On March 5, 2018, our HIST 390 class discussed the strangeness surrounding the musical genre known as country music.  Relating back to the previous discussion that we had, due to the constant dangers and lack of work due to the Great Depression, a large influx of both white and black U.S. citizens made the trip from the rural South to the cities of the North, but not without eventually realizing that they, in fact, missed the lives that they had left behind and ultimately felt homesick.  This was where another case of musical displacement reared its strange and perplexing head.  After all, if record labels could sell what they marketed as black, authentic music to the British, who would then in turn take inspiration from it and sell their own music based on that back to white people in America, then why couldn’t record labels be able to find a way to take advantage and profit off of the sudden longing felt by both whites and blacks to return to the good old country life?  And that is exactly what they did.  This was the birth of country music, a genre of music that record labels used to get rich quick off of selling an idealized, romanticized, and stereotypical version of southern life to people who had just recently left it, and for southerners now working in military industrial complexes and most likely working various factory jobs, this was welcomed with open arms.  Jimmie Rodgers was the first of many “country music stars” to rise from this particular period, and he wouldn’t be the last, nor would the practices done during this era be thrown away and forgotten so easily.  For example, at this point in time, Hawaiian steal guitars had slowly become commonplace within country music, alongside fiddles and violins as it was believed that these were considered the ultimate symbols of United States wholesomeness that country music couldn’t be without.  And to a certain extent, that was true.  With all of these factors and elements to fall back on, acts such as Buck Owens and the Buckaroos would become the first and only country act to book a performance at Carnegie Hall in 1963.  Later on, Syd Nathan, a Jewish immigrant in Cincinnati, a major industrial city with black and white migrants, opened Key Records, which gave rise to Cowboy Copas, who sang his first hit record, “Filipino Baby” in 1946.  This would later pave way for acts such as Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, one of the first rock and roll acts of the 1950s, bluegrass music, and many other musical contributions to the world of music in general.  It seemed like no matter how segregated politics was for the United States in the end, there always seems to be holes in the wall where other peoples’ cultures would seep through and integrate into.

While discussing the strange history and impact country music had on society and the music industry as a whole, a topic that was brought up was what exactly did country music stand for?  It was a daunting question to say the least.  For starters, country music’s political stance seemed to be complicated, and it just seems to get messier and messier from there.  Cowboy Copas’ song, “Filipino Baby”, when listened to, can seem downright sexist, as Copas describes the girl in the song in great physical detail, arguably reducing her to nothing but body parts and fetishizing women of color in a way that, back in the day, a black person couldn’t possibly sing about a white, blond girl.  Was this what country music was?  Sexism, machoism, the stereotypical male and American way?  Perhaps, but here was the counter argument: the song had a verse that informed the listener that the singer married this “Filipino baby” and loved her and was happy with her.  That alone actually sounds innocent enough.  So which was it?  Was country music degrading or was it simply simple and pure emotions that could unfortunately be misinterpreted in the wrong way?  To offset this, another country artist, Merle Haggard, had a song titled, “Irma Jackson” which basically had the same exact message “Filipino Baby” had but avoided all of the negative trappings and actually added a little bit of social commentary on the side.  In the end, the class agreed to agree to disagree about country music’s true meaning, as there was ample evidence for both sides.  For me personally, I’d like to think that country music is innocent enough.  As I have said before in previous writings, I doubt anyone cares enough to go out of their way to hate on somebody or degrade someone else’s people, so chances are that these country songs are simply pure and simple thoughts, emotions, and ideas that were stretched to fit a whole song and simply can be interpreted the wrong way because of it.  While I can certainly believe that music labels were attempting to cash in on vulnerable feelings, I doubt people actually wrote country songs in an attempt to send subliminal hateful and detrimental messages to the populace (and if that’s what ended up happening, I am more than willing to believe that it was just due to a crazy coincidence and an irresponsible populace).

