Ayush Chaurasia - Week 13 - To Be Remembered
Thomas Edison. Henry Ford. Steve Jobs.
These inventors have shaped our lives with their groundbreaking creations, and they are now remembered as some of the most influential people of their times.
But who is William Eno? What about John Loughlin?
These men invented some of the most ubiquitous items in our lives. They are so common, so deeply integrated into our everyday habits that we do not even question where they came from.
The stop sign. The school desks we spend hours sitting in.
When was the last time you ever paid attention to these items? Have you ever considered a world without them? Would every intersection on the roads be one of two extremes—littered with obtrusive stop lights or an uncontrolled chaos?
It takes a very conscious effort to remember, to honor these men for their inventions. They have shaped our lives just as much as the inventors at the top of this blog, but they receive a fraction of the respect. And this raises many questions. Are the people we remember the ones we should respect? What about all the people we forgot?
Of course, many of the people we remember have earned their spots in history. Athletes like Usain Bolt worked for years to become the idols they now are. Inventors like Nikola Tesla poured their mind into their works.
But many have not earned their spot in history.
If remembering someone means honoring them, it seems insulting to remember villains like Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin. They raise a dilemma, but I like to think we remember these people out of respect for their victims, not them.
Ethical considerations force us to remember history, but zooming into our own lives, we ignore the people who directly affect us most. I do not know who decides our school schedule, but it has dictated my life for the past eleven years. I do not know who invented the keyboard, but I need it to type this blog right now (although some quick research can reveal that the inventor was Christopher Latham Sholes).
With the sheer interconnectedness of human society, almost everyone deserves to be remembered for one reason or another. To be remembered is just a question of who can become utterly exceptional enough that people cannot forget what was done.
And unfortunately, everyday inventions, everyday decisions—however influential in a person’s life they may be—are, by definition, unexceptional. So if you look around your room right now and examine the commonplace items around you (pens, wires, erasers, drywall, floors), you probably cannot name the person who created them.
At the end of the day, a person can only remember so many things. This limited remembrance is not something people can necessarily fix—and I do not necessarily think it is a problem by any means, either. I just find it interesting to sometimes take a step back from my hectic life and ponder over the history of the things I take for granted all around me.
These inventors have shaped our lives with their groundbreaking creations, and they are now remembered as some of the most influential people of their times.
But who is William Eno? What about John Loughlin?
These men invented some of the most ubiquitous items in our lives. They are so common, so deeply integrated into our everyday habits that we do not even question where they came from.
The stop sign. The school desks we spend hours sitting in.
When was the last time you ever paid attention to these items? Have you ever considered a world without them? Would every intersection on the roads be one of two extremes—littered with obtrusive stop lights or an uncontrolled chaos?
It takes a very conscious effort to remember, to honor these men for their inventions. They have shaped our lives just as much as the inventors at the top of this blog, but they receive a fraction of the respect. And this raises many questions. Are the people we remember the ones we should respect? What about all the people we forgot?
Of course, many of the people we remember have earned their spots in history. Athletes like Usain Bolt worked for years to become the idols they now are. Inventors like Nikola Tesla poured their mind into their works.
But many have not earned their spot in history.
If remembering someone means honoring them, it seems insulting to remember villains like Adolph Hitler or Joseph Stalin. They raise a dilemma, but I like to think we remember these people out of respect for their victims, not them.
Ethical considerations force us to remember history, but zooming into our own lives, we ignore the people who directly affect us most. I do not know who decides our school schedule, but it has dictated my life for the past eleven years. I do not know who invented the keyboard, but I need it to type this blog right now (although some quick research can reveal that the inventor was Christopher Latham Sholes).
With the sheer interconnectedness of human society, almost everyone deserves to be remembered for one reason or another. To be remembered is just a question of who can become utterly exceptional enough that people cannot forget what was done.
And unfortunately, everyday inventions, everyday decisions—however influential in a person’s life they may be—are, by definition, unexceptional. So if you look around your room right now and examine the commonplace items around you (pens, wires, erasers, drywall, floors), you probably cannot name the person who created them.
At the end of the day, a person can only remember so many things. This limited remembrance is not something people can necessarily fix—and I do not necessarily think it is a problem by any means, either. I just find it interesting to sometimes take a step back from my hectic life and ponder over the history of the things I take for granted all around me.
