I walked out of class today still thinking about what a few people were discussing- implementing a policy so that the minimum wage was enough to live on, and only allowing people to work a certain amount of hours a week. That sounds fine and dandy at first but that is how people lose ambition and motivation as someone argued. I totally agree. All that I could think about was The Giver. The idea of this New Economy sounded fantastic to me when I first learned about it, but now I'm not so sure. The community in The Giver originally sounds perfect too, but as the book goes on, I for one come to realize that I do not want to live in a society like that. I am the kind of person that works hard to get what at least I think I deserve, and in doing so I come across a lot of people that are lazy. I would be incredibly frustrated if lazy people got the same compensation as I did for doing nothing. Obviously if the New Economy became life, society would not be just like it is in The Giver; presumably there would still be diversity (hopefully) and everyone would be capable of knowing what was going on in other places. I think what has happened is that I have immersed myself with a lot of readings regarding this New Economy and the idea has gone from an idealistic hippie smiles-all-around dream in my head to a socialist nightmare. Perhaps because I am from the USA some of the things that people said seemed awfully socialistic to me, so maybe if we want to make this conversion it has to be done very slowly. If I am correct in thinking that the new economy might result in socialism, I would like to simply say that I don't think that it will work, at least not in the USA. I am now realizing that this is a bit of a tangent, but that is all I have for now.
Hi Laura, great post! I'd love to know a little bit more about The Giver - it sounds like a utopian novel, is that right? Later on, we'll be reading part of a DYStopian novel, it'll be interesting to see how they compare!
ReplyDeleteThe giver is a major utopian novel- it is a community of sameness. There is absolutely no choice in life, no pain, anger, etc. but at the same time there is not love, or happiness, or hope. Every one has the same basic life, everything is planned and organized so that life is convenient and happy. The main character is slightly different than everyone else and his job ends up being "the receiver of memory", memories from before the community moved to sameness. His life becomes much richer, but he became so frustrated with his community because no one understood his emotions. Eventually he left the community, and the end of the book leaves one not knowing if he found somewhere new or if he died.
ReplyDeleteWe had to read it in 6th grade (10/11 years old), but i don't think that I fully understood what it was all about at that point, so I reread it a few years ago. I find it to be a very scary idea.