On February 28, 2018, our HIST 390 class discussed the strange sense of segregation and racism within American history and how it affected the music industry.  At this point in the class, we talked about the strange and sudden appearance of lynching and the just as strange, if not stranger, ideas of discrimination and racism throughout the music industry that coincided with them.  The act of lynching was particularly strange in the sense that, objectively, they were horrible events, and yet, for some reason or another, no one who attended said lynching seemed to fit the expected mold one would expect of those who would attend such events.  And yes, these were events.  They were advertised, they were planned beforehand, and they often drew a large audience of well-dressed and respectable people every time.  A lynching could even be turned into a postcard back then!  It’s actually somewhat disturbing how casually everyone who would spectate such an event could react to it.  What makes this behavior even stranger was that minstrel shows were happening at around the same time, so the people who were attending the lynching, which the victims of were mostly black (though white people could get lynched too), could also be fans of minstrel shows!  How strange that they can go from enjoying a show that could very easily have black people in black face in it to watching intently a (most likely) black person being executed publicly.  It is because of this strange and dangerous behavior that many blacks fled to the north, but then immediately faced a strange new problem that they never thought that they would ever be faced with.  They were homesick.  They had fled the south to survive and to have a better life, but considering the fact that they had, for better or for worse, grown up in the south and were more used to the south’s countryside than the north’s bustling city life, it created an unexpected feeling of homesickness and inner conflict within them.  They missed the country fields, country foods, and the country atmosphere, and as safe as they were in the north, they couldn’t help but not feel at home there.  In order to cash in on this feeling, record labels solely meant to cash in on this feeling were made, producing a fair amount of new, black musicians and performers, but who were sadly forced and marketed into stereotypical images or caricatures of what white people thought black people were back then or were forced to simply take advantage of the feelings of black homesickness and simply recorded music that would make blacks feel like they were back at home.  An example of this was Muddy Waters, who was simply asked for his music to be recorded by Alan Lomax in an attempt to preserve a little bit of black culture and was forced to sit on a rocking chair with a guitar in hand on his front porch as if he were a low and humble country man, even if he really wasn’t.  His later career as a musician eventually forced him to just go with and find success with that image.

History has various instances where one looks back at it and simply can’t believe what they are reading or hearing.  In a similar vein with how apparent Christian slave owners could beat and abuse their slaves like the Egyptians did to the Israelites and still firmly believe that they were in the right, the fact that minstrel shows, the act of lynching, and pandering to black music listeners were all happening at the same time just screams, “What could these people possibly be thinking?!”  It’s not even the fact that these events are so evil, horrible, and monstrous that you wonder how compliance over such actions were even allowed.  No, the biggest and most objective question mark about all of this is how people could enjoy minstrel shows while still being relatively nonchalant about the lynching of black people and while still trying to pander to black people through music all at the same time.  They were okay and relatively peaceful with one, but were perfectly willing to sit back and let someone die in another?  And despite their animosity, they still also tried to pander to them as well?  What sense does this make?  Say what you will about different times, but you would at least expect a little bit more consistency in their actions.  Then again, humans are often inconsistent and hypocritical, so I guess this is just par for the course.  That being said, I had seriously given humanity a little bit more credit than this.  Sure, liking minstrel shows and then beginning to lynch black people would still be horrible and dumbfounding, but at least it would still be one event preceding that of the other.  But no, it was minstrel shows, lynchings, and musical pandering all happening at the same time!  In the end, this information can only leave me more baffled than angry.

On February 26, 2018, our HIST 390 class discussed one of the biggest contributions the United States introduced to the musical world: the concept of a displaced beat.  Basically, in a basic 1, 2, 3, and 4 beat, the only ones that would have music over them would be 1, 3, and 4 (this could easily be any other combination as well).  It was a hit, and by the 20^th century, most of the music industry and independent performers were taking advantage of this idea, Louis Armstrong being one of many examples.  It became so big that the concept of displaced beats integrated itself into many genres of music, some less obvious than others, including hip hop and jazz.  Think about that.  Two seemingly different genres of music are actually connected by a single concept and idea.  And that’s not all.  Swing, go-go, and rock music are also connected to the idea of displaced beats.  And the connections between different types of music don’t stop there.  Because so many types of music take from the same idea, they can actually go even further and draw even more inspiration from each other as a result, and because they are already connected, the transition is actually more seamless than one might expect.  Pop songs nowadays can have a reggaeton beat to them!  It seems that as long as you can displace one of the beats, you can make a song unique and marketable, which is probably why so many genres of music base their songs on this concept.

