Just Do It - Class Notes

The story is used as an allegory for subliminal messaging in today's materialistic culture. The author criticizes big corporations and capitalism in general by portraying these corporations as cold, profit-seeking machines that do not care about the consumers or the people that they hurt in the process. I am optimistic that this future will never come to fruition because of the competing advertisements of companies. However, if these companies merge and form monopolies the advertisements will get stronger. The modern day effectiveness of advertisements is made evident by the extremely high price of a one minute commercial that airs during the Super Bowl.

"Just Do It" (Group E)

Eric, you make a good point about the stories attempt to inform us about the power of advertisements. Although not as powerful and devious as in the story, many ads and marketing campaigns today affect us in ways we may not realize. Companies like Apple or Coca-Cola have done so much to ingrain their products into our minds that we don't notice the impact of their advertising. Their commercials don't have to have any real context about the product for us to know what it is for. Instantly recognizing these products is their form of the Crave darts, making us crave their products without our knowledge.

"Just Do It"

I absolutely agree that she is trying to talk about the way companies advertise by using some sort of subliminal messaging. She shows this at an extreme state in "Just Do It" with CraveTech and their darts. CraveTech forces its consumers to crave certain things which is used as a form of mind control. I do agree that because the consumers do not have any choice in what they want or don't want, the people do not have any control over their own mind. The consumers might believe that they are in control but in actuality CraveTech is controlling them. Many companies today use this sort of subliminal messaging. For example, every commercial that has either a catch phrase or a theme song is some sort of subliminal message. The companies are hoping that their song or phrase will stick in your head which makes them seem more like a familiar, safe company. It promotes name recognition and can help convince people to choose that company rather than one that they are not as familiar with. Even if the products of the familiar company are inferior to the products of the other. This is what the author was trying to show through her extreme world.

"Just Do It" Response

Tony, I definitely agree with you in that the title, "Just Do It", makes people subconsciously make decisions and buy into advertising.  As you mentioned, companies today use similar tactics, yet not nearly as extreme.  "Just do it" is Nike's advertising terminology, and like many others it is a command, whether people realize it or not.  Advertising is about subliminal messages and mind control, but this short story takes it to a new extreme by explicitly controlling the subjects' minds.  They know that it is not their true beliefs or desires to buy a product, but the chemical is making them do so anyways.  Aside from warning people about the power of advertising and the direction in which it's going, I feel like this story is warning about medical and technological advancement.  Rather than just having the consumer see an ad, companies want to manipulate them mentally to actually buy the product.  This plays off of fear of mind control and brainwashing.  Alex is forced to marry Mr. Avery against her will, and the end reveals that everyone has the power to manipulate others.  If that is the case, then does this story eradicate all forms of thought if you don't have control over your mind?  People have no form of self control if all of their actions are made at the will of others.  It turns everyone, not only consumers, into puppets.

"Just Do It"

"Just Do It" has a major theme of trickery in order to gain results. CraveTech invents a dart which makes consumers have an undesirable crave for something , as well as a cure for the cravings, in order to make a huge profit. The protagonist, Alex Monroe, uses seduction to trick the CEO of CraveTech, Tom, to love Monroe in order for Monroe to gain information about CraveTech. These tricks goes against people's wants. CraveTech consumers do not want to crave for french fires, but the dart makes people want them. Monroe does not want to date Tom, but her friend Sandra makes her in order to rebel against Cravetech. The title "Just Do It" echoes the things the consumers and Monroe does not want to do, but has to do "it" with very little resistances towards "it". The message within "Just Do It" makes readers think about what desires do they succumb into such as cigarettes and chocolate, yet the additional element of a corporation controlling the consumer's desire makes readers questions how do corporations today control their desires indirectly through commercials and other different advertisements. CraveTech's dart shows the extremeness of the corporations control on consumer's desires through direct control rather than indirect.

Parable of the Sower - Conclusion

Differences in age, race, and religion play a very important part in the story. Much of the violence that occurs outside of Acorn occurs because of racial differences. On the other hand, Lauren's Earthseed community is extremely diverse, yet these differences do not cause any problems.

Parable of the Sower is the first book of a trilogy, so it is to be expected for the author to leave much to be desired at the end. There are lots of unanswered questions, but I believe that the group settling down on Bankole's land is a good stopping point for this book. This book is about the journey, and the next is about the growth of the community.

Parable of the Sower Notes 2/20/2012 - Tony Trinh

Concept of Voice

Voice = attire/ depending on context of who you are reading for.

Unique/ Orality/ Personality/ Individuality/ enthusiasm/ energy / natural/ Confidence

Development through: word choice, sentence structure, syntax, know the material, consistency, avoid chiche, original to you

“Even though we don’t know each other, we need to stay together to survive and face the challenges. Together, we are a unit.”

