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Abril Alvarez
Professor Filbeck
English 114B
3/4/2014
The fall of new leaders
Martin Luther King assassinated for having a dream, Bunchy Carter 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, people representing leader for those
who mean less to society, 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 who we
categorized as less Changing humanitys comfortable knowledge has always been a problem
throughout history and because of this riots and rebels are born, all hell is loose over earth and
heaven, leaders fight against entire societies at times to break labels and profit justice. This is
something that continues to occur today.This situation is perfectly demonstrated by a character in
the world of the Feed written by M.T Anderson, Violet, abandoned to die a slow death for
believing resistance was humanitys salvation 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
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oppresses new leaders that offer a challenge to the system that runs how society works taking
away the opportunity of a new chance to move forward as a whole.
People are helpless without the feed yet being aware that corporations are in control of
everything that goes on their heads:
Of course, everyone is like, da dada, evil corporations, oh theyre so bad, we all say
that, and we all know they control everything. I mean, its not great, because who knows
what evil shit theyre up to. Everyone feels bad about that. But theyre the only way to
get all this stuff, and its no good getting pissy about it. Because theyre still going to
control everything whether you like it or not (Anderson 48)
This society is fixated in redemption and apathetic, it knows they are being control yet
they forfeit everything to something thats unnecessary just for the consumption. They are
practically giving their freedom up in exchange of materials. However within this community
exists an exception who thinks that the feed can be controlled to use as needed, she knows how it
feels to be in the other side, she knows how to function without the feed and think for herself.
This is where Violet comes in, she can see the destruction that corporations have provided for
society and she can see how they work with the promise of consumption rather with the progress
of humanity. Violet knows that society is at its peak in which their existence is at risk and that in
order to change it they must be able to resist the feed.
Todays society, like in the Feed, is 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
different options. Technology brings benefits to the table but along with those benefits they bring
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a list of things that have been replaced by it and negative impacts it has had on humanity. Emily
Manke a writer of theonlinehumanresources.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. Like in the Feed people are aware that sometimes
violations of privacy is committed from the government and even justified, like it was done by
Intel Committee Chair Rep. Mike Rogers by declaring you cant have your privacy violated if
you dont know your privacy is violated, right? This just comes to show that the community is
so desperate for these gadgets that they are willing to look by past important issues like these.
We have this need to know whats going on with our friends to know who has what and who
doesnt for the fear of missing out on life. Today this issue continues to grow, finding that this
situation is not only present among teenagers but also adults as James Thickett, director of the
research for Ofcom, said that because of this it; raises an issue about social etiquette and modern
manners and the degrees to which we as a society are tolerant of this behavior spoiled by whats
meant to be good, our society is starting to become too dependent on technology that we reject
the mere thought of having new knowledge through a different source, sources like antique tribes
or the last of our hidden ancestors. We forget that wisdom and experience is by far more real
than any screen can tell us. Precisely because of this we miss opportunities of finding equality
within our nations because we focus so much on who has the better size or the best
generation that we dismiss uprising leaders that fight to create equality within us all.
People dont want to miss out on whats happening and people try so hard to be part of
society that they do exactly what society wants them to do even if it means discriminating each
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other. In the book society works with the feed, they like what the feed wants them to like by
manipulating their emotions driving them to be more similar and easier to read for their
beneficial consumption. People go with what people want instead of what it should be. Violets
society takes advantage of things that are meant to be beneficial, making privileges into
obligations to spoil themselves; 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. (Anderson 48) the fact that Titus, Violets lover, openly admits to Violet that
indeed their humanity became completely obsessed with the developed technology that they
made the feed become the controller of their everyday lives showing that they know exactly
whats going on yet they do nothing about it, yet they enable Violet when she suggests a new
way to function without the feed.
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 depending on these gadgets so much that our
basic knowledge starts to minimize into keyboards and screens. In Violets society they 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 which is what Violet
fought for, to regain what they have lost in their desperate need of having more and more. Today
like in the Feed we do this by not allowing ourselves to think and work like other people do,
people who dont have the access and the privilege of what we have. Life nowadays feels like
that show The Walking Dead, where people are wandering around with no purpose or
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direction, only focusing on their phones instead of the nature and beauty surrounding them
stated by Nicole Pinto Bolt writer of the article Technology is ruining society, in this article Pinto
is describing exactly how the world looks like today a world where a large amount of the
population declines any type of verbal advice that doesnt come from a screen. Its possible that
throughout time weve might have even come to the point where we have indirectly oppressed
uprising leaders because they didnt have the knowledge of how Mac worked or they didnt
know how Excel worked. Maybe even people that couldve been the founders of the cure to
cancer.
