How did I get here?

I'm going to assume that what we talked about in class on Tuesday is fair game for the blog.
When we discussed why we are here at Hamilton I sat quietly not because I was uninterested, but because I was struggling to answer for myself. I think now I've finally figured it out.
The most logical reason that comes to mind when wondering why I am here at Hamilton is to get a degree in God-knows-what so I can make money and be successful. That's supposed to be everyone's goal, right? But if it were all about money, I could have easily gone to a state school and paid almost nothing for a comparable education. There must be some other reason I'm here.
The pursuit of academic knowledge? As far as being at Hamilton specifically, I'm sure the knowledge is the same everywhere else as it is here. Plus, after suffering through high school with the minimal possible effort to get the proper grade, I think it's safe to say that "learning" is probably the most bullshit answer of all.
One reason brought up in class is to try out things I'd never be able to try otherwise. I like this one. It's a real feel-good reason because it can justify pretty much anything I do ever. However, I know it isn't true because I've almost never stepped out of my comfort zone in terms of classes or clubs here. There's probably not much to be gained by the "trying things out" that most people at Hamilton engage in.
So if not any of these reasons, why AM I here? What's the point? I can try to justify it with these reasons, try to make my choice to come here seem logical and deliberate, but in reality they are all lies. The real reason I'm here is because that's what I was told I was supposed to do. After middle school you go to high school. After high school, college. After college, the work force. The progression has always seemed so unwavering in its necessity and its linearity. Why not go to a cheap in-state school? Probably embarrassment, mostly. As O'Brien knows it can be a strong motivator.
What good has this personal conversation been? Surely the message I take from this can't be "just keep going with the flow." At some point in my life I'll have to make an actual important decision. The true reason I'm here doesn't really seem to matter. Often people do the right thing for the wrong reason. So now that I'm here, my job is to pretend that the lies are the real reasons for being here. I should push my comfort zone, learn as much as possible, and find out what I want to do with my life.

When in Doubt, Ask the Oracle

            To be quite honest, I did not really like this book, which is quite unusual for me. But I felt bogged down by all the characters. I couldn’t keep track of who’s who with Dick throwing around names of German officials and Japanese businessmen like it’s nothing. I couldn’t form the emotional connection to the characters that normally drives reader-novel relationships because there were so many of them. And I felt lost in all the long descriptions of international diplomacy and business. It was just too busy. So naturally, I had a hard time deciding what to write my blog post on this week, other than how I did not enjoy this book.

            So I did what any lost writer would do, or at least what Dick and Abendsen did: consult the I Ching. I tossed my coins. Hexagram 29. K’an/Dangerously Deep. Bad sign. I think. Let’s see what it says:

Water follows Water, spilling over any cliff, flowing past all obstacles, no matter the depth or distance, to the Sea.
The Superior Person learns flexibility from the mistakes he has made, and grows strong from the obstacles he has overcome, pressing on to show others the Way.

Okay, so I have to just overcome this obstacle, suck it up and write a blog post. Duh. But that still didn’t help me decide what to write it on. Luckily, ichingonline.net gave me a “situation analysis,” as well:

You are facing a crucial trial along your Journey.
The danger of this challenge is very real.
It is a test of your mettle.
If you can maintain your integrity and stay true to your convictions, you will overcome.
That's not as easy as it seems when you are faced with the sacrifice of other things you've come to depend upon or hold dear.

Stay true to my convictions. My only conviction regarding this book was that I didn’t like it. So I must write a blog post on that. The oracle has spoken.

That’s what I had thought from the start. No matter what reading the I Ching gave me, I’m fairly confident I would have ended up with the same conclusion. A similar result to what happened in class last week when we decided not to write a blog post. The I Ching reading merely a reflection of inner desires that lie within a person’s mind no matter what, subjective to each person’s own reading of it. It is an external representation of the inner workings of the mind.  Dick’s use of this device throughout The Man in the High Castle furthers his exploration of the human psyche and how it affects the perception of the world. 

