So Many Tangents, it Felt Like a Calculus Book

I must admit that “Consumed” was probably my least favorite book this year, for several different reasons. I was also relieved to observe today in our discussion that I was not alone in my feelings of confusion and frustration towards Barber and his book, “Consumed.” Overall, I feel that where Barber went wrong was when he went off on his first tangent at the very beginning of the book.

To be fair, Barber did make several very interesting points. For example, I found his chapter, “Infantilizing Consumers: The Coming of Kidults” to be fascinating. I have to say, I witness many of my peers falling prey to the common childish want of easy over hard. As Barber explains, adults achieve fluency, or “the seeming ease that comes with extensive learning, effort, and discipline” by choosing hard over easy (Barber 84). However, children (as well as the emerging kidults) are more frequently choosing easy over hard, and therefore lack fluency. My sister is a perfect example. Many times, especially when we were younger and the two year age gap made a bigger difference, Ruth would see me do something that I had practiced for a long time, assume it was easy, and try to do that activity. This course of events would be fine, if she didn’t have the mind set that the activity would be easy. After failing her first attempt, she would immediately give up. This behavior is not just a pattern in my sister, rather one that I witness in a lot of people around me.

I also enjoyed Barber’s use of psychologists such as Freud and Erik Erikson in his description on the proper maturation into adults, as well as the improper way in which adults are maturing today. As Freud theorized, and as Barber summarizes “infantile behavior is a consequence of a regressive process that offers itself as a defense against intimidating adult dilemmas with which a disordered ego is unable to contend” (Barber 34). I have always found Freud to be a fascinating (yet sometimes disturbing) psychologist, and I loved the way that Barber connected Freud’s idea of regression as a result of adults not being able to handle being consumers.

However, my biggest issue with this book is the fact that many of Barber’s points lack depth. This last point that I discussed, for example, is discussed for a few paragraphs, and then Barber quickly segues into another tangent. Although these tangents are at times equally interesting as the one Barber was previously on, his jumping from one point to the other still detracts from each of his statements. As he moves from tangent to tangent, Barber neglects to really finish any of his trains of thought by going fully in depth.

As I discussed in class, it seems that the several tangents allowed for the temporary appeasement of everyone by giving us each something that we related to and could enjoy. However, in doing this, Barber managed to annoy all of us by only briefly mentioning that which we each felt was interesting and deserved more attention.

Use of Rushkoff's "Time Binding" in West Wing's "Isaac & Ishmael"

One of Rushkoff’s most interesting points was the idea that humans are capable of what he described as “time binding.” “We can take the experiences of one generation and pass it on to the next generation through language and symbols. “We can still teach our children things like hunting or fishing in real time, but our lessons can be compressed into stories, instructions, and diagrams,” (Rushkoff 137). This idea of passing lessons down through generations is a tried and true habit of humans. From the orally passed teachings of Homer, which warn us against things such as hubris; to the written warning against strong government, such as that of Orwell’s 1984, humans have passed down their combined findings of the world to future generations. This has allowed people to learn from the collective knowledge of their society, rather than take the large amount of time required to learn each lesson through personal experience.

            Now, in the age of technology, this “time binding” has moved from the medium of writing to the medium of television. This use of time binding in television can be clearly seen in the show, West Wing, during their episode Isaac and Ishmael, a reaction to the events of terrorism. Many people in America had never witnessed such a large terrorist attack before, and therefore did not know how to respond. However, the combined information that the writers of West Wing had (undoubtedly passed down to them from other generations, even further removed), had the ability to give viewers a fresh perspective on terrorism. For example, Bradley Whitford is able to explain to the students he is talking to (and in turn the viewers of the show) that not all Islamic people are terrorists through the analogy: Islamic extremists are to the Islamic faith as the KKK is to Christianity. Although I have been able to realize through my own time binding experience that all Islamic people are not terrorists, I had never heard such an analogy, and was very impressed by this new perspective. This perspective is one that may not have been available to the terrorism-shocked Americans in the 21^st century, aside from those who were directly involved with the Islamic people, and only became available through the human art of time binding.

