Aside from the people who are around us most consistently, there is another impersonal influence on our behavior that is almost as strong. Some would use the word 'culture' to describe this influence. For purposes of this discussion, I would define culture as follows: a set of well-defined norms for personal comportment, for family relations, for the taking of meals and other routines, for what constitutes 'decency' and 'indecency', for what behavior is tolerable and for what behavior is not.
Whenever there is a distinctive, well-formed social culture of the type I have just outlined, there is a consequence for violating these and other of the culture's norms (most frequently, this would be some form of ostracism). There is also a tendency towards conformity which, to our way of thinking, might appear quaint. In this country, as well as in many other places, we have freed ourselves from the restraints of the old-fashioned social culture, consciously in some ways, unwittingly in others. The result has been mixed.
A strong social culture does impose rigid precepts regarding our place in the world. Such a culture would demand a certain uniformity of dress, and prescribe what clothing to wear for certain occasions (comfort would not be the foremost consideration in each case, but rather, appearance). All of our interpersonal dealings would be far more formal. Incivility, or even mere breaches of etiquette would be seen as more shocking (and possibly less likely to occur). Families would arrange their daily schedule around shared meals, and not the other way around. Sexual and other kinds of morality would be more or less absolute, not relative. Social relations would be predetermined in more cases; the relationships between parents and children, for example, might well be more authoritarian. Social contracts of both the legal (marriage) and the unspoken (filial duty) kind would be seen as more or less unbreakable, etc., etc.
There might well be more hypocrisy, as the ideals of society would be much more difficult to attain in individual cases. There could be greater prejudice even than at present, because highly structured societies can be more exclusionary, and we would inevitably make the criteria for inclusion into society more rigidly based (even than is now the case) on inherited or received attributes (race and social class, for example). Compared to the kind of society we have now, the ordered, heirarchical society that used to be prevalent would be experienced as stifling by the majority of the populace. Most people would see no advantage to having so many unspoken rules governing their behavior.
There could also be benefits. The probability of having a respectful interaction with a stranger would increase. People would have to set aside their momentary desires more frequently and pay greater heed to the demands of the larger group of which they were part -- in the case of the family, setting aside time for meals and other rituals could strengthen the bond between members. It would make being in public places more pleasant, because the behavior one would encounter would be more predictable, and therefore probably more civil. Ambiguity and impossible arrays of moral choices would not bedevil relationships -- marriages, parent-child bonds, etc. -- any more than could inherently be expected.
Only the tiniest handful of figures in history have been influential enough to alter the social characteristics of large groupings of people -- and even they can have an impact only on selected (if important) aspects of the self: religious belief, tolerance, attitudes towards authority, etc. Changes in technology, wars, and other impersonal developments may be seen to have equal or greater impact on how we think and behave in the world than the conscious effort of any person or group of persons. In any case, social rules can not be enacted, as if they were laws; they can only evolve. It is not possible (as desirable and beneficial as it may seem) to 'turn back the clock' to a time when we imagined people behaved more virtuously.
However, I do think we could benefit from re-imagining a world in which we acted with more general restraint than we do now. I am grateful to live in a society as fluid as ours. I am ambivalent, though, about the freedom of personal action that is tolerated in such a society. If we have lowered or removed altogether our standards of private as well as public behavior -- one could easily make the case that this is indeed what has happened -- we have also exposed ourselves to a great deal more in the way of unsavory and even harmful actions on the part of others (and from ourselves!). We have made life easier to live, while making the it at the same time more unpleasant, even treacherous, to navigate.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
A Childhood Recollection
There is a species of ant -- the fire ant -- that has moved up from the tropics and established itself in the South. When I was a child I had heard the fire ant was a pest, so I resolved to search the property for fire ant nests and eradicate them. I believed I had seen the fire ants before, but I could not distinguish them in my imagination from other harmless kinds of ants. I believed the only way of becoming familiar with fire ants was getting bitten by one. They could kill animals with their stings; this frightened me, but also attracted me to them.
There was a number of small dirt mounds scattered around the yard. I could see tiny red ants going in and out of holes at the tops of these mounds. Surely these were the ones. Only wicked, fearless insects would have established themselves so conspicuously and so near human habitation.
In appearance they were not fearsome creatures, but something in their comportment was unsettling. Their movements seemed deliberate, even measured. I believed they were conspiring in some way, and would accumulate in numbers until they became invincible.
The only appropriate way to kill them would be in a duel of wits. I wanted to challenge them on their own level, test their defenses, find and exploit their weaknesses. I hoped for circumstances that would require me to devise ingenious and bizarre weapons against the ants.
I first chose a certain ant nest off the side of the house. Once I had destroyed it, I would move on to the others.
The fire ant is very tough, and can withstand a blow. The only way of destroying one by force alone is by rubbing a stone or some other hard object over it repeatedly. At first I thought of digging the nest out of the ground with a shovel, then crushing the ants with my shoe. But this would have been too hazardous. Then the idea occurred to me of burning the ants to death with a magnifying glass.
I found this weapon worked well on isolated ants that were simply minding their business about the mound, if they were moving slowly enough. Surprise was necessary to get the beam of sunlight squarely upon them. If they detected the heat, they scurried away before the light could do harm. After a time I realized I was not killing enough of them to affect the life of the nest. They had to be drawn out and killed in numbers.
The ants were sensitive to disturbances around the nest. When I pulled on a blade of grass that was on the mound, or pushed a stick into an entrance hole, ants would stream out, ready to attack. In this defensive mode they were very agitated. But as soon as they sensed there was no intruder they began merely to mill around, and then they were easy to pick off with the magnifying glass. In this manner I increased the number of ants killed by two- or three-fold.
My methods of drawing out the ants were very damaging to the mound itself. Soon it was completely razed. The ants began to come out in smaller and smaller numbers. I assumed this was because I had killed most of the worker and warrior ants. The next step was to get at the higher castes, and eventually, the queen ant.
