To reinvestigate the word “Ethos”, I wanted to examine the spirit of the people at this ever so critical moment in time. The ideas, attitudes and beliefs of this group, the self-declared 99%, are under intense scrutiny by the public eye and are painting a valuable portrait of our nation for posterity.
Through ongoing and in-depth media coverage, a phenomenon has been revealed; socio-economic division is a natural condition in a large-scale, agricultural society. While this won’t be novel to some of you, the 99% is protesting for a undivided, egalitarian nation. Well 99%, your equality defined society just won’t work if you want your grains and corn withal. In any large "society", as they have christened themselves, division occurs. To support a society like ours, class divisions exist in a natural, almost symbiotic state. Similarly, the protest encampments have been severing off varying groups with distinct group identities, often economically bound. This is making the very inequality they are protesting a little too resemblant.
A possible antecedent for this is the charmingly patchwork groups coming together to protest, from the socio-economic layers that make up the 99%. Laughably, this is one of the most inspiring things about the protest, the myriad types of people speaking up from all sides of the country and from all classes, not just the Wall Street (or L.A. or Silicon Valley) 1%. Can we even say there is a 99%? Perhaps without criticism. Even through the strength of their argument, natural divisions exist in both the outlook and expectations of the protest as well as the background of the protesters. In actuality, 99% of the population is still going to have financial inequality even without all that wealth. There are the legitimately disadvantaged that are protesting for that visceral feeling of struggle, hardship and joblessness. There are the so-called yuppie faction who are protesting for a variety of reasons; to support the other percentage of the 99%, to make a personal statement or a public one, to appease expectations (Berkeley anyone?) or to be part of something meaningful, exciting and legendary. Keep in mind what class these are in. There are the peacekeepers that see money as the enemy and there are the politicos who are often well educated, empowered and have had more luck than the truly disadvantaged. Clearly the groups further divide past that but for brevity, this paints a pretty clear picture.
This stratigraphy of sorts is the very environment that cultured the 99/1% divide of wealth. Now I can't say with any validity that the encampments in New York, Berkeley and Los Angeles are divided so severely as to mimic our nation’s hyperbolic material culture, however it would surely take the foggiest participant to overlook the irony that is screamingly apparent. They ask for a classless society. They see equality and egalitarianism as realistic goals for our nation. What they don't see is the lessening equality within their own group and the disconnects between the attitudes of the group in the drum circle and the group in the iPad circle. This microcosmic formation is uncanny in its ability to undermine the argument argued for, to weaken the solidarity, and therefore power, of the group and to take meaning away from the 99%.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
The Level Headed Crazy
An oxymoron? At face value, yes. Upon a second register, an examination of the structures and meanings within, this term, “the level headed crazy”, depicts nothing more than a dual rolled person, something we all are in certain contortions.
What is most problematic, and most telling, is the usage of the word crazy as a noun to the adjective level headed. Our understanding of “crazy” already takes form here. Crazy is not only something one can be, but can also be someone. You can be a crazy (such as a genius or a pessimist) or be crazy (thinking and behaving in a crazy state). The above examined term, assigning it LHC as an acronym, can be read using both these utilities of “crazy”.
My identification with these is of the roll I’ve defined as someone who is, in all technicality according to our society, crazy however lives with the consequences of being level headed. For me, this has meant getting an education, marrying my husband and having reasonable goals for my future. I trust all the above require some percent of level headedness. What conflicts here is the very definition, even the very defining factor, our society has for the term crazy. Level headedness, and in some interpretations logic and groundedness, is the crucial factor in determination of crazies. Simply put, crazy people do not make level headed decisions and often make no sense.
So to term someone a LHC is to say there is a cultural loophole. This is the oxymoron effect. Irony even. Someone can be both given the context. Traits of either identity, if not in full conflict, can coalesce in a simbioticy. Making good decisions can be an effect of the acute mental clarity those in a state of mania have. Abstaining from drugs and alcohol, while certainly not the overwhelming majority among those who are mentally ill, can be a result of being on a cocktail of psychopharmaceuticals that all increase the potency of alcohol. Having a strong, healthy marriage, when those with bipolar have a 90% divorce rate, can be the result of years of therapy and self-exploration that those with chronic mental illness sometimes go through to deal with the disorder itself.
