EMAW vs. EPAW

Personal victory alert: the electronic sign in front of the parking garage says “EPAW.” And as much as I enjoy a good round of gloating, this is neither the time nor the place. Instead, I think a consideration of the possibilities of local politics might be more productive.

Most people think of government and politicians when they think of the concept of “politics.” Part of American’s feelings of political apathy, evidenced in low voter turnout and general lack of knowledge about our political system, stems from a belief that politics is something reserved for career politicians. In reality, politics is a much broader activity that’s only real characteristic is social relations involving power or authority. The representative nature of our democratic republic, imperfect though it may be, means that our political engagement on the micro-level really can affect broader change. I wouldn’t have imagined that my first Collegian article ever, which advocated changing “Every Man a Wildcat” to “Every Person a Wildcat” would cause anyone to react at all, let alone the people at the Union. Similarly, the positions we advocate in our everyday lives can, if pursued consistently and genuinely, create a momentum of public opinion that will eventually be reflected in government policies.

For example, explaining to another person the inaccurate and harmful implications of using the term “gay” to mean something degrading, as in “that’s so gay,” can engender the realization that discrimination against homosexuals is akin to the racism and sexism that our culture has already recognized as harmful. Addressing a friend’s littering can create an environment of interpersonal accountability for ecosystem degradation, which might become the foundation for national accountability to our international friends and allies. Arguing rationally and coherently with your mom about marijuana policy could make her abandon inaccurate misconceptions she may have held about the drug’s potential harmful effects.

In other words, there is no excuse for not engaging in politics, and there is real harm in not thinking about the positions you espouse in your daily life. Ultimately, it’s ourselves and our peers that vote and hold office. Personal change creates social change creates policy change. Isn’t that empowering?

Wikileaks

The recent revelation of 250,000 messages sent by U.S. diplomats on the whistleblower site “Wikileaks” has sparked significant controversy about the tension between media’s obligation to hold the government accountable and the government’s obligation to protect American lives. The federal government has widely denounced the release, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton calling it “an attack on the international community.” This particular release is unique, because unlike the documents pertaining to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it reveals a candid assessment by U.S. diplomats of world leaders, both ally and enemy, and international security threats. According to the BBC, only 6% of the documents were “secret” and 40% “confidential; the rest were unclassified. Should Wikileaks continue to release such documents? I believe the answer is complicated and situational, but err in the affirmative.

One thing the public may not realize is just how much of the information “revealed” by Wikileaks could already be discovered with some simple searches and educated inferences. For example, the revelation that many Arab states had urged the administration to attack Iran’s nuclear facility is only surprising until you discover it was Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and United Arab Emirates. The mistaken rendition of a German citizen and negotiations for transferring Guantanamo prisoners is no surprise either; reporters and analysts have been studying that trend for near a decade. Anti-terrorism policy in Yemen and Qatar is predictable- this is a Global War on Terror, right?- and plans for a unified Korea have been talked about publicly with South Korean officials. The really interesting stuff is just the stuff that holds American diplomats accountable- information about how and with who they make deals, and what they’re willing to compromise in order to maintain the upper hand. The international community already has a low opinion of us, and Wikileaks shows that it may be with good reason. Revelation of such S.O.P.s is critical to changing that image, and holding our diplomats accountable to democratic decision-making. The alternative is the same kind of secrecy and back room dealings that keeps a dictator in power. But a dictator isn’t much better than a dictatorial foreign policy ideology that maintains itself through deception and deceit.

 

The allure of entertainment

I don’t know if you’ve heard or not, but TV pretty much rocks. I have to actively work to not add more TV shows to my Internet repertoire, because I know from the murmurings of my friends and family around the metaphorical water cooler that I am missing out on some seriously good comedy/drama/reality/whatever. It’s amazing sometimes how much 30 Rock, The Office, and Parks and Recreation make me laugh, and I can’t get enough of Showtime’s Weeds. Thank god LOST is over.

Anyway, my weekly love for television has alerted the fear centers in my brain, as most powerful cultural forces tend to do (side note: there is no such thing as a “fear center” in one’s brain – but I’m a philosophy major).

I’m about 400 pages into David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest,” which I’ve been reading for about 3 months now to impress a boy. One major/minor happening in the book is a deadly form of “Entertainment,” ostensibly conceived and disseminated by a Canadian separatist group. The Entertainment kills whoever watches it, because they become so enthralled with the perfection of its, well, entertainment that they cease performing normal body functions, like breathing. Now, obviously this super weapon is probably entirely fictional, but it does lead me to wonder about the power of modern entertainment.