(Eventually, I did get get stung by some of the ants. The sting felt like a violent pinch, although it did not leave a welt. The stinger is in the abdomen, and the ant applies it by raising the rear of its body up, then pushing the stinger down into the skin.)
To reach the lower levels of the colony, I set off firecrackers in the gound. The explosions drew swarms of angry ants. After the smoke cleared I would light a second firecracker and drop it on the ants themselves. They would swarm over the firecrackers and sting them -- apparently thinking them living creatures -- and scurry away just before they exploded. Afterwards all the ants would be gone.
I began to see ants of other castes. There was a type with a larger abdomen that looked very fierce. There were also puny winged ants that were less aggressive than the others.
I could not tell how deep the nest went underground. I had made a crater about four inches deep with the firecrackers, but each explosion revealed new tunnels. Moreover, the ants seemed to be getting used to my attacks. I jammed sticks deep down into the tunnels and exploded quantities of firecrackers to draw them out, but they reacted less and less angrily each time. After a while, I felt they were ignoring me.
Finally, I decided to destroy the nest in one quick blow. I boiled water and poured it slowly over the nest, allowing time for the water to sink in. It was satisfying to know that the ants would be destroyed in the lower reaches of the colony, where I had not been able to reach. I left, expecting that when I returned I would find the nest completely lifeless.
When I came back some time later there was a neat pile of ant carcasses and destroyed larvae in the middle of a crater. The surviving ants were bringing more dead from underground and adding them to this pile. They went about their work with what seemed a horrible patience. Now and again a winged ant crawled to the surface and flew away -- later I surmised that these flying ants would begin new nests elsewhere. After that time I did not kill any more of the ants.
There was a number of small dirt mounds scattered around the yard. I could see tiny red ants going in and out of holes at the tops of these mounds. Surely these were the ones. Only wicked, fearless insects would have established themselves so conspicuously and so near human habitation.
In appearance they were not fearsome creatures, but something in their comportment was unsettling. Their movements seemed deliberate, even measured. I believed they were conspiring in some way, and would accumulate in numbers until they became invincible.
The only appropriate way to kill them would be in a duel of wits. I wanted to challenge them on their own level, test their defenses, find and exploit their weaknesses. I hoped for circumstances that would require me to devise ingenious and bizarre weapons against the ants.
I first chose a certain ant nest off the side of the house. Once I had destroyed it, I would move on to the others.
The fire ant is very tough, and can withstand a blow. The only way of destroying one by force alone is by rubbing a stone or some other hard object over it repeatedly. At first I thought of digging the nest out of the ground with a shovel, then crushing the ants with my shoe. But this would have been too hazardous. Then the idea occurred to me of burning the ants to death with a magnifying glass.
I found this weapon worked well on isolated ants that were simply minding their business about the mound, if they were moving slowly enough. Surprise was necessary to get the beam of sunlight squarely upon them. If they detected the heat, they scurried away before the light could do harm. After a time I realized I was not killing enough of them to affect the life of the nest. They had to be drawn out and killed in numbers.
The ants were sensitive to disturbances around the nest. When I pulled on a blade of grass that was on the mound, or pushed a stick into an entrance hole, ants would stream out, ready to attack. In this defensive mode they were very agitated. But as soon as they sensed there was no intruder they began merely to mill around, and then they were easy to pick off with the magnifying glass. In this manner I increased the number of ants killed by two- or three-fold.
My methods of drawing out the ants were very damaging to the mound itself. Soon it was completely razed. The ants began to come out in smaller and smaller numbers. I assumed this was because I had killed most of the worker and warrior ants. The next step was to get at the higher castes, and eventually, the queen ant.
(Eventually, I did get get stung by some of the ants. The sting felt like a violent pinch, although it did not leave a welt. The stinger is in the abdomen, and the ant applies it by raising the rear of its body up, then pushing the stinger down into the skin.)
To reach the lower levels of the colony, I set off firecrackers in the gound. The explosions drew swarms of angry ants. After the smoke cleared I would light a second firecracker and drop it on the ants themselves. They would swarm over the firecrackers and sting them -- apparently thinking them living creatures -- and scurry away just before they exploded. Afterwards all the ants would be gone.
I began to see ants of other castes. There was a type with a larger abdomen that looked very fierce. There were also puny winged ants that were less aggressive than the others.
I could not tell how deep the nest went underground. I had made a crater about four inches deep with the firecrackers, but each explosion revealed new tunnels. Moreover, the ants seemed to be getting used to my attacks. I jammed sticks deep down into the tunnels and exploded quantities of firecrackers to draw them out, but they reacted less and less angrily each time. After a while, I felt they were ignoring me.
Finally, I decided to destroy the nest in one quick blow. I boiled water and poured it slowly over the nest, allowing time for the water to sink in. It was satisfying to know that the ants would be destroyed in the lower reaches of the colony, where I had not been able to reach. I left, expecting that when I returned I would find the nest completely lifeless.
When I came back some time later there was a neat pile of ant carcasses and destroyed larvae in the middle of a crater. The surviving ants were bringing more dead from underground and adding them to this pile. They went about their work with what seemed a horrible patience. Now and again a winged ant crawled to the surface and flew away -- later I surmised that these flying ants would begin new nests elsewhere. After that time I did not kill any more of the ants.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Education and Idealism
The field of education, particularly elementary education, would seem a natural harbor for idealists. The child's openness, natural hunger for guidance and for a meaningful connection with adults are, in principle, an opportunity for people with creative spark and the urge to give of themselves. The guilelessness of children should moreover make teaching a perfect fit for those who wish to avoid the worldly perils encountered in most workplaces. Surely, there is one profession where purity of intention is not a liability, but is instead a thing that that can fuel one's sense of purpose, and lead to eventual success.
I should say straight away that many creative and thoughtful people are successful career teachers. But I have seen many idealists founder in education, and the reasons for their failure are not always so simple as they may appear.