A calm and poised demeanor under stress can be from the imbalance of neurotransmitters that can result in both depressed mood as well as composure.
This concept tarnishes the strong held idea of crazy people that are not understood and therefore one-dimensional. With this idea of LHC expanding and eventually being integrated into the re-education of the public, those one-dimensional people are more likely to be accepted, understood and approachable. This could be of huge challenge to the persistent stigma that, although lessening, continues to surround mental illness as a whole.
What is most problematic, and most telling, is the usage of the word crazy as a noun to the adjective level headed. Our understanding of “crazy” already takes form here. Crazy is not only something one can be, but can also be someone. You can be a crazy (such as a genius or a pessimist) or be crazy (thinking and behaving in a crazy state). The above examined term, assigning it LHC as an acronym, can be read using both these utilities of “crazy”.
My identification with these is of the roll I’ve defined as someone who is, in all technicality according to our society, crazy however lives with the consequences of being level headed. For me, this has meant getting an education, marrying my husband and having reasonable goals for my future. I trust all the above require some percent of level headedness. What conflicts here is the very definition, even the very defining factor, our society has for the term crazy. Level headedness, and in some interpretations logic and groundedness, is the crucial factor in determination of crazies. Simply put, crazy people do not make level headed decisions and often make no sense.
So to term someone a LHC is to say there is a cultural loophole. This is the oxymoron effect. Irony even. Someone can be both given the context. Traits of either identity, if not in full conflict, can coalesce in a simbioticy. Making good decisions can be an effect of the acute mental clarity those in a state of mania have. Abstaining from drugs and alcohol, while certainly not the overwhelming majority among those who are mentally ill, can be a result of being on a cocktail of psychopharmaceuticals that all increase the potency of alcohol. Having a strong, healthy marriage, when those with bipolar have a 90% divorce rate, can be the result of years of therapy and self-exploration that those with chronic mental illness sometimes go through to deal with the disorder itself.
A calm and poised demeanor under stress can be from the imbalance of neurotransmitters that can result in both depressed mood as well as composure.
This concept tarnishes the strong held idea of crazy people that are not understood and therefore one-dimensional. With this idea of LHC expanding and eventually being integrated into the re-education of the public, those one-dimensional people are more likely to be accepted, understood and approachable. This could be of huge challenge to the persistent stigma that, although lessening, continues to surround mental illness as a whole.
Friday, July 8, 2011
The Owned Body
Bodily Responsibility
When thinking of the act of consuming medication to treat an abnormality of the biochemical processes of the body we may immediately gloss over the experience; take for granted the hastily performed act of swallowing, applying, injecting or inhaling a drug. So commonplace is taking a prescription drug in the U.S., we think nothing of taking daily supplements, complicated and calculated vitamin regimens, diet pills, caffeine pills, Tylenol and aspirin, sleeping pills, anti-depressants, anxiolytics and any other number of pills that are aggressively marketed with a primary, if not subtle message than "make your life better". The complication here is that so many supplements and medications are solely for enhancement rather than correcting an abnormality, be it on or off the label. This realm of treatment holds on to the notion of bodily responsibility, which suggests the maintenance of our bodies through responsible living can be tied to moral worth. This includes healthful diets, exercise, fluid intakes and lifestyle actions that serve to make up for the abuse bodies in developed areas of the world often undergo. Pollution, undue stress, alcohol and processed foods are just some to mention.
This enhancement by medication, unique to such highly developed nations as the U.S., is both injurious and moral. Stemming from the hyper-awareness of the importance of proper and balanced nutrition that the modern era has produced paired with the demands of the modern lifestyle, which does not support a body’s optimal functioning, provides a breeding ground for not only bodily guilt but an industry to enhance and perfect all perceived shortcomings for the individual.
These enhancement drugs can act as replacements for responsible bodies in a convenient method of consumption. Our monstrous nutritional supplement industry can surely attest to our nation’s high regards of the body as well as the poor treatment these bodies receive. The pharmaceutical industry’s constant wave of new options to better one’s life, particularly by mood elevating and stabilizing, is almost drowning. This ideal of the responsible body is supported, I propose, by the ever expanding consumer market for not only remedies for such modern lifestyle nuisances as sleeplessness, anxiety, high BMIs or blood pressure, depression, body aches and pains and all things that involve or revolve around stress but also muscle building supplements, diet aides, sexual enhancement products and energy drinks that are there to make us almost superhuman in our abilities. This all seems to suggest that no matter what, we are never optimal and never as good as we could be.