Originally, I was planning on posting about The Man in the High Castle, but something about the discussion we had last class will not leave my head. I believe this is because I am realizing how relevant it is to the social interactions I have with people all the time. Just yesterday, two of my friends mentioned to me that the issue of deciding what they are going to major in is a source of constant tension between them and their parents. As I hear happens so frequently, these college students my age are fighting with one or both of their parents because they wish to pursue some sort of humanities major, while their parents want them to take a math/science route because a humanities major “won’t get them anywhere.” Immediately upon hearing this, I thought of the idea that we focused on during Tuesday’s talk of “defending” a liberal arts school—I slowly realized how much this phenomenon angers me. Why is a liberal arts education the only one that needs defending? There is truly something to be said for learning to effectively communicate and develop relationships with professors or professor-like figures, and I don’t think this is hard to see. Thinking for one’s self is a skill that I believe is being drowned out by other priorities that people in this day and age seem to have, and whose importance is clearly declining. I am curious to see when people other than liberal arts college attendees will cease failing to realize this, or when it will become something that is generally accepted. 

Experiencing the Moment

I found Tagomi’s meditation with the silver trinket accurately represented a failure to live in the moment.  Throughout Man in the High Castle, the Japanese people are obsessed with historicity, and their obsession with American history exceeds even that of native Americans.  As people of the past, the Japanese tend to surround themselves with artifacts, such as a Colt .44.  But an interesting point of tension arises when Mr. Tagomi buys the silver piece of jewelry from Mr. Childan’s store.  Suddenly he has an object of no historical value, and he must somehow give it value.  Stuck with a perspective that focuses on the past, Tagomi helplessly uses frames of reference of others to give the piece of art value.  For example, he tries to parallel the little jewelry with the small “boxtop cereal trinket” or treats it like an object of science by analyzing his senses, touch, sight, smell, and even taste, on the object (228).  From all his analysis and focus, Mr. Tagomi expects truth, he demands, “Cough up arcane secret” (229).  Almost comically, however, his intense focus on the silver squiggle actually induces a state of hypnotism on himself.  He experiences the city in a half-dreamlike state experiencing only its “symbolic, archetypal aspect(s), ” and he can only break out by looking at the silver triangle again, counting to ten, and forcefully shouting.  When a person contemplates on what he should do next, he loses his ability to act spontaneously, and his actions are handicapped by a lack of complete perception.  Philip K. Dick shows how instead of thinking too much about a plan-of-action one should live-in-the-moment and just act.  Tagomi, by ignoring the rules of formality with the German consul, acts without excessive contemplation and lives in the moment, and thus he finds emotional relief even after he experiences a heart attack.  

Authenticity

Why do people feel the need to collect artifacts from other cultures? It seems to be just an obvious role as a tourist when visiting another country or culture. One common example is Tibetan prayer flags, which many people hang for decorative purposes without really knowing the significance or meaning of the flags to the Tibetan culture. In The Man in the High Castle, collecting items based on cultural accuracy and significance is called into question. Collecting antiques of another culture without first hand experience is highlighted through the demand for antiquities of the past society of the United States pre-WWII. The Japanese, who are in control of the PSA, have a particular interest in American antiquities. One reason for this interest seems to be the desire to live vicariously through the pastime culture symbolized through specific roles that particular items played in the lifestyle at the time. When Childan describes his own childhood game of “flipcards,” Major Humo and his friend are fascinated and clearly enjoy the story, appreciating the item even more knowing that there is a particular significance surrounding it. Thus, the story determines the historicity of each item. Because the person telling the story controls the historicity, they also have the power to manipulate and change the telling of the past, making the historicity of an item completely unreliable and a “mass delusion.” Childan’s childhood story, for all we know, is a huge lie. Childan could have easily told any story in order to convince Humo and his friend that they were truly partaking in a part of his childhood that no longer exists, making the antiquity in the story more valuable. The main delusion to historicity of antiquities is that nothing can prove what is a true part of history and what is a fake. As Childan points out, “the word ‘fake’ meant nothing really, since the word ‘authentic’ meant nothing really” (64). This, is yet another example of a warning to the reader that one should always question the truthfulness of information given to them, which is also later shown through Juliana when she learns that her entire reality has been full of lies. 

Confusion Concerning Narrative Style

My experience reading Man in the High Castle reminded me why I tend to dislike reading a book in quantifiable sections, decided either by myself or by an outside source. Perhaps it was simply due to an unfortunate choice in stopping points on my behalf, but I encountered a problem reading this text that, in my discussions with other class-members, they seemed to avoid. In particular, I am speaking my confusion generated by Philip K. Dick's narrative style.