Actually, part of it is glaringly simple. The insurmountable discipline problems of many schools would be daunting even to the most hardened veteran teacher. It does not speak well of our society that for generations certain groups of students have been left to languish in schools that have been wholly unwilling or unable to establish student discipline sufficient for basic learning. In practice, the perceived rights of a student who chronically misbehaves are seen as equal to the right of other students to learn free of distraction. In many instances, schools offer endless due process to misbehaving students and are loath to bring meaningful punishment upon them -- regardless of how the classroom climate may suffer because of this chronic misbehavior. I would guess that if there were one reason above all others for so many teachers leaving the profession within 5 years of starting out, it would be because of their school's equivocal (and I think often cowardly) treatment of students who, for whatever reason, consistently frustrate the educational enterprise.
It is in a way tragic that many of the schools that could most use idealistic people can only be endured, in the long term, by teachers who are able to abandon their exalted notions for the sake of survival. To teach successfully in some our most challenging schools, what is required is frank and unbending realism about the enterprise at hand, combined also with uncommon mental toughness, a tolerant view of one's own failures, and lastly, an unbreakable kernel of belief in what one is doing. These combined qualities are relatively rare in one person, which is why, unfortunately, teachers do not often last in our toughest schools long enough to have a significant impact on the educational life of their students.
I should say straight away that many creative and thoughtful people are successful career teachers. But I have seen many idealists founder in education, and the reasons for their failure are not always so simple as they may appear.
Actually, part of it is glaringly simple. The insurmountable discipline problems of many schools would be daunting even to the most hardened veteran teacher. It does not speak well of our society that for generations certain groups of students have been left to languish in schools that have been wholly unwilling or unable to establish student discipline sufficient for basic learning. In practice, the perceived rights of a student who chronically misbehaves are seen as equal to the right of other students to learn free of distraction. In many instances, schools offer endless due process to misbehaving students and are loath to bring meaningful punishment upon them -- regardless of how the classroom climate may suffer because of this chronic misbehavior. I would guess that if there were one reason above all others for so many teachers leaving the profession within 5 years of starting out, it would be because of their school's equivocal (and I think often cowardly) treatment of students who, for whatever reason, consistently frustrate the educational enterprise.
It is in a way tragic that many of the schools that could most use idealistic people can only be endured, in the long term, by teachers who are able to abandon their exalted notions for the sake of survival. To teach successfully in some our most challenging schools, what is required is frank and unbending realism about the enterprise at hand, combined also with uncommon mental toughness, a tolerant view of one's own failures, and lastly, an unbreakable kernel of belief in what one is doing. These combined qualities are relatively rare in one person, which is why, unfortunately, teachers do not often last in our toughest schools long enough to have a significant impact on the educational life of their students.
Those deceptive beings -- children -- have intrinsic qualities that in themselves might both inspire, but also challenge any idealist. These qualities are to some degree common among all children, regardless of background. I feel I have developed a profound sense of connection with the children I teach. I enjoy working with them immensely, even more so than when I started in my profession. But I will say, with the greatest affection, that children are ridden with contradictions, ones with which one should be prepared to contend, humanely but firmly, if one wishes to teach successfully.
Children, when in a group setting, may attempt to engender chaos while at the same time they hunger for order and safety. They will try, in many cases, to frustrate your efforts to provide a rational structure to their setting; at the same time, they unconsciously hope that you will succeed in those efforts. They will often be contemptuous if you let them prevail over you. If you strike a familiar attitude with children, you are committing an error. Yet it is to your advantage as a teacher to convey a certain amount of tolerance and ease to your students.
Many successful teachers learn to convey warmth and even humor while maintaining their authority. But this is a skill, and it takes time and may be difficult to learn. Maintaining one's authority over a group of students requires a significant expenditure of social energy. Many teachers don't realize how difficult, and at times distasteful, it is to maintain authority in a classroom, and in fact never become comfortable with it. The need to be an authority figure seems at odds with the 'innocence' of children; it seems a contradiction, and to some it is an unpleasant one.
What is required to manage a classroom full of kids successfully and humanely is very often at odds with the notions one may have had at the outset of one's career. The popular notion that you have to be a tyrant to survive in the contemporary classroom is misleading. But the public suffers from a certain naïveté about the characteristics of children in a group setting; their behavior in groups becomes radically altered from what you would encounter individually (as any teacher will tell you, children, once grouped into sufficient numbers, can take on unexpected characteristics -- not all of them by any means negative, but certainly distinct and challenging ones).
Another thing that might, over the long term, work against the idealist in the education field is the sheer hard work of the job. The work hours of the teacher are not the ones most people would naturally set for themselves: the workday starts early, and time must be put in before and after the school day in order to complete the many different tasks demanded of the teacher. The pace of the job itself is unrelenting. Teaching requires constant planning, strategizing, improvising, reevaluating. Inevitably, most teachers are saddled with clerical work; they have to grade assignments, fill out forms, communicate with parents, arrange class trips. The sheer amount and diversity of what a teacher must accomplish may make it difficult in many cases to lead a life outside of the job, or for that matter be successful in the job itself.
Romantic notions can not long survive in many educational settings. But there is more than a sentimental satisfaction gained from the practice of helping children acquire knowledge. Teachers can bring as much knowledge and experience to bear on their lessons as their imaginations and resourcefulness will allow. I often compare a class to a kaleidoscope, because the minutest action on the part the teacher can vastly increase or decrease the receptiveness of that class to learning. A small action on the part of one or more students can also radically change the tone of the class. A classroom is highly sensitive to very small disturbances, and the actions of the students themselves, as I mentioned earlier, may tend (though usually not maliciously) towards chaos; it takes exceptional, even inordinate skill and practice to influence your students' actions so as to have the most beneficial result.
