[Note: This series originally started as a project on Reddit. You can find an explanation of what Bible Study is all about here.]
Today we begin our journey into Fever Pt.3, which was my first official comeback in the fandom, so always has a very special place in my heart. And fittingly, today, we get very deep on our anti-capitalism thoughts, which also has a very special place in my heart.
GD: We're starting part 3 which feels big and exciting
Bobby: It is.
GD: Feels momentous to start the third diary, like we should do something special, but nothing comes to mind
Bobby: I keep having little moments of panic thinking that we're running out of diaries
We're not. I am a crazy person, but it does keep happening
GD: We are catching up to them, which is a strange thought
Bobby: Well, it takes 20 weeks to get through a whole diary
GD: Basically forever
Bobby: Yes. Since we're permanently splitting them in two parts now which we didn't before
So we were really trucking at the beginning
How naive we were
GD: Only novices can start big projects because they don't have the understanding of how long and challenging the process will be
That's what I've decided
Bobby: I can't believe we've only been at this for about 8 months. I swear it's been years
I've realized the pandemic has pretty much destroyed all concept of time for me. I keep remembering things that definitely happened pre-pandemic but no, it was 2021
Anyways, we should consider doing something momentous on our one-year bible study anniversary
GD: Losing almost a whole year of one's life does have a weird way of changing how you interpret the past
I agree, though I don't know what that is. A pilgrimage would be fun, but a pilgrimage to Seoul is impossible, and there's nowhere else to pilgrimage to
Evermore--divorce it completely from ateez
Bobby: Margaritaville
GD: Also divorced from ateez, but we can have a drink in Jongho's honor
Bobby: Everything is Ateez-related if you try hard and believe
GD: True--if these 8 months have proved anything, it's that
01: where are we in the story thus far?
GD: Alright, should we recap where we are in the story? It's good because we left off on the cliffhanger, and a preview of today's page tells me we will need to wait even longer to pick that back up.
Bobby: So, Jongho had been sent into a trash cave to retrieve GG's voice and was affected by the yellow smoke. He hallucinates the basketball game where he injured his ankle and in his delirium starts running towards a cliff. Meanwhile, Yunho and whoever was with him, confront Left Eye who is also drunk on yellow smoke and dreaming of his deceased daughter. When Yunho insists that his daughter is truly dead, Left Eye grabs a bat and takes a swing at Yunho in anger.
GD: It's interesting that the only members whose whereabouts we can really account for right now in these action scenes are Jongho, Yeosang (who went to retrieve Jongho), and Yunho.
Bobby: That is one of the things that bothers me about the diaries--members just straight up disappear for pages at a time. I get why, but I feel like I'm missing out on a lot of details
GD: I agree, and it also has the effect of highlighting their aloneness instead of their togetherness, which is possibly intentional
Bobby: Perhaps. Oh, we do know Mingi is with Yunho team
GD: Right, but it bothers me that he's not at all present on the page during the confrontation with Left Eye. Which does make sense because it's Yunho's growth moment, but it makes you wonder like.. is Mingi just chillin’ watching this? Is he helping? Did he go fetch something else when this goes down?
Well, I suppose it doesn't matter because we won't be talking about any of that today.
Shall we turn to this page and share some of our thoughts and key moments?
Bobby: Yes, I need to stop trying to decide who was on what team
02: thoughts on the page
Bobby: Already I'm learning I've been wrong about at least one thing
GD: There are several things that are making me question a lot of my assumptions. But what were you wrong about?
Bobby: If they know that the human lifespan has been extended to 200 years, that means that the takeover was at least over 200 years ago, don't you think?
Because how would they know unless people are actually living that long
Which means that my theory that Left Eye's daughter died before the takeover is probably wrong and that he was still a fashion designer after art had been banned
GD: Well, I'm not sure. Because the fourth industrial revolution could've happened pre Z
Bobby: Oooh--so the industrial revolution and the takeover are not simultaneous
GD: Industrialization tends to cause societal conflict with the haves and the have nots, and it could lead to the rise of a new leader and changes down the road.
