Despite my fondness for Crichton as a cure to aviation boredom, his work is slightly more difficult to address from a scholastic standpoint. I think that his previous work, such as the referenced jarassic park, legitimizes him as an author, however i think that in State of Fear he seeks to expand this range of legitimation to something more, an advocate for the humanity, the informed concerned citizen. As already discussed within the blog, he says in the final bullet point of his author's message he says "everyone has an agenda except me" (p 721) Obviously this is not entirely true as a main objective of his book is to sell copies making a profit for Harper Collins his publisher. Additionally, he makes another comment (one that struck me) and the end of his first appendix saying, "and that is why the intermixing of science and politics is a bad combination, with a bad history. We must remember the history, and be certain that what we present to the world as knowledge is disinterested and honest." (731) As any good science studies scholar knows it is impossible to separate science from politics, politics dictates both the science being studied and the way it is interpreted.
Politics is a experienced within a specific paradigm, that it helps to reinforce, additionally various seeing devices are deployed at work within the paradigm. Michael Crichton takes full advantage of these seeing devices in the forms of graphs and charts, both Cartisian in nature, thus in-line with the world's current paradigm, or way of viewing the world. Pages 107-112 contain graphs depicting the earth's global temperatures, without existence of the Cartisian paradigm these graphs would be incomprehensible. The graphs are also accompanied by dialog indirectly indicating what the graphs are about, and their significance. This diction (lit word, meaning word choice and region) is significant because Crichton uses stages his characters as experts who are explaining this information, thus the reader views it as scientific and therefore based in fact. Furthermore, Crichton legitimizes himself and the graphs by providing references to their origin. I believe that Crichton as an author certainly works under an agenda, whether he is willing to acknowledge it or not, he also uses seeing devices, at work within a Cartisian paradigm to legitimize himself and his story.
Allison, I apologize for selecting your posting for comment because many of our Working Group’s State of Fear blogs reflect the issues you admirably articulate. I agree with some of your arguments and disagree with others. For example, I wholeheartedly accept that Crichton’s agenda was to profit from book sales. In fact, the novel’s frenetic stew of sex, exotic locations, mysterious submarines, car crashes, murders, science (pseudo or otherwise), politics, wealth, and beautiful women suggest Crichton also looked to selling the story to Hollywood. After all, the book is a novel—fiction by definition—so we are on shaky ground to assume the author’s purpose was to advocate one side or the other of the global warming controversy. (I don’t know if Crichton is buried in a grave, but, if he is, I bet he is grinning from one ear to the other.) Nevertheless, Crichton raises several provocative and worthy questions—especially the potentially adverse consequences of intermingling science with politics. (Remember the George W. Bush years.)
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