I was totally excited to come on to this blog and write a rant, I mean post, about our use of language via technology. However I came across something that will just have to push my little language shpiel off to the side. I was merely scrolling through my Facebook news feed (which occasionally does come up with gems in the dust) and noticed one of my friends had put up an article by The Associated Press. At first glance of the title, which included NYPD and Muslims, I was ready to glance over it considering as an average Muslim girl, all the hatred and controversy is getting hurtful and overdone. However, her little caption for the link explained that Rutgers students were being affected by this as well and I was immediately intrigued.
Usually, like most of the others in our class, I’m an expert on skimming through lengthy articles and getting the main gist, however with this one I read every single word. When it comes to politics and controversy, I tend to hold the theory “Ignorance is Bliss” but this isn’t something even I can ignore. The NYPD and it’s Cyber Intelligence crew have been tracking Muslim students within a long radius of the tri-state area? This is outrageous and ridiculous and puts a whole new spin on whether all our technological advancements are truly an advancement. We’ve come so far in this technological world only to take one GIANT step backward and renegade on our Constitutional rights? While I love my technology to death, things like this event make me so much more hesitant about the future generation becoming technology based. If we do progress into a technological era, where do our limits lie? Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing after all…
This article certainly does give us pause to stop and wonder aboutjust what price we pay for the convience, novelty, and genuinely incredible possibilities for communication and creation that the Internet provides to us. This approach to exploring just how technology will shape and refashion our way of seeing the world and ourselves has a rich history in the works of Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Marshall McLuhan, and Neil Postman, among many, many others. Orwell’s book,”1984,” may be one of the best examples to look to. Countless readers have read Orwell’s warning about the future that was to come, with just about everyone being familar with the phrase (although, they may not know exactly where it originates from) “Big Brother is watching you.” The standard way of interpreting this phrase is to identify “Big Brother” as the government, however, a more careful analysis of the text will cause us to identify “Big Brother” as the media, which at the time of publication, no one would think in the terms that we are all quite familiar with today. Despite the fact that pop analysis of the book leads most people in this direction, it is extremely useful to know that Orwell worked at the BBC during the World War II. Orwell’s experiences caused him to develop long term hesitations about the power of media technologies, especially when those technologies are concentrated in the hands of a select few. It may be that we are moving in the same direction as George Orwell, as we feel the presence of “Big Brother” over our shoulder.
Thank you so much for posting this. It’s a real eye opener and scary, not just because I’m a Muslim myself –and we often face such injustices–but also because what in the world is happening? How can someone observe your life like this? What about human rights, which undoubtedly affect everyone?
It’s scary and just plain wrong.
If this article said that all black people — or whatever group of people for that matter– are being monitored we’d jump out of our seats with outrage because it’s so ignorant. Why is it that when its Muslims, it just doesn’t matter nearly as much?
How terribly, deeply, messed up.