Category: McCoy 431 Fall 2017

So a few classes ago we had the opportunity to read some blog posts in class, something I had rarely done before. But it gave me a chance to read many interesting thoughts as to what’s going on in your guy’s heads. One that particularly stuck with me was Brendan’s post called “Stigmergencies.” In it he details his thoughts on markets, as in stock not farmers, and how they are perfect examples of a stigmergy, with “each broker scurrying around the trading floor is in their own way a dutiful scavenger, each LED stock ticker a blinding chemical signal” (Mahoney).

Now I am just a humble liberal arts major and have basically no idea about anything having to do with economics, but Brendan does a good job of putting it all in a perspective that I can understand. To make it particularly easy, for those of us who know nothing, he compares them to how the Oankali see us “they contain within them a terrible power” (Mahoney). The power to make and break nations with simple numbers. And these numbers, I have always thought that they control us because in our country there’s always the argument of “oh it will wreck the economy and destroy facilitate the downfall of our country.” But Brendan put another layer onto it that I had never thought about before, he said that markets “operate by turning people into things and by turning things into numbers” (Mahoney).

Something I had never really thought of before is what happens to the people behind the numbers. The ones who give their lives in order to make other people money. Brokers that are inside all day and become less and less like people, and more like machines. They are the middlemen that live to compete to try to beat his neighbor to make the best deal possible.  Like the ants on an ant hill they scatter, following the trails of the LED stock signals to do work to help their colony. Brendan argues that the more this goes one the larger the disconnect between buyers and sellers will grow, that over time this will “reduce our ability to see the life in one another” (Mahoney). And I agree, wholeheartedly. Stigmergy creates too much of a disconnect between people and the more we work with Butler’s fiction, the more I start to appreciate people. Not just humans but people, as a society. Where humans always seem to sabotage ourselves is when we stop communicating with one another, and start making quick decisions without really being informed about what our society needs.

A common theme with Butler is the destruction of the world because of the selfishness and destructive nature of humans, something eerily similar to what we see going on in the real world today. But I always find a spark of hope in Butler’s work by how some form of humanity always survives and grows anew. Not necessarily what came before, but something that is different does not inherently mean that it is bad. I really enjoyed Brendan’s take on this subject also because of the hope he sees in it. He, and I, believe that our society could change for the better, and it all starts with us. All we need to do is decide to.

Works Cited:

Mahoney, Brendan. “Stigmergencies.” ImPossibilities. N.p., 13 Nov. 2017. Web. 29 Nov. 2017.

It’s been over a week since we finished our discussions on Lillith’s Brood, however, our conversations related to gender are still prevalent in my mind. Similarly to Kevin, I found myself thinking of the role of the ooloi and how even now, we still struggle with giving it the wrong pronoun. After a great class discussion last Monday, I began to realize that I have learned more about the ooloi and its gender, through it’s role as a parent. Continue reading “The Haunting of Misgendering”

I’ve been thinking about Sandra’s post about hierarchy in Lilith’s Brood, and while I agree with her notion that the hierarchy the humans can, and often do, employ involves “imbalances of power in relationships,” I had a sort of epiphany when finishing up Lilith’s Brood that led me to a different definition of hierarchy that I believe the Oankali see as humans’ fatal flaw. Sandra makes a good point about hierarchy being present in human and Oankali relationship when it comes to one group having more power than another. It’s clear that that is present considering adults have more say than children, even regarding ooloi. However, I think that the type of hierarchy that ultimately led to human destruction and would most likely lead to it again is different.

Continue reading “A Different Way of Looking at Hierarchy”

I think that in doing this project as a group, we are illustrating one of the issues that we came across in our readings with Octavia Butler: even though we try to be as inclusive as a democracy as possible, we still reject the ideas of others based on the majority. One group is always left out, or left unpleased with the end result. It illustrates that we ignore others for the sake of the majority. This is supposed to be a justification – the majority wants it, therefore it is fair, and we shall give it to them. But more so, it emphasizes to everyone that we are ok, we are fine, with ignoring the minority who did not want to do this project because we cannot think of a better option right now, in this instance. And it is all for the sake of the group. It is for the sake of our grade. It would seem that doing what is necessary is not always right. That those two words are not as synonymous as we typically take for granted. Although there seems to be multiple layers to doing this group final, it certainly illustrates this struggle on a smaller scale, with a smaller task.

Today’s (11/27) class was tough. I had this sense that there were twenty-seven different visions of our final project and the necessity of creating just one vision out of those twenty-seven troubled me. Continue reading “Revisiting Contract Theory, Possession, and Democracy in Class”

To quote Lauren Olamina from Parable of the Sower, another Octavia Butler novel, “God is Change.”

Since change is inevitable—nothing is stagnant forever—it can be troubling to grapple with and can be extremely frightening. On the flip side, however, change can be positive and comforting. This can be seen through the character of Aaor in Imago when it is as close as construct possible to suicide, meaning that it might dissolve completely. Aaor’s physical body is responding to its mental state—with no possibility of finding human mates, Aaor is out of options and opportunity to thrive. It “almost lost itself” and even “suppressed its scent” (Butler 675), which are mental and physical indicators of its state of emergency. Even when Nikanj brings it “almost back to normal,” it has “no control left” and “drifts toward a less complex form” (681).  This can be attributed to not having an opportunity for a change in its life, since it is “deeply, painfully afraid, desperately lonely and hungry for a touch it could not have” (681).

When Aaor meets Jodahs’ mates, laying with them and Jodahs helps bring it back to its original form. Even with the hard work Jodahs, Tomás, and Jesusa do, once they break apart Aaor’s body starts to deteriorate again. Only when Aaor has the possibility of finding human mates does it start to hold its structure and keep itself together. In its narration, Jodahs reveals that it “suspected [Aaor] was surviving now only because of our combined efforts and its new hope of Human mates to bond with” (Butler 691), again showing that the hope for change is positive. Once Aaor finds mates, it “looked better than it had since its first metamorphosis. It looked stable and secure in itself. It looked satisfied” (712), which lends to change as positivity and the opportunity for a better life.

When one lacks the ability to change their situation, that is when desperation sets in. I am very much reminded of this when watching prison documentaries. In high maximum security jail cells, where inmates are locked up for twenty-three hours a day, if they have no opportunity to change their situation or privileges they will act out and often cause themselves physical harm. When given the opportunity to gain back some privileges, the inmates are often kinder to themselves and their mental states seem to be more stable. In extreme environments, the opportunity for change can mean the difference between life and death, or life and suffering.

I started writing this as my one-page reflection for the “Trans? Fine by me.”  panel, though once I got into it, I discovered it might work better as a blog post in conversation with Linda’s post about the Oankali’s greater freedom of gender (https://morrison.sunygeneseoenglish.org/2017/11/16/2739/). Continue reading “The Contagious Human Act of Gendering”