Sometimes I fear that our driving skills and the comment sections of online articles are an indicator of the acceleration of the decline of the human race. People no longer pay attention to what they are doing on the roads hurtling forward in thousand pound death machines without a care in the world. If you read a comment section you'll see a variety of issues, from abhorrently poor reading comprehension skills to outright wickedness. Trolling aside, we are assholes in general. Though in most of my immediate and personal interaction with others, I am often reassured that maybe things are not so bad. Then, I try to sell concert tickets on Craigslist.
Here I am, you know me if you are reading this, sitting on 4, not 1 or 2 or 3, but FOUR tickets to a sold out show in Chicago that I no longer plan on attending, mostly because if I do, I will only be using 1 of the said tickets. (Sadly I listen to music that definitely does not interest my husband, or most friends for that matter.) So, in my naive mind I set out on this venture believing the following: This is going to be easy, it is a sold out show, electronic tickets. Meaning I just have to forward a simple email to the potential buyer who can send me the money electronically. We never have to meet, therefore, I do not have to fear being kidnapped, raped, and dismembered by some weirdo perusing Craigslist expressly for that reason, I do fully believe all of that is avoidable though. How horribly and soul destroying this logic proved.
It was not a simple transaction and people were actually mean. Not only were they mean, the mere mention of the fact that they were electronic tickets and not "hard copies" sent them on indignant tirades aimed squarely at my character and apparent stupidity at the notion that I must be a fool to think that I could trick them into my scam and web of lies. Because, apparently I am selling these tickets to multiple parties, sitting on a pile money laughing while victim upon victim is denied access from said concert. To them, my next step would be to put the money in some sort of offshore account, while I set up my new digs on a remote Caribbean island, where I will spend the rest of my life living in the lap of luxury subsidized by all my ill gained concert ticket money.
I am not sure why this is bothering me as much as it is. Do I really want to go to the concert, kind of, but I will be seeing the band a month later with my fantastic sister-in-law and her husband, probably the only 2 people on the planet who like similar music and going to shows with me. The fact that I bought the tickets, thinking I could entice a few friends to a free concert does not bother me, since it is at least the third time this has happened. It was the attack on my character by strangers who just assumed I was the kind of person who would screw them over. That is what bothers me. I consider myself an honest and relatively straight forward person. If you know me, I have the unfortunately talent of wearing every emotion that I am feeling at every moment directly on my face. I also hate being judged and I have always wanted people to like me, desperately. This whole Craigslist debacle has thrown in my direction all of my social fears in one fell swoop. Aside from all of that, it has sadly been a confirming experience in relation to my feelings of my fellow human beings. That we are more skeptical, un-trusting, willfully mean, and prone to disliking and judging others we come into contact with more than ever before.
Now every person on AIRBNB, or Craigslist, or our Uber driver is out to kill us, rape us, and dismember us. I am not saying that we should not remain vigilant or suspicious, but there is a line between hostile mistrust and healthy skepticism that we seem to have a hard time distinguishing. We hear the horror stories on a daily basis of the naively trusting being taken for a ride down the advantage highway. Grandpa is sending all of his money to a Nigerian prince, and our cousin's friend spent their paycheck on tickets from a "girl" in Kenosha who sold a bunch of e-tickets as a scam and they were not allowed into the concert. That woman on welfare is just abusing the system buying crab legs on food stamps and that man on disability and medicaid is just selling his Oxycontin making a giant profit. This just turns us into at the very least aggressively misguided in our interactions to establish our "positions", at worst, just plain bullies.
So, if we believe that everyone is equally awful until proven otherwise, where does that leave us? We do live in a hostile world, that is a fact, but what are our real threats? I have had some amazing experiences with my fellow human beings throughout the world. Strangers in small pubs in Norther Ireland, locals in Paris buying you dinner because they are stoked you came into their neighborhood restaurant, homeless people in San Diego smiling at you and wishing you good day even though you did not have a dollar to give them, and a Guatemalan taxi driver who takes you to his favorite restaurant and lets you use his cell phone to call back to the states because you gave him a chance to show you his country through his eyes. Not to mention the AIRBNB guests who have stayed at our place, or us staying at their place, giving us a glimpse into what makes them tick. I really could go on. But, if I treated everyone online with aggressive affirmation that, by God, they will not screw me over, or in person for that matter, there are so many things that I would have missed out on in life because that attitude is off-putting and who would want to open themselves up to a person like that? One of the biggest problems we face is the fact that we no longer have to fight for our survival, that is another blog post I will get into later, but it is also one of our biggest blessings. We do not really have to worry if the wine we buy is filled with a weird combination of things other than wine, or if an outlaw will appear out of the woods to slit our throats and steal our horses. There are big things now that we have to worry about though, that in the past we could have never imagined. Things that we can only overcome with the help of each other. We are a connected world, for the good and the bad, we need people to trust other people. We need other countries to trust other countries, and the like. We need to identify the real enemies, but we need to remain friendly and open. Sure there are dark entities amongst us, but if we allow them to take over our world view, then we are in danger of falling divided and alone.
