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Student 5

Page history last edited by Katherine Pandora 5 years, 7 months ago

Hey! It's Jessica! 

 

What is the Whole Earth Catalog? Well, it's probably the most amazing piece of information in this worl-...... in the 1900s. The front cover shows a picture of the whole Earth , which symbolizes that they know almost everything about their world. They know everything about the cultures, environment, medicine, etc. It shows how they have achieved the impossible and that they believe they can oversee our world as if they are Gods. The catalog shows information about numerous topics, in which people read it to be informed and educated. When you first open the catalog, you will see a page titled "purpose." The purpose states, "We are as gods and might as well get good at it." This shows how people believe knowledge is power and how they think highly of themselves. It has many articles in different sizes to show its importance. If an article is smaller, then it is not as important and vice versa. The catalog is basically the internet on paper, because it teaches and informs you about every possible thing you can think of even... drugs! Even though drugs did catch my eye, it isn't because I am interested in drugs, but because it's surprising how they have that. It is shocking how back then, people do not really care about drugs. They know that it is bad, but they still mind their own business. Now, the government gets in everyone's business. They made drugs illegal (Not that I want them to be legal). So enough about drugs! What really captured my eye was the category "Health." In this category, it shows information about many treatments in the medical field. For example, in the article, How to Live With Schizophrenia, it describes what medications they used back then. They actually used nicotinic acid, which is a highly addictive medication that does not really lessen the symptoms. Today, they use chlorpormazine and benztropine.

Another interesting article that no one really intends to learn is how to relocate a dislocated finger. I highly doubt anyone "googles" that for fun! It just shows how the gap between their generation and our generation has increased. Back then, they learn irrelevant materials to gain power over others. Now, we do not really learn irrelevant materials to gain power or just to have fun. We learn materials that are relevant to our field of work. 

Some other procedures that differ from today include the Heimlich. Back then, they flip the person head first and hit them in the back until the foreign object comes out. Now, we know not to hit the spine too hard or else someone could end up paralyzed. We would hug them from behind and whack them in the stomach hard and fast until the foreign object is removed. 

Seeing these differences really shows how far we have learned in the health field. It shows how we continue to develop and how our surroundings continue to change throughout time. Reading these excerpts has shown me the possibilities and how much we can achieve throughout history. In the past era, the internet was on paper, and our era is on a screen. Who knows? In the future, it might be in the air. As far as historians know, they believe that the internet derived from the Whole Earth Catalog, which I believe is true. This catalog has many information that are miscellaneous to people until we really need to find the answer! For example, I spilled oil on myself on accident and I could not get it off until I googled the answer. The fact that it has information about fixing trucks to fixing a dislocated finger shows how similar the internet is to the Whole Earth Catalog. However, there are also belief that the internet was not derived from the catalog. For example, you cannot choose from many articles. When you google something, several entries will come up. However, on the catalog, there is only one entry and you don't know whether it is reliable or not. Some people believe that the articles in the catalogs are chosen, because people paid a god amount of money for their article to be posted.

 

 

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In the book, From Counterculture to Cyberculture, Fred Jones states, "I was instantly enthralled. I'd never seen anything like it. We lived in a small redneck town in Virginia-- People didn't think about such things as 'whole systems' and 'nomadics' and 'Zen Buddhism' ( Turner 81)." This quote shows how people learn about new things in order to gain more power, because knowledge is power. The Whole Earth Catalogs purpose was to teach people and inform them about miscellaneous things and it has reached their purpose. "Today." he wrote, "we have extended our central nervous system itself in a global embrace, abolishing both space and time as far as our planet is concerned" (Turner 53).  This is an example of how far we have gotten. Before, people weren't well informed about all the global information. They were secluded in their little environment. Another excerpt is, "the individual human body and the species as a whole were linked by a single nervous system, an array of electronic signals fired across neurons in the human body and circulating from tv set to tv set, radio to radio, computer to cmputer, across the globe" (Turner 53). This excerpt shows how people were more connected with the catalog, because it created interesting things to talk about. No matter how small something is, it can bring a population together. 

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