In addition to the drugs and supplements themselves, research on these issues has become consumerized, with health books and magazines, websites and lifestyle products and TV shows focusing on what “recent studies show”. Health research acts as fuel for this phenomena and the consumerist market of lifestyle products and supplements stokes the fire. How biomedicalizing of mental illness has augmented this market and shifted the role of the patient is of intense interest to me, which will be explored in a separate paper at a later date.
It is hard to pinpoint exactly where the concern and sense of bodily responsibility came from. In Western biomedical discourse we’ve been told our bodies are objects we own, that they are finite and have to be diligently maintained and repaired. This objectification of our own bodies can cause responsible care-taking in addition to abuse. When the body is at once separated from the self and made into an object to maintain, treat and learn about, while also made into a thing of ownership, a choice in the way we treat this object naturally arises and develops separate moral pathways. We can see this when bodies are mistreated by substance abuse while some strive to live clean lifestyles of veganism and yoga, but it is this objectification that helps us better position our treatment trajectory while allowing for gross misuse as it is not us we are abusing, it is our distanced body. While “our body, our choice” may remind us of the birth control debate four decades prior, in this case it finds subtle justification of mistreatment and lack of responsible body care- taking. In the 21st. century developed world, our choice regarding our bodies can mean the choice to cut it, inject it, burn it, scar it and introduce it to any number of harmful, and beneficial, substances and environments. A strong trend in duality exists; high-stress jobs can lower moods and even prompt clinical mood abnormalities. While a great respect for biomedical science can send us to the psychiatrist for a relatively quick-fix, as not all psychopharmaceuticals can alleviate symptoms right away, coordinated life-style changes have also entered the ongoing discourse on mental health treatment. This shows a regard for the evidence based medicine that has bolstered the supplement and life-enhancing drug market but also recognition of bodily ownership and the responsibilities it entails. Whether a constant onslaught of energy drinks and Vitamin B12, an energizing anti-depressant or a return to a life-style that can restore and maintain energy, we are never at lost for choices. These choices can represent how we view the body, the mind and the ownership of the being we live in and the industry we’ve built speaks volumes on our treatment ideals and expectations. A better understanding of these views and experiences will undoubtedly bring forth some issues with the mental health care system and a wealth of both qualitative and quantitative data on the psychology of health in general.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
The Social Cost of Cancer
A freshly published study released out of the University of Alabama at Birmingham has shown that black people are more likely to sacrifice financial resources for an extended life when looking at life-threatening cancer. The study looked at lung and colorectal cancer specifically. The other minority groups sampled in the study were Asian and Hispanic, both of which were more likely than Caucasians to exhaust financial resources for the treatment options of loved ones.
To my surprise, the highest percentage of those who’d rather cancer care than cash, the blacks in the study, was 80%, Asians at 72%, Hispanics at 69% and, sadly, Caucasians were at 54%. Without seeing the data, I would’ve thought/hoped the percentage for all groups to be close to a hundred. Unfortunately, they weren’t and in reality, we are faced with these decisions often enough as health care advances while insurance rates surge. Even the oft seen 80/20 coverage some insurance companies offer, when considering aggressive cancer treatment, could bankrupt even an upper middle class American. Socio-cultural proof of this is the advent of specialty cancer insurance. With cancer rates as high as they are, life time prevalence, cancer insurance.
To interpret this evolutionarily, these benevolent family members place much more value in the cancer patient than superfluous financial resources, hence the giving up of resources that could easily be shunted to another member (use of term superfluous is a generalization; some of this money will come from cash assets, some from a HELOC or even selling one’s house). On this note, the study did find that those that were single or unattached in other means were generous as well. Apparently the Caucasians perceived better ways to allocate their resources; perhaps by taking preventative measures for oneself or one’s offspring. Cancer has one upped us though on that as it has been established that while preventative measures are helpful, extremely in some cases, they don’t make you immune and you could easily still get cancer after a lifetime of eating blueberries.