At the onset of the plot, the perspective of the character and the limited third person narrator seemed incredibly unclear, and this lack of clarity was used to great effect. Take, for example, an early look into Juliana's thought processes: On page 36, Dick begins in a clear third person - “Their trouble, she decided, is with sex; they did something foul with it back in the 'thirties, and it has gotten worse.” Dick then continues, clearly extending Juliana's line of thought, “ Hitler started it with his – what was she? And his family was inbred already; his mother and father were cousins.” These sentences naturally follow from the first, and by eliminating the need to continually restate that these words are the thoughts of Juliana, the narration is smoother and more dynamic. As the book progresses, however, this particular style of the internal monologue is used for every character, and is utilized in the exact same way. As a contrasting example, Rudolf Wegener confesses his feelings of fatalism at the end of the book in the exact same structure: “No wonder Mr. Tagomi could not go on, he thought. The terrible dilemma of our lives. Whatever happens, it is evil beyond compare. Why struggle, then? Why choose?” (Dick 245).

Using this particular narrative style is a powerful way to convey to an audience a large quantity of information concerning the inner lives of the characters, but I think it runs into trouble with the interweaving personalities and narratives within the story. It almost brings the characters too close together, to a point in which it sounds like each character is tapping into a singular mental landscape of perspectives and emotions, when in the text, some characters are quite different from others. I didn't know what to make of this, and wanted to know whether or not I am the only one who found this style powerful, but poorly implemented. Alternatively, do you think Dick is aware of this blending of perspectives through his narrative style, and is implementing it for just that effect? I am curious as to what the rest of the class thinks.

How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later

      "Maybe each human being lives in a unique world, a private world, a world different from those inhabited and experienced by all other humans. And that led me wonder, If reality differs from person to person, can we speak of reality singular, or shouldn't we really be talking about plural realities? And if there are plural realities, are some more true (more real) than others? What about the world of a schizophrenic? Maybe, it's as real as our world. Maybe we cannot say that we are in touch with reality and he is not, but should instead say, His reality is so different from ours that he can't explain his to us, and we can't explain ours to him. The problem, then, is that if subjective worlds are experienced too differently  there occurs a breakdown of communication... and there is the real illness."

~Phillip K. Dick, "How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later"

http://deoxy.org/pkd_how2build.htm#top

       For some reason, I took the crazy, outlandish ideas in The Man in the High Castle seriously and tried to analyze them, even though they were presented as fiction. However, as soon as I read in an essay that Dick believed we were living in a metaphysical bible plate, I instantly discounted his ideas, just because they were proposed more realistically. This, ironically, made them more preposterous. 

To Dick, however, I don't think there is a real difference between his fiction and his world; he even states that an author of "supposed fiction might write the truth and not know it." Many of his stories are based around 'real' encounters he had, most of them paralleling biblical stories. But he says that he read the corresponding parts of the bible years after his books were finished.  He writes about how he feels that "that somehow the world of the Bible is a literally real but veiled landscape, never changing, hidden from our sight, but available to us by revelation." Even though most of his personal philosophies are downright ludicrous, he raises a good question: what is reality? (He always raises that question)

       Now the idea of reality is blurry already, and it gets even more so when you're under the influence of Sodium thiopental, a barbiturate that induces hallucinations, comas and death, as Dick was during one of his most influential religious experiences. But his drug-hazes may help us understand what we understand as reality, whether at a higher, philosophical level, or simply in terms of our social and political world. We perceive the world as a series of stimuli. These stimuli are reality, which is defined by Dick as "that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." Though they are constant and real, they don't make a picture of our reality; they really make a connect-the-dots. We draw conclusions and build our own personal worlds from these connect-the-dots. Do we all connect our dots differently? The shape all depends on your perception. Politicians, it seems, can use the same statistics and facts to prove totally opposite points, all based on the way they frame it. We can do the same things in our political views, or even in our view of existence.

      What Dick is trying to do is implant the idea that we can't always assume our reality is the only one. There is the possibility that everyone could have a different reality, whether it's a simple interpretation of facts from the TV or the interpretation of the meaning of life.