Corporations are so amazingly adept at feeding us what we want to consume, and making us want things we wouldn’t have otherwise, that I think there is a real possibility of extreme social control. Serious market research, which tests the efficacy of products and messages with focus groups, combines with the science of advertising to play with us like puppets on a string. If TV can make me tune in and laugh 4-5 times a week, couldn’t suggestive product placement or even general encouragement of consumerism make me buy, buy, buy just a little bit more, more, more? If it’s got that kind of control, could TV control my political leanings? Will we end up with crazy sensory stimulation, like the TV rooms of Fahrenheit 451? And who exactly is the puppet master?

Do we even really care?

Marijuana legalization

Well, the midterms have come and gone and with them control of the House of Representatives for the Democrats. This election was billed as a landmark referendum repudiating the Democratic policies of the last two years, but last Tuesday was remarkable for another reason as well.

That’s right, I’m talking about California’s most recent socially liberal referendum which asked voters to consider the legalization of small amounts of marijuana (up to an ounce) for personal consumption and up to 25 square feet plots of land for growing marijuana, only for those over 21 years of age. The ballot initiative failed by 46 to 54%, but not because California voters were against legalization. A large part of the issue was a provision of the proposed law intended to protect marijuana users from discrimination, which opponents claimed would allow people to go to work stoned. While the implications of this particular law are unclear, it’s obvious that the law failed because of its specifics, not its revolutionary legalization of the ganja herb.

This conclusion is supported by a poll done by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, who gathered data shortly after the election. According to their findings, 49% of California voters believe marijuana should be legalized, compared to 41% opposed. A majority believes that “laws against marijuana do more harm than good.”

Thus, much hope remains for those interested in seeing this popular drug legalized. The question is, what should we do next? The California initiative was remarkable because it showed America that legalization of marijuana is politically possible, and has strong support in the electorate. Such initiatives, though they may fail in the near-term, do wonders for changing the minds of on-the-fence voters who might consider specific legalization proposals. Marijuana advocates should strive to keep the public debate alive and rational, and pressure local and state lawmakers to consider piecemeal reforms to decrease penalties and restrictions on personal marijuana use. A societal shift is imminent, if only we won’t use this near-victory as an excuse for disappointment and inaction but instead see it as portending a future where government restriction on legitimate lifestyle choices is a thing of the past.

Women breadwinners still do all the housework

Are women and men finally equal? Ask your two year old.

In this recent New York Times Magazine article, “Calling Mr. Mom?” author Lisa Belkin problematizes the claim that women in America have achieved gender equality. It all comes back, as usual, to that tricky divide between the public and private sphere. But this time, it’s not women who are confined to one sphere and forbidden from the other, it is men. Belkin includes a heap of positive statistics for women’s advancement; numbers indicate that women have widely achieved success in both higher education and the workforce. Two of my favorite statistics were that more than half of all managerial and professional jobs are held by women, and that 60 percent of all master’s degrees are awarded to women.

That’s just great, but success in the first shift doesn’t mean parity in the second. According to Belkin, “women still perform twice the housework and three times the child care that men do, even in homes where women are the primary breadwinners.” As a result, women are more likely to take flextime provided by their companies to spend time raising children, despite the fact that the optional time off is also available to men. Women are also more likely to take pauses in their career path to focus on raising young children.

In other words, even though the glass ceiling has been largely shattered, the glass ball-and-chain of housework and child care is still holding women back. Perhaps that’s partially to blame for the fact that only 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women.

What’s the solution? Men have to start sharing the second shift. Traditional arguments against male parenting and housework are almost universally rooted in false assumptions about gender roles and what women are supposed to be “good” at. Most women can think of at least one man who seems to be feigning ignorance about how to do the dishes, but some genuinely missed out on domestic skills because of the gendered assumptions of their parents.

Housework is not difficult. Childcare is, but there’s lots of literature and people to learn from. In order to truly achieve gender equality, it is not enough to say that women have access to the public sphere. Men must also have equal obligation to the private sphere.

Thinking as a species

If there’s one thing Americans love, it is themselves. One of the fundamental values of our political culture is individualism, which is also reflected in the consumer demand driven marketplace.

While “looking out for number 1” is a dominant theme in most of our lifestyle calculations, we aren’t all heartless selfish automatons. There’s also chauvinism, or the preference for one’s group over other groups. That’s evident in the long history of immigrant scapegoating, or even a simple comparison of the defense budget with foreign aid. While it may be natural or instinctual to privilege groups to which one belongs, we have control over the particulars. In other words, we are members of myriad groups, and can choose to focus on benefitting any number or combination of these groups.

We’ve all seen the violent results of chauvinism; exclusion occurs systematically and oppressively. It leads to racism, sexism, homophobia, and xenophobia. We can reverse the cycle of violent exclusion without denying our instinct to preference our own.

Here it is: species consciousness.