An interesting follow up study would be to assess the willingness to take out cancer insurance; again, looking at all four ethnic groups. I would add Native Americans to the study as they could surface important issues like the meaning of cancer to one’s culture, the degree to which it is respected, expected or dealt with. Native Americans continually show an altered view of illness and disease and given the amorphous concept that is cancer, I’m sure we’d find whole new dimensions of understanding which often influence financial decisions and the propensity to take out insurance.
I have a feeling the insurance companies would fund this study generously
If concerned:
Cancer.org has a lot of information on the financial strain of cancer
Study contact:
Contact: Jennifer Beal
healthnews@wiley.com
44-124-377-0633
Wiley-Blackwell
To my surprise, the highest percentage of those who’d rather cancer care than cash, the blacks in the study, was 80%, Asians at 72%, Hispanics at 69% and, sadly, Caucasians were at 54%. Without seeing the data, I would’ve thought/hoped the percentage for all groups to be close to a hundred. Unfortunately, they weren’t and in reality, we are faced with these decisions often enough as health care advances while insurance rates surge. Even the oft seen 80/20 coverage some insurance companies offer, when considering aggressive cancer treatment, could bankrupt even an upper middle class American. Socio-cultural proof of this is the advent of specialty cancer insurance. With cancer rates as high as they are, life time prevalence, cancer insurance.
To interpret this evolutionarily, these benevolent family members place much more value in the cancer patient than superfluous financial resources, hence the giving up of resources that could easily be shunted to another member (use of term superfluous is a generalization; some of this money will come from cash assets, some from a HELOC or even selling one’s house). On this note, the study did find that those that were single or unattached in other means were generous as well. Apparently the Caucasians perceived better ways to allocate their resources; perhaps by taking preventative measures for oneself or one’s offspring. Cancer has one upped us though on that as it has been established that while preventative measures are helpful, extremely in some cases, they don’t make you immune and you could easily still get cancer after a lifetime of eating blueberries.
An interesting follow up study would be to assess the willingness to take out cancer insurance; again, looking at all four ethnic groups. I would add Native Americans to the study as they could surface important issues like the meaning of cancer to one’s culture, the degree to which it is respected, expected or dealt with. Native Americans continually show an altered view of illness and disease and given the amorphous concept that is cancer, I’m sure we’d find whole new dimensions of understanding which often influence financial decisions and the propensity to take out insurance.
I have a feeling the insurance companies would fund this study generously
If concerned:
Cancer.org has a lot of information on the financial strain of cancer
Study contact:
Contact: Jennifer Beal
healthnews@wiley.com
44-124-377-0633
Wiley-Blackwell
Friday, April 8, 2011
The Barriers of Boy Scouts
A recently reported on study coming from the University of Maryland's department of Sociology suggests our adorable Girl Scout cookie peddlers in vibrantly bedecked vests may be subject to an inculcation of harmful gender stereotypes. This may come to little surprise to many but let's look at the framework with which these stereotypes work their black magic.
The researcher, Kathleen Denny (contact info below), used the Boy and Girl Scouts' manuals as literary texts to be analyzed for meaning. The lasting images we actively hold in our minds are of, on one hand, Boy Scouts in the woods, with manuals and magnifying glasses, father figure towering overhead. On the other hand, Girl Scouts are notorious for their cookie stands that crop up in front of grocery stores a few times a year, always with a panel of girls behind them and a few moms to "lead" the sale. Just by breaking these images down, boys outdoors with tools and girls with baked goods and peers, we can see the manifestations of what these manuals are espousing.
Denny found that the manuals disproportionately oriented Girl Scouts with communal activities and artistic endeavors while Boy Scouts were presented with scientific and "self-sufficient" tasks.
Of particular interest is the badges earned for these tasks, emblematic of these stereotypes. Let's look at a comparison of equivocal badges for Girl and Boy Scouts:
Boys: Geologist Badge Girls: Rocks Rock Badge
Boys: Astronomer's Badge Girls: Sky Search Badge
Boys: Mechanic's Badge Girls: Car Care Badge
The trend here is that 1. Boy Scouts have descriptive, explicit and career orientated badge names while Girl Scouts have amusing interpretations of the standard Boy Scout badge, playing on feminist ideology centered on imagination, care giving and, well, girly stuff.
