Marvin Ray Burns
4/20/2002
Informative, yet Surprising, Essay
Sirens Song: the Keeper’s Careless Cadence Returns
The keeper’s beat goes on even though technological advances seem to double every
year; thus, to the same old convention every new melody is required to conform. You could say
the relentless rhythm of life requires a melody conforming to normality. Therefore, the normal
factor – that unchallenged beat – regulates us, marching us all down the same old path. The
keeper’s ways are the sub ways, not the high ways. Her conclusions are the given facts, not the
needed solutions, and her routes are hypocritical. Perhaps rhythm does require a common
theme. However, sameness is not always saneness.
The beat of the keeper clashes with the latest tune, echoing across the endless sea of
civilization. “Geeks enjoy the sense of moral independence they find in cyberspace more than life
here on earth.” To the throng of simple mortals, she preaches, “Geeks are just plain different from
most people. They stay to themselves because they feel they are not normal and are not
welcome amongst the rest of civilization.” To the entire human race, she spreads the following
gossip. “Geeks are not concerned with the needs of our culture, nor do they really care about
what is good for our communities. Furthermore, they are obsessed with personal pursuits and
care more about their hobbies than the good of others.” To the conscience of the civilized, she
cautions, “On the Internet, there are few laws, even fewer rules are ever enforced, and justice just
does not exist. The citizens of the Internet possess an autonomy which when combined with
antagonism and asocial feelings can promote anarchy (a great insult to civilization).” Finally, her
ominous tone forebodes, “Therefore, when geeks, extremists, or quirky people feel hindered from
pursuing their goals, they become dangerous.”
The keeper knows the Columbine High School shooters were idiosyncratic role-playing
geeks. She has heard all the news and has read all the reports. Additionally, the keeper
understands sociology. She knows they lived in their own world, by their own rules and solely for
the attainment of their own diabolical goals. She finds with judicial equity, the angry Trench Coat
Mafia solved their problems in ragtime, with death, fear, and the disruption of the sense of
security for students and faculty all across our country.
The keeper teaches us: geeks and other extremists are responsible for many other
atrocities like the Columbine massacre. Even before the commission of the crime, the keeper
realized the soon-to-be-murderers were different. Indeed, her prejudgment, if acted upon, could
have identified the killer kids and helped prevent some of the ruin. Hence, it is not surprising
when the keeper begins to single out and profile the unconventional and geek-natured people.
Take for an example how the keeper encourages grade school teachers to identify the kids that
other children tease the most, and consider the teased kids to be potential threats to the school.
In spite of the keeper’s good intentions and her above-mentioned obvious reasons for
concern, perhaps most of us really do not wish to harm or even embarrass people who are
different, and our prejudices are merely subconscious. Even though there are good reasons for
profiling people who have an evil past or are members of destructive groups, to prejudge kids just
because they have been teased and hence they might want to strike back is cruel, to say the
least. Being different is a two party crime. Weird is only weird because normal is so damned
normal!
Consider the status of geeks. Are geeks very different from the rest of us? That there is a
classification “geeks” indicates that the geeks have crossed a line, in their lifestyle deserving of
distinction. What makes them different? Then again, if they are not different from most people,
then why do we stereotype them as being nerdy? Whatever our logic or motives are, geeks often
feel humiliated and unwelcome among the populace.
Why do we make fun of and stereotype geeks? In other words, why does the keeper
guard the gates of normality with such bigotry? It would be easy to say, “The victimization of
geeks is all in their own imagination; they separate themselves from society and they simply
imagine the prejudice.” However, the answer is not that simple. As the geeks sink deeper into
their own subculture, at our best, most of us carelessly turn the other way as they drown. Such
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uncaring treatment often serves only to anger geeks, and to drive them further into their quirky
behavior.
The aimlessness and anarchism demonstrated by many geeks is a symptom of a
grievous disease, but the geeks are not sick! The keeper attends so obsessively to the afflictions
of the fringe that she does not realize her own terminal illness. I am talking about a disease of
civilization itself. The keeper, in accusing and not helping, is as guilty as the extremists who
participate in violence. I even dare propose that the students who tease soon-to-be-childhood
felons into reprisal are just as guilty as the kids who do crimes. When computer geeks act out and
unleash destructive viruses, there exist unresolved issues with society that drove them into their
destructive behavior.
Since love for others is no longer a valued trait, civilization (she) breaks down and
degrades to the point where she can no longer hold people together. Once upon a time, she gave
tenuous harmony, gently arranging the pieces of diversity safely into the medley of life. However,
without love, she ceases to be the giver of melody and becomes the keeper of rhythm. Without
mutual esteem, she ceases to be the giver of diversity and becomes the keeper of normality.
Without benevolence in society, her rhythmic charms enchant the minds of people, controlling,
conquering, and just plain conning. As the keeper expels those that are strange from the social
order, figuratively, the keeper’s eye convinces her ear the body has no need of it. The sad fruit of
ill will is that all the education, research, and discipline we have laboriously worked into the bars
of life fall octaves below the bass clef, and they become nothing more than distant thunder.
Only after we put away the keeper’s seductive rancor can we make any difference in
helping geeks rise above their rebellious tendencies and soar with wings of usefulness. The
advantage of muting the song of the keeper is evidenced in Jon Katz’s book Geeks, when two
Geek Club members, Sam and Joe, found self-worth in applying their talents on the school
computers, Katz writes, “Technophobic school districts turned to their one time social outcasts to
help run their computer systems” (Katz 30). In that spirit, Coach Brown cleverly participated in the
lives of the geeky foursome and worked hard to get them to feel secure about themselves. He
was fulfilling a need in their lives. By giving a home to the Geek Club, he was building a family. In
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some adoptive sense, he was becoming a father (Katz 27). As any father ought to do, Mr. Brown
worked to help these students to find some sense of belonging. The fact is civilization can
function efficiently only the same domestic sense of Mr. Brown’s Geek Club.
