Avatar. The Avengers. Iron Man 3. Transformers: Dark of the Moon. The Dark Knight Rises.
These are five of the top ten all-time highest grossing movies. Their (arguable) inclusion in the Science Fiction canon begs a question of the genre: is it just the spectacle that we shell out to witness, or is there some more primitive itch that these kinds of events scratch?
This blog is dedicated to figuring out how it is that Science Fiction addresses the problem of defining "human."
This is a contradictory reality at it's finest. It is a dystopia and a utopia combined into one. It's a society where people are encouraged to care about nothing, but also care about everything. Let emotion take the wheel and care let hatred and passion consume you, but only momentarily, only in the present, because as soon as it becomes the past it ruins you.
This takes the whole saying "leave the past in the past" to a new level. It asserts that the past is simply a hindrance. It is a reminder that we can never really attain what we set out to do. We will never write the perfect piece of literature, or even write one as good as someone else, we will never fully express ourselves through art forms, and we will never get back those people who have passed on. The past is weighing us down. In a way it kind of makes sense. If we only think of the future there is less limitations. If we are not held back by our doubts, or prior knowledge of the past, our melancholia of past wrongs, what would stop us from pushing forward into the future?
And if people in this society really were to relinquish their control and let the youth take control once they got too old and had too much of a past themselves, your past couldn't effect your future too much in terms of simple enjoyment. If life ends at forty then violence and reckless youth doesn't have too much effect.
But how bleak. To me this isn't a society of the future at all. It's a society of the now. If information isn't passed on from generation to generation, hindrance or not, it can't be built upon. People don't learn they just restart. Unless it's simply pleasure that the author is seeking, in which case that still ultimately ends. So either way the question is: to what future is this manifesto speaking if the idea is to ignore the past?
It's ironic because while they are trying to set up a model for future generations, they're also encouraging them to forge their own way. They expect to be revered though they themselves hate the ideas of those that came before them. Everyone is encouraged to seize power from those who have it until they obtain it.
I really liked reading this. I actually think part of it is because it is so short and I am not a huge reader, but I read the whole thing in interest. I think like the Amazing Stories it was nice because it was just a short little thing to get your mind going, as opposed to a full blown novel like Frankenstein. Part of the reason I liked it I think is because it kept an almost like realness to it throughout. It didn't randomly veer off into talking about aliens taking over the universe with flash Gordon coming in for the big save with his morlock sidekick. I think that I just enjoyed reading something that could more or less actually be true for once, but that's just my opinion in general about reading material, I tend to stick to non fiction a lot. But I did like this.
I found this piece to be far more frustrating than the others we've looked at this semester. I can understand the desire for moving forward instead of focusing too much on the past, but this take seems a little extreme. It couldn't possibly be at all beneficial to black out everything we know about the past in order to move on and move forward from it, for the obvious reason that if we do not know what has been done then we do not know where to go from there. It also seems a bit ridiculous that anyone over forty should be thrown "in the waste paper basket like useless manuscripts!"
I'm not sure I understand why this is considered sci fi, at least in relation to how we have defined it for our class. It doesn't seem like there is a human problem caused by an invention or innovation. It seems as though the innovation he is pushing for is an innovation in a collective way of thinking, or a push for willful ignorance, a refusal to acknowledge the past. While he sees this way of thinking as solution to the problem of a stagnant society, I see it as the catalyst for a regressive society.
