Thoughts on "The Diamond Age"

As I first started reading "The Diamond Age", I had a hard time getting through the techno-babble.  Stephenson goes to great lengths early in the story to provide technical detail to various technologies that are talked about throughout the book.  However, after trudging through, I realized that it was a necessary ingredient to the story and made further reading easier to understand.

The underlying theme of the story, world globalization, was a good place to end our reading of colonialism and gave me a lot to think about.  In fact, what's still rumbling around in my pea-brain is the idea of philes / tribes replacing governments in the future.  This led to me start thinking (yes critically) about how we're already well on our way towards that reality.

If you buy into the idea that companies have HUGE influence on the world's economy, and that companies have a HUGE influence on politics and government, is it really that much of stretch to think that they don't already control the world?  While there might not be a country called "IBM" or "Oracle", how far are we from seeing such a reality?

This led to me imagining a time in the near future, when some huge conglomerate (let's say Futuretech, Inc.) buys out a large chunk of it's competitors and now becomes the leading manufacturer of nano technology.  Futuretech, Inc. then decides that it would be in its best interests to buy up a large section of land in Africa (the size of a small country) by buying off leaders and making them ceremonial high ranking company officials, and place its headquarters and all manufacturing there.  They relocate all of their research and manufacturing to this new Futuretech, Inc capital and begin terraforming the landscape to meet their agricultural and biotechnology needs.  In doing so, towns are built for employees and other companies are allowed to setup shop to meet the service industry needs (Wal-Mart and KFC anyone?).

After this happens, it doesn't take Futuretech, Inc. long to realize that there needs to be laws in put into place (codes of conduct) with some kind of justice system.  Police and judges are hired to enforce these codes of conduct and anyone wishing to live or work in Futuretech, Inc. will have to agree and abide by the codes of conduct.  Protecting their interests and ensuring that warlords from other areas of Africa don't try and get any ideas, Futuretech, Inc. hires the French Foreign Legion as its military force.  Futuretech, Inc. decides that it likes the idea so much, that it BUYS the French Foreign Legion and spawns a new division of the company called FutureTech Defense, Inc. with the goals of protecting themselves and contracting out these services to other similar companies or governments.

Currency would be an issue and so to make things easier, Futuretech, Inc. decides that it should conduct business using an already established monetary system called the EU.  This would provide compatibility with the rest of world's markets and allow Futuretech, Inc. the ability to regulate its own economic environment.

I could go on and on, but I think that this may have been what Stephenson had envisioned as the prehistory of "The Diamond Age".  Companies becoming so powerful that they in and of themselves take on their own global identity and adopt their own unique corporate culture.  The citizens themselves, would be working for the common goal of protecting the interests of the company instead of a country.

Far fetched?  Maybe not.

Abstract: Root Cause of Colonialism

There is little doubt that colonialism has changed the face of the planet and continues to affect postcolonial societies in a number of different ways.  Fusing of cultures, religion, economics, and language are but of few of the results of postcolonialism.  Some societies have adapted markedly well while others have fallen into abject poverty, civil war, social unrest, and in extreme cases extinction.  Regardless of the outcomes, this essay examines the texts we have read throughout the semester in an effort to determine the underlying reason ,or the "why", for colonialism in the first place.  The answer is undoubtedly capitalism.

In examining colonial Europe, the common thread found in examining the question of why colonialism happened can be seen clearly in Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness",  Chinua Achebe's "Things Fall Apart", and V.S. Naipaul's "The Mimic Men".   These novels show how the Europeans used various pretexts for rationalizing the colonization of other countries, in order to pave the way for private enterprise to make money.

Looking into more recent history, Ha Jin's story, "After Cowboy Chicken Came to Town" shows how America, a postcolonial society itself, uses capitalism as a means of spreading culture and values to other countries. Future evidence of capitalism's role in colonialism can be examined in the Neal Stephenson's "The Diamond Age".  In "The Diamond Age", we see a future "globalized" world that is controlled by tribes instead of countries.   In examining the relationship between the tribes and globalization, we see evidence that the most successful tribes are really technology corporations who's citizens are members of the corporate culture.

