Reflections on Self-Delusion

Your essay must cite and analyze passages from the following readings:

➢Foer,Franklin.“MarkZuckerberg’sWaronFreeWill.”WorldWithoutMind:TheExistentialThreatofBig Tech. Penguin, 2017, pp. 102-115.

➢ Tolentino, Jia. “Always Be Optimizing.” Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, 2019, pp. 63-94.

PROMPT

Both Franklin Foer’s “Mark Zuckerberg’s War on Free Will” (2017) and Jia Tolentino’s “Always Be Optimizing” (2019) examine the ways in which humans are, consciously or unconsciously, giving up an important aspect of their autonomy. Foer’s nuanced condemnation of the “automation of reason,” (109) which he correlates with the ascendance of big tech, echoes Tolentino’s earlier reflection that “[t]echnology, in fact, has made us less than oppositional…we have deployed technology not only to meet the demands of the system but to actually expand these demands” (93). Together, these texts invite us to consider the role and value – and, indeed, even the viability – of individuality and human resistance to powerful economic and ideological systems in the modern age.

Citing textual evidence from both Foer and Tolentino’s texts to support your analysis, compose an original essay in response to the following question:

How and to what degree is the “engineering mind-set” creating “conditions of artificial but continually escalating obligation” to the demands of tech companies such as Facebook and other “paternalistic” corporations? (Foer 107; Tolentino 68; Foer 106). How does “mechanical thinking” pose a danger to human well-being, and why? (Foer 109).

THOUGHT-PROVOKERS

Below are some further questions that may be useful to consider in generating your argument. Remember that you only need to address the above prompt in bold:

➢Whatisthe“engineeringmindset,”(Foer107)andwheredowefinditalsoimpliedinTolentino’s exploration of modern day life? How do the authors seem to be defining modern day life? Why is the engineering mindset problematic in terms of human freedom, human creativity, even human empathy?

➢ Foer discusses Facebook’s “strong, paternalistic view” (106). What is that view? How is this paternalism connected to the patriarchy that Tolentino writes about? What is the connection between the “engineering mindset” and paternalism?

➢ Foer’s last sentence—“We are the screws and rivets in the grand design” (114) echoes the problem Tolentino grapples with throughout “Always Be Optimizing.” What is Foer implying in these words? Both authors seem to suggest an alternative to the dehumanizing effects of modern day life. What are these alternatives, and why are they necessary?

FORMAT

You must proofread carefully.

Quotations should be carefully transcribed, punctuated, and attributed. Use MLA bibliographic conventions, and please follow the conventions of standard edited American English. Use 1.0-inch margins on all sides, double- spacing, and twelve-point Times New Roman font. Number all pages. Your paper should have a proper heading and must be submitted through Canvas as a Word document.

Always Be Optimizing

The ideal woman has always been generic. I bet you can picture the version of her that runs the show today. She’s of indetermi­ nate age but resolutely youthful presentation. She’s got glossy hair and the clean, shameless expression of a person who believes she was made to be looked at. She is often luxuriating when you see her-on remote beaches, under stars in the desert, across a carefully styled table, surrounded by beautiful possessions or photogenic friends. Showcasing herself at leisure is either the bulk of her work or an essential part of it; in this, she is not so unusual-for many people today, especially for women, packag­ ing and broadcasting your image is a readily monetizable skill. She has a personal brand, and probably a boyfriend or husband: he is the physical realization of her constant, unseen audience, reaffirming her status as an interesting subject, a worthy object, a self-generating spectacle with a viewership attached.

Can you see this woman yet? She looks like an Instagram­ which is to say, an ordinary woman reproducing the lessons of the marketplace, which is how an ordinary woman evolves into an ideal. The process requires maximal obedience on the part of the woman in question, and-ideally-her genuine enthusiasm, too. This woman is sincerely interested in whatever the market de-

94 TRICK MIRROR:

around the world who take them feel awful. We have not “opti­ mized” our wages, our childcare system, our political representa­ tion; we still hardly even think of parity as realistic in those arenas, let alone anything approaching perfection. We have maximized our capacity as market assets. That’s all.

For the way out, I think, we have to follow the cyborg. We have to be willing to be disloyal, to undermine. The cyborg is powerful because she grasps the potential in her own artificiality, because she accepts without question how deeply it is embedded in her. “The machine is us, our processes, an aspect of our embodiment,” Haraway wrote. “We can be responsible for machines.” The dream of the cyborg is “not of a common language, but of a powerful infidel heteroglossia”-a form of speech contained inside another person’s language, one whose purpose is to – introduce conflict from within.

It’s possible if we want it. But what do we want? What would you want-what desires, what forms of insubordination, would you be able to ac<;:ess-if you had succeeded in becoming an ideal woman, gratified and beloved, proof of the efficiency of a system that magnifies and dimi�ishes you every day?