God’s honest truth the first time I read this I thought it was satire. It began with some beautiful language, and very interesting imagery, but when we arrive at the “commandments” of the futurists, it just gets out of hand. Though I have many emotional responses to this article, most of which are negative, the most logical response I have may be the one of most value. This is just a hypocritical way of looking at the world. I really enjoy the idea of cemeteries and museums being the same, but only as a metaphor, not as a world view. To say that to look at past art is a waste is one thing. I can accept someone who thinks that art does not have value, though I do not agree. What I cannot accept, however, is the idea that someone thinks art in the past is just failure, and in the same document says that their “Poetry must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.” They are saying that the art they will be making will have such great effect on the world, but all art up until this point is useless. I just don’t see the logic in it. This quote is interesting for another reason as well. Earlier in article 7 there is the idea that struggle is beautiful. This seems to me to be somewhat of a naturalist argument. But then the manifesto speaks of making nature bend to man’s whim. This, combined with the fond images of industrialization create a conflicted picture. Using industrialization to bend to man’s whim seems to suggest an end game of great luxury, one could argue much like the society we exist in now. But this luxury eliminates struggle, and therefore the beauty that they are so fond of. To me, it just doesn’t add up.
At first glance, I was not exactly sure of what was going on. I always struggle without a prompt to at least put my mind in the right place (or era) before reading. However, I am quite fortunate to have a brother whose expertise counters my own (meaning that he has an English degree). Between my own thoughts and his knowledge of this text from his own responses to it, I was able to put together a little something. It appears that this group of futurists is looking to abandon their present society/lifestyle for a life with more depth. I believe the futurists were not satisfied with the current state of art, as they relate Italy to a museum. They sound fed up with the old and in search of a change or for greater feeling. I believe that they sought feeling, good and bad alike, for the sake of breaking out of a lifestyle stuck in the past. I must say though that based on the manifesto, their complete elimination of the past and rigid path toward the future is rather extreme. Either way though, it seems that the futurists are asking to be heard and for a sort of revolution to not waste anymore time in the ways of the past.
So my first response to reading the Futurist Manifesto was WTF am I reading! Perhaps I am thinking too much in a straight forward manor, however the first half of the text before the 11 edicts (?), was almost complete gibberish. What I gathered from it, was that someone went for a drive in their car, they wanted to drive around some cyclists in the street, swerved into a ditch and was helped by some fisherman (?). Somewhere in all of that accidentally swallowing the ditch water reminded the narrator of breast feeding as a child by his “Sudanese nurse”. The 11 edicts refer to the future as this individual would like them. This comprises of War, racecars, revolution, an end to morality and past knowledge, and an increase in business (Sounds like the political Right in America). Next the narrator makes out an interesting similarity between museums and cemeteries which I find amusingly true, and also sets the tone for this piece somewhere in Italy. The last section closes with an outstandingly incomprehensible set of statements which honestly got me pumped up for no reason what so ever (possibly all of the !’s). “Your objections? All right! I know them! Of course! We know just what our beautiful false intelligence affirms: "We are only the sum and the prolongation of our ancestors," it says. Perhaps! All right! What does it matter? But we will not listen! Take care not to repeat those infamous words! Instead, lift up your head! Standing on the world's summit we launch once again our insolent challenge to the stars!” I was almost waiting to read the lines “GURREN LAGANN!” at the end.
I have read this manifesto several times in the past and it is by far one of my favorite pieces to consider. I love the reference to Greek mythology with the birth of the centaur. I love the way that Marinetti writes and how it is so very dramatic and extremely entertaining to read. I feel that this piece goes against everything a traditional manifesto is thought to be; instead of simply (and boringly) stating policies and aims for the future, the elements such as diction and syntax and connotative language are so engaging that I find it very easy to lose myself in the imagery alone. I don’t think I would ever consider this to be traditional science fiction, simply because it does not include some type of alien race or new invention that is foreign to modern life. I do however see how someone could form an argument in favor of this piece; since it is so entertaining in painting so many scenes unfamiliar to everyday life that the reader is able to see in their mind’s eye. Elements like these are very rarely included in a traditional manifesto, and I personally think that more should be written with such enthusiasm. Because it veers so far from traditional manifestos, I agree that in some ways it could be considered sci-fi but not solely through following traditional sci-fi classifications.
