Social

Essays on society and social change, political systems, and cultural movements

The Mediocre World

I don’t believe anyone makes it a goal to be mediocre, but somehow it seems that so many people have accepted mediocrity as the norm. If none of us make mediocrity a goal, then how is mediocrity a norm? There are some possible answers to this somewhat rhetorical question. First, mediocrity is not the norm. Secondly, mediocrity is the norm because most people lower their expectations of themselves and then others. Lastly, we are simply defining the normal state of affairs as mediocre. I am a philosopher at heart, but I also realize that philosophical analysis (a love of mine) is not necessarily a love of others. Therefore, I will use an analogy (is this the entrance to mediocrity?) of beer to make my point.

First, perhaps mediocrity is not the norm. For most of this nation’s (USA) history, micro brewing was the norm until the likes of Adolphus Busch created Budweiser in 1876. When beer-making met with the industrial revolution, mediocre beer was born. But what is mediocre beer? If Budweiser is mediocre beer, then mediocrity is the lack of local specialty, a high level of consistency at the cost of special considerations, and a product made for a reason other than the reason for the product; this last one is interesting: Budweiser (it can be argued) is not made for the love of beer, but for the love of profit as its sell to In-Bev has proven. If this is truly the definition of mediocrity, than it is a hard argument to make that mediocrity is not the norm. All, including Sam Adams (the largest of microbreweries) microbreweries make up a whopping 5% (app.) of all beer sales. It would seem that most people are being sold a bill of goods called mediocrity.

Secondly, perhaps mediocrity is the norm but only because people have lowered the expectations they have of themselves and others. This is sad, but seems to be more often true than not. However, back to beer! Budweiser has outsold its nearest competitor by a long shot until recently. This could have two implications: that people have raised their expectations of themselves, or that mediocrity (in beer at least) is shifting from Budweiser to something else; that something else being microbreweries since they are they only growing beer-market currently. But beer snobs consistent point to all of the mediocre beer drinkers (translated as Bud, Coors etc…) as mediocre and themselves as having higher standards of beer tastes. This has serious implications for us beer snobs! This reason seems to fail as more and more micro and nano-breweries pop up across the nation. Both drinkers and brewers seem to be expecting more and more from themselves and others. However, this may not be the whole story.

Lastly, maybe we are simply defining normality in a way that lends itself to mediocrity? Budweiser was the most “normal” choice of beer drinkers for decades, and now it seems that as a nation we are beginning to define “normal” choices of beers as micro brewed concoctions. There is a caveat to this line of thinking… PBR. Pabst seems to have made a comeback with those “in the know”, but let’s face it: Pabst is not a good beer. Bland, unmistakably lacking in any special characteristic, highly consistent and certainly not brewed for the love of beer Pabst is a staple at most bars that make it their business to cater to the “in” crowd, a crowd that consistently does not deem themselves as the “norm”.

So where does this leave us? With beer? With mediocrity? Well… I don’t believe anyone makes it a goal to be mediocre, but somehow it seems that when enough people accept something as normal, that thing becomes mediocre, and those that accept it become mediocre. I think that this is the fault of those people that accept the thing as well as the fault of those people who try to fill that desire. I define “Truth” as a relationship between the idea of a thing and the thing itself (sorry for the philosophy?). In that case, perhaps mediocrity is simply a low-quality relationship or understanding? I’m sure that Budweiser didn’t start out as a mediocre, bland tasting concoction, but as Adolphus realized the riches to be had brewing his beer, his reasons for brewing Budweiser changed and with it the quality of the relationship between the idea of Budweiser and the beer itself? Maybe he gave up on his ideal of beer in order to make a buck or a billion? Maybe to be a true beer snob and not just another snob, one must truly love, study, taste and understand beer, and when we brew (or drink) for a reason other than that, we become mediocre? If that is the case, then even us mediocre home brewers are making nothing but amazing, love-filled bottles of bliss. Cheers!