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| www.onthisday.com/images/professions/top-3-inventors.jpg |
Hi Ayush! Thank you for sharing this reflective and detailed blog. I was captivated by your opening paragraphs, and it helped capture my interest and made progress towards illustrating and introducing the broader theme of your blog. The brief paragraphs and short sentence structure allowed the reader to reflect for themselves. I appreciate how you used this structure to allow us to form our own conclusions and opinions before you moved on to the rest of the blog, where you began to discuss your own opinions on the items and ideas shared in the introduction. Throughout your blog, you raised several important points. I was particularly fascinated by your discussion on what remembering someone truly means in regard to their legacy and our opinion of them today.
ReplyDeleteLike you mentioned in your blog, I believe that humans may have several distinct reasons for remembering someone. But usually, in my opinion, the chief factor for someone being remembered is their impact compared to the general impact of their peers. For example, taking the mention of Hitler and Stalin, I believe they are remembered because they had a much more memorable impact (albeit horrific) than their authoritarian peers. In the same vain, inventors such as Nikola Tesla are likely remembered over an inventor like William Eno because at his time, the work he did eclipsed the quality and scope of work his peers accomplished. I wonder how others feel on this subject.
Once again, thank you for sharing. I appreciated your last line, as it reminded me of the importance to take a step back during times and appreciate the things around us. I will remember to do this more often, taking in mind the example of appreciating the wonderful inventors in our society.
Hi Ayush! Reading about your discussion of history and society’s selective remembrance of certain individuals was extremely eye-opening and engaging. First of all, I appreciate how you clarify that this blog does not take a one-sided stance, but rather you adopt a speculative tone around the whole topic. I loved how comprehensive your exploration was, diving between what determines one’s memorability, the ethicality of selectively remembering certain individuals, and the topic’s implications for our daily lives. Moreover, the multitude of historical figures to enhance your discussion is interesting. I want to delve into your inclusion of Nikola Tesla, as he was once rejected by society due to Thomas Edison’s action in publicity as a businessman. Now, in an ironic sense, he is widely remembered as one of the greatest, most forgotten inventors of all time. It demonstrates how people are becoming more aware of the subjectivity of our viewpoints, holding new scientific discoveries in tight scrutiny and historical lenses with flexibility. Overall, I believe that humanity is generally headed into a society that can more accurately and critically analyze the historical figures of the past. Yet, as you have mentioned, the limited remembrance hinders that ability, and there will inevitably be those with significant contributions but with stories that will go unheard of forever.
ReplyDeleteHello Ayush! I find your article going over the saying, "remember and reflect the little things in life." It is quite true to establish life as its true form, a contrasting growing entity. Inventors from all parts of the world are collaborating into each and every specification of who and what we are as human beings. There are the smallest inventions, such as the chair, that are not thought as integral as the lightbulb for example. Of course, this does not mean that one invention "greater" than another, but that there is a certain popularity difference that causes the distinct perceptions about them. Everything and anything that exists in plain sight has had an inventor. Seems like there are as many inventors as the number of ants on this planet (which are more than a quadrillion). Each and every inventor has had a job and they have successfully completed it. On one hand, some inventors have an idea in mind, while others are lucky and hit the jackpot. Though their origin story may be different, the value of their work will be valued similarly. One variable of this sort is the time made. Inventions made in the current era have a larger impact on our contemporary world as they involve more complex entities and are therefore more well-known. Inventions made in the 14th century, for instance, would not be as spontaneous to an individual to this day without a history textbook on hand. That does not regard one to be higher in standard than the other. Actually, each invention had somehow been built off another. As a result knowledge grows and our ability to see their effects also grows. Then, with our growing conscience of our surrounding inventions, we start to grapple with larger concepts forgetting the lower levels. Eventually, we start to regard the most basic inventions as existing since the dawn of time. This action of forgetting exists in all of us as we gain knowledge and unfortunately forget others. As a result, the phenomenon explained in this blog is created. I have to say that this blog gave me a detailed and thoughtful insight into the status of inventions in contemporary society. Thanks for sharing this blog! Great work!
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