Pundits may argue that there were other reasons for colonialism, such as religion, and that capitalism played a secondary role.  Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies", Diamond provides evidence through historical facts that the driving force behind colonialism was completely based on capitalism.  Further evidence can be found in Juan Gonzalez's "Harvest Empire" where he explores the history behind Spanish colonialism and provides compelling evidence that colonialism is rooted in capitalism.

Works Cited

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: Norton, 2009.

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. New York: Norton, 2009.

Diamond, Jared. Guns, Germs, and Steel. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999.

Gonzalez, Juan. Harvest of Empire. New York: Penguin, 2000.

Naipal, V.S. The Mimic Men. New York: Vintage, 1967.

Stephenson, Neal. The Diamond Age. New York: Bantam, 2008.
Jin, Ha. "After Cowboy Chickin Came To Town." Jin, Ha. The Bridegroom. New York: Vintage, 2000. 184-225.

Abstract: Colonialism - The Root Cause

Throughout the semester, we've been reading story after story about the affects of colonialism throughout various parts of the world.  While we have discussed the implications and effects of colonialism on both the colonizers and the colonized, we did not spend a great deal of time discussing the "why".  My essay will focus on the "why" by looking at the root cause (reasons) of colonialism: Capitalism.  Using the texts from our reading, along with additional material about U.S. colonialism I will be able to demonstrate that the single driving force behind all colonialism lies not with religion (although it is often used as justification) but greed, pure and simple.

The following is a list of works I currently plan to use:

Juan Gonzalez. "Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America". New York: Penguin 2000.
Joseph Conrad. "Heart of Darkness". New York: Norton, 2005.
Jared Diamond. "Guns, Germs, and Steel". New York: Norton, 1997.
Bernard MacLaverty. "Cal". New York: Norton, 1995.
Achebe, Chinua. "Things Fall Apart". New York: Anchor, 1994.
Naipaul, V. S.  "The Mimic Men". Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969.
Jin, Ha. "After Cowboy Chickin Came To Town." Jin, Ha. The Bridegroom. New York: Vintage, 2000. 184-225.

A Painful Case

I think the underlying theme of the story is how cities (and society) can give us an excuse to withdraw into our selves and forego dealing with other people on an emotional level.  It's very easy to get lost in crowd and forget what its like to have an emotional attachment to anyone.  The main character in this story definitely falls into this category.

However, a series of (chance?) encounters with Emily leads to friendship and his detachments begin to erode.  For the first time (ever?) he begins to find a friendship and companion who he can share his thoughts and emotions with but at the same time feels safe because she's married.  As I read this, I thought that he might actually have been using her marriage as an excuse NOT to get too close.  Sure, she was married, and their relationship was "improper", but they did have a common bond.

It was when she touched his face to his that it all clicked for me.  She got too close and he used his ability to emotional detach (hiding in a big city?) as an excuse to break off the relationship.  The books he was reading suggest that he was conflicted about the relationship and was looking for a way to justify it.  For example, when he wrote some quotes from Nietzche suggesting that men and women couldn't be friends because there was intercourse involved, he was using that as an excuse to justify his behavior.

Of course, after he found out that she was dead,it finally sank in.  He was a cold hearted SOB and the one person whom he had an attachment to was now dead, possibly because of him.  At this moment, he realized that he had blown it and that he may never find another.  In her death, he was now unable to hide his emotions and detach.  She had gotten to him in the same way he had gotten to her.  He was heartbroken.  

A Temporary Matter

Let me start this blog post off with "sorry I'm late to the party."  I actually started to work on this last night but was a bit confused.  I poked around at various blogs and didn't see anything related to Lahiri.  I then cowardly looked at other peep's blogs and noticed that they hadn't posted either.  I was waiting for someone to go so I could figure out what I was doing wrong.   After a bit more poking around and scrolling way way way down, I finally saw the Lahiri posts.  My bad...