We need to start thinking of the decisions made by the human species. We need to start thinking of costs and benefits incurred by the human species. We need to think of our species’ place in the world, and how it relates to other species. This will reduce the instinct to exclude and oppress other humans, and it will also help us realize the gravity of our decisions as a species in the context of our world as a whole. Who knows, it might actually increase international cooperation to solve global problems.

Unless we start thinking as a group, it will be extremely difficult to act as a group. Unless we act as a group, race-to-the-bottom lax regulations, driven by a drive for short-term economic gain, will always derail cooperative solutions to shared problems.

It’s hard to say how we should start thinking as a species, or getting others to. One possible in-road would be teaching others just how similar all humans are. Cultural exchange programs are a good example, but may not be enough. Education about global issues will be paramount, as it’s critical to making Americans realize that we all share the same basic problems.

Absolute truth?

Billions of religious believers worldwide take their holy texts to be authoritative, mostly working under the assumption that the words included in them are divinely inspired and thus the Truth. Reliance on such texts for guidance in determining what’s right or wrong, good or bad, true or false is widespread, and gives these texts enormous power in controlling their adherents.

Such a perfect mechanism for social control might be too much for selfish human beings to leave untouched. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. What must that mean for Absolute Truth?

My only real experience with religious texts comes from the Catholic Bible, which I engaged on a near daily basis for 12 years of my life. The Internet teems with information, however, about Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox versions of the book as well as the Torah and Koran. I will restrict my consideration to the Judeo-Christian tradition generally, and the Catholic and Protestant Bibles specifically.

These texts were written by humans. They were translated by humans. The books that were included, and those that were excluded, were decided by humans. Many of those decisions occurred hundreds of years after the books were written. The books are interpreted by humans, for humans. In other words, the belief that what we’re taught the Bible says and means is actually the Word of God takes some serious suspension of disbelief, and some serious belief in the goodness of the thousands of humans that had intimate control over how the words of 2000 years ago became teachings in church today. Why do we believe these texts? Because humans with authority tell us to, and how. Do they tell us why? Not really – that’s the whole “believing without seeing” faith thing, remember?

What about our experience with human demagogues makes us believe that no one involved in this transmission process would manipulate the Bible to their personal advantage, or to reflect their personal ideology?

Advice for the all-nighter

The modern student has a vast array of tools and gadgets at their disposal, which basically serve the function of helping us move words and numbers around in an attempt to retain some new information. Part of the challenge of college life is figuring out how to combine you, your time, your classes, and your gadgets to create the best possible outcome: A’s, a good job, and maybe a little popularity. At the very least you don’t want to fail out, not again!

Sometimes though, the shit hits the fan. Sometimes you didn’t prepare enough. Sometimes you HAD to go to that concert. Sometimes the only thing between you and that big due date is a rapidly diminishing number of hours you can count on your metaphorical toes as they quake in your metaphorical boots.

Sometimes, you’ve got to pull an all-nighter.

Luckily for you, I’m really pretty good at making an all-nighter work. What follows are my tips for making the all-nighter work for you – feel free to contribute more on the comments.

(1) Don’t do it very often. The all-nighter is not a sustainable studying strategy. It’s an emergency-use-only kind of thing, whether its pre-midterms, pre-finals, or pre-giant project due date. It’ll throw your sleep off for a few days, meaning it’s not worth it productivity-wise unless the big thing you have to finish is the next day, and afterwards you can sleep.

(2) Don’t use it an excuse to procrastinate – for serious, don’t. A lot of people make the decision to stay up all night and then use that buffer-zone of time as an excuse to relax before they hit the books hard. Two problems: (a) you’re probably pulling an all-nighter because you need all the time you can get to not screw up, and (b) you’re now way more likely to accidentally fall asleep without setting an alarm. The best thing to do if you think you’ll have some extra time is work until you’re finished and sleep the last couple hours if you can.

(3) Do consume tea, coffee, small snacks, and lots and lots of water. Trust me on the water thing. Hydration is critical to keeping your mental processes in top form even while you’re body is kind of confused about what’s going on. Don’t overdo it on the snacks: anyone who’s had Thanksgiving knows what eating too much food can do to your chance o’ sleeping.

(4) Don’t consume soda or alcohol, basically the same reason:  you’ll feel like shit before it’s over. Sugary soda causes unpleasant sugar highs and lows and honestly gives you pretty bad breath. Alcohol will slow your productivity and make you want to sleep. Yeah, both make it slightly more bearable, but the point of an all-nighter is productivity, not a good time.

(5) When you think you can’t do it – everyone reaches this point – usually it’s accompanied by a convincing self-justification for immediate sleeping that you know you’ll regret in the morning. Have no fear! It’s time for a dance party. I don’t care if you can’t dance, it’s late at night and anyone who’s watching definitely doesn’t care. Put on a single, incredible song. Dance to it like crazy from beginning to end. Problem solved.

