Media, Information and Technoculture 3223F/G Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Lewis Mumford, Dream Vision, Immorality

• School: Western University
• Department: Media, Information and Technoculture
• Course: Media, Information and Technoculture 3223F/G
• Professor: Selma Purac

Document Summary

Head to the new world to repent for sins committed in the old world. Discard pasts in order to truly be free. Nothing to conform to because there was no tradition or authority. Utopia of escape = temporary substitute for the external world, release from the frustrations or difficulties of life; passive because nothing in reality changes. Utopia of reconstruction = vision of an idealized environment is something that we actually start reaching for by changing our environment; reconstruct reality to get closer to the ideal. The promise and perversions of the american ideals upon which it was founded. Conflicting images of dream vs. nightmare, growth vs. decay, birth vs. death, garden vs. wasteland, hope vs. despair, fertility vs. sterility, heaven vs. hell. The central ironies, such as simultaneous promise and disappointment, of plentiful and emptiness, reflects the same such central ironies of the american dream.