This post is in response to Auggie's post on Lahiri and his idea that her writing suggests that marriages are fragile.  To use Julie's analogy of viewing this under a different " lens", I'm going to take a closer look at their respective roles in a traditional Indian marriage.

While I don't disagree that Lahiri might be making the statement that marriage is a fragile thing, I think that the story delves deeper into issues of Indian culture in America.  For example, if we buy into the idea that Indian women are to be subservient to their men, then we have to look at this story as being contrary to that.  


What I mean is that in this story, we see a man and woman of Indian descent that are dealing with the loss of a child.  Each person is dealing with (or not) this loss and the story revolves around not only how they dealt with it individually, but as a couple.  However, in the story, we see that the stereotypical roles Indians are associated with simply do not apply.  For example, it is the husband who is so distraught that he has had to stay home (can't teach) and work on his dissertation.  The wife on the other hand goes back to work as soon as possible.  This is our first clue that not only are the roles reversing, but that each is dealing with the issue differently.  


The husband is actually trying to deal with it.  He is clearly depressed and sad.  However, in spite of this, he assumes the womanly role around the house and cooks the food and cleans the house.  His wife on the other hand goes back to work almost immediately.  She comes home late, throws her stuff around like she lives in a hotel (for him to clean up no doubt) and doesn't actually engage in the relationship.  Sure sounds like role reversal to me.


It is when the power is out and they are eating by candlelight that they are able to finally break through the ice a bit and start communicating again.  The naive husband is delighted by this and begins to feel as though they might actually be heading in the right direction.  During their conversations we begin to learn some of their secrets.  The wife details various secrets, which upon closer examination, detail her selfishness.  The husbands' secrets however, detail his selflessness.  For example, the wife mentions staying late to go out with a coworker for drinks.   The husbands mentions forgetting to tip a waiter and driving all the way back to give him a tip.   His motives were always for her benefit and her motives were for her own benefit.


Near the end of the story the husband learns that she has been staying late to find an apartment.  While it certainly hurt him, his response was unselfish.  He wanted her to deal with the problem and  to face the fact that "they" had  both lost a child.  He told her that he had seen and held the child.  He was at the hospital that day. He didn't say anything because he was keeping a promise to her that he wouldn't tell her the sex of the child.  It wasn't until he felt that this was all he could do to help her did he betray his own promise.


In the end, I think we see a complete role reversal from a typical Indian couple.  The husband becomes the nurturer and the wife becomes the typical stubborn male not willing to deal with her problems.  Do they get back together?  Who knows.  But his unselfishness causes her to finally break down and feel something.


Any thoughts?

FA331 Group Art Project - Teamalicious

Hello all, welcome to group #1.  Please post your email addresses so we can at least keep in touch.

maurice.smiley@email.wsu.edu

Conrad, Jin, and Postcolonial Literature

After spending a few days reading and discussing Jin's work, it's clear to me now that he had something to say and used English as his means of saying it.  Had he chosen to write it in Chinese, he would have alienated the very audience for which (I believe) he intended his writing for.  That is to say that Jin wanted westerners to gain a better understanding of the political and cultural differences between the east and west.  What's interesting in his writing is that he is very careful and deliberate in painting a scene and telling a story without actually demonizing anyone. For example, in "Saboteur" he writes about the police have mistreated a Chiu.  Instead of going on and on about how EVIL the state is, he balances the story with Chiu later purposefully spreading his hepatitis.  In "Cowboy Chicken", he shows Mr. Shapiro as a greedy capitalist, but he then shows the Chinese actually doing the same things when they wanted to have Peter fired and his divided amongst them.  He has had his feet firmly planted in both worlds and uses that knowledge to tell creative stories that reflect the realities of life in China. 

Had Conrad written his novel in Polish there's almost every certainty that his writing would have fallen into that exclusive group of writers in Poland that had a lot to say, with no audience to read it.  All kidding aside, I believe that Conrad made a conscious choice in writing in English because he knew very well that the majority of the powers most involved in colonialism at the time were in fact Western Europeans and almost all, English speaking on some level.  Even the Americans were involved in colonialism (just ask the Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and almost everyone in Central and South America).  To make the greatest impact and reach the largest target audience, he made the only logical choice at the time.  Of course, we'll never really know what would have become of it if he had written in French or Spanish, but my guess is that it would have whithered on the vine.  He took advantage of a receptive audience and made the most of his it.