It can be terrifically gratifying when one has been successful in helping students attain a goal, however modest. I feel fortunate also that I am able to experience a great deal of satisfaction from even the routine aspects of teaching a class. But I recognize that the overall demands of the profession can be overwhelming. The authority of the teacher, like authority everywhere, has been brought into question; the social status and remuneration of teachers is not as high as it ought to be (this keeps some who might be effective teachers from entering the profession, or having entered it, from committing to it). While I believe that my own idealism had to be tempered in order to be successful as a teacher, I wish that teachers as a whole did not have to be disabused of their idealism as violently as they too frequently are.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Social Stigma
There is much evidence that in many (but by no means all) societies, the stigma of possessing characteristics that are inherited, or that are otherwise are out of our control has at last begun to be lifted. This is a generalization that I should qualify. More and more people believe in -- or at least accept on some level -- the idea of racial equality; that people with disabilities should be, as much as possible, viewed as the equals of other citizens; that different religions and their practices should be allowed to coexist and flourish.
You may want to reject this proposition out of hand. After all, murderous prejudice abounds in the world. And people of racial and religious minorities would not be quick to declare a breakthrough in their acceptance by the larger societies of which they are a part. There is even evidence that in many areas, intolerance is hardening, particularly (though not exclusively) in matters of religion.
However, in the last 60 years, the notion (for example) that non-white peoples were inherently inferior has gone from being a generally accepted one to a fringe view, publicly espoused by a loud but relatively small number of violent (and of course, still dangerous) people. That said, many people, perhaps even a plurality of citizens in Western nations, may only reluctantly or grudgingly accept the idea of equality of non-whites, or of others from outside their racial or religious grouping. But most people, even if they harbor private prejudice, believe in coexistence and theoretical equality, if not full acceptance of others not like them.
I want to emphasize that I am not contending that anything like equal treatment for all citizens has been attained in this country, or any other. But the shift in ideas I am describing has, I believe, genuinely occurred. Proof of it lies in the universal outcry against people in Western countries who publicly insult other racial groups. Those who publicly express racist notions do not always suffer the lasting consequences they deserve, but the revulsion against them is general and forceful. That such a negative reaction against racists would be seen at all is a relatively recent development.
I would hope that we all would welcome the continuation of trends that led to removing completely any stigma associated with race, religion, physical or mental disability, or sexual orientation.
Western societies are also well advanced in the process of removing the stigma that used to be associated with certain behaviors and actions and their consequences. I am referring to things that in some cases were once the stuff of scandal, but that are now seen as unremarkable: divorce, adultery, certain kinds of public behavior, etc. These all involve some sort of personal choice, to a greater or lesser degree.
Such stigma should of course be distinguished absolutely from the kind I have just described. For purposes of argument I am trying to avoid judgement as to whether these actions would be wrong in any particular instance. Instead, the thing that should be noted is that many behaviors and acts that were formally stigmatized (even if you accept that it was because of society's hypocrisy) either did harm to others or had the potential to do so. This is without regard to the intentions of those carrying out the actions. Adultery, regardless of what brings it about -- a 'loveless' marriage, for example, almost always is injurious; divorce, even if it is the most sensible and humane solution in certain instances, and results from no one's original bad intention, will cause harm to the children who are obviously not parties to the case. One could continue the list.
If we somehow able to consider the harm caused by an act without passing judgement on the person who commits it, we can take a more measured view of the ramifications of that act. In my case, I try to be compassionate as possible towards individuals, and to avoid harsh judgements, so long as it is not a question of an actual crime. Yet I am able to understand why, for thousands of years, certain behaviors and acts that nowadays are seen as inevitable were once stigmatized. The social stigma, for as much as it may have been unfair and hypocritical, was a powerful disincentive to do things that could weaken the fabric of society (the word itself of course means 'permanent mark' or 'stain'). It was more potent than a legal statute could ever be, because it carried with it the threat of ostracism.
All the empirical evidence shows that laws, by themselves, are not adequate inhibitors of behavior. Neither, it would seem, is the general (and therefore, vague) disapproval of the public. People are too apt to attribute behavior to extenuating circumstances, and even to take delight in certain kinds of exhibitionism, or to simply resign themselves, for 'public outrage' ever to be a strong enough deterrent. Societies have always fallen back on stigma as their ultimate protection.
It seems to me that the purpose of stigma was not primarily to punish individuals, but to preserve societies and their institutions. I believe they were quite possibly effective in doing so. I hold this belief as something distinct from my own personal views on social stigma, which are more in accord with contemporary thinking.
An opposing argument -- and I think it is a strong one -- is that stigma crushed individuality, and was also imposed selectively, and therefore unfairly. Women adulterers were punished more severely than men (and in most societies, they still are). Divorces also reflected far worse on women than they did on men, regardless of who may really have been the one to harm the marriage. People would resign themselves to stunted lives rather than pursue a course that might lead to greater fulfillment, because of their fear of being stigmatized. Stigmas attached to personal actions could therefore be as unjust as the ones attached to race, religion, and so forth.
You may want to reject this proposition out of hand. After all, murderous prejudice abounds in the world. And people of racial and religious minorities would not be quick to declare a breakthrough in their acceptance by the larger societies of which they are a part. There is even evidence that in many areas, intolerance is hardening, particularly (though not exclusively) in matters of religion.
However, in the last 60 years, the notion (for example) that non-white peoples were inherently inferior has gone from being a generally accepted one to a fringe view, publicly espoused by a loud but relatively small number of violent (and of course, still dangerous) people. That said, many people, perhaps even a plurality of citizens in Western nations, may only reluctantly or grudgingly accept the idea of equality of non-whites, or of others from outside their racial or religious grouping. But most people, even if they harbor private prejudice, believe in coexistence and theoretical equality, if not full acceptance of others not like them.
I want to emphasize that I am not contending that anything like equal treatment for all citizens has been attained in this country, or any other. But the shift in ideas I am describing has, I believe, genuinely occurred. Proof of it lies in the universal outcry against people in Western countries who publicly insult other racial groups. Those who publicly express racist notions do not always suffer the lasting consequences they deserve, but the revulsion against them is general and forceful. That such a negative reaction against racists would be seen at all is a relatively recent development.