Talk about forward-thinking. The author is going about this a bit too harshly but you have to start somewhere. I think he has the right idea but, to completely eschew the past is ridiculous since a lot could be learned from it. In a way, this kind of thinking is what catalyzes science fiction since some of it is set in the future. It ignores the “has beens” of the past and thinks more about the “what ifs” of the future. The future is full of potential and so is science fiction.
I honestly did not understand most of what was going on. The text seemed to change very quickly and without much description. In the beginning it seemed like someone was almost worshiping a car like it was a living machine (robot). But then it sounded like the car transformed into a human like shape (14th ‘paragraph’) even though it sounded like the fisherman were pulling the car out of the water so I got confused if someone was driving the car or if the car was driving itself and then who was dictating the rules to the ‘humans’? Was it the car or was it the futurist driving the car believing himself to this knew mythical being. Then the second half of the story talked about how humans being slave to the past and how we should destroy all museums and cemeteries, which I thought was interesting how the two were compared to one another. I do not agree that we are slaves to the past but I feel we do need to remember the past to be able to move forward as opposed to only thinking towards the future. -Sebrina Thompson
I was so confused when I read this and had no idea what I was reading. I had no idea of what was going on in the beginning leading up to the part where the guy went into the ditch. Then I’m also not sure what went after that. Then after that, I kind of understood the Manifesto part where he talks about how the future should be and how everyone should forget the past and just move on to the future and pretty much start over. I think this would be horrible because we learn from the past and if we forget the past we forget what we have learned. I also like how he related museums to cemeteries. I never thought of them being like that.
I had to reread the intro to kind of grasp of what Marinetti was getting at. It seems that Pride and living in the exact moment is a theme here. What I got most out of this piece was the idea of burning the libraries and museums. Now I don't think that this ought to be executed, but the idea is not terrible. What I'm understanding here is that Marinetti is putting the idea of progress into our minds instead of retrospection. He states "why waste the best part of your strength in a useless admiration of the past, from which you will emerge exhausted, diminished and trampled on?". I think this is cool. We as a society do place a lot of emphasis on the past, which is entirely essential to learning about the future. However, perhaps too much time is spent in the past looking at what people have already done instead of experiencing the present and working to benefit our future lives. He exclaims that war is beauty and it is the aggression that humans live for (more or less). This kind of have me think that Marinetti believes the future will be a lot like the former humans we were where we didn't really have scholastics or care for preservation. as our hunter-gatherer selves we simply survived. and Futurism is kind of like an advanced form of that. in which we survive and conquer others as our ways of stimulating ourselves. as giving ourselves slightly more purpose. purpose that actually makes a difference in the world and gives us challenges to face rather than become slothlike. "Beauty exists only in struggle". I'm going to take that quote to the grave.
Marinetti's “Manifesto” is certainly an uproarious piece. I think it functions interestingly as an example of form matching content. The aggressive, violent nature of the text which flanks the numbered manifesto proper perfectly illustrates the kind of aesthetic achievement which the manifesto outlines. In this way it's certainly a clever and very functional artistic manifesto. It sketches out the aesthetic dimensions it wishes to put forward at the same time it puts them forward. It's quite brilliant and economical despite the dizzying nature of the prose. As far as the political dimensions of it, I think it brings to mind the notion of “masculinity in crisis” with its railing against feminism and praising misogyny. I don't recall who articulated this, but I once read a piece about masculinity being constantly in crisis. Because the category of “male” is created through the abjection of women—an ideology which does not describe objective reality but colors subjective experience of it—it constantly needs to be shoring up its boundaries. The repetition of gender which Judith Butler describes in her theory of gender performativity describes this quite well. Because heterosexual masculinity is always a phantasmic structure which one has to repeatedly perform to render “real”, it's constantly threatened by its own unreality. Thus there's a dimension in the Futurist manifesto which you often see (ex: a modern example is Fight Club) whereby masculinity, which is normative and privileged, is painted as radical by emphasizing its implicit fragility. Thus the Futurists can reify patriarchal masculinity while aping the role of the radical.