It doesn’t surprise me that one concept amidst the music world has been able to influence music as much as displacing beats has.  When you look throughout history, you find that many things are based on previous ideas and are either taken in a different direction, followed faithfully, or improved upon so that the apparent flaws are no longer a problem for it.  Everything is connected to something else, whether the person creating the new thing realizes it or not.  There really are no truly “new” ideas anymore, just slight changes and tweaks on old ones.  That doesn’t mean that new creations can’t be good, it’s just that they need to realize that they are already a small part of something much bigger and out of their control and that they have to work both harder and smarter to step out of that particular shadow.  Every decision matters, even the type of genre, despite all genres already sort of being connected anyway.  We live in a world where skinny, sloppily dressed white guys can sing the exact same song a big, black, elegantly dressed woman can sing despite changing the music up just a bit to fit a different genre, so the least a music creator can do is make their first song (before all of the covers come in) as distinct and definitive sounding as possible.  Otherwise, a cover could possibly replace their spot in the hearts of the listeners.

On February 21, 2018, our HIST 390 class discussed the strange phenomenon of cultural and racial segregation that plagued the United States.  At the same time minstrel shows became popular (and even possibly before that), American politics and attitudes had become viciously segregated while American music had been hybridized.  It had been so easy for music of different cultures and different types of races to band together and integrate with one another, so why couldn’t American politics do it?  Was it possible that political and legal culture were actively trying to keep away from mixing or integrating?  A little bit of yes and a little bit of no.  The fact of the matter was that race and culture made people different from one another, and people, via basic human nature, simply like to categorize everything in their lives.  And why wouldn’t anyone?  It’s certainly easier than thinking and keeping track of everything individually.  The boundaries of these categories are arbitrary, making things even more complicated and divisive.  Everyone wants equality, they just can’t agree on what equality is or what the steps are necessary for said equality are, and in a time like this, feeling of segregation had become almost natural and accepted.  People back then had to consciously think in order to go against segregation, it wasn’t a natural or impulsive thought.  It was so bad that it makes one wonder if people truly were against racism or not.  After all, if people were honestly against it, then there wouldn’t be calls to action to combat it, right?  If anything, people sort of rely on it.  After all, there are very few real performers who don’t use politics or important social issues to express their own thoughts and opinions on the subject and gain an audience based on those opinions, the same can be said for politicians and social activists.  These people would lose a significant amount of their jobs if all of the political and racial divides just happened to disappear one day.  While steps towards fighting such racial and political differences have been made throughout the history of the United States (one such example being the case of Loving v. Virginia), the sad fact is that mental segregation is a part of our lives, whether we wish to acknowledge it or not.

