Just as you did, we reached a new level of insight with the reorganization of our claim. It's so interesting to see how even though we picked such different topics (ours was "struggle"), our thought processes were related yet unique. I guess that's truly a testament to the power of de-contextualizing and re-contextualizing!

-Alex

Dialectics: Postmodernism and Ignorance

Is ignorance bliss? The Matrix serves as a powerful response to the question in terms of postmodernism. While watching The Matrix, I was enticed and surprised at the level of depth that was put into this one question in just over two hours of film. The movie has furthermore helped me—in a very powerful way—explore the complex relationship between postmodernism and ignorance.

While discussing postmodernism and The Matrix in English class, I wondered how the idea of "ignorance" fit into the puzzle of postmodernism. We discussed how society has become so complex that it is impossible to obtain a full understanding of it. Is this ignorance? Postmodernists would argue no. For example, the people in the matrix were unaware of their "predicament," yet they were not ignorant for they did not have access to the truth or the big picture. In addition, not even Morpheus and the others who were freed from the Matrix could grasp a complete understanding of its workings. 

Ignorance and postmodernism seem to be opposites in this sense; while ignorance is the denial of truth, a postmodern society is simply too complex to fully comprehend. This relationship of ideas intrigued me while watching the movie, and led me to another question: what about the "Beats?" They reminded me of Cypher from The Matrix. Cypher saw life outside the Matrix as simply too difficult to bear, and instead he decided to knowingly disregard the truth and return to the Matrix. Similarly, the Beat Generation recognized that it was simply impossible to change the system, and instead admitted defeat to it. 

The Matrix also helped me understand the postmodern “lack of historicity,” in which historical authenticity is impossible. In terms of ignorance, this aspect of postmodernism in especially interesting, because it is almost the opposite of what I discovered earlier. In a postmodern society, we are almost knowingly ignorant (as seen by Disney World Africa). We know that certain things are not historically accurate, yet we still accept them as truth. The Matrix was also not an accurate representation of the world, yet Cypher accepted it as truth.

In this way, ignorance and the lack of historicity in a postmodern world overlap in many ways. This understanding helped me comprehend the intense power of propaganda. Especially seen it Hitler’s Germany and Mao Zedong’s China, propaganda has had the power to sway millions of people in one way or another on an issue. When I was studying the Chinese Revolution, I saw that many propaganda posters powerfully ignored and/or exaggerated certain things to emphasize the positive facts. The “robots” did this to the Matrix as well and even to Cypher when they promised him a wonderful life in exchange for Morpheus.

Overall, The Matrix was a wonderful film. Not only did it contain enticing themes that strengthened its beauty, but it also helped me comprehend the incredibly complex relationship between ignorance and postmodernism. So, returning to the question: is ignorance bliss? I believe that we will never truly know according to postmodernism. Although ignorance is often avoidable, it actually seems inevitable in many cases, as portrayed so powerfully in The Matrix.