Over the past four weeks many things have changed. I'm starting to get organized in as many ways as possible, people are starting to think about whether history and fiction are essentially the same, and I don't know maybe someone in our school got a new dog. The one thing that hasn't changed in this month has been the persistence of one idea in our discussion. Now, I'm not saying everyone brings this topic up constantly (mainly it's just one person) but that repeatedly it overrides whatever we are talking about.
This topic is bias.
Now bias in itself is not a bad topic. Everyone has bias' and everyone should have something to contribute. But there is one specific aspect of bias that has really been irritating me. Every once in a while, one particular student will say that when composing a piece of history, fiction, or any source of media that the author should alert the reader towards their personal bias'. Hmmm...that's intersting I suppose. The strange thing is that this student thinks this will make the media more immersive.
That's my problem.
Postmodernism is great to think about in a controlled setting but if we use it in every story it would become maddening. You're reading a history book composed by a white man and at the beginning of every chapter he must preface it with this:
"Note: I am a white male American. I may misrepresent the following groups in this chapter on Railroads: Women, Immigrants, African Americans, Non-Americans, People of Asian descent, Native Americans, People of Eastern European Descent, People of Jewish Descent, Extremely Wealthy People, Extremely Poor People, Elderly People, Children, Railroad Workers, Steel Workers, Animals, Trees, Trains, Several Biscuits, and etc. All of these will feature prominently in the story of American Railroads."
Every chapter.
Every book.
Every single time.
Now I don't know about anyone else, but to me that sounds awful. The entire point of reading a story is to immerse yourself in it and take in the meaning in the words. If someone tells you every single bias (which I believe no one can know themselves that well, but that's a topic for another time) then it rips you from the story and plops you right back into your chic twenty-first century living room. What a drag. So much for escaping reality.
Or how about this, you're at a party and someone is telling you about this time that they went to nice restaurant in Chicago, JUST KIDDING! BEFORE THEY DO THAT, THEY HAVE TO LIST THEIR BIAS'!
Would that ever happen? No of course not. We're not robots. We're human and we have bias'. The fun part of any analytical media is to find the creator's bias and examine why that is there and how we can interpret the story differently. That's what I perceive as postmodernism.
Food for Thought.