For me personally, I’d say that segregation has always been a part of human history, not just in that of the United States.  We used to have tribes and tribes would simply fight one another, whether it be a moral argument, conquering the other one, or fighting over resources, there has always been an “us vs. them” mentality.  I’d actually even go as far as to say that racism doesn’t even really exist, or, at the very least, it’s just simply a small part of tribalism.  I’ve always found the idea of racism to be too simple, silly, and petty for it to truly be a thing, with the whole, “My race is better than your race” and all that.  I’ve never looked at another person of another race and think, “Man, I am so much better than that guy,” and if I were to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, I would have to assume that, unless there is evidence to the contrary, that everyone else thinks more or less the same way.  Usually when people hate or treat someone else differently, it’s due to personal problems or reasons or it’s based on what they or people just like them have done.  No one thinks, “I hate black people for the sole purpose of them being black” or, “I hate black people because they haven’t done as much as my race.”  Heck, I doubt anyone cares enough about that to really keep score.  And even with the latter of the two, no one is going to make accomplishments up.  They’re going to list actual accomplishments.  That’s pride.  That’s being proud of being part of a group.  Being proud of your “tribe”.  The U.S. being comprised of multiple “tribes” whether it be liberals, democrats, conservatives, republicans, white, black, Asian, Christian, Muslim, pro-life, pro-choice, sports teams, musical preference etc. is, what I think, the true reason for why the U.S. population can be so segregated all the time.  Everyone’s a part of thousands upon thousands of tribes and that constantly makes everyone opinionated and divisive about everything.  In order for feelings of segregation to disappear, or at least go down, we all have to agree to be part of one “tribe”.  We all have to agree on one end goal or else we’re all just going to argue about everything for the sake of arguing about everything to bring honor to our own “tribes”.  In order for us to be united, both politically and personally, we all have to agree on at least one goal, or else we’re never going to get anywhere.

On February 20, 2018, our HIST 390 continued to talk about the various influences that African culture had on Western music, more specifically this time, minstrel shows and how they may affect the world (or, at the very least, the world of music) today.  To put it simply, minstrel shows were America’s contribution to music as a whole.  Minstrel shows were basically an American form of entertainment in which the infamous concept of black face had its start.  They were shows in which white people would dress up in the attempt to imitate black people, performing skits, playing characters, playing music, dance, etc.  Many songs back in this time were specifically made for minstrel shows, some of them even being popular enough to last throughout the ages (thought admittedly had to be changed to match the sensibilities and tastes of the time), and, for better or for worse, greatly influenced the entertainment industry and were quite common.  To provide a more specific example, the state song of Texas used to be a song sung by white people in black face about leaving mixed colored women behind.  Jim Crow was even originally a character within a minstrel show (his name would later be used for naming the Jim Crow Laws).  That being said, African Americans were eventually able to turn it all around by having lots of actual African Americans perform at minstrel shows themselves.  In a way, they were living out their own degradation, owning it in a way that made it no longer as offensive as minstrel shows originally had made them before.  Eventually, a play called, “Darktown is Out Tonight” was written with every role to be played by black people by Paul Laurence Dunbar, who himself was a black writer.  What made this turnaround even more surreal was that these black performers were still making use of black face, putting on makeup that would darken their skin even more and emphasize their lips, just like how white performers had previous done before.  One could argue that this adds to the humor of the shows, as the uncomfortable feeling that comes with the practice helped to define the minstrel show’s own comedy (as all good comedy is usually somewhat queasy and controversial to begin with) while others could argue that since they were already black people under all of that makeup, it couldn’t possibly still be considered black face anymore.