I would hope that we all would welcome the continuation of trends that led to removing completely any stigma associated with race, religion, physical or mental disability, or sexual orientation.
Western societies are also well advanced in the process of removing the stigma that used to be associated with certain behaviors and actions and their consequences. I am referring to things that in some cases were once the stuff of scandal, but that are now seen as unremarkable: divorce, adultery, certain kinds of public behavior, etc. These all involve some sort of personal choice, to a greater or lesser degree.
Such stigma should of course be distinguished absolutely from the kind I have just described. For purposes of argument I am trying to avoid judgement as to whether these actions would be wrong in any particular instance. Instead, the thing that should be noted is that many behaviors and acts that were formally stigmatized (even if you accept that it was because of society's hypocrisy) either did harm to others or had the potential to do so. This is without regard to the intentions of those carrying out the actions. Adultery, regardless of what brings it about -- a 'loveless' marriage, for example, almost always is injurious; divorce, even if it is the most sensible and humane solution in certain instances, and results from no one's original bad intention, will cause harm to the children who are obviously not parties to the case. One could continue the list.
If we somehow able to consider the harm caused by an act without passing judgement on the person who commits it, we can take a more measured view of the ramifications of that act. In my case, I try to be compassionate as possible towards individuals, and to avoid harsh judgements, so long as it is not a question of an actual crime. Yet I am able to understand why, for thousands of years, certain behaviors and acts that nowadays are seen as inevitable were once stigmatized. The social stigma, for as much as it may have been unfair and hypocritical, was a powerful disincentive to do things that could weaken the fabric of society (the word itself of course means 'permanent mark' or 'stain'). It was more potent than a legal statute could ever be, because it carried with it the threat of ostracism.
All the empirical evidence shows that laws, by themselves, are not adequate inhibitors of behavior. Neither, it would seem, is the general (and therefore, vague) disapproval of the public. People are too apt to attribute behavior to extenuating circumstances, and even to take delight in certain kinds of exhibitionism, or to simply resign themselves, for 'public outrage' ever to be a strong enough deterrent. Societies have always fallen back on stigma as their ultimate protection.
It seems to me that the purpose of stigma was not primarily to punish individuals, but to preserve societies and their institutions. I believe they were quite possibly effective in doing so. I hold this belief as something distinct from my own personal views on social stigma, which are more in accord with contemporary thinking.
An opposing argument -- and I think it is a strong one -- is that stigma crushed individuality, and was also imposed selectively, and therefore unfairly. Women adulterers were punished more severely than men (and in most societies, they still are). Divorces also reflected far worse on women than they did on men, regardless of who may really have been the one to harm the marriage. People would resign themselves to stunted lives rather than pursue a course that might lead to greater fulfillment, because of their fear of being stigmatized. Stigmas attached to personal actions could therefore be as unjust as the ones attached to race, religion, and so forth.
There is one category of behavior --public coarseness -- that needs to be considered separately. If coarse behavior and gratuitous incivility were at one time kept to within tolerable levels, it was because societies had agreed-upon standards for what constituted 'decent' individual behavior. I don't think it mattered, in a sense, that these standards may have been artificial, or even arbitrary; what did matter is that almost everyone in the society believed in them. People who violated the general standard of acceptable conduct risked the opprobrium -- in a sense, they risked being stigmatized --of their peers and larger community. No one can plausibly argue that this is truly the case any longer. I am not saying that people nowadays are more depraved than previously, but that society, having discarded standards that could apply to all persons, regardless of their station or their circumstances, finds itself confused about when to pass judgement on acts that might be against the general public good.
As societies develop and 'traditional' behavior norms are discarded (even if some of these norms, arguably, held together the social fabric), they enter an ambiguous phase. In our society, we expect much less of our citizens as regards both their public and private social conduct than we did at one time. By removing the stigma from most (obviously, there is, fortunately, still a stigma attached to the most heinous crimes) behavior, we have given ourselves unprecedented freedom of action. The benefits of this freedom do seem to come at a price, however. We have to make far too many moral choices completely on our own, because the larger society no longer provides a frame of reference.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Pop Culture and Literary Merit
Like millions of others, I love to listen to as well as to play rock and other popular music genres. In the world we live in, life without pop music and other forms of pop culture would not only be less enjoyable, but also unimaginable. Pop culture is woven into nearly every facet of our being: our dress, our manners, our eating habits, the way we speak and write. Some people have been able to avoid the influence of pop culture, but their numbers are dwindling. At this stage, it would take an act of self-imposed isolation to escape it fully.
You would have to go against the entire grain of our society, avoiding virtually all newspapers and magazines and even many kinds of books, eschewing the electronic and computer-driven devices that now do so much to fill the quotidian existence of the average person, and of course, allowing yourself to hear very little music except for Western classical and perhaps some kinds of world music. Public schooling would be out of the question for your children, because the watered-down curriculum of even many (though there are a few exceptions) of the best public schools may be attributed in part to the preeminence of mass popular culture (education is nowadays unquestionably influenced by it); you would have to find a rarified private or boarding school that dared to adhere to rigorous standards of classical scholarship (Home schooling? As for me, I am not disciplined enough to provide the rigorous indoctrination that would be needed to counter the long reach of pop culture). Your social life would be highly restricted, if you could indeed have any at all, as all of your current friends and family would still participate in the popular culture and consume its products more or less unhesitatingly.
Over the years (but interestingly, much less so in recent times), cultural critics have inveighed, rather in vain, against the perniciousness of rock, movies, and other mass entertainment. I have neither the educational background nor the inclination to follow their efforts. To me there is something else of interest: the curious cultural leveling that pop culture has brought on. Pop culture excludes no one and wants to include everyone. Scions of Europe's royal houses listen to some of the same music as inner-city as well as suburban Americans (of all races), using the same music storage devices. While the visual arts are still largely practiced, curated, and appreciated by elites, these have also been successfully marketed to a mass audience. The subject matter, materials, and media of the visual arts, while they may be used still in order to shock from time to time, are often taken from everyday objects and people, and can be found in dumps, grocery and hardware stores, comic books, and other places that were at one time thought to be lacking in artistic potential. Pop culture has inculcated the idea that the mundane, the overlooked object may also be art, and does not necessarily have to be substantially altered to become an artwork, only "recontextualized" (this is not meant to be a blanket description of contemporary art; still less is it intended as a dismissal -- but I believe I am giving a fair description of some of its tendencies).