Was She Drugged?

Our classroom discussion have been pretty fascinating in the last few days.  Wide Sargasso Sea is turning out to be far more complex that it first appeared. We have learned that there's more than one meaning for creole and the "N" word, which totally depends on your point of view, whether it be British or Caribbean.

Furthermore, I think we all came to the conclusion that Rochester was dirty rotten scoundrel (for lack of a better description) and pretty much had his way with Antoinette.  By "had his way", I mean, he got his money and was able to essentially have her committed.

In doing a bit more thinking about this situation, it occurred to me that Antoinette was a wild and free spirit who loved the Caribbean.  It has been suggested that Antoinette didn't fit in, but I disagree with that.  While she might not have been loved by the locals, having come from a slave owning family, she definitely understood the people and fit in.

If you believe that she wasn't crazy, then it stands to reason she was drugged.  We know that she hated Rochester for what he had done and I just can't believe that she would willingly allow herself to be transported to England, away from everything she knew and loved, to be locked up in a room.

Just throwing that out there to see if anyone bites...

Changing connotation and meaning

So far, the Wide Sargasso Sea readings have not disappointed.  I have been surprised to learn quite a bit more about Caribbean history in addition to the fact of dual representations of how British colonial citizens viewed each other and their status.  Terms like "creole" and "nigger" have entirely new meanings to me now, especially in light of how their meanings are different in the story than they are in the present day U.S.

When I used to think of "creole", it conjured up images of African Americans living in Louisiana, cooking up some crawfish  with some red beans and rice.  Cajun and creole were very often intermixed in my mind's eye as one in the same.  However, thanks to the readings, I now see that in British Colonial times, "creole" actually meant someone who was born or native to the islands regardless of their skin color.  Wow, now I have to totally readjust my thinking...

Another interesting use of a word has been "nigger".  This word, not surprisingly is definitely a derogatory term, however, it's use and connotation have now changed for me (no, I don't use them in sentences to describe people regularly).  Wide Sargasso Sea clearly demonstrates the use of the word describing not only blacks but whites.  This, once again, is forcing me to readjust my definitions and think of the term more in relation to denigration of people in general, white or black.  It's interesting to read wikipedia and other definitions and note that they make no reference to this term used by anyone other than whites against blacks. Once again, my thinking has been readjusted...

ENGL373 - Changing Viewpoints

After reading Chinua Achebe's critical review of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, my initial impression of Achebe wasn't very good.  His review seemed almost like a personal attack on Conrad and it (in my opinion) clouded his review.

However, after reading Things Fall Apart and learning a little more about Achebe's personal history, I have come away with a much different opinion of Achebe. What Achebe was unable to do in his critical review (shed light on "the other" convincingly) he has marvelously been able to do in Things Fall Apart.   In Things Fall Apart, Achebe is able to paint a portrait of a complex society and interweave a storyline that definitively shows what life for "the other" is like.  It takes a different view of "the other" and allows you to see the other side of the coin per se.

What I'm left with, after reading these two stories, is much deeper understanding of colonialism and how it affected "the other" no matter which side you look at.  My opinion of Achebe has definitely changed and I am a better person for having taken the time to read and analyze his work.

Thanks for "making" me read this Julie.  It's been a great study.

ENGL373 - Should We Read "Heart of Darkness"?

Heart of Darkness is one of those stories that can be interpreted in an almost infinite number of ways. Depending on your world view, your race, your religion, and even your sex, you will most likely take something away from "Heart of Darkness" that's different from your peers. Most people that have read it can agree on some very simple tenets of the story: 1) it is a story about a riverboat captain named Marlow, who got a job with a Belgian merchant company to sail a steamship up and down the Congo; 2) Marlow gets to the Congo and tells his “story.” After that, it is almost all up for individual interpretation.