One of the bigger topics brought up within the class was whether minstrel shows were still technically a component of the entertainment industry today.  As black face has obviously become taboo in today’s day and age, as the professor pointed out, black performers and artists seem to sell and advertise themselves around their “blackness” quite a bit.  Consider many black rappers today.  Many rappers seem to fit to a T or play or dress up as the black stereotypical rapper, which brings up the question of whether they really are who they portray themselves to be or if their bosses force them to or if they choose to take up the personas in an attempt to get an audience.  Is it racism on society’s part?  Did society force these black rappers to take up the persona or else face the less guaranteed uphill climb of trying to be a rapper who wasn’t the usual black rapper stereotype?  Was this the fault of the rappers themselves for agreeing to take up the role in the first place?  After all, the stereotype would not be so prevalent if black performers and rappers would just put their foot down and refuse to perpetuate the stereotype in the first place.  Is this even a bad thing to begin with?  With so many musical performers nowadays (some of them not even needing to sign with major record labels and could easily make a decent living being independent or building their career slowly on the internet), would using your “blackness” to your advantage to help distinguish yourself from the rest really be so bad?  Nowadays, with many singers and rappers simply being hired for their singing and rapping talents and looks without too much consideration for their personalities (if they have an interesting one in the first place), would playing up who you are, whether it be a stereotype created by society or not, or a possibly offensive character really be detrimental in the long run?  There really does seem to be an argument between morals and practicality here.  Personally, I’m more for the practicality side than the moral side.  While the music industry is no doubt rife with controversy and what the media expose as “terrible” people, I’d rather have that over bland singers singing bland and similar sounding songs, with nothing really distinguishing one artist from the other.  Back in the day, even without the controversies surrounding them, Michael Jackson, Freddie Mercury, and Prince had so much more charisma and personality than performers like Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran, and Drake.  I’ll even give credit where credit is due: whether you like their music or not, at least Katy Perry, Beyonce, Adele, and Psy have definable personalities (being that they are the shallow, cutesy party girl, confidence personified, classy lady, and goofy guy).  If the singers or record labels were creative with the music they were producing and writing, then perhaps I would be less inclined to choose this particular side, but with a majority of songs being thoughtless dribble and the voices behind them (while admittedly talented, God-given gifts) not being distinct enough or charismatic enough to really latch onto the artist that way, I say bring on the terrible stereotypes and terrible people!  At least we’ll have something to talk about then.

On February 19^th, 2018, our HIST 390 class discussed the strange story behind American music and the different perceptions of music worldwide.  Basically speaking, American music distinguishes itself due to the African influences, as once Africans became more integrated into American society and culture, their traditions and culture slowly started seeping into everyday Americans’.  How music is structured and how we, as listeners, clap to the beat were the examples in which we talked about and focused on that day.  To put it simply, Europeans have had a culture where they clap to music at the first and third beats (1 and 3) while Africans have had a history of clapping at the second and forth beats (2 and 4).  Apparently, different people with different cultures grow up in cultures that clap to different beats.  This is made more evident whenever a musician who has lived their entire lives clapping to one type of beat performs in another country that claps to a different one.  While this cultural discrepancy can easily be fixed by quickly adding one extra beat into the song, thus meeting the audience’s mismatched rhythm and ensuring the sanity and consistency of the performers, the irritation of the musicians and singers will likely be evident by the small, but significant and annoying, problem.  For example, a musician, whether he is black or white, coming from New Orleans, which is a city deep and proud of their African culture and heritage, may perform in a venue in Europe, Europe being a population known for being mostly white, and will immediately become bothered when the Europeans clap to a different beat that he or she is not particularly used to.  This isn’t because white people are incapable of keeping a beat, it’s because they were born in a culture where they were taught to clap at different intervals than other countries and cultures do.  Fortunately, when African culture mixed itself into European and Western culture, they were able to mix their cultural beliefs into Western music as well, and with the wide-spread influence Western music has on the rest of the world, the disconnect when it comes to clapping to a song’s beat may have become less common.

This is one of those things that you never realize, but once it is pointed out to you, can’t exactly stop yourself from noticing ever again.  It’s a very subtle aspect of life that most people will never really know or question, but when you really think about it, has always been a part of our lives, no matter how much some will probably wish to deny it.  I’ve taken piano lessons and took a class in choir back when I was in middle school, and all this time, I just thought that clapping our hands to the beat was simply how it was supposed to be done, that when someone clapped their hands to a different rhythm, they were simply doing it wrong and the more musically inclined or learned had to teach them how to do it correctly.  Who could’ve possibly known that even the “right” beats could’ve easily been “wrong” once upon a time?  How crazy would it be to take a time machine and go back in time simply to change the way people clapped?  It would have a wide-spread effect, and unlike changing something like, say, the causation of World War II, the effects would be both widespread and subtle.  I would probably grin ear-to-ear with a stupid smile on my face every time I would get someone in this new timeline to clap to the beat of the music and knowing that the way that they were clapping was the way I had changed it to be and no one would be the wiser.  What a wonderfully petty, yet power-hungry way to use time traveling technology!  I may actually consider doing this if the ability to travel through time ever actually became a thing.