Pop music may have been the most significant change agent of all the 'media' that make up the mass culture that has arisen during the last 60 years or so. The idea of 'popular music' of course goes back well before World War II (into the 19th century), but no one needs to be told that it realized its promise as an all-inclusive, taste-shaping entity more recently than that.
As much as I love so much of this music, I have always found there are those who believe in it and revere it more than I ever could. Because it changed youth culture, though also the way we approach living in general, we have ascribed to it virtues, some of them deserved, others not. We have said that some of our pop music has literary merit. Some of our rock stars have been compared to Eliot and other poets. This is a mistaken notion, but even worse, I am certain it is a deluded one. Though I am always regretting the gaps in my education (resulting not from a lack of investment in it but from the era in which I went to school and university), I do know enough to say that great literature and great pop culture (believe it or not, I think there is a great deal of the latter) are experienced in ways that are fundamentally divergent. Please do not think I am making that tiresome and untenable distinction between 'high' and 'low' art. I am only claiming that the experience of reading "Le Rouge et Le Noir", "The Golden Bowl" and the like is not better or worse than listening to a Beatles record, or even a Dylan record, but that it provides very different sensations, ones that nourish the being and not just gratify it. I enjoy the titillation of a great pop record or film almost as much as anyone, but would wish for more time and space for the stillness and contemplation -- most of all, the precision of feeling -- that I experience with literature.
Because pop culture is so dominant, I think we have made a kind of virtue of necessity by saying a great film is equal in importance to a great book, a piece of contemporary art must have the significance attributed to it that we have also given to painters of 100-600 years ago; and most egregiously, that some writers of today are the Fieldings, James, Balzacs or even just the Hemingways and Fitzgeralds of our time. Leaving aside that we have arrogated to ourselves the right of determining whether a literary work will be of lasting significance (this ability has eluded every generation preceding our own), we have an unhealthy interest in the lives of authors that has nothing to do with their writing, but that we use to evaluate them: their background, personal history, personal and political opinions. Even worse, we expect authors (and they comply eagerly) to speak to us, as it were, in a familiar manner, on subjects that we would also find familiar. In doing this, I find that they reveal little, for however much they may satisfy our need to see ourselves reflected. And as much as I am frustrated by the labored cleverness, the unasked-for conversationality of contemporary novelists, what I find most perplexing is the limited scope and ambitions of their books, as if they were afraid to leave us in the rear.
In contemporary literature, we find many references to the mass culture ("Gary's hopes of extracting quick megabucks were withering in the absence of online hype." [quoted from a critically acclaimed recent novel -- italics mine]), but also a flashy imprecision and reliance on cliche that is probably influenced by advertising (the worn-out expression, 'withering hopes' has lost all connection to the original meaning of the metaphor; the author just means 'perishing' or 'extinguished'; but the word 'withering' at one time provided an evocative image of a certain kind of long-term demise. 'Extracting' is another metaphor that has lost all its original association; the word 'getting' would have provided just as much meaning in this setting.)
The moralist's view that pop culture is merely harmful is no longer a constructive argument, if it ever was. But it is worthwhile to say that our wish to have art that is familiar, accessible -- that does not aspire to be 'omniscient', 'oracular' or otherwise 'super'-human, probably has come from pop culture's influence on our tastes. We should not let our reflexive anti-elitism prevent us from sorting out the elements of pop culture that have done real harm to our perception. There is no inherent contradiction in this task, and possibly some benefit.
You would have to go against the entire grain of our society, avoiding virtually all newspapers and magazines and even many kinds of books, eschewing the electronic and computer-driven devices that now do so much to fill the quotidian existence of the average person, and of course, allowing yourself to hear very little music except for Western classical and perhaps some kinds of world music. Public schooling would be out of the question for your children, because the watered-down curriculum of even many (though there are a few exceptions) of the best public schools may be attributed in part to the preeminence of mass popular culture (education is nowadays unquestionably influenced by it); you would have to find a rarified private or boarding school that dared to adhere to rigorous standards of classical scholarship (Home schooling? As for me, I am not disciplined enough to provide the rigorous indoctrination that would be needed to counter the long reach of pop culture). Your social life would be highly restricted, if you could indeed have any at all, as all of your current friends and family would still participate in the popular culture and consume its products more or less unhesitatingly.
Over the years (but interestingly, much less so in recent times), cultural critics have inveighed, rather in vain, against the perniciousness of rock, movies, and other mass entertainment. I have neither the educational background nor the inclination to follow their efforts. To me there is something else of interest: the curious cultural leveling that pop culture has brought on. Pop culture excludes no one and wants to include everyone. Scions of Europe's royal houses listen to some of the same music as inner-city as well as suburban Americans (of all races), using the same music storage devices. While the visual arts are still largely practiced, curated, and appreciated by elites, these have also been successfully marketed to a mass audience. The subject matter, materials, and media of the visual arts, while they may be used still in order to shock from time to time, are often taken from everyday objects and people, and can be found in dumps, grocery and hardware stores, comic books, and other places that were at one time thought to be lacking in artistic potential. Pop culture has inculcated the idea that the mundane, the overlooked object may also be art, and does not necessarily have to be substantially altered to become an artwork, only "recontextualized" (this is not meant to be a blanket description of contemporary art; still less is it intended as a dismissal -- but I believe I am giving a fair description of some of its tendencies).
