Boyhood by J.M. Coetzee

This book is about a boys childhood in South Africa in the end of 1940. it is the winner of the Nobel prize for literature 2003. In the book we follows Johns childhood by reading his thoughts and descriptions. He is clever but also very special, living with his mum, dad and little brother. John is an Africaan witch has higher status then colored people but lower then English people.

When I was reading the book I waited for something to happen but it never did and for me that are used to fantasy and adventures that was something new. I found the book a little slow but it was also interesting to read about a boys childhood in Africa, in some parts I could recognize myself and in other parts it was totally different against a Swedish childhood. Johns relation against his mother was also interesting, he felt both love and hate towards her, hating her because he blamed her for not being normal but still loved her for not treating him like all mothers treated their children. But mostly it was love and I think that the writer tried to show an Oedipus complex between John and his mother. Through the book John described himself as different and always seemed to be elder then he was. Always first to school and the best in the class because he was terrified of being punished by the teachers (beaten) for that terror he feels wimpy and blames his mother who never has beaten him. I recognized myself as a child in his silly questions to his mother “Who do you love most of me and my brother?” or “Who would you save first if our house was burning?” and his mother answers is the same as my mothers “ I love you all equally much” or “I would save both of you at the same time”. When I read the book and had got to known the characters better I began to think that the big happening would be that John killed someone because he seemed to be capable to do that and I thought something were going to happen, but it did not. But in the end of the book Johns hate against his father was so big that he hopped that his father would kill himself something I find very harsh and odd for a 10 year old boy to think about I never really understood why John hated his father so but perhaps he did not want to share his mother with anyone. Reading about John was a little bit difficult both because of the language that was different then what i am used to, and because John is a complex boy that sometimes is like an adult and sometimes like a child.

An interesting story about a slighter different childhood than mine, but not a particularly exciting story that made me want to read for hours.    

The story of stuff

I have just seen a short documentary called The story of stuff, by Annie Leonard. It was about how the products we buy are manufactured and how it affects humans and the nature, and also a little about the history of consumption. The documentary was only about 20 minutes but filled with information. Some of the information are already known to the most people. Like the fact that we are using more of the worlds resources then what is sustainable and that there are some dangerous chemicals used in the factories when the products are made. Although we are aware this a lot of us has chosen to ignore and  don´t change our consumption behavior.

She also mentioned some stuff I didn't know like the fact that the people in USA throws twice as much garbage today as they did 30 years ago. Another interesting fact is that shortly after second world war the politicians decided that it were, for the good of economy, important to get people to shop more. They succeeded since 1950 the consumption has increased significantly, the interesting thing is that during the same period the happiness has declined. I believe that this is a poof that material thing does not make you happier.
   
Annie shows us that this is not problems to be ignored. By mentioning information I already knew but have repressed, mixed with new facts in an easy yet interesting way caught my interest. The negative part is that it is probably mostly people that already care about this problems that are watching this documentary and not the ones that needs to see it. Wouldn't  it be nice if some of the advertising on TV were replaced with short documentaries like this one, just to kill two birds with one stone?    

The monitored society

Today it has become more and more usual that the employees are being supervised by their  bosses. Some bosses can track the employers by using a GPS in their company cell-phone, and there are those who are going through your mail or check which websites you have been visiting. My opinion is that this directors are a little exaggerated, there should be some kind of trust between employees and directors and that trust is not created by monitoring. Although if there is an employee that are not as productive as he should be the director could warn him that if he does not shape up the director will check what he is doing during his working days. What I am curious to know is how productive the bosses are if they need to check what their staff is doing all the time. If the  bosses really feel that they need to monitor the employees I guess it is okay if they are honest and tell everybody that their mails are being read or that there is a GPS in their cell-phone. To snoop on the staff after working hour, however, is not okay. For me that is an intrusion in the privet life.

In other areas this technology can be to great help and even save lives. In older care for example you can have surveillance in an elderly persons apartment that senses if anyone has been in the bathroom over two hours, and sends a warning either to a relative or to some caretaker. There are a lot of other surveillance to help, for example there are medicine boxes that is programmed to give the right amount of medicines to the patient and at the right time. If the patient does not take his medicine an message is sent to a predetermined person, this is very good because then the patient can´t take to much medicine and someone will know if it has not been taken. So in this area monitoring makes the elderly to feel more secure and they know that help will come if something is wrong.

I also wants to mention the surveillance over the society. It is a lively debate today whether there should be cameras in public places. My opinion is that if you are in a public place you act as if you are supervised cause although there are no camera there might be people watching you, so it is not like you are poking your nose or starts to undress. But if they install a camera in a toilet or locker room then I´m going to feel uncomfortable because there you want to be more private. Of course I think that there should not be someone that are sitting and checking the cameras all the time. The cameras should be used when something has happened and the film can be crucial evidence of the incident.  

My conclusion is that surveillance can both save lives and help to catch criminals, it also can make people to feel more secure and calmed. On the other hand if it is used wrong it can lead to making people feel insecure and that anything they do is being supervised.