http://www.theaunicornist.com/2010_06_01_archive.html

Juliana and The Reason She Lives

What kind of woman was Juliana? She was a woman that was lost in a world she could not comprehend. Her existence was based solely on the fact she didn't know how to live. She was clinging to every moment and whoever seemed to need her at a given time. All she wanted was to feel needed; to have reason to live. In the world on the novel the idea of having purpose is critical in order to understand The Man In The High Castle. Philip K. Dick created the character Juliana because in this world, humans always move in a linear direction, unable to change their perception of the world. It is with change that humans become conscious of a world outside of their spectrum. Juliana was a character that struggle with understanding anything outside of what she knew. She accepted the world as it was and anything else was just impossible. When she was giving the book “The Grasshopper Lies Heavy” she started to understand that you can’t take everything at face value. At this point she began to change direction and enter a new world; a world where Germany lost the war. Philip K. Dick needed a character that would become conscious of the truth, however never have the tools needed to change anything. Juliana was created in order to show that truth regardless how powerful cannot stand on its own. That truth does not exist because of an individual it has to be accepted by the masses of people in order to live. Juliana is left in limbo, a place where she loses the ability live in the world where Germany won the world. She becomes spiritually defeated and retreats back to her old life. This was the purpose Philip K Dick envision for Juliana; to suffer the greatest pain imaginable, living with the truth, in a world created with lies.

Only Skin Deep

          The Man in the High Castle creates an alternate world where Japan and Germany win the World War. The story takes place in the PSA, which is controlled by the Japanese, and many of the character's comments mentioned an interesting point about the Japanese. From the beginning, Mr. Childan and his store, the American Artistic Handicrafts Inc., show that the Japanese value old American antiques. "No contemporary American art; only the past could be represented here" because only ancient objects seemed to catch the eyes of wealthy Japanese (5). I find this problematic in two ways: the Japanese enjoy only  American inventions and only value material objects.  

            Even though Japan won the war, they put more worth on old American artifacts than their own inventions. I think this shows how much of an effect the Western countries have had on the Japanese people, because even when they are in power they still feel inferior. Now that the Japanese rule half of America, they feel superior to the current Americans and therefore their designs were not valued. But the Americans before the World War are viewed as talented and better than the Japanese's inventions, so their creations are seen as valuable items.

            The Japanese also put more worth on material objects. They give artifacts as presents and a milk bottle cap is suddenly a collectible to them. The objects resemble the past and show that the Japanese choose to brood in history, rather than look to the future.  The objects they choose to value also reveal how superficial they are. When Mr. Childan was going to meet Mr. Tagomi, he was thinking of how he had to remember to bow, hide all facial expressions, and make sure a slave carries his bag inside because formalities were more important than actual intentions (28). But these objects they love were also being reproduced as fakes, "and so it's all a fake, a mass delusion," and this beckons me to ask, do the Japanese only value what is on the surface (64)?

Opinions and What ifs

Some ideas that arose to me while finishing Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle were that all that matters is your own opinion and that life is too short to worry about what ifs. In regard to opinions the worth of an object is lies within each individual person. The new “swirls” that Childan showed to Mr.Tagomi had much worth to him because they were newly American made but Mr.Tagomi struggled to see any worth in such an item. Also the whole idea of the oracle/ I Ching, as we saw in class, is opinion based. The words are left greatly to interpretation, but regardless people use them in their daily lives and it acts as a sense of comfort or reassurance for people.

What ifs come up very often in this novel. What if something is real? What if someone might kill me? What if I live in a fictional world? Hawthorne Aberson says, “I’m not sure of anything”(p.257). He is not sure if The Grasshopper Lies Heavy is the true reality or even if the next person his wife lets into his house will try and kill him. Still he refuses to carry a gun and the only thing he lets bother him is the fact people are drinking his liquor. And for Juliana finally finding out the truth in a way tormented her. She chased the what ifs so far that she found an answer and the second it was not what she was looking for it left her completely lost. Aberson kept his opinion that other things are more important in life then answers and, at least on the outside, seems happy. All in all some questions are better left unanswered and even if you get a certain answer your opinion on the matter still means more.

Accessing our own Beliefs

The Grasshopper Lies Heavy states, "It is not too late. We see your bluff, Adolf Hitler. And we know you for what you are, at last. And the Nazi Party, the dreadful era of murder and megalomaniacal fantasy, for what it is. What it was." (Dick, Man in the High Castle, pg. 127) As I usually do for these blogs, I star the sentences that really impact me and then I use this time to go back and try to process why.  My first reaction to this was sadness, or maybe even helplessness. Dick creates such a scary sounding yet probable world where books such as The Grasshopper Lies Heavy are banned. Abendsen's quote seems like a plea for help; he must create a fictional world in order to tell the truth. The sad part is it always has to start with that one person, the one who breaks the mold and allows others to realize what they truly believe. In The Man in the High Castle that person is Abendsen. I feel that many times, and this definitely proves true with characters such as Frank Fink, people do not consciously hide their beliefs but rather can't access them because society puts such a skewed perspective in their heads. The next thought that passed through my head was the power of literature to express what we can't (socially or politically) express vocally. Writing is certainly not as anonymous as many people seem to believe it is today (with the internet, and email, and all) but when we write we have the physical distance from others that allows us to reach a deeper state of contemplation, or a more personal truth. Abendsen puts himself at danger by publishing this book; but at the same time he gives himself a lot of power. Freiherr Hugo Reiss tries not to be pulled in by the book but he cannot stop reading and the "alternate history" scares him. If we must create fiction in order to tell the truth than that is a tool we should use with pride. If we have the ability to articulate our own ideas in the midst of a society that believes something very different, then we have the duty to do so so that others can as well.

