The Truths They Carried

I hope ev’rybody had a good weekend. I am not really sure how to start this blog, so here goes something. I think this book is very entertaining because each chapter tells a different story about the war. One theme that I noticed was that cowards are the ones who do what is expected of them instead of upholding their own beliefs. For instance in the chapter, On The Rainy River, O’Brien runs away and undergoes inner turmoil when he is drafted into the war and has indecisiveness of whether he should fight or hide. O’Brien says of his decision, " I was a coward. I went to the war (61)."This is ironic to me that he was brave to fight, yet he still calls himself a coward. He feels that it is amoral to fight and kill men in a war without having a clear defined purpose. I think O’Brien is trying to convey that doing what is socially acceptable no matter how chivalrous it may seem is really cowardice if you are not upholding your own moral standards.
Another theme that O’Brien tries to convey is that a true war story does not necessarily have to be true and that some true stories are irrelevant. Stories that are falsified or overexaggerated may have more truth to them than those that are historically accurate. Made up stories may show the real agonizing emotions like the sheer terror that the soldiers endured on a daily basis. The credible stories are simply a time line that tell a soldier’s journey from point A to point B but do not bridge the alienation and judgement between the soldiers and the folks back home. It is the stories invented by the soldiers that give outsiders an inside look at the hardships the soldiers’ have been through.

I finally spelled architechture right!!

Postmodernism…well where to begin? Hmm... well, first of all, I think Postmodernism is a multitude of different discourses with different purposes, seeking different answers, and drawing different conclusions. In earlier times, people all had similar American dreams of having a two story luxurious house, getting married, and having kids, but now some people would rather not get married, not have kids, and spend their money on other things. As the population increased, so did the variety of cultures and ideals. In Postmodernism, there is a decentering of values with no real focal point. Postmodernists believe that there is no universal truth. Because of the numerous viewpoints there is bias told in every event. Even history books are subjective, since the stories are usually told in the winners’ viewpoint. In Postmodernism, there are binary opposites that regulate the world. One cannot exist without the other. For instance, good can’t exist without evil. They derive their meanings from one another and without evil there would be no way to define the good. Semiotics means that the two opposites must coexist; otherwise, by themselves the words are meaningless. "You see how one member of the pair is privileged. The [other] term then becomes marginalized" (102).
Postmodern architecture is characterized by rationality and materials such as steel and reinforced concrete rather than ornamentation like modern architecture. Postmodernists believe buildings should be pure absolute forms such as cubes, cones, spheres, cylinders, pyramids, and squares. The shapes of the buildings are based on a Platonic ideal that, knowledge is found in pure, eternal, complete forms which we know with our intellects, but not through our senses. Postmodern architecture consists of new techniques and old designs. By copying modern architecture and putting their own twist on it, postmodern architects parody the past. The point of postmodernism architecture like other postmodern theories, is to keep people from being alienated, in this case, by their own houses.