The Roadmap of a Face

A man’s face is the roadmap of his life. Following the lines that crease his skin and furrow his features, anyone can see the effects of events and situations that he has visited, that he has lived through, endured and enjoyed. They come with time because it takes time to make such trips, such maps. Time drips upon him slowly. He looks at himself in a mirror and then his face, mocked with signposts of his life, becomes his past as he worries about, as he looks forward to his future; and the lines are drawn. Pain and pleasure, resentment and contentment, fear and folly draw the map. It continuously gets drawn and each line and mark is different, they are never the same. The map left on each our faces, and there is one in each moment of our lives that is drawn however subtle, however deep is the map of our future. The young face is like a moon-pie, smooth and devoid of life that has not yet touched it.

Truth changes, foundations falter; importance turns to triviality, happiness and disappointment share the same bed. Life teaches us these things and maps are drawn so we know how to get back in order to have the chance to learn the lessons that living has taught us, however way we choose to live. We many times call these lines the ravages of time but they are really the roadmaps of our faces. Roads that we have taken, that we have chosen with the time that we have, that we think we might still have are all carefully drawn with the knives of each of our decisions.

If we could hover over our own lives we would perhaps see the landscape, some parts cracked and dry and some parts lush and green. Some ways cross, some don’t but there is always room for more until the horizon. Life is a verb, not a noun. Look in a mirror and see where you have been. Look in a mirror and see who you are. Follow the roads you have built and look for new ones to build or wait for what comes.

The map will be drawn regardless of what we do or do not do; regardless of what we choose or do not choose; regardless if we desire it to be, or fight the inevitable: change, the cartographer, is the only consistent. The unknown to the cartographer is nothing more than a blank page awaiting the legend, orientation, neat-line and title; the topography unknown because the landscape is yet to be drawn; places not envisioned or visited. The crow’s feet around the eyes remind us of past perspectives, the wrinkles in the forehead of contemplative comings. The smile lines around the corners of our mouths bring back periods of pleasure, of happiness, of joy.

Bitterness, sadness and anger are all there as well; part of the landscape; islands of ire, flows of frustration, mountains of madness. They too are part of the map and deserve a place, a path-line on the compass. The fear, the doubt, the joy, the love, the bitter and sweet are all there. What will be the next road you draw? What will be the topography of your face; the roadmap of your past?

The Power of Empowerment

Two discussions that I had this last week sparked me to consider the difference between the concept of power and the concept of empowerment; the first being dependent upon someone or something, the latter being independent of anything other than self. In one discussion I came to realize or perhaps believe that the person that I was talking to was fearful of losing power and seemed to perceive me as desiring to, and capable of, taking it. I realized that the problem with her premise was that I did not desire what she and I both perceived as power, and so this left her powerless. The second discussion, happening afterwards, concerned my desire for self-reliance and realizing that such a life is not possible through being powerful, but of being empowered. That is, willing to be and realizing the capacity in yourself of being self-sufficient.

This differentiation of empowerment from power led me to several conclusions. First, the two terms are not interchangeable, but are related. Secondly, that the two terms are often misused. Also that empowerment, rather than power, is what most of us want perhaps without knowing it. This is all well and good, but what does it matter? The explanation as to why these questions are important (as the importance most often does lay in the question rather than the answer) is happiness in the Greek “eudemonia” sense of the word. I’ll take each point in its turn, with an example to boot.

First, power and empowerment are not interchangeable but are related. To empower yourself can be as simple as learning how to cook or fix something, or being capable of biking 50 or 100 miles, or running 25 miles: self-respect and responsibility for self no matter what. Empowerment is a realization of both your limits and capacity. Power, on the other hand, is the realization of capacity alone; to realize that you can decide for others, over others, and sometimes without having to consider others and do so without limits simply because you can. Power is the acquisition of capacity without realizing your limits; the typical Hegelian master-slave dichotomy.

So empowerment is self-contained and self-willed power while power is relative to and other-willed perception. Empowerment and power are not interchangeable, but are often misused, and so an example. I have often discussed my disdain for the feminist movement, and have been met with female irritation and ire. I explain, however, that my disdain is not for the movement of equal rights for everyone including women (rights being a form of power), but with the belief that with being given rights anyone is empowered or for that matter equal: they are not. Feminism is not about empowerment (the realization of limitations and capacities), as those in the movement often claim, but about power (capacities alone). If the movement was about empowering people (not just women), then there would not be a movement at all, but rather a wholesale move towards educating, learning and becoming independent of any movements at all no matter gender (using this example) by all in society. Of course, there are numerous examples and objections: maybe such movements are simply a process to help empower those involved? Some people are not interested in equal rights for all; but my point is made here.

