Maggie Nelson's 'Great To Watch'

Advancements in technology have produced a world in which one is constantly looking at images or watching a video. Whether for enjoyment or to fill a void caused by boredom, many people scroll through their phones aimlessly viewing a multitude of images. Maggie Nelson discusses these notions of spectating in her narrative titled “Great to Watch,” where she presents two different views of what “spectating” really means. She first presents it as an action that provides a false sense of empowerment where one passively views by means of constant scrolling. Later she claims that active spectating gives one a mechanism to become aware of both themselves and the environment. Malcolm Gladwell presents his idea of the environment in his narrative titled …show more content…
How humans approach factors within their environment is significant to how they view it. When discussing how a child interacts with sociable robots, Turkle states that “His attitude is pragmatic. If something that seems to have a self is before him, he deals with the aspect … most relevant to the context” (Turkle 463). When presented with physical or conceptual factors of the sociable robot, it was natural for the child to act pragmatically. Whatever is sensible or “relevant” to the environment or “context” is what an individual will focus on. Although that factor may have many aspects to it, one would only deem those relevant to his or her specific context as worthy to examine. Turkle’s notion of “pragmatism” can be applied to Nelson’s ideas on how we spectate. Humans live in a world where they are passively scrolling through images. Nelson describes this state as “Web surfing, which consists of rapid image flow, the distillation of long, complex stories and situations … that have an eerily leveling effect on content and context” (Nelson 304). “Image flow,” therefore, creates an environment in which users can passively view a multitude of images, clips, and condensed stories in a short amount of time. Her use of the word “eerily” gives “image flow” a negative connotation, implying it takes away the need to …show more content…
The main consequence of passive spectating is “the age of extremities” and it must be dealt with or else an individual will struggle to hold control over his or her experience of the self. Nelson examines a consequence of passive spectating through Susan Sontag who stated “that we live in an age of extremity, characterized by the continual threat of two … opposed destinies: unremitting banality and inconceivable terror” (Nelson 306). A story seen as an “inconceivable terror” one day will become an “unremitting banality” the next, highlighting the fact that humans are constantly viewing images and are unable to divide their attention. If an individual only relies on “pragmatism” it gives one’s context the power over the experience of the self as an overload of images will force an individual to accept what is relevant in his or her context without further thought. This would therefore lead to the “age of extremities” where the constant processing of images would result in “opposed destinies.” Sontag’s use of the word “destinies” implies that the “age of extremities” is inevitable. However, Turkle offers a way of thinking that allows humans to break free from these extremities. While comparing how a child interacts with a sociable robot with another robot titled Wilson, she states that