(6) The sun is up – what do I do now? This is the hardest part of the all-nighter- the all-dayer that you’ve got to do next. The best thing I can tell you to do is KEEP MOVING. You can still get stuff done today if you keep yourself alert by moving a lot and being out in the bright sun. Drink coffee or tea when you need it, but make sure to plan ahead so when you finally get a chance to sleep, you aren’t damned to purgatory lying in bed exhausted and wide awake.

Keep on truckin’ night owls.

Stereotyping one’s self

This is just a thought experiment.

A theonion.com T-shirt once opined that “stereotypes are a real time saver.” And to be honest they are. It’s probably some sort of natural instinct to make predictions about another’s behavior based on all the information given, found in things like the way they look and act. It wouldn’t be a very good strategy for survival to not discriminate between the person wearing the bright orange penal jumpsuit and the one wearing a hot dog costume. It’s probably easier to get violent neo-Nazis off the street if we identify them based on their swastika tattoos. In other words, you can’t usually know what another person is like, but there are a lot of situations where you need to make an educated guess. The problem arises when people start using identity characteristics as a substitute for getting to know someone. Judging a book by its cover might help you guess its genre, but it’s not going to give you details about the killer ending or steamy sex scenes.

But judge we do – based on skin color, gender, sex, ethnicity, religion, class, you name it. We’ve come a long way from the terrible oppression of the past, but there may be reason to believe that we’ve just shifted our hasty generalizations to other identity characteristics; it might not matter as much what color your skin is, but all of a sudden it certainly matters what brand you’re wearing. Stereotypes are a two-way street, however. We go from the broad to the narrow and judge people based on our stereotypes about their group, but we also go from the narrow to the broad and blame entire identity groups for the actions of an isolated individual. This isn’t a chicken and egg problem – the stereotype is created by individuals, applied to an identity group to which they belong, and then unfairly ascribed to other members of that group.

Oh yeah, the thought experiment.

What if every individual thought of themselves primarily as the intersection of many different identity groups? What if I was me, but “me” means white, female, woman, student, bicyclist, debater, coffee-drinker, wildcat, etc. Perhaps if we thought more about the groups we represent, we might avoid creating unfortunate stereotypes that hinder other members of our group. For example, I may choose to refrain from cursing at the football game because I know I represent K-State. I might choose to refrain from blaming my emotions on my hormones, since this contributes to the idea that females are controlled by their hormones rather than their rationality. I might choose to refrain from skipping class, so the debate team doesn’t get a bad reputation.

In other words, we’d make our group membership primary in formulations of identity, rather than attempting to end discrimination by pretending those groups don’t matter, or don’t exist.

I can see lots of problems, and lots of potential benefits with reformulating our group interactions under a more communitarian framework. Thoughts?

 

U.S.A. – Big Government = Big Business

So, the Tea Party doesn’t like big government. That’s like their thing. Here’s the problem:

The alternative to big government isn’t small government, its big business. Its multinational corporations that price and sell critical components of human life: food, water, shelter, medicine, and even livable environments. These businesses, like Monsanto, Wal-Mart, and Royal Dutch make hundreds of billions in profit every year. How do they spend a large chunk of that exorbitant profit? Convincing consumers that they need next year’s products, or creating an actual need for those products.

Consider this – giant oil companies are investing in renewable fuel technologies, though not substantially. Ostensibly they’re doing this because they care about the environment, but obviously this isn’t the case. It’s not just the predictable attempt at corporate white-washing, it’s an attempt to control the demand they’re creating for renewable products. Why invest in green energy instead of reductions in carbon emissions or environmental cleanup? Because environmental degradation creates a new demand for a new product.

So why is big government better than big business? Well, for one, they’re not nearly as driven by the profit motive. A representative who lets her constituents’ children die from lead poisoning won’t be re-elected, but a CEO whose company makes a lead-based product doesn’t benefit in any way from preventing upstream pollution, absent the difficult-to-win class action lawsuit, which would be a drop in the bucket of corporate profits anyway. Additionally, government actions are more easily scrutinized by the public. There are whole government entities, like the U.S. Government Accountability Office, designed to hold our officials to a high degree of accountability.

The Tea Party and neo-conservatives generally, only seek to decrease control over the individual. But big business arguably controls us even more than big government, by spending billions of dollars a year on overt and subtle advertising that convinces us we have needs. They conduct market research studies to see what we want, and then feed it back to us with a hefty price tag.

Big business, absent significant economic restructuring, is inevitable. We’ll need big government to keep it in check with regulations, taxes, and anti-trust law. The alternative is the worse capitalism has to offer.