While people of all colors, genders, stations and cultures seem to demand the power to change society’s claims on them, I believe that they are barking up the wrong tree so to speak. Their demand from others is a form of power rather than empowerment. However, I do not believe that the demand is for power; unfortunately many of us look to others for acknowledgement, respect and embrace. The demand from those that seek social and cultural changes are demands of empowerment, but asking society to “give” empowerment to you is akin to the belief that simply signing up for a class in college makes you smarter: it does not, and empowerment cannot be given by anyone other than yourself.

While power-struggles continue around the world, I would argue that the struggle for empowerment is to continuously transpire in each of us rather than the whole. While lobbyist and special-interest groups vie for political and social positions, we each of us ought to learn self-respect and self-reliance as much as those things are possible at all. We live in a world where power is esteemed and empowerment is often disparaged by whomever the “others” are. But for those who strive for empowerment to revere and strive for power is to enslave yourself to the very thing that you are rallying against: a master.

Techno-idiocy

The irony of writing a blog entitled “Techno-idiocy” using a computer is not lost upon me; technology has certainly made our lives better in many ways. However, technology has not only made our lives better, but easier as well. The term technology comes from the Greek: techne, “art, skill, cunning of hand”; and logia; typically the term refers to an improvement to solutions concerning preexisting problems such as transportation, health and information sharing. There is no doubt that cars, healthcare and computers have been an improvement to solutions concerning preexisting problems; namely transportation has become extraordinarily more efficient, people live longer, and we have enormous amounts of information readily available at speeds that we cannot even fathom. These technologies have also led to consequences that we, perhaps, did not foresee such as techno-idiocy. Techno-idiocy is the result of relying upon technology to make our lives easier, but not necessarily better.

Let it be understood that without a doubt technology has made our lives better. Borrowing from the above examples, cars have allowed people to travel distances hitherto either impossible or extremely dangerous relatively easily and fairly inexpensively. Healthcare technologies have lengthened lifespans and provided a quality of life to those who would have otherwise lived in misery or died in pain. Computers, a relatively recent addition to our technological advances, has allowed for those who have access to them information and the ability to communicate at light-speed as well as calculate solutions to problems often in a matter of seconds. These examples of technology have no doubt improved upon the solutions concerning preexisting problems, but these solution have not been easily gotten; they have come at a cost.

Cars produce emissions that have proven dangerous to the environment and have helped produce societies that are much less human-friendly: more highways and roads and less natural areas, helped to fracture societies and have been accessory to health problems the world over. Furthermore, the auto industry has produced other industries, primarily the oil industry, that is equal to or worse dangers for the environment and as a result for us all. Healthcare technologies have produced serious overpopulation issues, created a disconnect between human beings, and their inevitable mortality creating a “life at any cost” attitude in many societies and the elongation of pain and misery for those who are terminally ill. Computers have been an accessory to obesity, compulsive behaviors, privacy issues, and a number of social and psychological problems.

The result of techno-idiocy is that we begin to define anything easier as being better, and while technology has bettered our lives, “easier” comes at costs that more often than not are overlooked, ignored or accepted. Today technology pervades almost every aspect of our lives, and often we accept technological advances as necessary and almost always as progressive. This is not necessarily true. Why do cars need to be huge gas-guzzlers that we come to worship and even define ourselves by? Why is life important even when it is nothing more than existence? Why do people need to “stay connected” at all times? In essence, why is easy always better? The lack of discussions regarding such questions is the lack of understanding what we mean by progress. If progress is to be considered a positive movement towards the betterment of humanity, then the consequences of technology must be positive in order to be better. Easy is not always positive. Often “new and improved” does not mean better which seems to beg the question: why isn’t easy always better?

