Lest We Think the Revolution is a Revolution
Summary
Summary
In Cynthia L. Selfe’s chapter titled “Lest We Think the Revolution is a Revolution,” she split her main point up into three smaller main points she calls narratives. In her first narrative she tries to get her point across that the internet (The Global Village) is the answer to bringing us peace with Global Technology. The internet eliminates differences like racism, sexism, and any other kind of discrimination. By doing this anyone who uses the internet no matter who they are, where they are, or what kind of person they are, are all brought together, thus bringing us one step closer to peace with the people. In selfe’s second narrative she talks about an electronic landscape that is an open space for anyone to use regardless if you’re male or female, your color, class, or connection, which is basically the same as narrative one but in a different explanation. Her third narrative is going back to gender specific roles, “same old gendered stuff”. Here she talks about how in ads men are pictured as the bread winner of the family and are hard working. And women are portrayed as the stereotypical stay at home wife who does nothing but cooks, cleans, take care of the kids and pleases her husband with a giant smile on her face. Selfe’s point is that the internet can clean up any stereotypical views of any gender, race, etc. and make everyone equal; technology will always be equal to everyone.
Claims:
1) 1) “…if technology is to improve the lives of all Americans regardless of race and class and other differences, our collective ability to envision such a world is not evident in these images” (Pg. 304)
What Selfe is saying is that this is a perfect example of actions speak louder than words; we say we want equality for all but then our advertisements show everything but. If it were true that we wanted equality than the images that we see the most would include that equality, but instead show your classic white family who are the most fortunate. Yes technology is bringing us one step closer to that equality but with our everyday ads portraying otherwise there are a lot of mixed signals.
2) “Our cultural experience, indeed, tells us something very different- that America is the land of opportunity only for some people.” (Pg. 304)What Selfe is saying is that this is a perfect example of actions speak louder than words; we say we want equality for all but then our advertisements show everything but. If it were true that we wanted equality than the images that we see the most would include that equality, but instead show your classic white family who are the most fortunate. Yes technology is bringing us one step closer to that equality but with our everyday ads portraying otherwise there are a lot of mixed signals.
What I believe Selfe is trying to imply is that America has this reputation of being the land of opportunity but in reality a very select few get those opportunity, and even then they take a ridiculous amount of time to achieve. We started with the slavery which ended with a war for freedom, then there were the civil rights movement which included a mass amount of protests, then women’s rights which also had a lot of protests involved. Current day America we have Arizona trying to eliminate immigration from the entire state. The opportunity is greater than most other countries but there will never be opportunity for everyone.
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