- made Lauren into a decisive leader, instead of an indecisive individual of the group.

Why is Lauren reluctant to show Harry her diary?

- Lauren wants to subtly share Earthseed with Harry

- Testing Harry to see what kind of soil he is, testing of Harry is willing to learn Earthseed .

- Wants Harry to take part in the process of learning Earthseed

- Doesn’t want to force Earthseed on him

- Easier to remember if phrases are short and sweet

- Following father’s footsteps to push ideals on someone/ consequences of rebelling against idea.

- Inception

Parable of the Sower Notes 2/15/2012 - Tony Trinh

Thesis statement: Clear argument, arguable, needs to be specific, focused

-Ask myself a question that I can’t answer right away, then it is a good start for a thesis statement

Thesis statement: Clear argument, arguable, needs to be specific, focused

- Lauren doesn’t want to have babies because she wants to end the cycle of reproduction. She believes having a baby in a dystopian world is not good for survival.

- Metaphor between wombs and seeds

-Lauren = rebel?

- More separatist – offering alternative to live life

- not rebel = preparing for the inevitable fall

Parable of the Sower Notes 2/13/2012 - Tony Trinh

Earthseed = motto “God is change”.

Butler = born in Pasadena, CA; raised in strict Baptist household; one of few African American female sci-fi writers in 20^th Century.

Video: Many seeds get destroyed, but few survived and hundreds grew

Different soil = analogy with difficulty of spreading ideas. Different grounds of which to grow on means different people receiving the new ideas.

Lauren = Jesus

Earthseed = Christianity

Lauren’s father = Job (loyal to God despite suffering)

Parable = story/easier to remember yet need active listeners to interpret the stories

Lauren’s ideas of religion vs Dad’s ideas of religion

- different state of mind by different generations

- old traditions from her father’s is not applicable to new generation

- Lauren = living in post destruction/change is only hope

- Father = reminiscent of the past bc born before destruction

Pg 25: Lauren – trial and error in developing Earthseed through written verses since 12 yrs old

Lauren – hyperempathy syndrome – feeling pain of others – gain through mother’s drug abuse

-tries to make adult leave the past – threatening to people bc people don’t want to purge the good stuff in mind.

-need to play with people to guide them, to convince them,

Society – large class division

- water cost too much

- privatize commercial services

Group D

This short story is about the white man’s attempt to create a plague that targeted all blacks. The plague was one hundred percent fatal to anyone that was infected with it. A limited amount of the vaccine was made which back fired on the whites because the plagued they created actually targeted whites not blacks. Anybody with 12.5 percent African Negro DNA and up survived the plague. Not all Caucasians were killed by disease those who survive either receive the vaccine or had 12.5 or more African DNA. Although people were dying, riots still broke out throughout the country with whites fighting blacks. The few whites remaining although they were no longer the majority race still tried to attached and killed blacks. Like the critical race theory we discussed in class mentioned racism will always be an issue. Whites feel their lighter skin color makes them better than others but this also is an issue in brown skin community as well.

Group D

I very much agree with Alex’s point about race and racism being social in nature. I take this story to be more of a comment on the social nature of racism in general, racism by whites against blacks being the racism the author and his intended audience have the most experience with, Mosley being African American and his audience most likely being American. I think the (mostly) white man shooting at Harold at the end says the most about Mosley’s overall point than anything else in the story. He obviously has some a lot of rage about all the white people dying, likely all his friends and family, which he directs towards Harold and likely all black people. It’s ironic that he blames black people for the plague, when white people are the ones who created it in the first place. This is a comment on the cyclical nature of racism itself, and how unfounded and pointless it is in the first place. Racism throughout history is a series of retaliations and blame games, humans trying to blame one another for their problems, and the oppressed group retaliating against an entire race. I take Mosley’s final statement; that the “world started over again” to mean that people were already repeating their mistakes, that racism was still alive and that the white man at  the end of the story was blaming black people for the mistakes of his own people.

Group D

Alex brought up that the poem ended with "The world had started over" and that was what really struck me when I read the story. Throughout the story you see all of the races getting eliminated except for the African Americans. In the end you are left with only the people who had African American blood in them, but still some people have different skin colors. This ties in perfectly with the Critical Race Theory we were discussing in class that a lot of our ideas about race come from a social standpoint. Even though no two people are the same someone still notices the most prominent difference, skin color, and decided that is less "fit" for society. I have always wondered how it came about that skin color was the main objective for racism even though eye color and hair color varies just as much. I think that when Walter Mosely states at the end that the world had started over he means that things have come full circle and there is no escaping social prejudice. The world has gotten itself down to one race so essentially everyone is on the same level, but some people still manage to find superiority in any way they can. This is demonstrated perfectly by the people at the end of the story with the white skin tone trying to capture Harold. Also as far as I could tell from the story even before the epidemic broke out there were no African American people in higher company positions. As Cameron said in his first blog post it is extremely ironic that the white people were the ones who created the virus to destroy the black race but it backfired on them. It is a be careful what you wish for type of scenario.