Equal and Opposite Novels

When I first heard the premise of The Man in the High Castle, I was immediately intrigued. The axis powers win the war. It’s the ultimate “what if?” question of the 20^th century and we, as humans, are inherently fascinated by the answer. The concept of an alternative reality has always captivated humans, as the influence of a few changed historical details can spark dramatic changes in the future. Though we accept our current reality, we never seem to let go of the fact that it could have been otherwise.  In the novel, the characters express these same intrigues into the alternative outcome, showing the parallel role of the characters of the novel with the readers of the novel. While they are reading The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, a very close account of our reality, we are reading The Man in the High Castle, an account of their reality. In ways, these two novels are both equal and opposite. Their reality is our fiction while our fiction is their reality. Their reactions to The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, including the skepticism and doubtfulness they possess, is no different that the critical way in which we read the world ruled by the axis powers. While they read our world as “cheap, bad fiction”, we read their world through the same science fiction, hypothetical lenses. I found it especially interesting that although this is a science fiction novel, which by definition is a totally alternate world where it would seem difficult to connect to the characters, we are able to because as we read, we are experiencing the exact same book as they are reading, simply from opposite perspectives. Rarely can a work of literature create such a connection between a character and a reader. We are united, through different realties, by our intrigue of the alternative. 

Truth Between The Li(n)es

Similarly to O’Brien’s, The Things They Carried, Phillip K Dick alters history in The Man In The High Castle. Philip K Dick uses this novel to explain to readers that everything, including history, is relative. The author utilizes metatextuality to contrast a fictional history (the Axis defeating the Allies) and a semi fictional story (“The Grasshopper Lies Heavy”), which relates to a major theme of authentic vs. fake. By creating “The Grasshopper Lies Heavy”, Dick is reinventing history since the story is not completely accurate. However, since the basic premise is almost the same, it adds an element of truth through the familiarity of the readers’. The character Paul explains that the “The Grasshopper Lies Heavy” is an “interesting form of fiction … within the genre of science fiction” and that the story “deals with an alternate present” instead of a “particular future where science has advanced” (108). Dick is toying with the reader by paralleling two science fiction novels. The reader wants to find the historicity within “The Grasshopper Lies Heavy” but the novel calls it “fiction” and the actual truth is alternated. The author comments on The Grasshopper Lies Heavy through the character Childan by stating, “odd nobody thought of writing it before” (117). I thought this was particularly funny because it is “odd” that there are not many other novels that explore how life would be if the Nazis won World War II. Dick explains a different outcome of history. By doing so, he is explaining that reality is subjective rather than objective. Also, that due to perspective, one is able to manipulate the interpretation of reality. 

Madness

In the last third of The Man in the High Castle, there is a shift in the tone of the novel. Beginning with Juliana’s fit in the Denver hotel room, some of the characters fall into the depths of madness.  Sentences become short, out of sequence, and nonsensical, as though the reader is in the character’s psyche as sanity slips away.  Juliana, upon realizing that Joe is actually a Nazi sent to kill Abdensen, loses her sense of reality, slitting Joe’s throat, wandering around naked, and becoming fully unaware of her actions.  I found that this episode was extraordinarily similar to that of Mr. Tagomi at the beginning of chapter 14.  Mr. Tagomi goes mad after killing the two men who were after Mr. Baynes.  He, too, wanders around with no sense of direction.  Though his thoughts are often presented in short, confused sentences like Juliana’s, he ponders the meaning of his existence, death, yin and yang, and the evils of the modern world.

