Selfes Claims

1.Claim: “Quite simply put, like many Americans we hope computers can help us make the world a better place in which to live.” (Cynthia Selfe Lest We Think The Revolution is a Revolution, pg 293)

Reasons/Evidence: Selfe is saying that we are hoping that computers make our world a better place in which to live and in her essay she says a lot about how computers actually hurt the world. She says that English teachers are hoping that computers are going to make students more productive in the classroom and other instructional settings. So as you can see there is a lot of hope that computers will make our world a better place to live in and also make things easier for our teachers. Even former vice president Al Gore said that Global Information Infrastructure would increase opportunities for intercultural, communication among the people of the world. So Gore is one who is also hoping that computers can help make our world a better place.

2.Claim: “We find ourselves, as a culture, ill equipped to cope with the changes that the “global village” story necessitates, unable, even, to imagine, collectively, ways of relating to the world outside our previous historical and cultural experiences.” (Selfe, pg 294-295)

Reasons/Evidence: Some evidence that really supports this claim is all of the ads in the first narrative. She has pictures of people who are a lot different from what we see and are from completely different cultures. They are showing us that we do not try to relate to these people but instead all we do is try to make these people relate to us. We try and give them all of this technology so that they can try and be more like us. Like the ad on page 296 where it shows a man from a way different culture and says we must work together as one tribe, this just shows that we don’t care about their culture we only care about making them be more like us.