HW 13- Feed B

After reading Feed, and writing the last assignment, I feel as if I may have done exactly what I argued M.T. Anderson did which I didn't agree with in that very post (See HW 12- Feed A). I think that by assuming that Anderson didn't take other countries into consideration in his novel, I skipped over the real point which lay behind his literary choice to focus on the United States as the antagonist country against the global alliance as the protagonist.

I think that the point he had was to reveal through a certain literary style how we in America sometimes see the world, but specifically how in Feed, the main characters only saw America and not the world. Bert Brecht said that art is not a "mirror" to view the world, but a "hammer" which can be used to shape it. In my opinion, the metaphor of a mirror and hammer is very apt, but not completely accurate in Brecht's evaluation of what a hammer and a mirror can do. I think that in order to use a hammer, we need to first look at that mirror, because it is vital that one understands what needs to be changed in the world before we use the hammer to change it.

Feed is a mirror, a work of art which puts our world into a subjective light for us to perceive ourselves. M.T. Anderson I believe, wrote this book to use as a mirror so that we the catalyst can become the hammer which takes action and changes the world. The reason that I don't think Feed itself is a hammer, is because it isn't a book which puts forth new ideas or revolutionary concepts, it simply restates concepts which have been looked at many times before.

A book which is a hammer, is a manifesto, a work comprised of the basic methodology behind a group, organization or government. Because Anderson wrote this to reveal something about the modern world, I think that he wanted this to be a book which young-adults read. The way I see it, people all have the ability to change the world, but only if they have a unified effort which is spread out enough across the world. By the time people are adults, they are very independent and no longer have a real sense of unity like when we are young. This unity within younger people is because they are able to relate more and have very similar interests. Such a narrow spectrum of things which interest younger people, I think is directly spoken to by the narrow focus which Anderson uses in his novel. It's with that in mind that I reached the conclusion that Feed was written for young adults, but intended for any one, of any age, who wants to change. Be it on the personal level, global, or anywhere in between.