To emphasize my point, Girl Scouts also have the opportunity to earn a "Looking Your Best" badge which requires (group) activities such as the "Color Party" where the Scouts experiment with makeup and clothes to see what colors they look best in or the "Accessory Party" which, I hope, is self-explanatory. Other Girl Scout badges can include "Caring for Children" and "Sew Simple". I see no need to dissect the brazenly obvious messages behind these but I will say Denny found only one similar equivelant for Boy Scouts which was a “Fitness Badge” though I argue this should be a mainstay in both gendered ideals.
To look further into the media messages these associations feed into, I opened up the Boy Scout website and the Girl Scout website side by side. Below I note the salient images and motifs each respective site displays:
BSA (Boy Scouts of America)
Graphic Novel
Outdoors Activities (Mountain biking, white water kyaking, rock climbing and so on)
Independent activities
Contests
Honor
Girl Scouts
Cookies (of course)
Logo depicting multiple profiles of women with long hair
iPhone App
"realizing dreams"
"who we are" (emphasis mine)
literary emphasis (blogs, books, telling "your story")
historical timeline
When purusing the Girl Scout website, I noticed the "Take Move" initiative, where the goal, in conjunction with Kraft Foods I must note, is to end childhood obesity within one generation. Aside from being unrealistic and suspisciously sponsored, it furthers the concept that girls (future care givers) are responsible for the health of children. Suggesting this responsibility to girls while they are themselves children is a perpetuation of gender conventions that can be harmful to women today that have so many more expectations than to just be good cooks and care givers.
On the BSA (Boy Scouts of America) site, busy images of boys participating in outdoor activities of the extreme variety dominate. Nothing of the language orientated ideas, such as blogging and the iPhone app, appeared like they did on the Girl Scout site and while the BSA site boasted of a contest where the Scouts would be competing against one another (a very self-centered action), the Girl Scout site mentioned nothing but initiatives and campaigns to work together towards the greater good(s).
I’d advocate for a more egalitarian buffet of activities and tasks to earn badges, such as adding care giving roles to the Boy Scouts and more independent tasks to the Girl Scouts. Making child care into just care giving can open up opportunities for all Scouts to help our elderly, which far outnumber small children in need of care today, making it more likely either Scout would be in contact with the elderly on a day to day basis. In my perfect work, make up and accessories would have no place in such an extra-curricular but I hope you can recognize and appreciate the social depravity there.
Is this all bad? Not necessarily. Out of context, these initiatives and group activities foster important qualities as does healthy competition and independence. Equality between the two groups would be beneficial, however, in breaking down these gendered stereotypes we, apparently, fight to maintain despite the spacio-temporal women's rights movement that has extended across the globe and dates strongly back to the mid-twentieth century. Despite the idealized career women of the 80's and even Mattel's attempts to market "career" Barbies like the flight attendant and the librarian, the Girl Scout organization still encourages our young women to care about things like cookies, child care and makeup while the BSA encourages our young men to forge ahead along and conquer the wilderness, becoming the astronomers and geologists of tomorrow, notably important fields.
Meaning lies deep within everything we encounter including Girl Scout badges and manuals. Yes, the adult infrastructure along with the group leaders play a huge role in upholding these stereotypes (who do you think provides the makeup?) but in a maladaptive symbiotic relationship, the long standing cultural artifacts like the manuals and badge activities seem to have weathered the storm of women's rights and somehow came out a stable source of direction and influence among young girls (and by exclusion, boys by proxy).
Contact for Study: Kathleen Denny
University of Maryland, College Park
kdenny@socy.umd.edu
Sociologists for Women in Society
The researcher, Kathleen Denny (contact info below), used the Boy and Girl Scouts' manuals as literary texts to be analyzed for meaning. The lasting images we actively hold in our minds are of, on one hand, Boy Scouts in the woods, with manuals and magnifying glasses, father figure towering overhead. On the other hand, Girl Scouts are notorious for their cookie stands that crop up in front of grocery stores a few times a year, always with a panel of girls behind them and a few moms to "lead" the sale. Just by breaking these images down, boys outdoors with tools and girls with baked goods and peers, we can see the manifestations of what these manuals are espousing.
Denny found that the manuals disproportionately oriented Girl Scouts with communal activities and artistic endeavors while Boy Scouts were presented with scientific and "self-sufficient" tasks.
