“Liking What You See” was based on the technical
manipulation of humans’ visual perception of other people and the evaluation of
gender and sexuality. I think this story is extremely relevant in our society
today, which has such a strong focus on your own personal image, and society
telling you how you should look a certain way. Chiang’s whole storyline on
having a documentary about turning your calli on or off I thought was quite
insightful and also humorous. Your calli is basically a neural pathway in your
brain that evaluates features that you can turn on and it will allow you to
stop judging people by their features or you can keep off. Throughout the story
Chiang has “interiews” various different people to hear what they have to say
on the debate to have everyone have their calli turned on. The entire time I
was reading I kept chaning my mind to whether or not I would choose to have
mine on or off, and I was just wondering what everyone else would do…. Turn it
on or keep it off?
I agree with you in the fact that I kept changing my mind about turning the calli on or off. But after the class discussion I think I would end up leaving if off. We talked a little bit in class how having it turned on would have a lot of issues unless everyone in society turned theirs on also. Having only a certain amount of people with it on would cause more problems than the judgement surrounding personal image. I also agree with the idea that this story is the most relatable to our society today, seeing as every magazine, television commercial, and movie is telling us how we are supposed to look.
ReplyDeleteNOT turning it on is the safe, let's-all-reinforce-the-status-quo answer, correct? I would hope some of us, at least, would be more revolutionary than that, given the opportunity.
ReplyDeleteChelsea, how is the society you posit, in which some have calli and some do not, differ from our own society, in which some privilege appearance/attractiveness and some do not? (Or, to put it another way, in which some are racist/sexist/agist and some are not?) Isn't your argument just a way of dodging the question of individual responsibility? "I won't do it because everyone won't do it with me."