Judette Eloi Eloi is victoriously
finishing her seventh year as an African American studies student
with an English minor. (Yes, seventh! "Seven" is for perfection.)
Interesting comments can be e-mailed to judah@y2001.com. Click
Here for more articles by Judette Eloi
It’s the dawning of a new millennium, year 2001 is finally
here. If you are like me (born before 1980) you will remember how
it felt at a young age trying to conceptualize what it would be
like in the 21st century.
Such thoughts brought a terrifying excitement ““ a chill
would go through our bones as we tried to conceive a time we
thought was “so far away into the future.” We used
words like “futuristic” and pondered if hovercrafts
would fly the “sky-roads” of the future like in the
movie “Back to the Future 2″ starring Michael J. Fox.
Videophones, weird cosmic clothes, and thoughts of “Maybe we
will make it to Mars by then” or “Will the world come
to an end?” pervaded our minds.
Well, year 2001 is here and the world might as well have ended.
All the Y2K millennium madness is over, but did anyone realize that
the calendar changed? Everything seems to be the same (minus the
cool satchels that sling across the chest with a pocket to carry
your cell phones), but things are not improving; they seem to be
getting worse.
 Illustration by JARRETT QUON/Daily Bruin The advent of
new technology has made it convenient for kids to never want to
play outside again, with the HDTVs, DVDs, CDs, VCRs, CD-ROMs, and
www-sites to choose from. We praise technology, but is it making
things too convenient? Technology’s wonderful gadgets steal
the quality of our day-to-day culture. Everything is
commercialized, downsized, and bits-size, so that the new
innovations that are supposed to bring our global community
together are actually tearing it apart.
Over the years, we have witnessed a breakdown of the family with
children disrespecting their parents and parents letting the TV and
computer raise their kids. There has also been a massive growth of
economic globalization widening the gap between the rich and the
poor, increasing hostilities, and job insecurity which all lead to
an overall decline in morality.
All of these issues support the idea that technology is creating
H.G. Wells’ “Time Machine.” Like the Elois and
the Moraks in the book, (ironically, Eloi is my last name, but is
not the reason why I chose this subject) technology that is
supposed to bring about the utopia we dreamed of years ago, is
doing the exact opposite. We are so entranced by all the advances
of technology, that we do not realize the quality of our life is
actually deteriorating.
In this new era, all the sacred grandmothers of old, who held on
to strong moral principles ““ love, family, quality and
kindness ““ have practically died off. Generation X birthed by
the rebellious parents of the ’60s is now producing a new
breed of hell raisers who think killing a bunch of innocent school
kids is like playing a video game. And when situations like
Columbine High School occur we say stupid things like “I
can’t believe this happened in our neighborhood.”
Wake up, you gave him the gun! The only ones to blame are
ourselves because we have allowed technological comforts to replace
our responsibility to spend time with and raise our families.
We do not have real dialogue with our children unless we are
discussing a TV show, a phone bill or another technology-related
issue. Am I saying that technology is bad? No. I am saying that we
are not living up to our responsibilities as moral, care-giving and
honest adults. We are using technology to exploit society and tear
it down. Like the saying goes, “money is the root of all
evil,” technology is the root of moral decay in society
today.
Take the global economy as an example. Businesses and
corporations are downsizing and exploiting society by reducing the
quality and quantity of service while raising prices. Why? The
onslaught of new technology allows corporations to use new
machines, fire human labor in multitudes, and replace them with
automated systems. This allows corporations to solicit cheap labor
overseas forcing American workers to compete with foreign labor.
Foreign hands make a large amount of products we buy and wear. Just
check the label to the shirt or shoes you are wearing; they
probably say “Made in Taiwan.”
Increases in economic globalization are also instilling the fear
of job security, as machines replace millions of laborers. How is
technology promoting a utopia when millions of families can’t
feed their themselves, let alone buy a TV because they can’t
find a job.
In “Corporations are Gonna Get Your Mama”, Kevin
Danaher deals with these very issues mentioned above and technology
as a corporate tool to exploit humanity. Danaher talks about how
corporations are earning millions of dollars by downsizing and
replacing workers with technology. As corporations fire millions of
workers, the stock market goes up. Likewise, when employment is
high, the stock market goes down.
Our society is created on a capitalist structure perpetuated by
the advances of technology. Literally the rich Elois are getting
richer and the poor Moraks, who serve the Elois, are getting
poorer. Why? Danaher also writes that working people pay more taxes
to make up for the fewer taxes corporations are paying.
The quality of life for the Moraks of America is getting poorer
as well as are the overall attitudes and morals of people in
today’s society. Have you noticed how closed minded,
“me oriented,” rude, ruthless and competitive we all
have grown? Everyone is fighting so hard to get ahead that they do
not care about who they step on, hurt or abuse in the process.
Technology has made it easy for us to exploit negative images on
TV and on the Internet, and has increased scams and the ability to
steal money out of a checking account with the swipe of a card. The
Information Super Highway has given free access to pornographic
media and has made it easy to get information on how to construct
bombs.
Where do we draw the lines? Are we going to indulge ourselves to
the point that we do not set boundaries for ourselves, our families
and our society as a whole? Will we sacrifice access for the sake
of quality? In the end all we have left besides a huge electric
bill, (which we sometimes cannot pay), is an even larger cost of
the integrity of what we have in the “Land of the
Free.”
Unlimited access to all sorts of technologies with no boundaries
or laws regulating Internet usage will continue leading to major
social problems in the future. Pretty soon just as in
Orwell’s “1984,” Big Brother will be watching
your every move. You think the navigational system in your new
Lexus is cool, wait until other technological advances emerge. How
far are we from one day having IDs, driver licenses, social
security numbers, etc. imprinted on a chip and inserted in us? Then
Big Brother will be watching us.
We cannot wait until technology controls us; we have to take
control of technology. If we don’t, our seemingly
“Brave New World,” won’t be so brave and new, it
will be like “AI,” the “Artificial
Intelligence” of the Matrix ““ we will be slaves to
technology and oblivious to the fact that we have sold our human
rights and integrity over to the computer in the name of
technological advance.