After reading Bolter's "Writing the Self" and discussing it in class I couldn't help asking myself a few questions. First, are there any original thoughts to be made anymore? Second, what is more important: the text or how the readers act after reading the text? Third, is everything mediated through something else, and if so, does this affect a reader's reaction to a text?
Once an old teacher of mine said that a person should strive to actually think at least once a day. Upon hearing this I was confused. Didn't we think all the time? My teacher then explained a person only truly thinks when they think an original thought. At first I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Of course I think my own thoughts! It's not like I copy other people's ideas. Then it clicked. What a person thinks has probably already been thought. Taking into account the population and age of the human race, there's a good chance that at one point in time someone has thought the same thing as you. However, I do think it is still possible to create an original thought if one tries really hard and is really creative.
What does this have to do with The Network and the Self? Well, with the Internet, it becomes even harder to come up with original ideas because ideas can be easily shared on the Internet and therefore can generate the same thought in many minds. In terms of copyright, if someone comes across an idea they swear was their own and the other person stole it, maybe the other person just had the same idea. Therefore, this leads to it being harder to have an identity of your own, especially on the Internet.
This leads me to wonder what is more important: the text or the reader's reactions to the text? I say that the reader's reaction is more important because with so many common ideas, it's what the reader does with the text that matters. How a reader reacts also deals with the remediation of a text. If someone is able to mediate a text into something more comprehensible, it will increase the audience. Therefore, more ideas are generated and actions are made.
An action could be something positive like becoming an avid reader because you found an author or genre you love. Another positive action could be writing your own text because you became inspired or motivated by something you read. An example of this is fanfiction (even if some stories are not so great at least someone is practicing writing). However, there are also negative actions like sending hate mail or messages to someone because you disagreed with something they wrote. For example, there was a Tumblr page all about hating Cassandra Clare, a Young Adult author. That’s right, it got removed because it was wrong and shameful.
So, now that I’ve answered these mind-boggling questions, what are your answers or responses? Please comment below. I need answers!
I would argue that originality does not become less likely based on the age of the human race. Culture and technology change and thus the possibility for new sensations and sensitivities exists. The faster the change, the greater the chance for novel sensations/ideas. In fact, someone, whose identity escapes me, once defined civilization in terms of its ability to produce new sensations. That is, civilization is that which creates novel experiences. Given that this is the case, "originality" would become possible, in theory. The question is whether in fact it is likely in practice. That is to say, even when one may be on the frontier of ideas, thoughts, culture, technology or science, the chances are that one is not alone as such. Others who are also in such a position are likely to experience and perceive the same things, and are thus capable of producing the same thoughts. This happens all the time in the history of science. Take Alfred Wallace and Charles Darwin, for example, who nearly simultaneously discovered natural selection and use the same words to describe it. The population is not the only factor here. The point is that we are involved in a network of culture, and thus we are likely to be having similar sensations as other people.
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