Pop music may have been the most significant change agent of all the 'media' that make up the mass culture that has arisen during the last 60 years or so. The idea of 'popular music' of course goes back well before World War II (into the 19th century), but no one needs to be told that it realized its promise as an all-inclusive, taste-shaping entity more recently than that.
As much as I love so much of this music, I have always found there are those who believe in it and revere it more than I ever could. Because it changed youth culture, though also the way we approach living in general, we have ascribed to it virtues, some of them deserved, others not. We have said that some of our pop music has literary merit. Some of our rock stars have been compared to Eliot and other poets. This is a mistaken notion, but even worse, I am certain it is a deluded one. Though I am always regretting the gaps in my education (resulting not from a lack of investment in it but from the era in which I went to school and university), I do know enough to say that great literature and great pop culture (believe it or not, I think there is a great deal of the latter) are experienced in ways that are fundamentally divergent. Please do not think I am making that tiresome and untenable distinction between 'high' and 'low' art. I am only claiming that the experience of reading "Le Rouge et Le Noir", "The Golden Bowl" and the like is not better or worse than listening to a Beatles record, or even a Dylan record, but that it provides very different sensations, ones that nourish the being and not just gratify it. I enjoy the titillation of a great pop record or film almost as much as anyone, but would wish for more time and space for the stillness and contemplation -- most of all, the precision of feeling -- that I experience with literature.
Because pop culture is so dominant, I think we have made a kind of virtue of necessity by saying a great film is equal in importance to a great book, a piece of contemporary art must have the significance attributed to it that we have also given to painters of 100-600 years ago; and most egregiously, that some writers of today are the Fieldings, James, Balzacs or even just the Hemingways and Fitzgeralds of our time. Leaving aside that we have arrogated to ourselves the right of determining whether a literary work will be of lasting significance (this ability has eluded every generation preceding our own), we have an unhealthy interest in the lives of authors that has nothing to do with their writing, but that we use to evaluate them: their background, personal history, personal and political opinions. Even worse, we expect authors (and they comply eagerly) to speak to us, as it were, in a familiar manner, on subjects that we would also find familiar. In doing this, I find that they reveal little, for however much they may satisfy our need to see ourselves reflected. And as much as I am frustrated by the labored cleverness, the unasked-for conversationality of contemporary novelists, what I find most perplexing is the limited scope and ambitions of their books, as if they were afraid to leave us in the rear.
In contemporary literature, we find many references to the mass culture ("Gary's hopes of extracting quick megabucks were withering in the absence of online hype." [quoted from a critically acclaimed recent novel -- italics mine]), but also a flashy imprecision and reliance on cliche that is probably influenced by advertising (the worn-out expression, 'withering hopes' has lost all connection to the original meaning of the metaphor; the author just means 'perishing' or 'extinguished'; but the word 'withering' at one time provided an evocative image of a certain kind of long-term demise. 'Extracting' is another metaphor that has lost all its original association; the word 'getting' would have provided just as much meaning in this setting.)
The moralist's view that pop culture is merely harmful is no longer a constructive argument, if it ever was. But it is worthwhile to say that our wish to have art that is familiar, accessible -- that does not aspire to be 'omniscient', 'oracular' or otherwise 'super'-human, probably has come from pop culture's influence on our tastes. We should not let our reflexive anti-elitism prevent us from sorting out the elements of pop culture that have done real harm to our perception. There is no inherent contradiction in this task, and possibly some benefit.
Social Class and Family Music
I feel uneasy bringing up the topic of social class at all. To assign anyone to a particular class seems so alien to our time, to our unspoken aspirations to liberated classlessness. It might be seen as reductionist to try to describe the attributes of social classes -- to say that a person is from a certain class (in our country at least) is to do violence to that person's individuality, even to deny his or her humanity, in the eyes of some.
Yet so long as the class we're talking about is more or less an abstraction, and if we are at a physical or historical remove from the parties being described, we have less trouble with speaking of social class as a determining force in people's lives. The "working class" of pre-1939 Europe, or the "landless peasantry" of pre-communist China, colonial India, or of Central and South America in very recent or contemporary times are objects of impassioned allegiance with many people in America and in other affluent democracies. The above-named groups, to our minds, have definite characteristics; they can be thought of almost as individuals with their own personalities, thinking and acting in a certain ways which can be charted and predicted. It seems to me also that we have ascribed a great deal of virtue to the class groups mentioned above, as well as to the working classes in many other places around the world.
We read a statement such as "The urban working class in pre-Revolutionary Russia was almost as virulently anti-Semitic as the rural peasantry" (I am not actually quoting, though I could well be), and might be inclined to accept it uncritically, but if we were asked to take in the proposition that "In our times, the American working and lower-middle class is suffering from the effects of weakened family bonds, as well as from high consumer expectations frustrated by reduced spending power", we might well be offended.
Actually, I shouldn't say whether you would be offended or not. But I do know that honest discourse about social class and how it influences people's choices is very rare. I find this baffling, though not surprising in that we don't conceive of ourselves in terms of where we would be ordered in a class system -- the very notion of a class system itself probably seems arcane or irrelevant to most people.
Again, I share your distaste for even broaching the subject. But my interest in the connection between how the middle class (especially the upper-middle class) views itself and the phenomenon of family music is too great.
You may be aware that within the family music genre there is a division between the kind that is viewed as highly commercialized (The Wiggles, Disney, Barney) and another kind that has arisen at least partly in reaction to and even in protest against the first kind: 'independent' kid music: Dan Zanes, They Might Be Giants, Justin Roberts, and many others (the list is constantly lengthening); at any rate the latter category tends to be more home-grown, quirkier, less produced, etc.
The self-aware, conscientious subset of the middle class (which may be wealthier and better educated than the middle class as a whole) has embraced this latter-day flowering of independent family music. But I am struck by how sentimental so much of this independent kid music is, both musically and lyrically -- every bit as much as its 'unhip' counterpart. This is surprising, because the audience for this music is skeptical about institutions and authority figures, and is highly discriminating in how it goes about life in general -- it instinctively rejects the inauthentic or artificial in almost all arenas of life.