First, a little background. The author, Joseph Conrad, was himself a steamboat captain who arguably had a great deal of personal experience and involvement in much of what Heart of Darkness deals with. Heart of Darkness was written during the height of European colonialism of Africa which is a huge moral argument, in and of itself. Was it wrong for the Europeans to treat Africa and its native inhabitants the way they did? Was the European attitude towards the Africans racist? Was Conrad a racist? These are only the tip of the metaphorical iceberg.

Conrad wrote Heart of Darkness in a manner that insulates him from direct involvement. That is, he is narrating the story, via Marlow, who is narrating the story to a group of sailors sitting on a boat. Knowing about Conrad’s personal experience and close relationship to his subject matter gives rise to the first question, which is, is Marlow really Conrad? Subsequently, if Marlow is Conrad, then is Conrad a racist? Is the story (as Marlow relates it) a racist story about the conquest and destruction of the African continent? Were the events that occurred in the story a reflection of then current European attitudes of race and religion, or those of flat out racists? It goes on and on.

You see, we haven’t even gotten to the controversial figure named Kurtz yet and we’re already swimming in questions without conclusive answers. Kurtz himself brings with him an entirely new set of questions that the reader must grapple with. Is Kurtz evil? Did he do what he did because he was insane? Power crazed? Assimilated? Was Kurtz a racist? A womanizer? On and on we go.

We will never really know what Conrad was thinking or what he really meant when he wrote Heart of Darkness. Should we read Heart of Darkness? The answer, in my humble opinion, is an unequivocal yes. It is the investigation and analyzing of stories that gives us a broader understanding of our own humanity. Without introspection, we can never grow and evolve into something better than what we once were. If you read it, you will most likely be changed…and that’s a good thing!

FA331 - Class Notes

Technology in Science

1)  Spreading
2)  Changing our ideas of Humanity / Universe
3)  Being challenged by critics
4)  Increasingly being used by artists

3 new ways artists are using technology

1)  Use new technology like old technology
2)  Deconstruction
3)  Become scientists themselves

Duplication - reproduce the results
What is a masterpiece?

1990's was the beginning of the digital revolution
Computer Art --> Multimedia Art --> Digital Art --> New Meda Art

1945 - First digital computer (ENIAC)
1961 - Docuverse
1964 - Internet
1968 - Mouse / Keyboard
1969 - Arpanet
1970's - Satellites/Broadcasting/Internet used in art
1970/80's - Virtual objects
1990's - Technology --> Museum


Why did museums take so long to display digital art?

• Aura of original
• Masterpiece
• Scarcity = Value
• Own a web experience?

FA331 - Examples of Postmodernism

Art Appropriation

Unknown Artist

Richard Prince - Untitled (Cowboy)  (1984)

Dada

Sophie Taeuber-Arp - Head (1919)

George Grosz - Remember Uncle August, The Unhappy Inventor (1919)

Pop Art

Richard Hamilton - The Solomon R. Guggenheim (1966)

Richard Hamilton - Picasso's Meninas (1973)

Fluxus

Erik Dietman - The Unwell Saw (1961)

Daniel Spoerri - Daniel Isac Spoerri-Feinstein (1977)

Conceptual

Josepch Kosuth - Clock (One and Five) (1965)

Marcel Broodthaers - Museum-Museum (1972)

Semiotics

John Heartfield - Hurrah, The Butter is All Gone! (1935)

El Lissitsky - The Constructor (1924)

Deformalism

Philip Guston - The Line (1978)

Philip Guston - Couple in Bed (1977)


Feminism

Kiki Smith - Untitle from White Mammals (1998)

Imogen Cunningham - Self Portrait (1974)

Gender Issues

Nan Goldinn - Misty and Jimmy Paulette in a Taxi, NYC (1991)

Martin Wong - Big Heat (1988)

New Media

Jodi (1995)

John Klima - Earth (2001)

Postminimalism

Eva Hesse - Addendum (1967)

Richard Serra - Tilted Arc (1981)




Deconstruction

Unknown

Unknown

HUM450 - Torture - Jean Amery

Jean Amery describes in great detail the mental and physical scars that haunt long after he was tortured by the Germans.  Amery was a Belgian who was in a progagandist resistance movement against the Nazi's.  He was caught and beaten by Germans.  He didn't know anything and subsequently didn't (and couldn't) give them any substantial information.  He was then sent to Breendonk, which was an interrogation facility.  His hands were tied behind his back and he was lifted by a chain (breaking his shoulders at the joint).  After that, he was beaten with a bullwhip until unconciousness.

