Friday, May 4, 2012
Net Generation Relationships
I wonder what the up and coming generation is going to identify with romantically. Our fast pace culture of vast technology and globalization--of which each generation of phone and music player becomes antediluvian every six months--has affected us in many ways, it's effects permeate through almost every aspect of our lives. One of the implications is that we have an emerging culture of young adults that can contact each other with a mere whim who have an increasingly low capability to delay gratification. This means that peer-pressure can exert itself with a more immense amount of force than ever before. where does this leave conservative and romantic views of chastity and monogamous relationships? The answer is hard to say, but it is clear that these emerging forces are creating a new paradigm of the idea way for the emerging generation to handle themselves concerning their love lifes. With all of this technology young adults have a bigger load of responsibility put upon them. Given this perception, what direction do you guys think we are heading into romantic-wise, and how close does our culture resemble the world state of Brave New World in this sense?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Just like in Brave New World, it all depends on your conditioning or upbringing to decide the determining factors that make up a relationship. More often then not, what you're exposed can resignate with you and have a impact that becomes subconsiously apart of you. We saw this in Bernard, although he was initially casted as the brooding outsider of the World State--we saw him transcend into someone that wanted to go beneath the surface of the daily expectations. However, he got too caught up in wanting more in his life and not really acheiving his desired place in soceity that he gradually became complacent.
ReplyDeleteBut, going back to the question at hand. From a cultural standpoint,I defnitely beleive romantic based relationships are far too casual. Nowadays, 'dating' to some people can simply be thorugh technologically (texting,emails,esc.) somehow that's enough for some people. It's hard to beleive there was once a time where it was practically a social requirement to make a lady(or guy,whichever you prefer) swoon to let you know you were interested. I think that's the problem, there's not enough swooning anymore. Everything is just there for the taking. Whatever happened to mystery and conquest?
I think that Brave New World is the best Dystopian literature for us in the modern age to draw from. I think the problem with us is definitely the resistance towards --as well as a near-extinction of-- delaying gratification. With everything in our age being instant, it definitely condition us to think everything will be received soon --rather than any savoring directed toward the future. What is most frustrating is to think that Romanticism is dead and that human relationships have dissolved to meaninglessness. What struck me the most out of Brave New World was the extinction of chastity and monogamous relationships; what never was answered was why this had occurred? Was Huxley trying to say that it is against human nature to practice such idealistic institutions --or were the people in the World State reaching further into human nature?
ReplyDeleteI don't see why love has to be about great episodes in each other's lives when all it ever comes down to is the littel things. Maybe it's sappy of me to say so, but so what? This is the way I see it. It's not about the ONE great act but rather the millions of small acts that let your significant other that you value them in which Neily Steinberg states that romance if the act of "creating for another human being a feeling of being cared for, admired, special, appreciated, valued, protected." Today's generation or the generation afterwards may believe that they know what "romance", in all its undefinitive characteristics, may be but like Chelsea and Aaron have said it's the conditioning that these kids have grown in.
ReplyDeleteIt may just be that first hand romance models do not exist to many of us. Divorce rates have been steadily increasing in the U.S. since the 1960's, even today more and more people in their 40's-70's are divorcing. Dysfunctional marriages cannot perpetualize a positive cycle of romantics. Was Aldous Huxley a fortune teller then? I don't know, but he seems to have observed some pattern in order to outline most of our generation's restraint to emotions.
Aaron: I don't believe it's against human nature to practice idealistic instituions. It's perfectly human to believe in something that may well not be there. It's hope in something that make us human. However, the polar opposite can be seen as well in Brave New World. As humans, we either give in to passion or protect ourselves from the incongruencies in provides. That's not to say that a middle ground does not exist.