The American Dream as Social Control

"Hope is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength and your greatest weakness." - The Architect, The Matrix Reloaded

The American Dream- the belief that enough hard work will earn you a place in the upper echelons of society- is rooted in the Enlightenment ideals of the 1800's.  Our society was one birthed in the denial of a formal class system, and it was this idea that spawned another, that surely with enough work, anyone could ascend to any height of economic or social prosperity.  I have no idea if the Founding Fathers intended for this to happen, but this newly created American Dream became a method of exerting social control over the disadvantaged classes while simultaneously building America into an economic powerhouse.

It is the American dream that drives the huge influxes of immigrants from their homelands into the US.  Immigrants like Albert Einstein and Andrew Carnegie who aded value to our society and built it into something great.  It is the American dream that busses the lower classes to menial daily jobs, where they trade their lives for a daily wage in hopes of a better future.  It is the industry of the lower classes, fueled by the American dream, that elevated the US to economic heights previously undreamt of.  The problem with this whole thing, is how unfair it is in it's effects.

I'll start with an example.  I've had several days when my stock portfolio has jumped a healthy percentage, netting me (lets say for example purposes) $1k.  Thats a third of the money I made last summer working three jobs I made in one afternoon.  A glaring problem with the American dream is that hard work does not translate into wealth.  That work has to be focused in a certain way.  It is only the hard work of the capitalist, the entrepreneur that may result in wealth, not the sweat of the day-laborer.  This may seem obvious to you or I, but rest assured the vast majority of people out there don't understand this key point.

The few society members that understand this point rise to the upper echelons of society and pass down their wealth from generation to generation.  Those that don't remain in their destitution and squalor.

The effect of the American Dream on our society is to pacify the lower classes.  Have you no money?  Then surely you have not worked hard enough, for America rewards the hard workers.  In fact, you are a lazy parasite on our society if your hard work has not made you rich, and you need assistance from the government to survive.

Because of the American dream, the lower classes can only think to blame themselves for their poor living conditions, not the upper classes that constantly use their institutional advantages to maintain their power over the plebeians.  And so, they are pacified.  They plot no revolutions or coups- they turn to religion in hopes of claiming their justly deserved but nonexistent rewards in the afterlife.  If I haven't previously covered how religion is a system of social pacification, I may do so in the future.  For now, suffice to say that it functions in a manner very similar to that of the American Dream.

Announcement

For the month of April, if not longer, i'll be deactivating my Facebook account. For any of you still interested in getting updates from this blog, you'll either have to check the page periodically of your own accord, or check my twitter page which I will only be using for blog updates (@NOTdavidu). I'd have deactivated my twitter too, but then any blog updates would have been totally devoid of an audience.

P.S. this is not an april fool's joke.

P.P.S. Really? 2 votes in the poll? jerks.

Our Collective ADD

Emile Durkheim argued for the existence of a “conscience collective” (when you read that phrase, do it with a French accent), a collective representation each society has of it’s shared beliefs and values that exists exogenously from it’s component human members. Once it’s created by the humans of a society, it exerts an external pressure (usually moral in nature) upon them apart from their own thoughts and actions.

I think our conscience collective has been radically changed by our rapid pace of technological advancement. In this day and age, our conscience collective has the attention span of a 4-year-old at a church sermon. Everything has become a meme.

The proliferation of internet-based technology combined with the 24-hour news cycle has seriously impeded our ability to focus on any one thing as a society for more than a minute.

We jump from celebrity story to celebrity story, from viral video to viral video, often reacting viscerally initially, but soon losing interest. The 24-hour news cycle seeks news to report news 24 hours a day (no shit) even when there is no news to report. This results in stupid meaningless stories being reported as news in an attempt to drive up ratings (Casey Anthony, Snooki’s pregnancy, etc.). Even when the story has important things in or surrounding it, it becomes an only once-thought-about meme. Remember those Jesus hates religion but loves god videos? Kony 2012? Those were reported by CNN as actual news and could have sparked nationwide debate about serious topics, but they haven’t. Even with massive events like the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Initially the whole country had a lazer-like focus on them. Over time however, people simply stopped caring.

In previous epochs without the technology we currently have, entire populaces were more able to concentrate because of the lack of information. Only the most important issues or news could be spread by word of mouth or by the headlines of a daily newspaper. That ensured the focus of the conscience collective.

Nations can only be mobilized to great achievement when the entire populace is focused on a goal. Germany in the 1930’s, America, Britain, and Russia in the 1940’s, Athens in the (albeit failed) conquest of Sicily, Rome in the conquest of Gaul, etc. etc. Unity and a clear focus on a goal are required. Both are being retarded by our current level of technology.

On the Nature of Politics

A while ago, I bemoaned the lack of great leaders among our current politicians. I suppose that this post is a follow up.