Bobby: Which makes sense. They needed the AI in order to create the new system
GD: Right. We don't have an actual timeline, and the intern may never give us one, but I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that the industrial revolution happened, life was extended, social strife and problems were created, and then they used the ai system to attempt to find a way to utopia
Bobby: Living for 200 years must be exhausting. makes sense that people were zombies
GD: I'm reminded of that one Tom Cruise movie--with the AI that predicts crime
Bobby: (I'm thinking of when Left Eye's daughter died)
Minority Report
GD: Right. I don't have anything to say about it. Just that I'm thinking of it.
Bobby: I'm also thinking of a short story I read with my kids this week as a supplement to The Giver. It's called Examination Day
GD: Oh I do think I've read that one before
Bobby: Probably. But it's a strictly controlled society where kids are tested at the age of 12 to make sure their intelligence levels fall within acceptable parameters
In the end, the boy in the story is killed for being too intelligent
GD: Right because the goal is for everyone to be average, not superior
Bobby: So we had a discussion about the power of intelligence and why people in power don't want those under them to be extraordinary in any way
Sounds like I'm fostering a rebellion. Maybe I am
GD: It's interesting because it seems like people in power are scared of both people with two much intelligence and people with not enough. They want that average--or ordinary. I was reading this book about Edgar Allan Poe's interest in science because that's the sort of stuff I get up to in my free time, but they were talking about the creation of public universities in the United States
And one of the leading proponents was like "we can't have the uneducated masses ruining society" and like, the founding fathers did a lot to protect society from "uneducated masses". That's part of the reason the electoral college exists. They just didn't trust people who weren't educated.
We have to protect people from their wrong choices
Bobby: Well, to be fair, when I look at any social media, I also don't trust the uneducated masses.
What I find far more insidious is the removal of logic and reason from school curriculum
Hell, the fact that kids aren't being taught to read properly
GD: It's really--what does it mean to be educated? What are you being educated on?
Because the fact that Texas has taken so much out of our history and government books in order to make ourselves feel better--like sure, we're giving kids an education, but it's like half the story, bordering on wrong
Bobby: One of the things we talked about with the story I mentioned is that the father doesn't know basic science facts--he doesn't know how far away the sun is or how photosynthesis works.
And the kids speculated that the father didn't want to answer his son's questions truthfully because he didn't want his son to become too intelligent
And my question to them was--does knowing facts make you intelligent? What exactly is intelligence? You can have a society that is intelligent and knows a lot of useful facts but who cannot reason and therefore never question authority
The thing about the boy in the story wasn't that he knew a lot of stuff--he didn't, he was only 12--but that he was curious and wanted to understand how the world worked. And that was too dangerous
GD: I did notice in this page the line specifically says "learn basic knowledge and simple principles for living in this world"
I guess the thing about the world, and the thing about a real education, is that you learn that nothing is basic and simple, and that most things are complicated without any right answers
Bobby: The most important thing education teaches you is how to learn
GD: I had a classmate in law school who called law school "the truest education in America", and what he meant was that most schools teach you things, and that law school teaches you to think. He believed everyone would benefit from going to law school. Not that I think he was right, but it was something that always stuck with me.
Law school is a type of school where you literally can't memorize things--like maybe the constitution? But everything else changes constantly, so what you have to learn is to read, think, and reason
My last year of teaching, I remember my students came by and asked if I'd take a 6th grade science exam as part of their experiment for science fair, which I did do, and I scored a 70, but truthfully, I knew 3-4 questions on the 10 question exam. But I used context clues and reasoning to make educated guesses on enough questions to get a "passing" score. But like.. I didn't know any of it.
Bobby: But that's the thing--I remember very little of what I learned in science and history because almost none of it is relevant to my adult life. The content wasn't necessarily the end game. The process was the Thing
I'm thinking about Prestige Academy
If the education has been stripped down to the basics, then why does it need to take 40 years? And I'm thinking about how it reminds me a bit of Hogwarts in that there's a true student government that is being used to maintain discipline
And I theorize that what they're actually learning is how to be subservient and useful members of society
GD: That's part of why our own school system has developed in that way that it has too though--we wanted to train society to be good little factory workers during the industrial revolution, so we placed them all in schools where they had to stand in lines and follow rules and wake up early and focus until it was time to get off work, etc etc etc
apparently I'm feeling very anti-capitalist today
anti-industrialism?