            On the other hand, John Spencer, the man who interrogated Rakim Ali, the Arab-American working in the Whitehouse, was not aided by time binding. When Spencer learned that Rakim Ali (a fairly common Arab name) came up as both the alias of a known terrorist, as well as one of the men who worked in the Whitehouse, he immediately began to viciously interrogate the man working in the Whitehouse. Throughout the interrogation, Spencer continued to antagonize Rakim, accusing him of all sorts of things, simply because he was an Arab-American. In the end, Spencer was informed that the man he was interrogating was in fact innocent, and had to apologize profusely. Unable, or at least unwilling, to rely on the time binding from past generations; Spencer had to learn from his own experiences that all Islamic people are not terrorists, which was a much more painful experience.

Work Cited:

Rushkoff, Douglas. Present Shock. New York: Penguin Group, 2013. Print.
"Isaac and Ishmael." West Wing. Writ. Aaron Sorkin. Dir. Christopher Misiano. Warner Brothers, 2001. Web.

End of Education: Law Of Diversity

Postman made several great suggestions as to "gods" that could serve to motivate both students and teachers to learn/teach. Some of these included the Earth as a spaceship that we all need to work together to protect; the theory of the fallen angel, which urges us to abandon the idea of absolute knowledge; the idea of America as an ongoing experiment for students and teachers to participate in; and the idea of humans as "world makers" because we are "word weavers." However, in my opinion, the most interesting suggestion of Postman’s was his idea of the Law of Diversity. Within this narrative, Postman has several different sub-categories in which he explains the different aspects in which students need to learn how the different cultural groups came together to form different traditions. The most fascinating of these categories that Postman uses to explain the narrative of diversity is language.

Previous to reading The End of Education, I knew that English was a language of many cultures, I just didn't know what how many! I found all of the history of the English language quite intriguing and wonder why this was left out of my schooling. For example, I was completely unaware of (nor had I ever though to question) the origin of the differences between the English words for meat before and after we cook it; let alone the fact that, according to Otto Jespersen, this difference was due to the fact that the Normans conquered the Saxons so the Saxon language was spoken only in the kitchen before the meal was prepared.

I found Postman’s suggestion to create a multilingual culture of America, as well as his postulations on why we have failed to do so in the past, to be equally fascinating. As Postman explains, “there are several reasons why we have failed to accomplish the task of teaching other languages, (one of which is) starting too late…” (Postman 149). This is an issue that I, myself have discussed on numerous occasions with just about anyone who will listen. There is significant evidence to show that languages need to be taught before children reach puberty (referred to in the world of psychology as the “critical period”), or else they will not be able to fluently learn that particular language. Why do most schools begin the learning of language in middle or high school when children of that age are well past the age of being able to learn that language?

Anorexia: Biological Disease? Or Just Psychological?

The year is 2075. Over one thousand people die each year for no apparent reason at all. A few brave souls try to claim that anorexia, a legitimate disease in their eyes, has taken all of these lives, but society rejects that ridiculousness. The popular opinion is that anorexia is not a disease at all, simply a poor self image that people bring on themselves. This behavior has been going on for several years.