On February 14, 2018, our HIST 390 class discussed the birth of the Internet and how it changed the world upon its conception.  Looking back, World War II really changed things.  The scale of the American Industrial Revolution was high and the resulting “Cold War” between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. made people fearful of the future, as the destruction of the world had suddenly become a very real possibility.  It became so serious that a huge part of U.S. research went into targeting, which means that they spent a lot of time and resources on how to properly aim bombs, shells, rockets, etc.  At first, the controls were via mechanical analogue, but over time, it was replaced by electric computers and vacuum tubes.  This would be one of the first instances of ever using the Internet, and it wouldn’t be the last.  While the Internet was, at first, limited to DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) it later branched out into ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency NETwork), which would eventually be the very basis for the Internet.  As the full name of the ARPANET may suggest, the Internet was originally what researchers and intellectuals had hoped would be a platform for information sharing, basically for it to be a way for people to share information and discoveries without any “sinister” or “objective-driven” governments and organizations to get in the way.  It was their hope that, with the formation of the Internet, information would be more free, democratic, and open.  Unfortunately, the Internet presented said information in a format that would confuse even the smartest and most intellectual among them.  The Internet would introduce to many people a system that wasn’t linear, but was rather multiple choice in its execution due to the systems being reliant on punch cards.  It would appear that before the Internet became the hub of information sharing that intellectuals had hoped it would be, everyone was going to have to go through a bit of a learning curve first.

To better illustrate the multiple choice aspect of the Internet that confused so many people at the time, our professor showed the class a website that he created himself.  This website, he explained, had greatly confused so many people before because it was not as straightforward in its directions as people were used to at the time, and even when you did figure out what to do, it would lead you with at least four options, which would then lead you to many more options, with no clear path the user was supposed to take.  For example, on the site, there was a chance for the user to meet a conman, but the user would have no real way of knowing that he was a conman unless they had first visited the police station, learned how to spot a conman or found the wanted poster with the conman’s exact face on it.  Again, it was a nonlinear path with multiple possible correct paths one could take.  It didn’t matter if you started at the movie theater or started at the police station, but the consequences for your actions would still be felt if you did not do certain things beforehand or if you took certain risks without thinking them through.  Nowadays, such things are not beyond the usual iPhone, iPad, and Internet-using generation’s understanding, but it is still fascinating to think about how much people’s lives changed upon being faced with such a different and strange mental obstacle.  In all honesty, I feel like I would somewhat prefer a linear style instead of the multiple-choice style we have nowadays.  There is just so many options.  It can get quite overwhelming, especially when we don’t know what exactly we are looking for.  Linearity would at least point me in the right direction.

On February 12, 2018, our HIST 390 class discussed the idea of how technology has contributed in the disintegration and disaggregation of information.  To summarize, how do we, as people, distinguish signals from noise?  Typically speaking, signals are sounds that you want to hear while noises are basically everything else that isn’t the intended signal.  This is made clear every time we use a phone.  The signal is the voice on the other end that we’re trying to focus on while the noise is the electrical hum, static, crackle, bugging, and the general deterioration of the signal as it traveled from one end to the other.  The further the signal had to travel, the worse these problems and noises got, which begged the question of how we could keep the signal strong without losing any of it.  The telephone’s way of attempting to remediate most of this was to use a system where, once the phone heard the sound that it was supposed to focus on (the signal), it would send an electrical current to the other end, which would then activate vibrations that would successfully send the signal in a way that can clearly be heard.  This is technically the first instance of disaggregating information, as the information that the person on one end is trying to convey to the other person on the other is being reduced to mere instances of vibrations.  Another big example of the disaggregation of information was when Claude Shannon, a mathematician, helped bring about ideas that would eventually be the very groundwork for most, if all, computer programs today.  He brought up the concept of Boolean algebra, a type of algebra that basically simplified everything to a yes or no answer.  Shannon realized that, when one really thought about it, all questions in the world could be answered by either answering yes or no.  This became the backbone to many computer programs in the near future.  When you want to send something to someone else, instead of actually delivering and transmitting that message, the message is instead scanned over and copied and filled in on the other end.  For example, if I were to send a painting electronically to someone, their computer would then scan to see if the color black was used within the picture, and if it did, then it would hit “yes” and fill in that exact same space on its own.  The process is then repeated with other colors until the painting on my friend’s computer is the exact same as the painting I had intended to send him.  Basically, the computer had turned the painting that I was planning to send to my friend into bits of information, which were then sent to his computer.  The computers, in other words, disaggregated the information.

