Abril Alvarez

Professor Filbeck
English 114B
2/19/2014
The fall of new leaders
Martin Luther king assassin for having a dream, Bunchy Carder killed for wanting to
work together as equal, Rosa Parks incarcerated for wanting to stand up for her rights, Albert
Einstein kicked out of school for asking the right questions society, oppressing each other in
order to maintain what we call progress. But can the progress that is spoken of today be the
progress humanity is really desirable for? History made throughout years, oppressing leaders that
couldve done more for the community, people that couldve helped everyone move forward as a
whole through life without the necessity of having rivers run down made up of tears and pain of
all those we decided are the other half of the better. Changing humanitys comfortable
knowledge has always been a problem throughout history, Violet, abandoned to die a slow death
for believing resistance was humanitys salvation a character in the world of the Feed written by
M.T. Anderson a novel in which humanity has exceeded all kinds of technology so much that
robots are made of humans, walking computers and digital minds. In this book society rejects the
idea of thinking like humans, and when Violet displays a new version of life, of the feed, people
that surround her start making her the outcast and her attempt of creating an option for humanity
shatters a long with her life. Today we do the same, society oppresses new leaders that offer a
challenge to the system that runs how society works and oppress these leaders that can offer a
new chance in the development that humanity needs in order to escalate as a whole.
Todays society, is like the Feeds, its becoming completely dependent on technology and
what it has to offer. Kids now use Google for everything books are never opened, encyclopedias
have been forgotten. Today we focus on how we can have more and more instead of looking for
options. Technology brings benefits to the table but along with those they bring a list of things
that have been replaced by it and negative impacts on humanity. Emily Manke a writer of the
onlinehumanresources.net and the outreach coordinator stated eye contact, phone skills,
conversations, special awareness and attention span are five social skills that technology is
impacting by this technology can be a dreadful issue. According to Manke, society needs to
unplug from technology, and plug into the present world around them if they ever hope to find
success in the workplace. In which these are problems that in the world of the feed is
completely noticeable. Their society is far more advanced and highly equipped in a single chip
that controls the human brain equalizing them with robots, depending so much on it that it is
considered another organ of the body. Spoiled by what was meant to be good:
People were really excited when they first came out with feeds. It was all da da da, this
big educational thing, da da da, your child will have the advantage, encyclopedias at
their fingertips, closer than their fingertips, etc . . . Its more now, Its not so much about
the educational stuff but more regarding the fact that everything that goes on, goes on the
feed. (Titus Pg. 48)
We see this on a daily basis in which technology is built to help its users. smart phones
help you Google things faster, the kindle helps you read in just a click, the GPS is designed to
help you get to places faster, little by little we start developing on these gadgets so much that our
basic knowledge starts to minimize into keyboards and screens. Runned by technology we can
clearly see how by trying to progress, Violets society failed in keeping humanity, they gave them
too much good making the near thought of learning a new basic principle a virus towards the
knowledge that they already contain.
In the book violet defies the Feed by creating a challenge; she understands that the Feed
works in a very basic connecting way by categorizing people and working towards lessoning the
verity of people for beneficial purposes. Violet decides she will not be part of a world that is
helpless without the feed, that cannot function without being controlled by corporations Im
not going to let them catalog me. Im going to become invisible.(pg 98) She is an outcast,
because she is different from society she displays a completely different picture than what people
are normally used to. The way in which Violet thinks is in a whole other level she can displays a
sense of understandment for the feed that others cannot Like them never telling you that its a
republic and not a democracy. Its something that makes me angry, what people dont know
about these days. Because of the feed, were raising a nation of idiots. Ignorant, self-centered
idiots(pg 113) violet has clearly been in the "other side enough to know that it is possible to
survive and know more without the feed, like it is easier to be a walking digit. She understands
the loss in humanity that the corporations have ruined in humanity.
The way in which violet think is much like the way Albert Einstein was and presented
himself. He believed that the system in which schools taught were in a complete unbalanced
branch in where they showed you what they wanted you to know rather what you should know.
A leader who gave society more than anyone has ever done a genius marked as a rotten apple I
wanted to learn what I wanted to know, but they wanted me to learn for the exam. . . I felt that
my thirst for knowledge was being strangled by my teachers; grades were their only
measurement. How can a teacher understand youth in such a system?... Einstein believed that
the system was incorrect; it left brains desirable of knowledge to feel the actual sense of
understanding and learning what life actually needed. I fear of the day that technology will
surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots. Is it true? Are the
world improvements leading us to our mere dooms? In the world of Violet humanity is soon to
be extinct, brains are dead nature is a myth can it be possible that Violet couldve been the new
leader who helped humanity from being extinct therefore becoming an issue to corporations who
received data from her feed.
What people are normally used too is their own sacred personal space which makes it
hard to learn new ways and continue moving forward. Precisely because of that many people
make the discovery of new intelligence harder to detect:
Oh, sorry. I thought it was good to use stupid, long words that no one can understand.
Calista laughed and looked backwards, going,
Shhh. Shell hear you and have an alphoduffinFletcher(Calista and Loga pg 164)
Violet is rejected like a virus by the people who surrounded her and even held as an
idiot for her intelligence, Corporations reject pleads from a young girl who is in the bloom of her
life, were sorry. . . we dont feel that you would be a reliable investment at this time. . . Sorry-
Im afraid youll just have to work with the feed the way it is.(PG 247 FeedTech) they decide it
is best to let her die. The way in which she dies can be a symbol in were the Feed announces his
victory towards her resistance. What better way to win than by letting your enemy die within a
cell that is being controlled by the same thing you try to reject yet cannot live without. Violet
lives in her dead body listening and seeing what her feed wants her to yet not allowed to die
without first making her a witness of how the world goes on without her and continues to rely on
the Feed. Perhaps the fear of the Feed knowing that Violet couldve been the beginning of
something new, the beginning of actual life, made Violet be a threat that was not worth keeping
alive. Too much was being lost if people realized that the Feed could be lived without.
We see things like this happen all the time when our leaders are assassin for wanting to
be equal, for wanting power for the people, for wanting to have normal lives and treated like
normal human beings. Leaders that have spoken out and in return shown by greater powers that
no matter how much they preach or scream or resist there will always be a much bigger hand that
has the control of snatching them at any time they desire. Unfortunately for Violets world no
difference was made with her death, she died in vain with the salvation of no one
Violet was the new uprising she was the new tomorrow she was the new leader just like the ones
who have made a difference in history in the real world. Society oppresses leaders by rejecting
new ideas of living as a whole. We deny our addictions and our flaws by replacing them with
more and more of the same problems, the progression we state we have is the very bate to our
extinction.