In the novel the Tides of War by Steven Pressfields (a great book), two characters, Alcibiades and Socrates, have a discussion about politics. Although it is a fictional book, I feel like the fundamental arguments they convey are still true and applicable today.

Socrates began by arguing for the debasement of politicians. Can there be nothing more debase than the demagogue speaking to the masses, changing his every belief to match those of the mob (*cough* Mitt Romney *cough*) to seek their validation? He becomes the tool of the mob, he becomes their slave.

But then Alcibiades counters. What if the politician speaks not from the desire to appease the masses, but from the deepest precincts of his heart? What if he speaks not to their beliefs, but to his own, to persuade and lead the public? Can there be anything more noble?

I feel like modern conveniences have irrevocably changed the nature of politics. Now, when every statement can be instantly analyzed by the 24-hour news cycle, the only type of politician that can survive that gauntlet is the debase demagogue. This is perhaps why there seems to have been great men in the past, while few in the present.

I think this is why Mitt Romney is so universally despised; he is the archetype of the debase politician. This is also why, while everyone doesn't necessarily support him, Ron Paul is almost universally admired. While his ideas may be a little whacky, he is still striving for Alcibiades's noble form of politician.

We have been inundated by debase politicians. Let's hope that more noble ones can rise in the future.

Also... I could really use some more input: answer the poll por favor

Kony 2012

Something interesting I've learned: whenever people are making judgements about something, they react with their emotional parts of their brain before the parts of the brain associated with reason light up. This is one of the truths to the process of human reasoning: the unconscious parts of the mind react first with emotion, and then the conscious parts rationalize the emotion- it doesn't actually make the decision of how to react.

When I first watched the Kony video, I had a negative emotional reaction (towards the makers of the video itself, not just Kony). This blog post is essentially the rational parts of my brain attempting to explain why I did so. To be honest I'm not 100% sure why, but as the unconscious processes are much more powerful in information-processing than the conscious, I will stand by my initial reactions.

At it's heart, the Kony video is a marketing ploy. A brilliant ploy, yes, but a ploy nonetheless. Did you notice all of the emotional strings the movie deliberately pulled in you? They wanted you to react emotionally-positive to their video, and let your rational conscious follow blindly behind.

The video purports itself to be the progenitor of a grassroots movement. The problem with this is that a true grassroots movement has no progenitor. Take the Occupy Wall Street protests as an example. Yes, some magazine did initial posit the idea, but once the idea was out there a whole community seized upon it and made it their own. Movements (described by Eric Hoffer in "the True Believer") by their very nature evolve over time. Kony 2012 will not; the Invisible Children organization has already laid out their plans, and they expect them to be followed. The video claims to be a bottom-up movement, but it is not. In reality it is top-down; the unthinking masses following the plans of the few that set them in motion.

Marketing their group's aims as a grassroots movement was a brilliant and well-executed move. The illusion of such a movement draws the impressionable and movement-hungry youth in, generating buzz via social media (as the video said it would do). That buzz is then covered by the ever reactive (not proactive) 24-hour news cycle getting the organization tons of free media coverage. The reason why I think i had a negative emotional reaction to this, was that if their goals and group were as noble as they seem in the movie, they wouldn't have to have a marketing scheme. Things like women's rights, civil rights, etc. didn't need clever marketing gimmicks for their change to be wrought. Marketing something implies that the actual product itself is in need of marketing: meaning that the real, not-made-too-look-better-than-it-actually-is product wouldn't have been bought by itself. That reeks of general badness to me. I'm not sure what that badness is exactly, but badness nonetheless.

Also, the idea of the US committing itself to a military intervention in central Africa is beyond ridiculous. And honestly, any US citizens advocating such a thing have attention spans that goldfish would scoff at. Anybody remember the last time we put our forces in a foreign land brimming with really complex sectarian violence? You know, those little 10-year, economy-sinking wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? It's amazing really, that people could be advocating for ending those two wars and bringing our troops home "you know, after they stop off in central Africa for a little bit". It is totally possible that the African Union, in concert with foreign (US) military advisors takes Kony down. But that's also what we've been doing, which would make this whole "movement" superfluous.

This general subject is really interesting in terms of crowd psychology. It's a similar to that one video about some bullshit of Jesus hating religion but loving god or something. On social media, where everything is a meme, people react quickly with their emotional responses first before actually reasoning things out (not that I am any exception). This leads to these videos and pictures being spread and made to appear more important and intelligent than they actually are. We individually invest little time or effort into clicking that retweet or share button, so we invest little in terms of our reasoning-brain power in deciding whether it's something worth sharing or not.

Not that taking Kony down would necessarily be a bad thing. Note further that recently newer critical youtube videos have come out criticizing the legitimacy of the Invisible Children group. You can search for them yourself.

