Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Charles Baxter's essay

From reading Baxter's essay for the first time, I think what he is trying to say is that in the information age, people tend to rely on information and not on what they know inside. Most of the time its all about memorizing the the information when we needed it, for example a presentation or a speech. If we forget the information that we are to present, we become shameful, and when we are done with it we simply delete out of our memory.
By relying on information as memory, we tend not to keep them for ourself, or experience them first hand and with more and more information, our chance of experiencing something decreases. When we delete information, it becomes a form of garbage because we no longer cares for it or even bother to store it in our own memory, like how Neil stated in the epigraph, " We have transformed information into a form of garbage." (Neil postman, p. 141) Like Baxter's brother Tom, when they went to his house to see if he had a will, they found nothing but information all over the place, information to Tom was purely garbage, since he wasn't able to process it. But what he had was his ability to remember, and that was what kept him going.
Forgetting is something that everyone who relys or information will eventually do and it can be shameful when it is something important. But forgetting can also be good, if we were to forget about bad experience from the past which interfer with our present live. But it is what we still remember and have stored in our own memory is what really counts.
Eventually, with time, information will interfer with the way we remember our past experience, but what we remember up till now and what we decide to forget is more than all the information in the world.

9 comments:

  1. Hi Chai,

    You made a good point when you wrote "but it is what we still remember and have stored in our own memory is what really counts." People remember too much data and not enough personal experience.

    Elise

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  2. hi Chai,
    this is Zhen, i think u work really hard and made a very good point. o by the way, im not a transfer student.

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  4. Hi!

    I think you are a good reader and writer:)
    Especially, I like how you made a connection between Neil's statements and author brother's experience.

    Yousun

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  5. great analysis toward the key words, but in the last part Baxter has converted his perspective into a more particular literature composing.

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  6. Your writing has a nice flow. I followed your point easily.

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  7. Hi Chai,
    I enjoyed reading your piece. i can agree with your piece on Baxter. it does seem as if now a days so many people rely on computers and other technology instead of trusting themselves with there own information.

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  8. Your writing style is unique. Not everyone has the ability to write with clarity.

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  9. Hi chai,
    I totally agree with what you are saying your piece makes alot of sense expecially in the begining. Because of the great increase in technology i feel like we as americans are becoming lazier as the time comes. Now a days we dont have to use our memory because we can easly store it on our laptops or phones and pretty soon our watches lol. I think what Baxter is trying to say is that we depend on our technology for our memory because we are shamed to forget, but just like you stated in the begining of your piece how when its time for you to give a speech and you forget then thats when the shame really hits you.

    you really help me to understand thanx :)

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