A great majority of the passage details Amery's ideas of torture, what it means, and what it's like.  He talks of why people torture, who handles torture the best, why people crack under torture (and why other's don't) as well as visits the metaphysical aspects of torture.  He recounts several other interpretations and comes to the conclusion that in the end, torture is what torture is and that it kills a person even if they are still living.

Avery eventually committed suicide.

HUM450 - Voices - Charlotte Delbo

In this accounting, Charlotte tells of her? account in Ausschwitz as a Jew.  She speaks of how terribly cold it was and how brutal life was in the concentration camp.  Of special note is how she detailed how incredibly cold it was and how they had to stand outside the barracks during roll call in the morning.  She recounts how one lady lost her galoshes and how all of the other women were helping her find it because without it, it meant certain death.  Also, she writes about a Gypsy woman who would show up for roll call with her dead baby.  The unnamed Gypsy woman was later killed when a policewoman tried to take the baby away.  The baby was thrown in the trash and the woman was put into a collection of bodies to be burned.

Another story Delbo tells is that of a Jewish boy (14?) who recounts how he and his father escaped being deported to Ausschwitz.  His mother was sent there.  The boy and his father joined a resistance group in France, fighting the Germans.  He was later captured and sent to Ausschwitz, where he spent his days there looking for his mother.  After the camp was liberated, he returned home to Paris where he met back up with his father.

They never found out what happened to his mother.

HUM450 - Days of Nightmare - Jozef Zelkowicz

Jozef Zelkowicz recounts events in the Litzmannstadt ghetto where the Germans have decreed that all children under 10 years old and all adults over 65 would have to be "resettled.  The Jewish Resettlement commission, which is comprised of elder Jews gave a speech to the Jews and explained what the decree was and how they had no options.  They were being ordered to give up 20,000 Jews for "resettlement" and knowing what that really meant, they explained the difficult choices they had. Through his sobbing, he explained that it was decided that it might be better if they did the choosing of the Jews instead of the Germans since maybe they could save the healthy and give up the poor.  In the end, it was a dilemma that had no good solution.

Zelkowicz then details the mood and details of how the Jewish people in the ghetto were reacting to the news and how sad (wailing tears) everyone was to know that this was going to happen.  He describes how the Jewish police would come and take people, but would empathize a bit.  However, when the Germans came, they were extremely brutish in their methods.

Finally, after the children, the sick, and the elderly were taken away, he describes how completely empty and aged everyone became.  Those that didn't try to kill themselves were so horribly scarred that they felt as if they were living in a kind of hell.

ENGL373 - Evalutating "Are Humans One Race or Many?"

In his essay, "Are Humans One Race or Many?", Alfred Russel Wallace investigates the issue of whether or not mankind is a singular race or many races (as the title duly suggests).  Wallace postulates that early mankind does indeed share a singular past ancestry, up to a certain point.  He asserts that mankind developed different traits early in our development based on the surroundings he found himself in to best survive that environment.  However, as mankind grew smarter and became more and more social, their ability to communicate, empathize, and even think about the future gave rise to communities whereby the collective good outweighed the individual.  This, in turn, led to humans being able to divide labor amongst many individuals, care for the sick, and plan ahead.  It was at this juncture in early human development that humans were able to bypass the concept of natural selection and separate themselves from the rest of animal kingdom.

