Sunday, November 1, 2009
The book Cat's Cradle so far seems to hold a lot of Postmodernist views.In by barely beginning the book that postmodernist views are held in this book. For example, just as in the book "postmodernism for beginners", it is said that we are arranged in different interest groups or to say different clicks, cat's cradle holds the same idea. For example this shared idea becomes clear when the author points out,"We bokononists believe that humanity is organized into teams, teams that do God's will without ever discovering what they are doing. such a team is called a Karass by Bokonon..." Therefore it becomes clear that author of cats' cradle also believes that we are put into different groups, or that we in essence choose to be a part of the group we feel more comfortable and accepted by. We are a bunch of individuals packed into teams trying to serve a cause or reach an ultimate goal, but that is if there is one? Moreover in the book postmodernism for beginners it is said that science is really just science for its own sake, and that therefore science does not unravel a universal truth, it is just a part of narratives and gran narratives but there is not one absolute fact that makes everything the truth in science. This idea is further exemplified in the books cat's cradle by the obvious scientific characterization of the main character Felix Hoenniker. He is the constructor of the atomic bomb but " he just wasn't interested in people" and when he is told that "science has now known sin" he simply responds "what is sin"? therefore this all helps to parallel what is being said in the postmodernist view, because here he is being a significant scientific figure, but he is not at all concerned for people and he also seems to not have a clue about morality, he is amoral. Moreover, his lack of concentration on constructing the bomb shows that he really has no interest and is just doing it to do it. therefore science, in this book, is seen as again being done for its own sake not for the better of the people, and it really holds no universal truth to which we can gain. All in all cat's cradle exemplifies several postmodernist views.
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I think your blog was very well written and included a lot of insight that I completely agree with. In fact, I used pretty much the same examples from the book as you did. I think these were probably most noticeable examples of Postmodernism in the text. I liked when you asked the question, “We are a bunch of individuals packed into teams trying to serve a cause or reach an ultimate goal, but that is if there is one?” This is definitely a very postmodernist idea. You were spot on talking about science as pure research and Felix Hoeniker as being amoral. It’s hard to imagine what research like this would really be like. I think in reality this would only cause lazy and unmotivated researchers, at least that’s how I would be. But overall I really enjoyed reading your blog and keep up the good work.
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