Blog #5: The Deeper Meaning

Ross Schonberg

Ms. Gubanich

English

February 26, 2016

Different connections

A writer, named Katharina Schramm, wrote a quote that says “While in the 20st century there were Marie Curie, John F. Kennedy and Neil Armstrong, the hero of generation Y lies somewhere between Gates, Murdoch and Zuckerberg. As the relevance of corporate elites grew, results sometimes came to overshadow the deeper cause, and all too often, our moral compass points towards money. Critically said, we crave myopic success and showers of narcissistic applause. More rocks, less moonlight.” a very inquisitive quote about famous people from the 20th century and 21st century and how we can make a connection between their relevance to each other and Brave New World.

First, all of these people are very significant to society in some way. The first three are from the 20th century and each of them made some type of impact on history. Marie Curie was a very intelligent physicist who helped discover radiation, which lead to making x-rays and other uses of radioactivity much safer. Also, there is another individual that played a part, even though it was sort of small, was John F. Kennedy. He was an important figure during the Cuban Missile Crisis, with being able to make sure that we were kept safe from the communists in Cuba. Lastly, there was Neil Armstrong, who was the first man to walk on the moon. Then in the 21st century, there is Bill Gates, who was a computer programmer and one of the first to create the modern computer (PC computer), created Microsoft, and is now one of the wealthiest men in the world. Next there is Rupert Murdoch, who is an entrepreneur, businessperson, who worked in media and is extremely wealthy. Then there is Mark Zuckerberg, who created the social media website, called Facebook, and is now one of the youngest and wealthiest people in the world.

Both lists of these individuals are different in a similar way. For the first there people even though they were not billionaires, like the second three, but they had made a huge impact during their lifespan. Madam Curie discovered radiation, J.F.K. made sure there was no fighting against Russia, and Neil Armstrong went farther than any man had ever traveled before. During their time, people saw them almost like heroes. For the three people in the 21st century, all of them made a huge impact on technology and how we get information. Without their ideas we would probably still be living like it was the 20th century (probably not, but you get my point), still having to send letters to each other to talk, or still having to go to a library to find out who all of these people are. So in today's world, some people do look up to these men as heroes, being pioneers of their time. It is said in the quote that “we crave myopic success and showers of narcissistic”, which is basically how we don’t care about brains, only how good someone looks. The reason that there is a connection between this and Brave New World  is because we look up to people who did something great and don’t really think about, just like with the people in BNW, who look up to Henry Ford for inventing something.

Also, there is so much more meaning within this quote, like in the line “results sometimes came to overshadow the deeper cause. The author is referring to these people and their achievements, and to us all we see them as are achievements, but to them, they saw it as helping mankind evolve and become smarter. Another line that clearly has a deeper meaning is “our moral compass points straight towards money”. This is an obvious statement that is saying how we have all become so greedy and do everything just so that we can earn some cash. Lastly, to be honest, I’m having a little trouble with this one because it seems to have a much deeper meaning because she wrote “more rocks, less moonlight”. I assume that she was trying to say that nothing is beautiful anymore, it’s all just machines and no art, but if that's the case then I would have to respectfully disagree with that. We live in a world where both rocks (bland, and boring machines) and moonlight (art and beauty) both can be expressed.

In conclusion, there is so much meaning within this text and how it translate to our world and the world of Brave New World. Katharina has a very interesting perspective on this. Overall I would say that the message of this article would be that we should not look up to anyone just for doing one thing, but we do things for ourselves, and not for a certain goal, but for a greater cause.