Bobby: In your most natural state, I see
GD: At least when I was teaching, there was a lot of fretting within the school district and in conversations about public education about how schools no longer prepared students for the reality of the workforce
To which I was like.. well how could it when it was designed to produce little factory workers?
Which most people will not be doing in this world
Bobby: Yes, there's been more of a shift towards collaboration and group assignments so that they're all prepared for the corporate environment. Which really just feels like a lateral move
GD: Yeah, we had a big emphasis on discussion and group projects--creating things. But I guess my feeling was always that it was a band-aid on a broken system?
Bobby: The industrial revolution made mass production the norm. And people wanted to do the same with education. And it simply doesn't work
GD: Because we still expected kids to be able to sit in their seats to do this group projects, to do them quietly or to listen to the teacher chosen music, to use only the materials the teacher could think of to create their projects
And you know, I don't have an answer to any of those problems, because it's not an easy answer. We obviously do need kids to learn to read and write, so some sort of public education is a necessity, but the most important societal function that education does is child care
and so education can't be shortened and it can't be adjusted because we need babysitters
Bobby: Yes. We live in a world where even with two parents, it's rare for one of them to be fully stay-at-home
And we've circled back to anti-capitalism. Right on schedule
GD: And public education is the government answer to childcare, which made covid such an absolute disaster for teachers and public education systems
Bobby: And we're still reeling from the effects
The kids, specifically, are still reeling. We've been noticing across the board they are socially underdeveloped and they lack any sort of tenacity
GD: It makes me think about social media a lot--we see that a lot of younger people would prefer to live their lives almost exclusively through social media--but during covid--they had to? Like, that was how they got socialization and stayed in touch with people?
And so they used social media during this incredibly traumatic and difficult time, and in many ways it saved them
So of course they have an affinity to it and a desire to use it
Bobby: Yes, but what they're lacking is the ability to deal with people. You can't just block someone irl who's being annoying.
GD: Now I'm inexplicably thinking about San and Bobo
Bobby: No, I see the connection
GD: I think I see social media as their childhood crutch that they're reluctant to let go of?
Which is not to say that social media is bad--I use it--but more that it can't be everything
Bobby: Well, it's not that they need to let it go but it needs to assume its proper place
GD: Right
Bobby: Balance is the key--as it is in everything. And balance is what they don't understand
GD: Balance is hard for anyone, but especially children
I have another part of this page that stuck out to me
Bobby: Oh right. The page
GD: "The AI ... cultivated a new market platform for estimating individual energy ... and trading it. As the government ... exercised control over the new energy trading platform ... "
This does make it sound like your theory about trading energy is correct? Like this almost makes it sound like a stock market exchange?
Bobby: Well, my theory was that they were trading/selling good memories specifically
Mostly because I don't understand who they're trading with and how exactly one trades energy made from emotions
I've not been able to get the memory trading theory to quite line up with this entry, so I'm keeping in the realm of fan fiction for now
But I am thinking about how it seems every facet of human life has been turned into an industry. Like how social media platforms make money from people being angry online
GD: I wanted to see what Papago had to say about the translation of the last line because I felt "humanity fell to components for maintaining the world" was slightly confusing
And it says "all mankind has become parts for maintaining the system"
Bobby: Yes, that's what I've imagined it meant. Everyone is a cog in the machine
GD: Which means the same thing, I think? but it is less confusing to me
Bobby: I do like the original translation though as it carries the idea that this is a downgrade for humanity
GD: I think the use of the word "gradual" is interesting. It implies that they didn't lose all art and emotion immediately. Z didn't come to power and boom everything is different, it was a gradual process
Well maybe they lost all art, because it says it was prohibited
Bobby: Hmmm, yes. Their freedoms were taken one policy at a time
GD: It reminds me a little bit of a conversation you and I had about stream pollution? I think? I think that was you and I
Bobby: I don't believe so
GD: But, you know, they set up this system where they teach these people to be cogs in the machine for 40 years, and they take away everything that gives life meaning, like art and painful memories, and the result is that humanity falls away naturally over time. Just like, when you put a factory next to a stream, you're not necessarily trying to ruin a town's drinking water, but the result is the same.