Anorexia is not given the attention that it deserves. Mental illnesses themselves are considered by most to be far more controllable than say, diabetes. Anorexia is one that receives some of the worst criticisms, and also takes the most lives. According to the National Eating Disorders Association, in present day there are over 10 million people with anorexia and bulimia.
There are some people, such as the brilliant Dr. Laura Hill, who recognize that anorexia is a biological disorder, just as much as diabetes is. As Dr. Hill explains, anorexia is actually due to the malfunction of the insula (the portion of your brain that signals hunger or fullness). When a person with anorexia eats food, their insula does not signal to them that that food fulfills a hunger, which causes their amygdale to become alarmed and assume that there is something wrong with what is going on in this eating process. This causes a “noise” in the anorexic person’s brain causing them anxiety throughout the day. This noise is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex trying to make sense of the lack of pleasure signals from eating. Maybe I’m eating too much? Maybe this food is bad? Maybe this food is making me fat? The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is confused; it doesn’t know what to make of all of this, so it just goes on speculating, thinking, creating “noise”. To combat this anxiety, they refuse to eat in order to quiet this “noise” and proceed with their day.
As if this wasn’t tragic enough, one of the biggest obstacles with eating disorders is misinformation, especially to the general public. If you were surprised by that last paragraph, then you can personally attest to that misinformation. Unfortunately, the root of this information lies in misinformed scholars. Christian Nordqvist, for example, flippantly describes anorexia in Medical News Today as a person with “an irrational fear of becoming overweight-therefore (someone who will) deliberately try to lose weight.” If Medical News Today is even describing anorexia as an irrational fear, then how can we expect any lay person to take this disease seriously?
People all around the world suffer from this horrible disease, yet are increasingly told that they need to “just eat” and they will feel better. If this exponential behavior does not stop, anorexia will be ignored to the point of such accumulation that it will take more lives than ever before.

Cite:
TED Talks Video: Eating Disorders from the Inside Out: Laura Hill at TEDxColumbus.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEysOExcwrE
Nordqvist, Christian. "What is Anorexia Nervosa? What is Bulimia Nervosa?." Medical News Today. MediLexicon, Intl., 3 Mar. 2009. Web.
23 Sep. 2013. <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/105102.php>

The Chicken or the Egg? The Devolution of Language

Which devolved first? The language or the culture?

Throughout the past several decades, language has definitely begun to descend down a long spiral towards complete degradation of language. The question is which devolved first, language or culture? Orwell points out in his essay, “Politics and the English Language,” a sort of chicken or egg dilemma between the devolution of our language and the devolution of our culture. I personally believe that the decline of our culture came first; then through laziness, and even refusal to perform tasks that were not entertaining, people caused the decline of the English language.

As Neil Postman described in his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, we are now in the Age of Show Business, in which Americans use entertainment for almost everything that they do. Whether they are learning, engaging in politics, or even worshiping, Americans use entertaining methods to participate in every aspect of the world around them. This type of interaction can be very dangerous because, as is shown through American culture, people have begun to reject anything that is not entertaining to them.

An example of this mindset is the illusion that students from the past few generations have that everything, including school, should and will be entertaining. This disillusionment has lead Americans to shy away from occasions that are not entertaining, and often become lazy when faced with unamusing tasks.

Every teacher knows that the more amusing and the more simple they can make their lesson, the better chance that their students will pay attention. For example, if the teacher implements throwing a ball from person to person during a class discussion, students will be more inclined to participate because the activity feels like a game.

However, not every task can be entertaining. Such an example is an essay or a book assignment. In this day and age, the electronics that got us into the cycle of entertainment are what further people’s intellectual decline by providing an “easy way out” of schoolwork. When completing reading assignments, students will often compromise learning the meaning, tone, and literary devices in books by choosing the online summaries, simply because they are “easier” and “less boring”. This exclusion leads to children not knowing how to properly use these literary terms and tones when they later are required to write a paper of their own.

Orwell explains in “Politics and the English Language,” another mistake that students make when writing; people will often add things such as pretentious words and worn out metaphors to their essays. Instead of furthering the intended purpose of the student, these “tools” only end up confusing the reader (often the poor teacher that has to decipher several of these essays) in a circle of meaningless words, as well as prove that the author of that paper did not have a very good grasp on what they were writing.  Orwell goes on further to explain that people use these cop outs because they are trying to write their essays without putting much thought into them, “If you use ready-made phrases, you not only don’t have to hunt about for the words; you also don’t have to bother with the rhythms of your sentences…” (Orwell 8).

This recent decline in language just goes to show that presenting non-entertaining material, especially school related things, as entertainment is very detrimental to the evolution of our English language.