ALSO: I've been thinking about maybe trying to turn my blogging into some sort of money making profession, either maybe trying to write for some other website/paper/group/whatever, or by continuing what I've been doing but more heavily promoting my writing via other methods (I haven't done much more than posting updates to Facebook and Twitter) and making money from adds or as a stepping stone to the former. To help my decision making process, I've included an anonymous poll on the right on this page about why you've chosen to read this. I'd appreciate it if you took the time to answer the poll, or to comment with your input on how you think I should move forward. Thanks.

Lower the Drinking Age!

We gotta fight the man, man. We gotta fight, for our right, to paaaartay.

The drinking age law is one of the most universally ignored laws there is. It's an open secret between college officials, parents, and kids across the country that a huge portion of underage kids drink alcohol. The law has done virtually nothing to curb teen drinking. It was originally intended by Mothers Against Drunk Driving to stop car accidents caused by drunk drivers (which I certainly view as a worthy cause), but the laws are so ineffective that the people who are stupid enough to drink and drive still have no problem getting alcohol. If a law is virtually ignored everywhere, what good is it?

Some might answer that if a law is virtually ignored, we'd be better off strengthening it than repealing it. Well, in the case of alcohol we have some precedent. There was a constitutional amendment banning alcohol. How well did that hold up? There was another amendment repealing the first (chronologically first of the two i mention here, not free speech and all that) amendment, and in between the two a huge black market industry rose in bootlegging. In the case of illegal intoxicants, the answer is never to ban the substance- that only drives up profit for those willing to sell it regardless, and people always find a way to sell it.

Furthermore, lowering the drinking age may actually save lives. In cases of alcohol poisoning, it would reduce hesitation by bystanders to call an ambulance if they thought something was wrong with a friend. Removing the fear of legal or parental repercussions would increase the likelihood that someone in trouble would get the medical attention they need.

I recognize however, that we as a society are probably not ready for no age limit, so I propose lowering it to 18. Why 18? We are legally recognized as adults at 18, and we should have the full rights of an adult member of our society. And, this brings me to the crux of my argument, to a point that I take personally.

I'm a 19-year-old male citizen. If ordered, I could be drafted into the military to go fight and die somewhere for my country. And you're telling me that I can't have a beer before I do? How does that make any sense? This is particularly relevant given how close we came to instituting a draft during the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now unfortunately this doesn't look like it'll be changing anytime soon. This issue would matter more to people of the younger demographic who are notoriously indifferent to politics. Any politician who dared broach the subject, other then possibly Ron Paul, would be ridiculed on a national scale, not to mention deeply offend MADD- a powerful political organization, especially compared to us young-uns.

So it doesn't look like anything'll be changing anytime soon. So for now, I'll have to confine my indignation to angrily-worded blog posts and ignoring that particular law even more.

Gender Norms of Altruism

You've probably seen this photo being passed around Facebook: its a newspaper clipping of a guy that was spending his valentines day with his girlfriend in class (college), when a shooter broke in. The guy shielded his girlfriend with his body- she survived, he did not. Not surprisingly the photo's received a zillion "shares" and a jillion comments about how brave, noble, and filled with love he was. This article is in now way meant to detract from what he did. What struck me as... I guess the best word is interesting... is how rare the reverse would have been.

I think our social norms have conditioned us to expect different types of altruism from us. Not that it hasn't ever happened, but I think it'd be much rarer for the girl to have shielded the guy. Now the question is, why? We expect male altruism, in the vein of chivalry, to be directed towards women, but we don't expect for the reverse to be true. Female altruism (based off of my assumptions which could be totally wrong) is generally more directed towards the protection of children. Not to say that the flows of altruism don't overlap, but generally this is pretty much the way things go.

I'm not really sure where to take this line of thought besides noting the oddity. Normally once noticing something like this, I'd usually take a normative stance. I don't think i can here. Altruism is the personal choice of self sacrifice, and I don't really think I have a right to tell people for whom they should sacrifice themselves. The only normative stance I'll take is regarding the original poster's caption, which I think sums up collective societal feelings "What makes a good boyfriend? What makes man? This guy knew what it took to be both, and he paid the price. God rest his soul, in my eyes he is a hero."

I'm not sure manhood (or being a good boyfriend) should be defined by the degree to which you are willing to sacrifice yourself, quite literally, for a woman. Such altruism can't be indicative of manhood, because it requires the presence of a woman to sacrifice yourself for. And really, is it fair to call someone either immature or "a bad man" for not sacrificing your life for a woman? And should women be held to the same standard of altruism as men? Why or why not? Again I'm not sure I can be too normative here. Sociology is said to be the self-consciousness of society- here I raise these issues more for your introspection than anything else.