One of the biggest questions presented during this lecture was whether the disaggregation of information cheapens the very information, message, or meaning behind it in the first place.  Regarding the previous examples, hearing a message through the phone may take away from it, at least if you compare it to possibly hearing it face to face.  Which is more powerful: hearing that your father is dead from your mother who is standing sadly in front of you or hearing it from the other end of a phone?  Same goes for the sending of pictures and paintings through the Internet.  If you can see the same things that your friends have seen simply because your friends sent you the pictures that they took when they went out to experience it for themselves, did you truly see what they saw?  Has the experience now been lost on you?  To further help us understand this argument, our professor used GarageBand to show us a couple of songs he had made beforehand, some of the music using sound clips from singers who no doubt took time out of their probably busy lives to get up and record some clips for the program and some instruments that were probably being played by professional musicians who have spent years and years perfecting their craft.  All of these sounds and singers probably had backstories to them and yet here they were, on a music making program being reduced to being disconnected clips to be used for its ignorant user’s pleasure and enjoyment.  In regards to this issue, I will agree that there is certainly something being lost here, but I will also point out that in return, these pieces of information are far more accessible than they used to be, creating possible new experiences that would’ve been impossible to make beforehand.  That seems to be the general give and take with technology.  It makes things more accessible while also cheapening the real thing in the process.  On the other hand, if you want to see the real thing, it will no doubt be less accessible, but you’ll be experiencing what it was meant for you to experience in the first place.  It all comes down to what you care most about and if you are willing to go out of your way to truly experience it or not.

On February 7, 2018, our HIST 390 class discussed what may be considered one of the greatest and most revolutionary of human innovations of our time: the ability to sort, manage, record, and categorize information.  To summarize, during the American Civil War, a man named Montgomery Meigs, who was a quartermaster general, was tasked with managing the North Union army, which included the task of ordering his men’s uniforms for them.  In regards to this, Meigs specifically asked for all of his soldiers to be measured to figure out the minimum sizes for their clothes, and thus ordered clothes around that size in bulk.  Basically, he was able to statistically achieve a solution to what seemed like a tedious and time-consuming endeavor, and solutions such as this would not be the last.  Around this time, IQ tests were made in order to gauge the many soldiers’ level of intelligence (which sadly resulted in the army finding out that the vast majority of their soldiers were at moronic levels of intellect), once again taking what used to be a long and daunting task and simplifying it enough in a way to make it much, much easier and faster.  To a lesser degree, libraries were also beginning to conduct a system in which finding the necessary book was to be made much easier and file cabinets were made to better help manage personal records and files.  In the end, while we may take it all for granted sometimes, the ability to manage data truly revolutionized how we live in the world today.  The Information Revolution had made its mark.