Me
Friday, October 24, 2014
Thursday, October 9, 2014
My Generation
Another day, another handful of negative missives bitterly complaining about the Millennial Generation. We are rude, arrogant, know-it-alls. We wear awful cloths, have too much education, too little education. We are too over-zealous and driven at work, while inexplicably lazy and entitled at the same time. If there is anything wrong in the great wide world, or just in our own communities, apparently it is totally and utterly the fault of a generation who ironically lacks any sort of power, position, or wealth. If the devil and anti-Christ were summoned, the first to be blamed will be the generation of 80 million, 18-33 years, if we are not already the devil and anti-Christ combined. These negative screeds are not only churlish and childish, sometimes they are so off base I am confused by the disgust our parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and older cousins possess towards us.
I not only take these personally because I am a millennial, but because I fall into the older bracket of the generation who experienced the brunt of the economic downturn. If you are shaking your head at my "entitlement complex" shake away. You are right, no I did not lose a house, or my retirement fund. And no, I did not have to declare bankruptcy or get my boat repossessed. And you know why, because I probably will never have the opportunity to acquire all that, especially on credit. What I lost was my job, the ability to be at a place in my career I deserve, any sort of respect from my Millennial hating mentors, and most devastatingly the idea of safety and security within our great American economic sphere. So here I sit, in one of my multiple jobs, looking at a younger generation and hoping it works out better for them. They they will not get cast under the tires of the run away bus like I did at 26. That my generation or anyone older will not disparage them at every turn, mocking their dreams and desires as that of a the lesser. Constantly degrading anything and everything associated with the time period they were born, while grouping everyone together as bad apples.
I work with a lot of and am clearly friends with many 18-33 somethings. What I have seen from them is the importance with which they value their family and friends.Valuing experiences over their next BMW, and lets face it, they are not the ones making the decision to lay-off workers over unsustainable profits for shareholders. I see young lawyers who, yes are driven by doing what they love. Passionate teachers and coaches who leave their all with those they influence. I know millenials who proudly create new tools and technology. I see marketing analysts and human resources managers who get up every day like their older co-workers, loyally providing for the company they work for, regardless of how loyal the company is to them. Furthermore, I see young mothers and fathers who are ridiculously attentive to their children, their health, and the betterment of this world.
What I do not see are poorly dressed slobs, who demand something for nothing. I do not see soulless drones who text and tweet their way through the day. The only entitlement I see is the demand for respect and that is not something so strange. I mean for God's sake, I am 32, married, own a home, a car, have multiple jobs, pay back my student loans every month, is there nothing good about this? Is it so offensive to want a little bit of respect? Or my friends who have children, and live a generally good and loving life. Is that not respectable? We go to church, we don't go to church, we have homes, we rent, we go on vacation and visit our families and vice versa. You get what I am saying, it is not so different from Generation X or the "'tweeners" or Baby Boomers. What I see less of are articles written by millenials complaining about how the Booomers left us with massive loads of debt. How the tweeners ran amok in our economy like bulls in the proverbial china shot. No, we are a forward facing generation and I am sorry, but not sorry that we want to move forward and do better. Not just for ourselves but for our children and others that come after us, because we are not so shortsighted to see that an indictment against them will be an indictment against us. So, the next time you older generations take to you computer to tackle the "problem generation" remember who was at the helm of everything in our most formative years.
I not only take these personally because I am a millennial, but because I fall into the older bracket of the generation who experienced the brunt of the economic downturn. If you are shaking your head at my "entitlement complex" shake away. You are right, no I did not lose a house, or my retirement fund. And no, I did not have to declare bankruptcy or get my boat repossessed. And you know why, because I probably will never have the opportunity to acquire all that, especially on credit. What I lost was my job, the ability to be at a place in my career I deserve, any sort of respect from my Millennial hating mentors, and most devastatingly the idea of safety and security within our great American economic sphere. So here I sit, in one of my multiple jobs, looking at a younger generation and hoping it works out better for them. They they will not get cast under the tires of the run away bus like I did at 26. That my generation or anyone older will not disparage them at every turn, mocking their dreams and desires as that of a the lesser. Constantly degrading anything and everything associated with the time period they were born, while grouping everyone together as bad apples.