Further, both Juliana and Mr. Tagomi seek comfort in their maddened state; each turns to an object that they hope will help return their sanity.  For Juliana, it is the oracle on which she depends so dearly that she looks to for guidance.  In her delirium she begs the oracle: “Tell me what to do; please” (216).  Mr. Tagomi, on the other hand, turns to the silver triangle from Edfrank jewelry.  In his existential crisis, he hopes to find solace and understanding by staring at the piece of silver.  But he becomes entranced by the silver, convinced that it alone will save him: “Now talk to me, he told it.  Now that you have snared me. I want to hear your voice” (230).  I think that both Juliana and Mr. Tagomi seek help in these inanimate objects because they are afraid or unable to face the reality of what they have done and what they have learned.  They search for some outside source of wisdom to guide them because they cannot form clear thoughts on their own.  But as Mr. Tagomi discovers: “[It] did not save me…Did not help” (239).  

The Consequence of Victory

What is the point of winning? When two factions go against each other through blood and sweat and death is there ever really a winner or simply one side that loses less than the other? Toward the end of Dick's novel when Juliana confronts Hawthorne Abendsen a truth comes out, "'Germany and Japan lost the war'"(Dick, 257). Their victory, the act that changed entire continents, was a lie. Now, by lie I am not saying that it didn't happen in terms of the novel, but that it was not a true victory. For a true victory to exist there mustn’t be any loss. Yet, both Japan and Germany continue to lose. Japan is in constant fear of being overtake and blindsided by Germany, and Germany is attempting to turn a blind eye to a failing economy and manage an empire too big for any one group to control.

The win was a fake. Much like the fakes that embedded themselves in the antique market in the book, the victory of Japan and Germany over the Allied forces was a fraud. Yet, if one was to expose this, was to blatantly point out the countless fallacies of both empires, nothing would be left. The state of the entire planet rests on the hope that both of these super powers will never show their hands and keep on bluffing until one finally caves. Victory is never truly whole. There is never a moment when someone has won outright with no consequence. The only truthful outcome is loss because when you lose there is nothing, and no reason, to hide. 

An "Informed" Opinion

I was glad that Colin, at least in passing, mentioned the all-pervading influence of social media in class yesterday. Processing the veritable shit storm (or, as Bokonon puts it, pool-pah) of thoughts, images, and sounds that we’re bombarded with everyday makes it that much more difficult to actually formulate an original opinion. Usually, I feel like I do a pretty good job of sifting through the flotsam and jetsam that social media outlets provide for me. Sure, they influence me to an extent, but at the end of the day, it isn’t difficult to convince myself that I possess my own views, that I reach my own conclusions, that I make my own decisions.

Of course, it’s then embarrassing and infuriating when I find myself regurgitating word for word some everyman blogger’s opinion I read online the other day when conversing with someone about, say, an electronic music producer’s latest 12” single. I was kind of amazed the first time this happened, especially after realizing that I didn’t really believe in the opinion I was so adamantly sharing. I thought I’d been avoiding the accumulation of biases. In fact, I’d made a point of trying to find new music on my own, molding my own opinion on different genres and scenes as I skimmed along the surface of the blogosphere. It was disturbing, knowing that this wasn’t the case, and it made me doubt the validity and origins of my opinions in all other sectors of thought. Sure, it’s nearly impossible to avoid the adoption of biases if you’ve been exposed to them repeatedly over a long period of time, but I thought I was, for lack of a better word, stronger than that.

I know that, being a child of the Internet, I’ll almost always glean perspectives from the many mouths of social media whether I like it or not. With that said, here’s to hoping that I won’t end up like Mr. Robert Childan, a man wholly subservient to the whims of popular opinion, no matter how bogus or perverted.

Authenticity

In The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick, Paul describes an authentic object to be when "an entire new world is pointed to, by this.  The name for it is neither art, for it has no form, nor religion. What is it?...It is authentically a new thing on the face of the world" (176). Amongst the countless deviations Dick's alternative world exhibits from our real world today, this idea of authenticity appears to remain the same. To me, something has authenticity when it is one of a kind, unlike any other, and the undisputed original. But despite the definitions being the same, there seems to be a discrepancy in the position of authenticity on the scale of value. In our present day world, an object or person's authenticity is viewed as of the utmost importance and value. In contrast, the people of Dick's alternative reality value something's historicity above all else. These people desire their possessions to have history embedded within them. They don't want the new, they crave the old.

Frank Frink and Robert Children struggle to promote the Edfrank authentic jewelry business within a world that desires the opposite of their mantra. One of a kind, made to order, hand made, original, all of these phrases are ones which attract customers to a product in our world. But in Dick's world, Childan and Frink are met with distaste when they reveal these seemingly positive attributes of their jewelry pieces. Such differences in values aid to Dick's creation of this alternative post WWII world.