Thoughts on Fast Food Nation, 1984, Brave New World, Ishmael, and Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television

After scouring Dave’s ESL Café most of last night reading about teaching in Korea or Vietnam, well, it was exciting at first, but looked like there were a few problems with housing expenses in Vietnam and various other crap with pay in Korea. As I’ve mentioned some time ago, I just don’t think I have it in me to travel overseas again. The travel bug has long been dealt with. I wish I still had it, but I’m pretty sure I don’t.

Well, I guess the real problem is not the what-have-you that I would have to deal with over there. It’s more that I know nothing would be that different for me over there than it is here. Not being driven to go from my own motivation would make it an aimless wandering.

There is something else in my mind that I need to take care of that will not be fixed this time by changing my geographic location.

I don’t know why, but the more I read Fast Food Nation, the more I feel the urge to stay here in the US. I mean, it’s not like that book or the chain of books I’ve been reading are giving me a positive view of America. They’re not. But, like, it seems with the kind of attention books like Fast Food Nation are bringing to Americans there might be changes on the way, and that I may be able to take some part in it.

Though, it’s hard to say. The type of problems we’re going into, like with the economic situation, are not really too different than what has happened in the past. The late 1800s had difficulties with large corporations becoming more powerful than government. And, yeah, there was The Sherman Act to break up the trusts. But it’s 2009 now, and what has really changed?

I suppose people have always got to stand up to counter those who would try to get away with atrocities. And it’s not like I think no one should. But I also want to have some idea of an attainable endpoint.

When I read books like Ishmael, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, and Fast Food Nation, it just, to me, looks like America is set up to be the way it is, the way it has been. I’m just not sure what will change the course that we’re on.

When I was writing ways to pass unicru, I also mentioned that the whole premise of the test was something out of Orwell’s 1984. But thinking about it now, it seems more like Huxley’s Brave New World. Unicru tests look for Epsilons and Gammas. Unicru is systematically putting people in their places in an overt way.

If not for the overtness, I’d say that life is like this anyway…that everyone has different aptitudes and will find different places in life. But the way things are set up now, large corporations are narrowing the parameters to a more homogenous base that is going to keep excluding more and more people in the population. Frankly, I think what is really happening in the US is more frightening than what happened in BNW or 1984.

But like in 1984, I though the way Winston did. That the answer lies in the Proles. But the Proles weren’t concerned. And even if they were, what power would they have to do anything?

Even worse, in Huxley’s Brave New World, people didn’t even know they were captive. So long as they had their soma, they were happy. (In America, TV and drugs are our soma.) When the savage tried to free the Deltas by throwing the soma out the window, they were just perplexed and threw a fit.

In Ishmael, all the animals in the zoo were in captivity. But different animals had different capacities of comprehending their captivity. All of the animals knew something wasn’t right. But, for example, all the tiger was able to ask was, “Why, why, why, why?” Whereas the gorilla (Ishmael) asked (to the effect of), “Why is the life outside of captivity interesting and pleasant and the life in captivity boring and unpleasant?”

For me, I see why. So I think, “How can this be changed?”