Bobby: I'm thinking about The Giver
I am also now thinking about The Host
I don't have anything new or exciting to say about either of those books
GD: I have not read The Host
Bobby: Something about what does it really mean to be human
I liked The Host when I read it in my 20s. I do not think I would like it if I read it now
Though I maintain it's a better story than Twilight
GD: I need to read horror because that's the next book I pitched, so I will skip it for now. Maybe one day.
Bobby: It's about aliens taking over the planet by forcibly ejecting human souls from their bodies--so there's a horror element
But is not actual horror
GD: I need ghosts, I think
Bobby: We all need ghosts. I find that most ghost stories just don't ever satisfy my need for ghosts. Never enough ghosts in them
GD: I need very scary ghosts, and I found a list, so I am going to try to hit the library today
But anyways any other thoughts on this page before we praise and prayer?
Bobby: I have a quick thought/question about the change in POV
No I don't--I mean, I'm just noticing that it feels we've gone from third person limited to third person omniscient.
For the intros/outros specifically
GD: It is odd to me that we left off on a cliffhanger--which was an outro--and we've returned to an intro that is... just totally removed from the action
Bobby: That feels natural to me actually. They do it in kdramas all the time
GD: I suppose that's true. I think it's weird to me that the outro had so much action? But you're right--kdramas do do that
Bobby: It builds the tension. And it's a good time to give a bit of exposition perhaps because we're super tuned in
GD: I am noticing that Z is not mentioned a single time here, just "the central government"
Bobby: Do we know that Z is a person?
GD: I think we do as of Epilogue diary? But I would have to open the Epilogue diary to confirm, which I'm not going to do
Bobby: I'm going to hold on to my thought then
03: praise and prayer
GD: Praise and prayer, then?
I want to cheat on my praise.
Bobby: A good week for it. When praises feel hard to come by
GD: As you know, I went to Kcon last weekend. And on Saturday, I got to see ATEEZ perform, and that feels particularly special and precious now that Jongho is on a health related hiatus.
So I would like to praise their very good work at KCON. Like truly, concert version From is a masterpiece that I want them to release to me. And they just had the most incredible energy. I walked out of that concert with such a high.
I also got to see them on Sunday during Meet and Greet, and Yunho did a very adorable little turn wave when he was passing in front of me. And I would like to praise him for that because it cheered me up.
Bobby: Yunho is very good for cheering
Well, I was not at Kcon, as you know. But I did watch the stream. I decided to use last week as a working weekend to get a lot of things done for school and then use the kcon stream as a cheery break and reward for my labor.
I got a ton of work done and feel very relieved about it, but when it came time for Kcon, I was exhausted and barely functioning. I was fully present for the babies but I definitely drifted off during ZB1 and Rain
But when Ateez began their set--boy did I snap awake.
GD: I also drifted off for ZB1. Impossible to drift off for Rain because the awkward tension was so high in that arena.
Bobby: And I know that I talked about this yesterday I think, but I'm just so--what's the word I want? Pleased? Proud?--that when I look at the history of every Ateez performance, I have nothing to feel bad or embarrassed about.
I saw a tweet from a Stay who said they were sad they weren't at the Brazil concert even though they aren't even an atiny. And to me that says that Ateez performances speak for themselves. I don't care what reddit says
Somewhere in there is my praise
GD: Seeing Ateez perform is... I don't care who you are. It's an incredible experience, and they deserve all of the praise for it.
Be the light
Bobby: Halazia
An auspicious beginning to Part 3! We will be back next week with our sacred practice for this page.
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