This is a contradictory reality at it's finest. It is a dystopia and a utopia combined into one. It's a society where people are encouraged to care about nothing, but also care about everything. Let emotion take the wheel and care let hatred and passion consume you, but only momentarily, only in the present, because as soon as it becomes the past it ruins you.
ReplyDeleteThis takes the whole saying "leave the past in the past" to a new level. It asserts that the past is simply a hindrance. It is a reminder that we can never really attain what we set out to do. We will never write the perfect piece of literature, or even write one as good as someone else, we will never fully express ourselves through art forms, and we will never get back those people who have passed on. The past is weighing us down. In a way it kind of makes sense. If we only think of the future there is less limitations. If we are not held back by our doubts, or prior knowledge of the past, our melancholia of past wrongs, what would stop us from pushing forward into the future?
And if people in this society really were to relinquish their control and let the youth take control once they got too old and had too much of a past themselves, your past couldn't effect your future too much in terms of simple enjoyment. If life ends at forty then violence and reckless youth doesn't have too much effect.
But how bleak. To me this isn't a society of the future at all. It's a society of the now. If information isn't passed on from generation to generation, hindrance or not, it can't be built upon. People don't learn they just restart. Unless it's simply pleasure that the author is seeking, in which case that still ultimately ends. So either way the question is: to what future is this manifesto speaking if the idea is to ignore the past?
It's ironic because while they are trying to set up a model for future generations, they're also encouraging them to forge their own way. They expect to be revered though they themselves hate the ideas of those that came before them. Everyone is encouraged to seize power from those who have it until they obtain it.
From Mike:
ReplyDeleteI really liked reading this. I actually think part of it is because it is so short and I am not a huge reader, but I read the whole thing in interest. I think like the Amazing Stories it was nice because it was just a short little thing to get your mind going, as opposed to a full blown novel like Frankenstein. Part of the reason I liked it I think is because it kept an almost like realness to it throughout. It didn't randomly veer off into talking about aliens taking over the universe with flash Gordon coming in for the big save with his morlock sidekick. I think that I just enjoyed reading something that could more or less actually be true for once, but that's just my opinion in general about reading material, I tend to stick to non fiction a lot. But I did like this.
From Stephanie:
ReplyDeleteI found this piece to be far more frustrating than the others we've looked at this semester. I can understand the desire for moving forward instead of focusing too much on the past, but this take seems a little extreme. It couldn't possibly be at all beneficial to black out everything we know about the past in order to move on and move forward from it, for the obvious reason that if we do not know what has been done then we do not know where to go from there. It also seems a bit ridiculous that anyone over forty should be thrown "in the waste paper basket like useless manuscripts!"
I'm not sure I understand why this is considered sci fi, at least in relation to how we have defined it for our class. It doesn't seem like there is a human problem caused by an invention or innovation. It seems as though the innovation he is pushing for is an innovation in a collective way of thinking, or a push for willful ignorance, a refusal to acknowledge the past. While he sees this way of thinking as solution to the problem of a stagnant society, I see it as the catalyst for a regressive society.
God’s honest truth the first time I read this I thought it was satire. It began with some beautiful language, and very interesting imagery, but when we arrive at the “commandments” of the futurists, it just gets out of hand.
ReplyDeleteThough I have many emotional responses to this article, most of which are negative, the most logical response I have may be the one of most value. This is just a hypocritical way of looking at the world. I really enjoy the idea of cemeteries and museums being the same, but only as a metaphor, not as a world view. To say that to look at past art is a waste is one thing. I can accept someone who thinks that art does not have value, though I do not agree. What I cannot accept, however, is the idea that someone thinks art in the past is just failure, and in the same document says that their “Poetry must be a violent assault on the forces of the unknown, to force them to bow before man.” They are saying that the art they will be making will have such great effect on the world, but all art up until this point is useless. I just don’t see the logic in it.