How great the fruits and results of the Information Revolution have been to us!  I remember back in my old university (all the way in Northridge, California) where I went to use a book from a university library for the first time.  Imagine my shock when I was instructed to go up to the information desk, ask for the book, have them search it up within their databases for me, write down the book’s number, and instruct me to look for the aisle that it was placed at.  Even after I understood what I was supposed to do, finding the book in a sea of other books, all with indistinguishable covers and some not even having their titles on their cover, took longer than I was probably comfortable with.  Besides the library number that it was assigned with on the side, there were no other visual cues to rely on, and whenever I finally found a book in that library I always breathed a sigh of relief.  How daunting this task must’ve been if I had been born a few years earlier, in an age where computers were not commonly used enough and where I most likely had to look at each and every book one at a time in order to find what I was looking for.  And speaking of which, how was I supposed to know what I was looking for back then?  There were no computers back then, so how was I supposed to search up the perfect book that I would need in order to write my paper with?  I would have had to look at every book that vaguely mentioned the subject that I was currently working on and skim through it in the hopes that it would have something, anything, that could possibly help me out!  I’ll make sure to remember to count my blessings for being born in this generation, rather than one of the many older ones.

On February 5, 2018, our HIST 390 class discussed the contrasting attitudes of the past and present and how the advancements of information storage throughout the years may have inadvertently forced a crutch onto all ongoing generations.  As for the first topic, the contrasting attitudes of the past and present, it is a topic for debate whether everyone throughout time is naturally blessed with the same concept of “self” and differences and contrasts are only made due to the environment and technology that they are exposed to throughout their lifetime, or that the concept of “self” is completely different when comparing those of two separate generations.  In other words, is everyone throughout history the same deep down or not?  Would Thomas Edison, George Washington, and Joan of Arc love roller coasters just as much as we do now, or would there be a generation gap that would make them turn away from or even look down upon such rides and contraptions?  Surely, we are not mad for loving roller coasters, but has times changed so much that the people of the past just can’t see what we enjoy about them, or even if they do, they cannot seem to share the exact same sentiment?  And how does this lead into the next topic of how the advancements of information storage throughout the years inadvertently forcing a crutch on all continuing generations?  Well, to put things in perspective, the late and legendary thinker Socrates had a student named Plato, who recorded all of his talks for him, as Socrates himself did not have the ability to read or write, and surprisingly enough, he was proud of that fact.  Why would a great mind like Socrates be so proud of not knowing what is now considered a necessary and useful skill?  The reason for this may have been the fact that writing gave people an out from actually taking the time to memorize and take information to heart.  Let’s be honest, when you know that a copy of the information is lying around somewhere, you are less inclined to actually memorize it, opting instead to just remember that a copy of the information exists and where you can find it so that you can refer to it the next time you need it.  The most common example of this is the internet, more specifically, the search engine known as Google.  Nowadays, everyone knows about and uses Google in some way, shape, or form.  If you need to find out about something, simply Google it.  Chances are that you’ll find what you’re looking for in a matter of seconds.  Be honest, though.  The ability to search and find any and all information that you want has made you somewhat reliant on it.  When was the last time you truly tried to remember what you’ve just read?  When was the last time you were told to memorize it and immediately thought, “Why should I learn how to memorize it?  I can just look it up whenever I want.”  Probably more often than you would like to admit.  The sad thing is, in the times before such technological advances, or even writing and recording for that matter, people were forced to memorize everything.  They had to.  They had no other choice.  It is in this way that our ancestors have the upper hand over us.

Continuing on with the concept of modern technological advancements deteriorating our ability to memorize anything, I can safely say that I have definitely felt this.  In fact, a part of me honestly believes that I may be mentally impaired when it comes to memorizing things nowadays.  My attention span is pretty low, so when someone is trying to explain something to me, I probably at most only really hear about half of it.  I usually need either active experience in something or constant, repetitive reviewing in order for anything to truly stick, which is terrible for someone who is trying to pursue a Biology major.  Biology is a pretty demanding and memory focused subject as it is, but attending multiple courses of it really tests the limits of my ability to memorize information for my next exams.  While it may well be my own lazy and self-destructive behavior that constantly puts me into these situations, being born in an age where memorization is nowhere near as prevalent as it probably once was probably doesn’t help.  In an age of internet search browsers, audio and visual tutorials, and global positioning systems, the number of times actually knowing something by heart was demanded has been very low.  I shudder to think what would happen to me if the internet or the Wi-Fi systems were to suddenly and permanently go off.