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mmcnealyHere's a link to an article that's part of this week's class assignment for my Library science program.
http://www.lita.org/Content/NavigationMenu/LITA/LITA_Publications4/ITAL__Information_Technology_and_Libraries/2001_Gorman.htm
This passage from it jumped out at me in thinking about what I do as a re-enactor, because that is what I think of my historical clothing endevors. Its an intersting frame of mind to wrap your brain around, the author is talking about 1890-1901, but it could just as easily apply to the 1500's with the massive changes that happened in that century.
"We live in the single, shining moment of "now," but our lives are overwhelmingly made up of the past. We must understand that past and learn from it, if we are to understand ourselves, our society, and, in doing so, make progress. The key to understanding the past is the knowledge that people then did not live in the past-they lived in the present, just a different present from ours. The present we are living in will be the past sooner than we wish. What we perceive as its uniqueness will come to be seen as just a part of the past as viewed from the point of a future present that will, in turn, see itself as unique. People in history did not wear quaintly old-fashioned clothes-they wore modern clothes. They did not see themselves as comparing unfavorably with the people of the future, they compared themselves and their lives favorably with the people of their past. In the context of our area of interest, it is particularly interesting to note that people in history did not see themselves as technologically primitive. On the contrary, they saw themselves as they were-at the leading edge of technology in a time of unprecedented change."
These other passage also just jumped out at me, talking about information overload and peoples reactions to it.
"Stress is a hallmark of the "anger epidemic," and the major contributing factors are time and technology, experts say. There is not enough of the first, and there is strong fallout from the second. "Cell 'phones, pagers, and high-tech devices allow us to be interrupted anywhere, at any time," [C. Leslie] Charles says, "this constant accessibility, and compulsive use of technology, fragments of what little time we do have, adding to our sense of urgency, emergency, and overload."13
This is our world. It is not a world, in my view, in which the nature of technological change is different, but it is one in which we are, willy-nilly, made conscious of technology to the point at which many people feel that their lives are mastered by technology rather than enhanced by it. It is as though the Cubists were not only great artists but also prophets. We live fractured, many-faceted, discordant lives with a lot of energy devoted to the hopeless task of fitting the pieces of a surrealist jigsaw puzzle together. The music of our lives is atonal, free-form jazz and hip-hop, punctuated with the jagged noise of fax machines, beepers, cell phones, and the cacophony of traffic and jet planes. The center of most lives ceased to hold many years ago and these disarticulated lives seek more and more diversion to deaden the sense of disintegration. The growth in New Age religions is one side of a coin of which the obverse is the flight into fundamentalism. Both represent a search for meaning in a world that is too difficult and complex for most. No wonder self-help books are so popular, as are all the pronouncements of futurists-the seers and sages of our day."
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http://www.lita.org/Content/NavigationMenu/LITA/LITA_Publications4/ITAL__Information_Technology_and_Libraries/2001_Gorman.htm
This passage from it jumped out at me in thinking about what I do as a re-enactor, because that is what I think of my historical clothing endevors. Its an intersting frame of mind to wrap your brain around, the author is talking about 1890-1901, but it could just as easily apply to the 1500's with the massive changes that happened in that century.
"We live in the single, shining moment of "now," but our lives are overwhelmingly made up of the past. We must understand that past and learn from it, if we are to understand ourselves, our society, and, in doing so, make progress. The key to understanding the past is the knowledge that people then did not live in the past-they lived in the present, just a different present from ours. The present we are living in will be the past sooner than we wish. What we perceive as its uniqueness will come to be seen as just a part of the past as viewed from the point of a future present that will, in turn, see itself as unique. People in history did not wear quaintly old-fashioned clothes-they wore modern clothes. They did not see themselves as comparing unfavorably with the people of the future, they compared themselves and their lives favorably with the people of their past. In the context of our area of interest, it is particularly interesting to note that people in history did not see themselves as technologically primitive. On the contrary, they saw themselves as they were-at the leading edge of technology in a time of unprecedented change."
These other passage also just jumped out at me, talking about information overload and peoples reactions to it.
"Stress is a hallmark of the "anger epidemic," and the major contributing factors are time and technology, experts say. There is not enough of the first, and there is strong fallout from the second. "Cell 'phones, pagers, and high-tech devices allow us to be interrupted anywhere, at any time," [C. Leslie] Charles says, "this constant accessibility, and compulsive use of technology, fragments of what little time we do have, adding to our sense of urgency, emergency, and overload."13
This is our world. It is not a world, in my view, in which the nature of technological change is different, but it is one in which we are, willy-nilly, made conscious of technology to the point at which many people feel that their lives are mastered by technology rather than enhanced by it. It is as though the Cubists were not only great artists but also prophets. We live fractured, many-faceted, discordant lives with a lot of energy devoted to the hopeless task of fitting the pieces of a surrealist jigsaw puzzle together. The music of our lives is atonal, free-form jazz and hip-hop, punctuated with the jagged noise of fax machines, beepers, cell phones, and the cacophony of traffic and jet planes. The center of most lives ceased to hold many years ago and these disarticulated lives seek more and more diversion to deaden the sense of disintegration. The growth in New Age religions is one side of a coin of which the obverse is the flight into fundamentalism. Both represent a search for meaning in a world that is too difficult and complex for most. No wonder self-help books are so popular, as are all the pronouncements of futurists-the seers and sages of our day."
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-27 03:24 pm (UTC)Another idea that you might find interesting, although not directly related to any of your quotes above, is the idea that being happy all the time, actively enjoying your life and making lifestyle choices that would promote your own happiness is quite a modern idea. In the past there were more important reasons for making decisions. I found that quite hard to get my head around, especially as the modern world is geared to a completely different series of values.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-27 04:38 pm (UTC)Actually this isn't such a hard idea for me to understand, since I have pretty much never lived like this.
Personal happiness has come in second to what makes the family/work/spouse happy and the most sense.
IMHO, People who just live for their own happiness, and nobody elses, seem to be to be so selfish and self-centered and oblivious to the greater good of the family and society. It takes a commitment to the family as a whole to keep things going. Doesn't mean you should be a door mat though.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-29 07:04 am (UTC)I agree about not being a doormat, but you (or perhaps, *I*) could argue that people who are doing"what makes the family/work/spouse happy" *are* promoting their own personal happiness - if making those otehrs happy is what makes them happy.
For example, I'm selfish. I get real buzz from the way people react when I put them into a costume that makes them look and feel really great. So, therefore, I'm happy to spend a lot of the time when I could be working on costumes for myself working on costumes for other people instead.