I really started to think about how Lahiri addresses this issue after I read the post by Maggie Sully. I really liked the link Maggie makes between light and the barriers between Shoba and Shukumar. After I read her post I really started to think more about the things that were keeping them from restoring some sort of community. Shukumar hides himself in his study with his computer and Shoba watches TV while redlining her papers. Shukumar even cringes when his wife comes to see how is doing, and he longs for his computers during the first night of the power outage. It really seems that technology can partition our lives in such a way that it is difficult to relate to other human beings. I thought that this was briefly illustrated in the Interpreter of Maladies, for Mr. Das seems to only experience the world through books and this appears to greatly inhibit his ability to relate to his wife and children.
I see the dependance on technology as a very similar concept. I'm not sure how this ties into globalism, but I'm sure that many there are many scholars who focus on this relationship. This concept seems to tie into the words of Nipal in Mimic Men when Ralph states that,
"In a city already simplified to individual cells this order is a further simplification. It is rooted in nothing; it links to nothing. We talk of escaping to the simple life. But we do not mean what we say. It is from simplification such as this that we wish to escape, to return to a more elemental complexity."
I love that last line, "elemental complexity"; the complexity that comes with relationships with other human beings not the complexity of computer subroutines. Now don't get me wrong I love technology, but we haven't had computers very long and we clearly do not understand their effect on us. We have colonial and post-colonial literary theories, but is there a technology or post-technology theory? If there is could Lahiri also fit into that category?
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When I think about technology interfering with everyday life and relationships I underestimate what it does to us. For example, I know some people who log onto Facebook ten times a day and are on for hours at a time. This goes the same for video games; I know that we all have those friends who stay up until 4 am playing Halo with people they don't even know half way across the world. Technology is not only taking over our lives, but it also runs our lives. I can't go five minutes without my Blackberry buzzing with new e-mails, text messages, or phone calls coming my way. People live for technology and in situations where technology is not available to us, such as in a power outage like Shoba and Shukumar, we freak out and fall apart. Technology is our main source of entertainment and also our life source. It would be unfortunate if this obsession with technology continued far into the future because it is making us drift apart from one another no matter how much we deny it.
ReplyDelete-maggie sullivan
Lucas--
ReplyDeleteWe're studying the same themes of how technology, particularly the Internet, effect human relationships and cultures in two of my other courses. One theory is that as we rely on the Web to complete mundane tasks of paying bills, transferring funds, researching, etc. we lose out on personal contact with those people we used to meet routinely in business, but gain time to spend with those we choose--family, friends, church and club members. Another theory is that we will always use whatever is available in positive and negative ways (time/energy wastes as well as productivity and philanthropy) to spend our lives the way each individual chooses. We can't blame the technology itself; humans always have free will to use tools for good or evil. It's just our job to do as much good as possible while supporting the restraint of evil--with and without technology, right?
Good discussion, everyone.
ReplyDeleteLucas, if you would like your head to explode: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posthuman :)