How does society come together to shatter those who know and want better? Well this
question could be responded in many different ways. We can either shatter individuals who stand
alone, or create organizations to kill others opinions or simply by turning on each other. In the
Feed society destroys its own hope, Violet who is the hidden leader has the advantage by having
a will of her own. She starts understanding how the feed works like unridling a riddle Violet
learns how the feed works and what the principals are for corporations that work with it. She
starts becoming a threat to corporations who know what they have to loose, after all, all it takes
is a single person to stand so other people start to stand along their side, making her a bigger
threat to corporations and the feed itself. So they decide to stop the virus they decide on a
solution to help save humanity rejecting pleads from a young girl who is in the bloom of her
life yet lying in her death bed, 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.(Anderson 247) 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
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reject so much 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. Therefore the problem has been solved.
In our world society is controlled by a greater power in our case is the government this
can work for the good or for the worse unfortunately its turned for the worse plenty times
throughout history. People have been killed and tortured because they dare to challenge the
system with another option, society takes place in this scheme by being the ones who deliver the
message of power by doing all the killings and neglections. People are scared of believing there
is another way, continuing to oppress those who have tried to do better for society. Although
society has had times in were color, gender, class and just about anything else mattered we have
to admit that we had come a long way from where we stood 50 years ago thanks to our leaders.
Leaders that have made history like Nelson Mendelaand forever praised by new leaders
worldwide Born during World War 1, far from the corridors of power, a boy raised herding
cattle and tutored by elders of this Thembu tribe, Madiba would emerge as the last great liberator
of the 20
th
century said by Obama in his memorial service this past December 10
th.
Mendela
secured the preservation of the freedom for todays Africa, a leader who was incarcerated for
wanting prosperity showed the world leadership, pride in his people, the importance of reason
and arguments and with his charisma he left more than anything a book can ever record:
There is a word in South Africa-Ubuntu- a word that captures Mandels greatest gift: his
recognition that we are all bound together in ways that are invisible to the eye, that there
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is oneness to humanity, that we achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves with others and
caring for those around us.(Obama)
Perhaps leaders have had to go through a lot to accomplish their believes but today many
have exceeded their accomplishments giving us a better pillar in which we stand today.That
Hope of prosperity is what holds humanities future together, and leaders thrive with fearless
flames reflected in their eyes, ready to fight till the end is what gets things done making leaders a
necessity in the community.
Violet shows us an intellectual response towards the feed, that in order to resist it you
must actually understand it, she showed us that the feed works in strategy and how it maintained
its flow, so she creates a challenge she intended to fight and thats exactly what she did. She
resisted it by working exactly the same way that the feed works she became the point in a million
out of her a whole society. Violet decides she will not be part of a world that is helpless without
the feed, which cannot function without being controlled by corporations Im not going to let
them catalog me. Im going to become invisible.(Anderson 98). She is an outcast, because she
is different from society she displays a completely different picture than what people are
normally use to. The way in which Violet thinks is in a whole other level she displays a sense of
understanding 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
(Anderson113). Its interesting how in reality Violet is simply a person who actually thinks. Yet
she is judges as an idiot and weird when shes just logic. Violet has clearly been in the
"other side enough to know that it is possible to survive without the feed. She understands the
loss in humanity that the corporations have ruined. People couldve been humans once again but
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her strength wasnt enough against it all perhaps society was long from gone; they lost a leader
who attempted to make paradise in a fallen building. Frozen in her own body with only her
screams stuck in her head a jail within, she lost the fight while the world kept going,
unfortunately for Violets world no difference was made with her death, she died in vain with the
salvation from no one
The way in which violet thinks is much like the way Albert Einstein 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 than 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?
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 be treated like
normal human beings. Leaders that have spoken out and in return been shown that no matter how
much they preach or scream or resist there will always be a much greater power that has the
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control of snatching them away from any followers or prosperity at any time they desire. Yet
people continue to fight the oppression, people like Albert Einstein who opened a word of
endless numbers was oppressed by schools who thought he didnt have enough to be in it, Joan
of Arc broke societies tradition they had over woman, Cesar Chavez helped farm workers have
equality, Jackie Robinson won segregation for African American in the media, Roberta Menchu
fought for human rights in third world countries, people like these were strong enough to fight
against everyone who stood against them creating difference in humanity. People like these are
needed in the world.
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 and in order to surpass this we must understand how to listen and be
willing to learn beyond our knowledge, it might be the key to a new start.







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