Of particular interest is the badges earned for these tasks, emblematic of these stereotypes. Let's look at a comparison of equivocal badges for Girl and Boy Scouts:
Boys: Geologist Badge Girls: Rocks Rock Badge
Boys: Astronomer's Badge Girls: Sky Search Badge
Boys: Mechanic's Badge Girls: Car Care Badge
The trend here is that 1. Boy Scouts have descriptive, explicit and career orientated badge names while Girl Scouts have amusing interpretations of the standard Boy Scout badge, playing on feminist ideology centered on imagination, care giving and, well, girly stuff.
To emphasize my point, Girl Scouts also have the opportunity to earn a "Looking Your Best" badge which requires (group) activities such as the "Color Party" where the Scouts experiment with makeup and clothes to see what colors they look best in or the "Accessory Party" which, I hope, is self-explanatory. Other Girl Scout badges can include "Caring for Children" and "Sew Simple". I see no need to dissect the brazenly obvious messages behind these but I will say Denny found only one similar equivelant for Boy Scouts which was a “Fitness Badge” though I argue this should be a mainstay in both gendered ideals.
To look further into the media messages these associations feed into, I opened up the Boy Scout website and the Girl Scout website side by side. Below I note the salient images and motifs each respective site displays:
BSA (Boy Scouts of America)
Graphic Novel
Outdoors Activities (Mountain biking, white water kyaking, rock climbing and so on)
Independent activities
Contests
Honor
Girl Scouts
Cookies (of course)
Logo depicting multiple profiles of women with long hair
iPhone App
"realizing dreams"
"who we are" (emphasis mine)
literary emphasis (blogs, books, telling "your story")
historical timeline
When purusing the Girl Scout website, I noticed the "Take Move" initiative, where the goal, in conjunction with Kraft Foods I must note, is to end childhood obesity within one generation. Aside from being unrealistic and suspisciously sponsored, it furthers the concept that girls (future care givers) are responsible for the health of children. Suggesting this responsibility to girls while they are themselves children is a perpetuation of gender conventions that can be harmful to women today that have so many more expectations than to just be good cooks and care givers.
On the BSA (Boy Scouts of America) site, busy images of boys participating in outdoor activities of the extreme variety dominate. Nothing of the language orientated ideas, such as blogging and the iPhone app, appeared like they did on the Girl Scout site and while the BSA site boasted of a contest where the Scouts would be competing against one another (a very self-centered action), the Girl Scout site mentioned nothing but initiatives and campaigns to work together towards the greater good(s).
I’d advocate for a more egalitarian buffet of activities and tasks to earn badges, such as adding care giving roles to the Boy Scouts and more independent tasks to the Girl Scouts. Making child care into just care giving can open up opportunities for all Scouts to help our elderly, which far outnumber small children in need of care today, making it more likely either Scout would be in contact with the elderly on a day to day basis. In my perfect work, make up and accessories would have no place in such an extra-curricular but I hope you can recognize and appreciate the social depravity there.
Is this all bad? Not necessarily. Out of context, these initiatives and group activities foster important qualities as does healthy competition and independence. Equality between the two groups would be beneficial, however, in breaking down these gendered stereotypes we, apparently, fight to maintain despite the spacio-temporal women's rights movement that has extended across the globe and dates strongly back to the mid-twentieth century. Despite the idealized career women of the 80's and even Mattel's attempts to market "career" Barbies like the flight attendant and the librarian, the Girl Scout organization still encourages our young women to care about things like cookies, child care and makeup while the BSA encourages our young men to forge ahead along and conquer the wilderness, becoming the astronomers and geologists of tomorrow, notably important fields.
Meaning lies deep within everything we encounter including Girl Scout badges and manuals. Yes, the adult infrastructure along with the group leaders play a huge role in upholding these stereotypes (who do you think provides the makeup?) but in a maladaptive symbiotic relationship, the long standing cultural artifacts like the manuals and badge activities seem to have weathered the storm of women's rights and somehow came out a stable source of direction and influence among young girls (and by exclusion, boys by proxy).
Contact for Study: Kathleen Denny
University of Maryland, College Park
kdenny@socy.umd.edu
Sociologists for Women in Society
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)