This quote is interesting for another reason as well. Earlier in article 7 there is the idea that struggle is beautiful. This seems to me to be somewhat of a naturalist argument. But then the manifesto speaks of making nature bend to man’s whim. This, combined with the fond images of industrialization create a conflicted picture. Using industrialization to bend to man’s whim seems to suggest an end game of great luxury, one could argue much like the society we exist in now. But this luxury eliminates struggle, and therefore the beauty that they are so fond of. To me, it just doesn’t add up.
At first glance, I was not exactly sure of what was going on. I always struggle without a prompt to at least put my mind in the right place (or era) before reading. However, I am quite fortunate to have a brother whose expertise counters my own (meaning that he has an English degree). Between my own thoughts and his knowledge of this text from his own responses to it, I was able to put together a little something. It appears that this group of futurists is looking to abandon their present society/lifestyle for a life with more depth. I believe the futurists were not satisfied with the current state of art, as they relate Italy to a museum. They sound fed up with the old and in search of a change or for greater feeling. I believe that they sought feeling, good and bad alike, for the sake of breaking out of a lifestyle stuck in the past. I must say though that based on the manifesto, their complete elimination of the past and rigid path toward the future is rather extreme. Either way though, it seems that the futurists are asking to be heard and for a sort of revolution to not waste anymore time in the ways of the past.
ReplyDeleteSo my first response to reading the Futurist Manifesto was WTF am I reading! Perhaps I am thinking too much in a straight forward manor, however the first half of the text before the 11 edicts (?), was almost complete gibberish. What I gathered from it, was that someone went for a drive in their car, they wanted to drive around some cyclists in the street, swerved into a ditch and was helped by some fisherman (?). Somewhere in all of that accidentally swallowing the ditch water reminded the narrator of breast feeding as a child by his “Sudanese nurse”.
ReplyDeleteThe 11 edicts refer to the future as this individual would like them. This comprises of War, racecars, revolution, an end to morality and past knowledge, and an increase in business (Sounds like the political Right in America).
Next the narrator makes out an interesting similarity between museums and cemeteries which I find amusingly true, and also sets the tone for this piece somewhere in Italy. The last section closes with an outstandingly incomprehensible set of statements which honestly got me pumped up for no reason what so ever (possibly all of the !’s).
“Your objections? All right! I know them! Of course! We know just what our beautiful false intelligence affirms: "We are only the sum and the prolongation of our ancestors," it says. Perhaps! All right! What does it matter? But we will not listen! Take care not to repeat those infamous words! Instead, lift up your head! Standing on the world's summit we launch once again our insolent challenge to the stars!”
I was almost waiting to read the lines “GURREN LAGANN!” at the end.
I have read this manifesto several times in the past and it is by far one of my favorite pieces to consider. I love the reference to Greek mythology with the birth of the centaur. I love the way that Marinetti writes and how it is so very dramatic and extremely entertaining to read. I feel that this piece goes against everything a traditional manifesto is thought to be; instead of simply (and boringly) stating policies and aims for the future, the elements such as diction and syntax and connotative language are so engaging that I find it very easy to lose myself in the imagery alone. I don’t think I would ever consider this to be traditional science fiction, simply because it does not include some type of alien race or new invention that is foreign to modern life. I do however see how someone could form an argument in favor of this piece; since it is so entertaining in painting so many scenes unfamiliar to everyday life that the reader is able to see in their mind’s eye. Elements like these are very rarely included in a traditional manifesto, and I personally think that more should be written with such enthusiasm. Because it veers so far from traditional manifestos, I agree that in some ways it could be considered sci-fi but not solely through following traditional sci-fi classifications.
ReplyDeleteTalk about forward-thinking. The author is going about this a bit too harshly but you have to start somewhere. I think he has the right idea but, to completely eschew the past is ridiculous since a lot could be learned from it. In a way, this kind of thinking is what catalyzes science fiction since some of it is set in the future. It ignores the “has beens” of the past and thinks more about the “what ifs” of the future. The future is full of potential and so is science fiction.