I work with a lot of and am clearly friends with many 18-33 somethings. What I have seen from them is the importance with which they value their family and friends.Valuing experiences over their next BMW, and lets face it, they are not the ones making the decision to lay-off workers over unsustainable profits for shareholders. I see young lawyers who, yes are driven by doing what they love. Passionate teachers and coaches who leave their all with those they influence. I know millenials who proudly create new tools and technology. I see marketing analysts and human resources managers who get up every day like their older co-workers, loyally providing for the company they work for, regardless of how loyal the company is to them. Furthermore, I see young mothers and fathers who are ridiculously attentive to their children, their health, and the betterment of this world.
What I do not see are poorly dressed slobs, who demand something for nothing. I do not see soulless drones who text and tweet their way through the day. The only entitlement I see is the demand for respect and that is not something so strange. I mean for God's sake, I am 32, married, own a home, a car, have multiple jobs, pay back my student loans every month, is there nothing good about this? Is it so offensive to want a little bit of respect? Or my friends who have children, and live a generally good and loving life. Is that not respectable? We go to church, we don't go to church, we have homes, we rent, we go on vacation and visit our families and vice versa. You get what I am saying, it is not so different from Generation X or the "'tweeners" or Baby Boomers. What I see less of are articles written by millenials complaining about how the Booomers left us with massive loads of debt. How the tweeners ran amok in our economy like bulls in the proverbial china shot. No, we are a forward facing generation and I am sorry, but not sorry that we want to move forward and do better. Not just for ourselves but for our children and others that come after us, because we are not so shortsighted to see that an indictment against them will be an indictment against us. So, the next time you older generations take to you computer to tackle the "problem generation" remember who was at the helm of everything in our most formative years.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Thinking Critically
The past few weeks, I have attempted to keep up with the growing controversy related to the new AP US History curriculum put into effect this year. One reason is because, well, I love history and am a total dork about it. But, the second and more poignant reason is the fact that 500 kids walked out of their high schools in Colorado to protest their school boards attempts to "monitor" the course curriculum and materials, as well as censor the general gist of what they felt needs to be emphasized. Additionally, having been blessed with a TA-ship in grad school, in the Ethnic Studies department no less, the consequences of such controversy has a tremendous amount of importance to the future generations of our country, and their ability to learn, thrive, and more importantly critically think in more ways than one.
If you are unfamiliar with the issue, to put it simply, most conservatives hate the new curriculum believing it is too "America Hating" and the liberals are offended by this notion and I believe rightly so. During my brief stint in the Ethnic Studies department, I encountered a bitter hatred for hearing the stories that make up our America as we know it today. For every over-achiever or apathetic soul (they were mandatory credits) who I encountered there was one hostile individual who refused to even remotely acknowledged parts of history, completely on to the fact that I was a subversive individual hell bent on destroying America's reputation by spreading lies about how we treated Native Americans and later on immigrants. (I was being facetious with that last part.) As someone who loves to learn and believes intellectual curiosity to be the utmost virtue, I was completely and utterly insulted by these haunting souls. Even more so, I was saddened by the fact that they would not debate/discuss their own idea in discussion with me, that they took facts and evidence as flippant suggestions, and that they were totally never going to achieve what I feel is the most important goal of college. Critical thinking and confronting uncomfortable situations with the poise, grace and intellectual capability of Edmund Burke. (Ok that last one is a pipe dream, even for me) Critical thinking competency serves us well in our everyday lives, it is essential to our success and survival in our present world. What better way to develop this skill than in the humanities?
In my personal life I have made many horrible mistakes, now I might not have given a native population highly susceptible to the outside world's diseases blankets that were riddled with small pox germs, but there are plenty of situations I am still disappointed in myself with if not out right embarrassed by. But, I learn from them, still. Acknowledging these past mistakes means that in the present, as well as future, I can recall and learn for them. They remain in the recesses of my mind, ready to be pulled to the forefront when confronted by an uncomfortable situation to remind me of how better to conduct myself with understanding and humility. If we do not acknowledge faults within ourselves, we are forever doomed to behave the same, not matter our outcomes. No matter where we want to go or what we want to do. Our great nation is no different. We are a young country compared to many and like most there have been bumps along the way. But there have also been amazing times of greatness.
So the College Board describes their new curriculum as a, "framework for conveying the content and skills typically required for college credit and placement." People of America, I taught your college student as a TA, they were no where near this goal as 19 and 20 year old sophomores. I think it is a great goal for kids who want to take the extra steps of taking AP classes. However, many conservative groups across the country see it differently. To say they are threatened by this is so comically short sighted in the realm of anti-intellectualism, I would laugh if it did not shatter my heart to its true and utter core. I have always found this line of thinking distasteful because it follows a well rehearsed path of criticism that is totally paradoxical to critical thinking in and of itself. A good example the proposal, thankfully tabled, by a school board in Colorado after the student protest. It included a review of the text and course plans to ensure that they, "promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free-market system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights." Ironically it would seem they are seeking to replace what they believe to be one ideological doctrine with another. I can just picture Barry Goldwater nodding with approval from his grave.
