Nate Averna
Febaruay 21, 2010
English 100
Response, Cynthia Selfe

In the long titled article, “Lest We Think the Revolution is a Revolution Images of Technology and the Nature of Change”, the author, Cynthia L. Selfe reminds Americans that the sugar coated, technical world lived in by americans is nothing less then a facade. Although technology allows many americans to feel as though they are people of the world- part of a global village narrative, they are in fact nothing but ignorant americans who live their lives vicariously threw technology- i.e. the television, internet, magazines, and fail to see the truth behind advertisements and technology. Selfe identifies many flaws with our americans dream of the global village narrative by using examples of advertisements- who where directed towards americans. As Selfe states “ In the first add, for example, with the tone of an old master, IBM provides the 3-D rendering technology needed to rebuild the Frauenkirche, a church destroyed during the allied firebombing of Dresden in 1945. The ad notes that this technology, along with the experience of talented stonemasons, allows the reconstruction to proceed, linking the power of a 21st century tool with the imagination of “18th century craftsmanship.” Selfe continues “In the next IBM ad, this set in South Africa, IBM helps the smiling driver of a South African Breweries truck “slack the thirst of... far flung customers... so precisely that no one's ever short a drop.” If the Previous series reduces the world to a series of tourist destinations, this par of ads- representative of a much more extensive series of technological “solutions for a small planet”- reduces the worlds' problems to a set of embarrassingly quick fixes. American technology and technological know-how, these images imply, can provide reparations for the cultural damage caused by the firebombing of Dresden, recreate the painstaking artistic achievement of a destroyed eighteenth-century cathedral, and serve as a corrective for decades of apartheid. These implications, of course, are not only absurd; they are humiliatingly small-minded.”
This passage from Selfe is suggesting that american companies use technology to disregard issues of the past. As Selfe cited the company, IBM, shows little support for the family and historical impacts for the issues concerning the firebombing in Dresden and the years of apartheid. But instead imply that their company has made everything proper and is concentrating on ways to rebuild and move past their old handicaps. I believe that Selfe arguments against Americans global village narrative show merit but nevertheless I would like to contradict her thoughts. Although many company's, such as IBM, may seam small-minded to Selfe, they are still informing and showing the world and Americans that issues of the past, such as apartheid, will not be issues of the future.