But in the music and lyrics of indy kid performers, maybe people are just looking for an appealing reflection of themselves: celebrations of looking for bottlecaps, your favorite childhood dog, sitting on front stoops, going to the thriftshop (this last activity is exclusively engaged in by upper-middle class, when it is done as a diversion). There are no dark corners, no misgivings, no regrets sung about in indy kid music (I am emphatically not referring to 'unhappy' childhoods, only to normal feelings experienced by children). I find this frustrating, because even placid-seeming childhoods are chock full of these things (the joyous experiences of childhood, which I would agree strongly deserve celebration in song, are, on the other hand, often written and sung about with a self-satisfaction that can be off-putting). It just doesn't ring true to me (the irony and the pop-culture throw-aways I hear in some of the music also seems somewhat glib). The indy kid music audience is very demanding about most other things in life: schools, pediatricians, food ingredients, toys, TV viewing (if that is even allowed at all). But I would have expected such people to want music that was a little more challenging (which does not necessarily mean louder or more dissonant).
One theme running through family music (this theme is certainly found in indy kid music as well) is that there may be much wrong with the world, but there is much to celebrate in ourselves. I would not go so far as to call this attitude a smug one, but I'm not sure how much the rest of the world sees things in this way. Or maybe it does, and I am wrong: some of the most prominent indy kid performers are getting mass exposure, and their popularity could prove broader and deeper than anyone would have thought. But the following is either an unscientific, unprovable generalization or a truism: children outside the warm confines of the comfortable, secure segment of the middle-class have not been much affected by indy kid music. Indy kid music (though some of it will certainly stand up to the test of time) speaks mainly to the upper middle-class world-view. And though I am uncomfortable admitting it, I find this view to be unconscionably restricted.
(this essay is taken from friendlyblobs.com/news)
Yet so long as the class we're talking about is more or less an abstraction, and if we are at a physical or historical remove from the parties being described, we have less trouble with speaking of social class as a determining force in people's lives. The "working class" of pre-1939 Europe, or the "landless peasantry" of pre-communist China, colonial India, or of Central and South America in very recent or contemporary times are objects of impassioned allegiance with many people in America and in other affluent democracies. The above-named groups, to our minds, have definite characteristics; they can be thought of almost as individuals with their own personalities, thinking and acting in a certain ways which can be charted and predicted. It seems to me also that we have ascribed a great deal of virtue to the class groups mentioned above, as well as to the working classes in many other places around the world.
We read a statement such as "The urban working class in pre-Revolutionary Russia was almost as virulently anti-Semitic as the rural peasantry" (I am not actually quoting, though I could well be), and might be inclined to accept it uncritically, but if we were asked to take in the proposition that "In our times, the American working and lower-middle class is suffering from the effects of weakened family bonds, as well as from high consumer expectations frustrated by reduced spending power", we might well be offended.
Actually, I shouldn't say whether you would be offended or not. But I do know that honest discourse about social class and how it influences people's choices is very rare. I find this baffling, though not surprising in that we don't conceive of ourselves in terms of where we would be ordered in a class system -- the very notion of a class system itself probably seems arcane or irrelevant to most people.
Again, I share your distaste for even broaching the subject. But my interest in the connection between how the middle class (especially the upper-middle class) views itself and the phenomenon of family music is too great.
You may be aware that within the family music genre there is a division between the kind that is viewed as highly commercialized (The Wiggles, Disney, Barney) and another kind that has arisen at least partly in reaction to and even in protest against the first kind: 'independent' kid music: Dan Zanes, They Might Be Giants, Justin Roberts, and many others (the list is constantly lengthening); at any rate the latter category tends to be more home-grown, quirkier, less produced, etc.
The self-aware, conscientious subset of the middle class (which may be wealthier and better educated than the middle class as a whole) has embraced this latter-day flowering of independent family music. But I am struck by how sentimental so much of this independent kid music is, both musically and lyrically -- every bit as much as its 'unhip' counterpart. This is surprising, because the audience for this music is skeptical about institutions and authority figures, and is highly discriminating in how it goes about life in general -- it instinctively rejects the inauthentic or artificial in almost all arenas of life.
But in the music and lyrics of indy kid performers, maybe people are just looking for an appealing reflection of themselves: celebrations of looking for bottlecaps, your favorite childhood dog, sitting on front stoops, going to the thriftshop (this last activity is exclusively engaged in by upper-middle class, when it is done as a diversion). There are no dark corners, no misgivings, no regrets sung about in indy kid music (I am emphatically not referring to 'unhappy' childhoods, only to normal feelings experienced by children). I find this frustrating, because even placid-seeming childhoods are chock full of these things (the joyous experiences of childhood, which I would agree strongly deserve celebration in song, are, on the other hand, often written and sung about with a self-satisfaction that can be off-putting). It just doesn't ring true to me (the irony and the pop-culture throw-aways I hear in some of the music also seems somewhat glib). The indy kid music audience is very demanding about most other things in life: schools, pediatricians, food ingredients, toys, TV viewing (if that is even allowed at all). But I would have expected such people to want music that was a little more challenging (which does not necessarily mean louder or more dissonant).
One theme running through family music (this theme is certainly found in indy kid music as well) is that there may be much wrong with the world, but there is much to celebrate in ourselves. I would not go so far as to call this attitude a smug one, but I'm not sure how much the rest of the world sees things in this way. Or maybe it does, and I am wrong: some of the most prominent indy kid performers are getting mass exposure, and their popularity could prove broader and deeper than anyone would have thought. But the following is either an unscientific, unprovable generalization or a truism: children outside the warm confines of the comfortable, secure segment of the middle-class have not been much affected by indy kid music. Indy kid music (though some of it will certainly stand up to the test of time) speaks mainly to the upper middle-class world-view. And though I am uncomfortable admitting it, I find this view to be unconscionably restricted.
(this essay is taken from friendlyblobs.com/news)
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