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01-17-2010, 09:49 AM | #16 | ||
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Anyway, it's interesting to know Orion is best known in Britain, since Forster was English. Quote:
Last edited by Ea; 01-17-2010 at 09:52 AM. |
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01-17-2010, 11:57 AM | #17 | |
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I don't know what significance Kuno might have. |
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01-17-2010, 12:26 PM | #18 |
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One thing that struck me is the prominence of “ideas.” It seems almost as if Forster is lampooning philosophical idealism. This seems odd as no one would blame people like Plato for the excesses of technology.
I think I may have an answer. I have been reading Simon Critchley’s Continental Philosophy in the OUP Very Short Introduction series. If I understand him correctly, he is saying something like the following: Traditional European Christian culture, by valuing truth and rationality, subverted itself by encouraging the kind of philosophizing that, in the person of Kant, caused traditional beliefs to seem to be no longer viable. Much of post-Kantian Continental philosophy responds to this crisis. Forster’s story may suggest a similar sort of self-subversion in secular scientific empiricist culture. Science produces technology upon which people become increasingly reliant, using it to mediate their interactions with others and with nature. They become more and more cut off from direct interactions with others and with nature and retreat into a sort of de facto idealism. People who think like Hume create technology which produces people who think like Plato. |
01-17-2010, 12:37 PM | #19 |
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I think there's a bit of an undercurrent, not quite overt of "worshiping the machine as God" and the danger therein.
Maybe that is my one-sentence description... |
01-17-2010, 12:53 PM | #20 | |
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Have you noticed that several times when the machine is mentioned in this way, there's some three-fold repeated sentence/words? For example. "... that the Machine may progress, that the Machine may progress, that the Machine may progress, eternally." There were at least two more instances, perhaps more. |
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01-17-2010, 12:55 PM | #21 |
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Yes, that was what I could think of in relation to Vashti. I'm probably still just leaning towards what the names are simply supposed to be from two different cultures though they are mother and son, signifying that being a parent had much less meaning when the machine took over the work.
Last edited by Ea; 01-17-2010 at 12:59 PM. |
01-18-2010, 11:51 AM | #22 | |||
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Obviously with the reverence shown toward the words of the Machine contained the Book of the Machine, worship of the Machine and faith in its pronouncements has become the new religion; despite what Vashti says about having no religious beliefs. |
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01-18-2010, 12:32 PM | #23 |
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In the dystopia Forster paints, people believe no better society is possible. They think the Machine state is perfect, no further improvement is conceivable, and any criticisms are met with accusations bordering upon treason. How different is that world from modern life in the United States. The folks in Forster's world falsely believe that they have the best of all possible worlds, while we in this country KNOW the USA never makes mistakes and is better than all other nations at everything it does.
Last edited by WT Sharpe; 01-18-2010 at 12:41 PM. |
01-20-2010, 11:43 PM | #24 |
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Interesting. I suppose the members of that Central Committee can be regarded as philosopher-kings. Perhaps Plato is more important here than I realized when I first mentioned him.
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01-25-2010, 07:23 PM | #25 |
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I finished this last night, and I'm not sure what I want to say about it. I can say, for sure, that it got me thinking. I was expecting it to be mostly a tirade against dependence on technology, but it seemed to me to be more of a tirade against dependence on other people's ideas. I am left with the weird feeling that if the story (which is an indirect experience) caused me to re-evaluate how I think about things, that these changes are somehow less valid than if I'd been led to that re-evaluation through my own direct experiences. But that seems silly and maybe a little pretentious. I can't think of anything to say about the story that doesn't seem pretentious when I read it back to myself! I think I am sorely out of practice in reading things critically.
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01-25-2010, 10:26 PM | #26 | |
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The other aspect of The Machine Stops that gives me pause is Forster's attitude toward religion. From what I can gather, he was an atheist, but there are passages in the story that seem to lament the loss of traditional religion. Perhaps he was similar in that respect to George Santayana, of whom someone once said that he "believes that there is no God and that Mary is His mother."* E. M. Forster was certainly not a simple man. <><><> * Some say Bertrand Russell was the originator of that witticism, but I can find no verification for that, and most people who quote it give as its source simply "an anonymous wit." Last edited by WT Sharpe; 01-27-2010 at 09:45 AM. |
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01-26-2010, 09:12 PM | #27 |
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I got the impression that the Central Committee was not actually a committee made up of humans, but rather another function of the Machine. The people seem far too passive to have been able to make executive decisions.
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01-27-2010, 03:48 PM | #28 | |
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I don't think you should feel your experience is less valid, though. It's one thing not to experience something physically which you could easily do - another to experience this story. In this case, I'd say the story is the original source 'idea'. I don't think the story is less valid than real sunrise - so to speak As for myself. I've found this story was more or less the first time I've seen really interesting and valid arguments against the idea of the Internet. Oftentimes it's just 'technology is bad' kind of arguments - and really, what can you do with that? The Internet has opened up a new world to me, but everything has it's negative sides, too. This story showed me better than anything possible negative side effects. Not that it will necessarily happen - but this story opens up ideas in my mind. All in all, this story was - somewhat - mindblowing - especially because it's so old. I've read a great deal of Forster's writing some 18-20+ years ago - but not until now do I really 'get' what he was about. And I'm quite impressed - and also because it's given me new ideas, suggested some new ways of thinking. There's little enough writing that does that. |
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01-27-2010, 04:10 PM | #29 | ||
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01-31-2010, 04:05 PM | #30 |
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Hello -oo -oO!
Anybody there -ere -eRE...?! Some of you were so keen on discussing this story, but the discussion seems to have run out like the sand so quickly and silently... Don't you have anything more to say/ask/question/suggest/put forth/point out/etc.? |
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