In Charles Baxter’s essay, “Shame and forgetting in the Information Age”, he divides his essay into five parts. First part of the story is about his brother who suffered from “learning disability”. Second part is an introduction about memory, shame, and forgetting in the information age. In third, forth, and fifth parts, he gives more examples and explanations of memory, shame, and forgetting individually.
In the first part, he talks about his brother who could remember everything when he listened to stories but had trouble with reading and writing some information. Also, his brother felt shame when he forgot some information. I think through this experience, the author attempts to make easy to approach what he is going to say about memory, shame, and forgetting in this information era.
According to Baxter, “We are all (well, most of us) computer users now” (Baxter, p.146). He also says, “’Our memories’ are memories of our experiences in narrative form…Data, by contrast, the proliferating facts and figures, can easily be stored” (Baxter, P. 146). That means we are forced to expose a lot of information even though we don’t want to get it. Sometimes knowing and remembering of a lot of professional information has authority. That is why people feel shame to forget some information because he thinks they lose faces in front of people. The author says that our capacity for remembering or even having experiences has reduced due to an increasing information exposure. Lastly, to cope with the excessive information age, the author advised that we need to forget something strategically. He mentions that “Strategic amnesia has everything to do with the desire to create or destroy personal histories. It has everything to do with the way we tell stories (Baxter, p. 145).
I think the purpose of the Baxter’s writing is to inform us how we get useful information and experiences for our daylily life in this information age.
Hi Yousun :)
답글삭제I think the story about his brother makes easy approach,too
Yousun,
답글삭제You brought up good points from the essay. I also think he brings up the idea that people fill in blanks spots, this can be seen in the setion discussing the book In the Lake of the Woods.
Yousun,
답글삭제I think you make a clear point. Sometime, I feel kind of shame to forget something. I also agree with that you wrote the purpose of his essay.
Hi Yousun,
답글삭제I agree, there is simply too much information that a human being cannot store, by taking in whats important to us and delete everything else seems to be the way to go, but with all these information, we no longer get to experience them because they are already in a form where we can visually take in.
Hi Yousun,
답글삭제I think that you brought up an important aspect of the essay which is, of course, the shame that people experience when they forget things. It was funny in the essay when he talks about people's reaction when they forget someone's name, or lose their train of thought-- I'm sure we can all relate to that shame.