Carr- "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

Carr is intrigued by how his and many of his friend's attention spans have shortened with the access to the Internet, mainly Google. Once in his life he could sit and read or write for hours with no issue of concentration, but now he has gotten to a problem. He can not concentrate on much of anything for too long because he is used to being able to just search everything on the Internet. Socrates found a similar situation with the written language. Once that was created no one really had to remember what they knew. People would think they were wise, when really all they needed to do was know how to read. Now the same is happening with the Internet, no one needs to read books or go out and experience things to learn because they can just Google it! People can just skim articles and jump to the next one in seconds. Their minds have been trained to grab important facts and then move on as quickly as possible. Has Google ruined people's want to read or experience things? Google does spread knowledge, just as the written language did, but not without a sacrifice.

The Internet is beneficial in the need of a quick answer but the problem is that now barely anyone can stand to read a full book, listen to a full song and so on. Why do you think the hit songs are getting shorter? Most people can not stand to listen to songs more than 2-3 minutes. This is especially true for people who grew up with access to the Internet. This issue will only be getting worse but there is nothing that can be done since the Internet allows people around teh world to reach information quickly, quickly being a key word. The faster it is, the less we have to work for it, the lazier we become. This begs the question, are the people that grew up using the Internet losing their want to experience real things? Like Whitman said, the best way of learning is experience, but since they can find out everything they need to know on the Internet, what is the point of having to get up, go out and physically experience something. With an increasingly lazier people, it is frightening to think that one day we might generate into the people from Wall-e, fat, lazy people that never have the motivation to get up and read or experience. I am all for the Internet, it is just scary at what it may cause people to turn into.

What will be the next technological endeavor that will transform the way humans accept knowledge?

Whitman- "The Wound-Dresser"

Whitman wrote this poem as he tells children about his experiences with being a wound-dresser for civil war soldiers. He tells them of the hard times because there were so few joyous times. He speaks of the wounded all around the hospital and inside on cots, who he tried to help and felt so bad that he wished he could take their place. He sees so many men die who are forgotten and so many that wish they could die from the pain. He dresses many wounds, not giving up because the men need him. He remembers all the suffering he saw as a wound-dresser and thinks of all the men he saw die.

Whitman is struggling here, with a concept that haunts many. He saw so many forgotten after they died in the war, "like a swift-running river they fade, Pass and are gone they fade... While the world of gain and appearance and mirth goes on, So soon what is over forgotten, and waves wash the imprints off the sand." Life is full of pain and suffering, so what is the point of dealing with it all especially when your whole life will be forgotten. When death is inevitable, why not just die before one reaches the pain? "Come sweet death! be persuaded O beautiful death! In mercy come quickly." He understands that he needs to help these men but struggles with the reason of life when death is so beautiful, freeing oneself of pain and suffering.

Is this poem transcendentalist?

Whitman- "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry"

The narrator is on a ferry, as he looks out on the water and the other passengers he thinks of the people that will take this same journey in the future. He sees himself as being connected with these future people. He tells them about himself, that he is evil but is still just a normal guy. He tells them that everything should continue as it is, nature and man. He thinks that man can learn about his soul and spiritual things by observing the physical or nature.

In this poem Whitman is stating how time is connected by nature for, for the most part, nature does not change. Men in the future will be crossing that same body of water as the narrator did. Nature can connect the people from the past and future. They all experience nature and can learn from it. The spiritual and their soul can all be understood better through experiencing nature. This connects with his transcendentalism thought that man has fallen from its perfect state with nature, but to learn about themselves, they should look to nature. Nature can show what man should be like and the good things in man can relate back to nature. Whitman wants to experience nature so that he can learn more about his soul.

Does Whitman make up these stories or are these things that have happened to him?

Whitman- "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer"

Whitman wrote this poem about a narrator who is listening to an astronomers lecture. The astronomer teaches with proofs, charts, diagrams, figures and such all to help the students understand astrology. Many applauded at his brilliance, yet the narrator felt overwhelmed, sick and tired. All this information thrown at him did not help him learn, it just made him leave. He left to walk by himself and looked up at the perfect stars in awe.

Whitman is demonstrating something about education just as Freire did with the "banking concept." He is showing how a student can't just be told or shown information in a classroom to learn, sometimes he has to get out into nature or emerge himself in the subject. Just looking at information does not ingrain it into his brain like experiencing it does. Freire also had a similar idea, that teachers just give the students information to memorize, not to actually learn or experience. Education sometimes needs charts, proofs, and diagrams but I think that students would be much more prepared for life if they could experience the subjects in their lives, not just look at them.

Was Whitman the narrator?

Emerson- "Experience"

Emerson speaks of experience as having different parts that affect it: Illusion, temperament, surface, and subjectivism. These ideas are intertwined in the poem in the beginning. He writes that understanding experience is confusing. A man's life is an illusion in which his temperament and mood affect his perspective and how he will experience life. Man can not see below the surface and can live an unprofitable life. Emerson states that man is subjective to God and nature.
"Experience" had a solemn tone and was not easy to read. Emerson was trying to explain experience and what contributes to it. It is a complicated subject but overall he still continues in the transcendental thought that man is subjective to nature and God. He thinks that mans experience should lead to observing the things in him that are in relation with God and nature and try to leave everything else behind.
Why did his writing seem so solemn?