These two essays reinforce the ideas we have studied
recently by showing how Americans live their life. The Mall of America is an
example of hiding from the real world. People come here to relieve stress and
forget about how terrible their lives are. We humans feel this false sense of
safety when we are in places like this. It’s almost as if we are in a
completely new world that is open to new things and new lives. The sad part is,
in the end, the people will have to come back to reality and realize that their
lives are inferior to that of the ones in that mall. “Creators of this illusion
had much to contend with…” (Guterson 112) This place is perceived to be
something that it is not. It is like a safe haven to the people that shop
there. Sure, they go to actually buy new things, but some may just go to feel
relieved of the world that is waiting on the outside for them. In Burgesses
essay, he explains how people have the ability to fix something, but they won’t
actually follow through with actions. This is the problem with people being too
afraid of what is to come. The people need to understand that if the apocalypse
is going to happen, there is no stopping it unless the whole world were to
change, which will not happen. Overall, no matter what people say or feel about
bad situations in the world, most of the time they will not do anything
productive to solve the problem at hand. Even our morals will not be able to
save us from destruction, it is just something that will happen no matter what
we do in out lives. So, we might as well live our lives to the best of our
ability.
I agree that the two essays reinforce the ideas we have been discussing in class and how Americans live their life. The Mall of America is described as a utopia with, "'I'd move here in here if I could bring my dog... This place is heaven, it's a mecca."' (163). While in Is America Falling Apart? the author describes America as a post apocalyptic world by describing our society to be "post- war". "The fear of being unorthodox is rooted..." gives us readers the impression that America isn't socially correct especially when writing, "...America was built on a rejection of the past" (237) shows that America's society really isn't that great and does have issues.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with the fact that the essays explain how our society works today. People are trying to hide the fact that our world is not perfect. In The Mall of America Essay a woman says “It’s a sickness. It’s like cocaine or something, it’s a drug.”(163). Malls have made us humans forget about all of the bad things going on around us. Now we use the malls and all of the products as a reason to not worry about the negatives and that will one day destroy America, because no one is doing anything. Everyone knows that the world is going downhill, but is anyone doing anything about it… no, and that is the problem.