Resist the Feed.
Be Violet. Because the more you listen to the Feed, the more you succumb to the concept of letting the mass government take control of who you are. There's a sense of individuality that comes with being a human being, and its a beautiful complexity that is only preserved in the crevices of the human mind. When the Feed takes over, it takes the individuality of a human being and turns him into a mindless consumer.
Think about it like the thought experiment in philosophy "The Happiness Machine." When you step into the machine, all of your fantasies and dreams come true. All feelings of victory, accomplishment, zen, euphoria, all are electronically transmitted into you. You are free to leave the machine at any time, but you return to the world and realize the senses of happiness that you experience are nothing more than a silhouette.
Logically, you should enter the machine. One of the ultimate goals of human kind is to be happy and satisfied with the life you live. However, reasonably, you shouldn't. The false sense of happiness is only artificial, and as a result, it's not the true sense of happiness that you spend your entire life searching for and hoping to find.
This is the same logic with a Feed. There's an individuality to being open and creative with the way you sculpt your personality. It's almost a metaphor to what Violet was doing to resist the Feed in trying to create the ultimate consumer profile. She was trying to turn her personality into a rainbow of colors, representing the human emotion of curiosity and willingness to change.
When you succumb to the Feed, you lose your ability to formulate ideals without any sort of internal influence. When someone starts telling you what you want, and you listen, all of a sudden you don't need to think or make decisions because there's someone out there doing it for you. Thus, human creativity falls short and you're left an empty shell because you have no capacity of listening and forming your own opinion.
So how do you fight the Feed? Don't get a Feed. It's a radical concept, but the only true way of avoiding the Feed completely is to not be exposed to it whatsoever. Because the Feed is so enticing, it's almost a poison, there being so many beautiful features of the device it becomes impossible to avoid. The only true way to form your own opinions and avoid mass corporate influence on your decisions and opinions is to not be exposed to the Feed altogether. Once you become a part of the Feed, the only true way is to think like Violet: ignore it, and keep your mind open. Once the mind conforms, there's no getting out.
Look at what Titus did to Violet. That's why you fight the Feed.
Titus is ignorant and doubtful, that is exactly why he couldn't resist the Feed. But look what resisting the Feed actually did to Violet: she was unable to get it replaced because they could not find her Feed, what she liked, what her interests were. I agree with your thought about the ultimate goal of happiness. Its that "
ReplyDeleteAmerican Dream" everyone thinks exists. But does PURE happiness really exists? Maybe you get that feeling of euphoria or lust from your significant other, or friends, or family, but it never lasts. There's always a factor that brings you back to your initial anxiety. There is always something that will hurt you, no matter how happy you claim to be.
A Feed should be an option, and no one should get a Feed, but look at it this way: if one person gets a Feed, conformity will set in. Then, the rest of us who either don't want it, or refuse to conform will lose out, just like Violet's father, and I don't think many people want to be like her father, in his position, being forced to buy a Feed.
I liked your statement about how the feed takes away a person's individuality and identity. Thats exactly what happened to Titus and his friends. The author's message in writing feed, though, is that in the end the corporations will always win out. This is seen through Violet's struggle to resist the feed.
ReplyDeleteYou're a very argumentative person, and you show that clearly in this. It's nice that you stick your ground and do not let others influence your own beliefs. Though you were saying that the false sense of happiness is not the same as real happiness, and that is true, but wouldn't artificial happiness still be better than unhappiness? You would believe it is real, at least partially, and I feel like that is still better than being unhappy.
ReplyDeleteWhile everything you said above is true and everyone should follow your reasoning, do you think that people have the will power to reject the Feed? I think that people initially succumb to the feed because of the peer pressure. Most of the population has the feed and I just think it would be tough for anyone to not get it in this world.
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