That is the crux of my whole argument. You can no more "teach" or indoctrinate a student on citizenship, patriotism, or blind obedience to authority than you can make fish live on land and a deer under water. These are concepts borne from our everyday experiences in life reconciled with the knowledge we obtain, be it at home, in the neighborhood, at school, in history class or math class. They ebb and flow through our minds to varying degrees year after year, month after month. I consider myself extremely lucky to be born in America, despite its history. I know it is a great country and that is why I am patriotic. I love my neighborhood and the people I deal with, which is why I in turn strive to be a good steward of citizenship. I also value our government, which is why I will never adhere to blind obedience to authority. It is a grave mistake to dispossess the youth of our nation the ability to develop their own thoughts and ideas based on their private experiences and grasp of the knowledge they receive. We cannot fear knowledge or intellectual curiosity obtained through our own devices. It will be the downfall of our great experiment.
If you are unfamiliar with the issue, to put it simply, most conservatives hate the new curriculum believing it is too "America Hating" and the liberals are offended by this notion and I believe rightly so. During my brief stint in the Ethnic Studies department, I encountered a bitter hatred for hearing the stories that make up our America as we know it today. For every over-achiever or apathetic soul (they were mandatory credits) who I encountered there was one hostile individual who refused to even remotely acknowledged parts of history, completely on to the fact that I was a subversive individual hell bent on destroying America's reputation by spreading lies about how we treated Native Americans and later on immigrants. (I was being facetious with that last part.) As someone who loves to learn and believes intellectual curiosity to be the utmost virtue, I was completely and utterly insulted by these haunting souls. Even more so, I was saddened by the fact that they would not debate/discuss their own idea in discussion with me, that they took facts and evidence as flippant suggestions, and that they were totally never going to achieve what I feel is the most important goal of college. Critical thinking and confronting uncomfortable situations with the poise, grace and intellectual capability of Edmund Burke. (Ok that last one is a pipe dream, even for me) Critical thinking competency serves us well in our everyday lives, it is essential to our success and survival in our present world. What better way to develop this skill than in the humanities?
In my personal life I have made many horrible mistakes, now I might not have given a native population highly susceptible to the outside world's diseases blankets that were riddled with small pox germs, but there are plenty of situations I am still disappointed in myself with if not out right embarrassed by. But, I learn from them, still. Acknowledging these past mistakes means that in the present, as well as future, I can recall and learn for them. They remain in the recesses of my mind, ready to be pulled to the forefront when confronted by an uncomfortable situation to remind me of how better to conduct myself with understanding and humility. If we do not acknowledge faults within ourselves, we are forever doomed to behave the same, not matter our outcomes. No matter where we want to go or what we want to do. Our great nation is no different. We are a young country compared to many and like most there have been bumps along the way. But there have also been amazing times of greatness.
So the College Board describes their new curriculum as a, "framework for conveying the content and skills typically required for college credit and placement." People of America, I taught your college student as a TA, they were no where near this goal as 19 and 20 year old sophomores. I think it is a great goal for kids who want to take the extra steps of taking AP classes. However, many conservative groups across the country see it differently. To say they are threatened by this is so comically short sighted in the realm of anti-intellectualism, I would laugh if it did not shatter my heart to its true and utter core. I have always found this line of thinking distasteful because it follows a well rehearsed path of criticism that is totally paradoxical to critical thinking in and of itself. A good example the proposal, thankfully tabled, by a school board in Colorado after the student protest. It included a review of the text and course plans to ensure that they, "promote citizenship, patriotism, essentials and benefits of the free-market system, respect for authority and respect for individual rights." Ironically it would seem they are seeking to replace what they believe to be one ideological doctrine with another. I can just picture Barry Goldwater nodding with approval from his grave.
That is the crux of my whole argument. You can no more "teach" or indoctrinate a student on citizenship, patriotism, or blind obedience to authority than you can make fish live on land and a deer under water. These are concepts borne from our everyday experiences in life reconciled with the knowledge we obtain, be it at home, in the neighborhood, at school, in history class or math class. They ebb and flow through our minds to varying degrees year after year, month after month. I consider myself extremely lucky to be born in America, despite its history. I know it is a great country and that is why I am patriotic. I love my neighborhood and the people I deal with, which is why I in turn strive to be a good steward of citizenship. I also value our government, which is why I will never adhere to blind obedience to authority. It is a grave mistake to dispossess the youth of our nation the ability to develop their own thoughts and ideas based on their private experiences and grasp of the knowledge they receive. We cannot fear knowledge or intellectual curiosity obtained through our own devices. It will be the downfall of our great experiment.
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