Group D

Alex, you bring up some very good points. Taken in its entirety, the story definitely is a warning about what is to come if racism continues. The discussion today about Critical Race Theory suggested that racism is always a thought. I think that the end of the story shows that Mosley believes this to be the case. Even after the world is being wiped clean of all races except blacks, the white people who attacked Harold still had to be racist for some reason. They should have been concerned about completely different things, like staying alive or caring for loved ones, but instead they decided to attack an innocent young guy because he was black. Alex you are definitely right in the sense that the world may be starting over literally, but it is still the same in the sense of this segmented human nature.

Blog Group D

One of the most interesting things I noticed after reading this story was how, even after almost every single race on earth was destroyed, people still continued to hate one another based on their physical appearences. This ties in with our class discussion today about Critical Race Theory, which promotes the idea that race is a socially constructed concept. While there are still white people alive in the world after the disease has killed of hundreds of people, everyone is aware that those who are alive have only survived due to a percentage of African American blood in their veins. This being the case, there is essentially one race left on the whole planet, yet the story ends with "white people" shooting at Harold. People are continuing the idea of not only race itself (though there is but one race left), but also the idea of racism and all the hatred and violence that is associated with it in the midst of a worldwide epidemic caused by the very ideas and beliefs these people continue to follow. Because of this, I think it's quite ironic that the story ends with the phrase "The world had started over." To me, this doesn't seem to be the case at all. The world may have "started over" in a literal sense, but socially, it appears that people still have the same mindset that they always have. I think maybe that this story could be considerded less a critque on racsim and white supremacy, but rather a warning of what could happen if the hatred from racism continues - while it was a white supremacy group that originally created the disease, it was a black scientist who switched the disease's target rather than neutralizing it and avoiding the conflict and loss of life all together. I think this story can be interpreted more as a warning of things to come rather than simply a criticism of white racists.

Group D - "The Nig In Me"

Just something that I thought was interesting after reading this story was the hypocrisy displayed by the white race. The classic liberal/left-wing viewpoint is complete political correctness and this includes not using discriminatory words or phrases. In the story this political group was most likely responsible for the illegality and subsequent fines of using a racial slur, giving the impression that they cared about black people and wanted everyone to respect them. Later on the TV, XX Y says that the virus was created by white people, specifically the liberal socialist party, to wipe out African Americans. This shows a complete contradiction to the image of racial acceptance they had created before.  And then, for karma’s sake, the virus backfired and killed all the white people. I think this may tie in to the fact that Walter Mosley is African American. He was probably trying to make a point about white hypocrisy in race relations. What do you guys think?

Class Notes Little Boxes

Everything is the same:

• reference to Communism
• no substance
• cyclical nature of this life
• gender roles still old fashioned
• suburbs

There is a paradox between her use of the word university and the fact that the children in the university are put into boxes. When one goes to university, the common thought is that the education and higher thinking allows the student to express himself and to think for himself. On the other hand, if this happens to everyone, then the university could simply take the students out of one box and place them into a different box.

The different covers of the song are interesting because there are lots of different artists and different types of music playing the same song, adding to the homogeneity theme of the song. The covers give the allusion of variety, just like the community in Weeds.

Kurt Vonnegut - Class Notes

Kurt Vonnegut & Political Views

• Political Diamond

o Liberalism/Conservatism & Libertarianism/Statism

• Lenin vs. Sanders

o Communist vs. Socialist

 Communist – revolutionary; take power by force

 Socialist – want to be given power

• Against idea of war

o Protested Vietnam War

o Support WWII

• “Harrison Bergeron” written 1961 – 1962

o Red Scare

o Vietnam War

o Cold War

o MLK

• Democratic socialist

• Humanist – heightened respect for human life

Class Notes Vonnegut and Rush

Vonnegut is satirizing political power and the thoughts of the extreme communistic society.

• Over 200 amendments to the Constitution
• Everyone is equal, but at what costs
• Personal regulations, but no economic regulations
• People confuse Communism with Socialism, so they also confuse the purpose of the story

Politicians use Vonnegut's story to support Capitalism, so they are using Vonnegut's own story against him. His story can be easily misinterpreted, so if his purpose was to spread the views of Socialism then he has failed. However, readers who understand the true meaning of the story can appreciate Vonnegut's satire.

Rush's 2112 tells a dystopian story of a totalitarian state in the future. The red star on the album cover is an allusion to Communism, and the ending is up for interpretation. The computers that fill the hallways of the walls of the temple show the merging of technology and religion.