Only when people from all lifestyles, social strata, and backgrounds work toward a
mutual vision of orderliness, will the subtle harmonies of civilization blend into the jazz of life. For
an example, in Katz’s Geeks, as Jesse makes the effort to form workplace relations, for the first
time in his life he becomes aware of a social life (Katz 123). Using my analogy of music, each one
of Jesse’s coworkers has his or her particular line of talent to sing. As a tenor singing Handel’s
Messiah, feeling incomplete in one self, he or she seeks the other’s company after work hours, to
blend their individual parts into a concert of acquaintance. Together, they catch the keeper off
guard and the result is a sweet evening of harmony. Whether the keeper has any right to lead is
not theirs to say. Nevertheless, how they respond to her hypnotic march is their choice.
The keeper is a poor director. She conducts every song in the same old 4/4. She only
knows one song – The Death March – all die, everything ends and what all was done is done.
Most critical, the keeper knows nothing of discovery. She dares not try; nothing new is attempted.
Why does she play no new song? Because the keeper knows new is scary. Scary is bad, and the
keeper is fear.
The keeper’s echo finally comes full circle. Geeks enjoy the sense of moral
independence more than life itself because they see very little sincere morality in this life. They
stay to themselves because they feel they should not behave normal in a world that is abnormal.
Perhaps it is true on the Internet, there are few laws, even fewer rules enforced, and justice just
does not exist, simply because justice really does not exist. The citizens of the Internet possess
an autonomy which when combined with antagonism and asocial feelings can promote anarchy,
a great reflection of how most of us live (in secret). Therefore, when geeks, extremists, or quirky
people feel hindered from pursuing their goals, they become dangerously aware of our inner
felon. It is not surprising when the keeper begins to single out and discriminate against geeknatured people, because they are a reflection of her, and she has no ear for that sound. Perhaps
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most of us really do not wish to discriminate against ourselves, but when we march to the beat of
the keeper, we already have.
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WORKS CITED
Katz, Jon. Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho. New
York: Broadway Books, 2000.
Marvin Ray Burns
4/22/2002
Writer’s Statement for the Final
Informative, yet Surprising, Essay
Using a reversal pattern to form a thesis, I was to write an informative and surprising
essay, in contrast to common opinions. Having difficulty in honestly discerning exactly what
opinions are the most widely held, and not having time to take a survey, I relied solely on my own
opinions. Back during the writing of my assignment two, the strong response, I underwent a
significant opinion clarification. Upon first reading Jon Katz’s Geeks, I was somewhat up in arms
about how Katz wrote in such detail about the frustration many geeks felt in not being able to fit
into society, without exploring how to help them fit in. I deemed it insufficient to know how
someone feels. I reasoned knowledge leads to pride; selfless work tends to help. Therefore, in
writing my strong response, I began to clarify in my mind in what ways extremists could become
useful members of society. In this Informative, yet Surprising, Essay (having had a rather narrow
viewpoint of geeks and extremist) I hope to amplify the opinion of my readers, as to the role
geeks play in our societal structure.
Although there was a prewriting portion to this assignment, I could get a head start in
writing this essay by outlining it with my opinions about society and geeks before the writing of
assignment two. Hence, assignment two became the outline for this essay. However, I did put
great effort into the prewriting assignment; it was a critical tool, to keeping this assignment from
looking just like assignment two. Enclosed, in the Heuristics Log, are the portions (titled Cuts) that
I started with. Next, it was time to answer some questions from The Allyn and Bacon Guide to
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Writing concerning an informative essay. My answers to the questions are also enclosed. In
short, I submitted to the long process and learned from it.
The original title of this assignment was “Charlatans’ Cosmos,” accusing the social
system of being hypocritical. “Charlatans” was plural and possessive because we all are guilty of
being a part of a system that generates rebellion. I was dissatisfied with that title because
something was missing. However, what is missing? I am missing something, and that something
is I. Then again, I really am not missing something; something is missing me. The system that I
use to make my social judgments never asked as to how my judgment turns out. The “system” –
the keeper only cares about what has happened, not what is happening. As my essay so
pessimistically says, “all die, everything ends and what all was done is done.” That logic might be
hard to follow, but realize the keeper’s ways are the old ways, not the new ways. Her conclusions
are the given facts, not the needed solutions. Her routes are the hypocritical highways not the
straight paths.
The next thing I did in preparing this assignment for the final was to give a lot of
meditation to the phrase, “a system that generates rebellion”. As I closed my eyes, visualizing the
system as a person, she stood exposed for the charlatan that she is. Eventually, I could clearly
see that for as long as the human race has depended on the system called civilization, she has
carelessly continued to write laws in stone and used those stones to clobber all who departed
from the “norm”. Hence, in revising this Final assignment, all I did was to let her (the siren of
civilization) out of my imagination. Like Aladdin in the Arabian Knights, I rubbed the lamp and out
came the genie, or in my case, the keeper.
In order to describe the keeper I inquired: What is normal? What are the social norms?
The answer was an epiphany: although we have bona fide reasons for fearing the fringe of
humanity, our normality makes them weird. I simply gave life to this great temptress. We call her
society; she is the keeper of civilization, the keeper of order, the keeper of the keys of heaven
and hell on earth. I wrote concerning her musical charms with which she divines the minds of
people in order to control, conquer, and just plain con.
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This essay might be a little too figurative. However, if the reader carefully considers the
story then he or she should understand the point that all of us, geeks and norms, are part of one
body. The extremist and the average are the same. We are both the victim and the aggressor.
Both of us are the subject and the ruler. Together we are the keeper.
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