Wallace goes on to further qualify his opinion by stating that this ability of mankind to rise above natural selection via man's intelligence has lead to the more modern variations of humankind in existence today.  That is to say that the more organized and intelligent species of man have not only been rise above natural selection, but have also been able to stand out and dominate other humans evens though we are the same species.  To prove his point he gives examples of how in warmer climate regions, humans aren't necessarily required to evolve their intelligence, because their surroundings and natural selection have afforded them a genetic predisposition to their environment, making life comfortable for them.  There is no reason to evolve because they are naturally suited to their environment.

However, species of mankind that wandered outside of their comfort zone were forced to adapt and use their brains to survive.  Wallace points out that all species of northern origins are smarter than those of southern origins simply because they've had to use their brains to survive and this has led to their greater capacity for intelligence.  This, he concludes is why northern species of humans are always more dominant than their southern counterparts, simply because they are smarter.

In Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad illustrates this very same mentality throughout the story.  For example, while Marlow was fixing the steamboat, he compliments his fireman with the following, "And between whiles I had to look after the savage who was fireman.  He was an improved specimen; he could fire up a vertical boiler.  He was there below me and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a feather hat walking on his hind leg (pg 36)."  This quote, finely illustrates the European attitude that those not of their "kind" were savages.  They were thought of as smarter than animals, but just barely, and that they were only capable of doing what came naturally (animal instinct?) or what they were trained to do, as Conrad eluded to when he said it reminded him of watching a trained dog performing a trick.

HUM450 - Diary of the Great Deportation - Abraham Lewin

Lewin details in a diary (journal?) the day by day details of what life was life in Warsaw after the Germans moved all of the Jews into the ghetto.  The Germans, with the aid of police officers squeezed out the Jews in Warsaw, block by block.  The Germans used many methods to convince people to give themselves up in addition to allowing (at first) some Jews to work in shops for the Germans.  As more and more buildings and streets were cleared out, German companies moved in and hired Jews for slave labor.

Everyday, food got scarcer and the brutality of the Germans got worse.  So many people were killed and deported that those who were left behind were forced to either starve to death, give themselves up in the hopes of somehow surviving the deportation, or killing themselves.  Many, including Lewin lost family members (children, parents, siblings) along the way and the uncertainty and guilt drove many to madness.

Perhaps of greatest interest to me was how devious the Germans really were.  They convinced some Jews to act as policemen to help in rounding up fellow Jews, only to eventually kill them too, after all of the others had been rounded up.  Also of interest was the letters from family members and friends talking about how life wasn't so bad where they had been deported to (Treblinka?).  This was of course, something the Germans made the Jews do (write letters back home) before killing them to make others believe that they weren't being harmed.

Crazy.

HUM450 - Conversations with a Dead Man - Jacques Furmanski

Furmanski relates his experience in a concentration camp whereby everyone has resigned themselves to dying.  He describes the feeling of hopelessness everyone feels since it's not a matter of how or if you will die, but when.  Their lack of hope often creates a feeling of apathy and most people can only wait helplessly like lambs being led to the slaughter.

HUM450 - But Lidice Is in Europe - Frantisek R. Kraus

Kraus, a Jewish journalist from Prague, describes a period of time whereby he is interned in a Jewish ghetto in Czekoslovakia.  While on his way to the ghetto, he describes seeing a poster that SS-Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich was murdered by Jews.  To set an example, the Germans intend to raise the town of Lidice, as it was believed to house the Jews who killed him.

Subsequently, Kraus (among 30 men) are rounded up the guards and ordered to grab digging tools and get onto a truck.  He details the trip and describes the destination, a town called Lidice a scene right out of Dante's Inferno.  Everything is on fire and there are bodies lying around everywhere.  He and the work crew are ordered to dig a trench and do so for 36 hours straight, being given a single piece of black bread the whole time.  After they get the trench dug, they are ordered to remove the shoes, identification, and anything of value, while watching his best friend Langendorf get beaten by Seidl, a German SS officer.

After this, they are ordered back onto the truck and taken back to the ghetto where they are allowed to return to their barracks and immediately fall asleep.

CptS 401 - Class Notes

Method for addressing ethical issues:

• Understand the issue
• Analyze the respone
• Act

Threefold test of action:

• Is it good?
• Is it right?
• Is it legal?