ReplyDeleteI honestly did not understand most of what was going on. The text seemed to change very quickly and without much description. In the beginning it seemed like someone was almost worshiping a car like it was a living machine (robot). But then it sounded like the car transformed into a human like shape (14th ‘paragraph’) even though it sounded like the fisherman were pulling the car out of the water so I got confused if someone was driving the car or if the car was driving itself and then who was dictating the rules to the ‘humans’? Was it the car or was it the futurist driving the car believing himself to this knew mythical being.
ReplyDeleteThen the second half of the story talked about how humans being slave to the past and how we should destroy all museums and cemeteries, which I thought was interesting how the two were compared to one another. I do not agree that we are slaves to the past but I feel we do need to remember the past to be able to move forward as opposed to only thinking towards the future.
-Sebrina Thompson
I was so confused when I read this and had no idea what I was reading. I had no idea of what was going on in the beginning leading up to the part where the guy went into the ditch. Then I’m also not sure what went after that. Then after that, I kind of understood the Manifesto part where he talks about how the future should be and how everyone should forget the past and just move on to the future and pretty much start over. I think this would be horrible because we learn from the past and if we forget the past we forget what we have learned. I also like how he related museums to cemeteries. I never thought of them being like that.
ReplyDeleteI had to reread the intro to kind of grasp of what Marinetti was getting at. It seems that Pride and living in the exact moment is a theme here.
ReplyDeleteWhat I got most out of this piece was the idea of burning the libraries and museums.
Now I don't think that this ought to be executed, but the idea is not terrible. What I'm understanding here is that Marinetti is putting the idea of progress into our minds instead of retrospection. He states "why waste the best part of your strength in a useless admiration of the past, from which you will emerge exhausted, diminished and trampled on?". I think this is cool. We as a society do place a lot of emphasis on the past, which is entirely essential to learning about the future. However, perhaps too much time is spent in the past looking at what people have already done instead of experiencing the present and working to benefit our future lives. He exclaims that war is beauty and it is the aggression that humans live for (more or less). This kind of have me think that Marinetti believes the future will be a lot like the former humans we were where we didn't really have scholastics or care for preservation. as our hunter-gatherer selves we simply survived. and Futurism is kind of like an advanced form of that. in which we survive and conquer others as our ways of stimulating ourselves. as giving ourselves slightly more purpose. purpose that actually makes a difference in the world and gives us challenges to face rather than become slothlike. "Beauty exists only in struggle". I'm going to take that quote to the grave.
Marinetti's “Manifesto” is certainly an uproarious piece. I think it functions interestingly as an example of form matching content. The aggressive, violent nature of the text which flanks the numbered manifesto proper perfectly illustrates the kind of aesthetic achievement which the manifesto outlines. In this way it's certainly a clever and very functional artistic manifesto. It sketches out the aesthetic dimensions it wishes to put forward at the same time it puts them forward. It's quite brilliant and economical despite the dizzying nature of the prose. As far as the political dimensions of it, I think it brings to mind the notion of “masculinity in crisis” with its railing against feminism and praising misogyny. I don't recall who articulated this, but I once read a piece about masculinity being constantly in crisis. Because the category of “male” is created through the abjection of women—an ideology which does not describe objective reality but colors subjective experience of it—it constantly needs to be shoring up its boundaries. The repetition of gender which Judith Butler describes in her theory of gender performativity describes this quite well. Because heterosexual masculinity is always a phantasmic structure which one has to repeatedly perform to render “real”, it's constantly threatened by its own unreality. Thus there's a dimension in the Futurist manifesto which you often see (ex: a modern example is Fight Club) whereby masculinity, which is normative and privileged, is painted as radical by emphasizing its implicit fragility. Thus the Futurists can reify patriarchal masculinity while aping the role of the radical.
ReplyDelete