I’ve found part of the answer in David Thoreau’s, Walden. It is easy to blame modern society for the problems that we encounter in our everyday lives, but techno-idiocy is nothing new. Thoreau noticed these attitudes in 1845. He writes, “Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are only not indispensible, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.” Technology becomes idiotic when it hinders progress. What Thoreau was referring to is virtue. It is not easy to decide to be a virtuous person, but in striving to do so we will elevate ourselves as well as our societies. It is easier to be a techno-idiot (to define progress as easy), but much more virtuous to rise above the ease (and luxury) of technology for the sake of real progress (defined as the betterment of humanity).

First, easy alone is not progressive as David Thoreau points out when he asked, “Shall we forever resign the pleasure [italics mine] of construction to the carpenter?” It is not always better to be able and choose to pay someone to do something for us because in doing so we miss an opportunity, the pleasure of learning, of being self-sufficient, and even failing. Secondly, easy is often an excuse for laziness. Technology has made our lives easier, but has also made us much lazier. We no longer have to have to think before we write (hit the ‘delete’ key); we no longer have to be cordial or even considerate to those around us (text someone else); no longer have to think for ourselves (google it). These are the consequences of techno-idiocy.

Making our lives easier is not in prima fascia immoral, but easy at all costs (just like business at all cost) often is. To accept technology simply because it makes our lives easier, and for no other reason, is wrong-headed. We can all most likely agree that technology has expanded the boundaries of our capacities, but it is less likely that we can agree on the areas that technology has limited our progress. However, as obesity rates soar, education becomes made-for-profit technological experiments, and social norms continue to adhere to easy access information, techno-idiocy will cease to be viewed as a hindrance to the elevation of mankind and become an indispensable attitude to survive in an ever growing techno-idiotic society.

The Freedom of Food

Recently I have embarked upon path towards freedom. This word, freedom, so often misused and thrown around as to have lost its meaning, is such an important concept to so many people but to be free means to limit one’s freedoms. In my case, I have begun to limit myself to that which I can do myself: self-sufficiency. One of the areas, and the most important in many ways, is the ability to feed your self. To eat is to cook; cooking is a simple and yet necessary activity that has, in the past one hundred years or so, become defined not by us as individuals, but by faceless corporations and conglomerates that do two things: tell us what to eat and provide us what they think we ought to eat. In one sense, these corporations and conglomerates have given us freedoms: we no longer have to cook; but, in another sense, these corporations and conglomerates have taken away our freedoms: we no longer can cook.

It is not only cooking that counts, it is the ingredients as well. These companies have not only begun to cook for us, but they have also provided and created the ingredients that they cook with. This may sound as simple and innocent but alas, it is not. I was in Denmark over Christmas with my Danish family and had the pleasure of “cooking” with my nephew. We made lasagna (a classic dish). My nephew took out a jar of pre-made sauce (with meat), a box of pre-made béchamel sauce, and boxed platter pasta. He poured each of the packaged ingredients over the pasta platters and set it in the oven. Oua’ la! I do not mean to downplay my nephew’s willingness to make a family meal, but what he did was not cooking. However….

According to Michael Pollan in his book, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, the definition of cooking has been dumbed down. My nephew’s activity is considered “cooking” by many. Of course language is a social phenomena and we as a society are free to define terms as we see fit. Historically, words of all kinds come and go, get redefined and defined again. But to redefine a word that encompasses a quality of freedom that is only found in the transformation of ingredients to food is to devolve linguistically. To dumb down concepts is to lose freedoms. The consumerism society created by corporations is not concerned with our freedoms, but with profit and profit alone. And so, to redefine words (such as cooking) to fit their ultimate goal of profit at the cost of a higher form of freedom is in fact taking away the freedoms of us as individuals.

Today, most are aware that agriculture, the production of food products, is by in large defined by the production of corn, typically GMO (Genetically modified Organism). The three ingredients that my nephew used were all corn-based (probably not GMO; we were in Europe) in the form of high fructose corn syrup and corn starch. And so once again, what we perceive as freedom is not freedom at all, just like what many perceive is cooking is not cooking at all. Cooking food from scratch, with basic, non-processed ingredients is not the illusion of freedom, but a higher form of freedom. Choosing to buy basic non-processed ingredients also allows others (farmers in particular) to have true freedom and not the illusion of freedom that corporate farming offers.

It is just recently that I have learned the correlation between what I cook, what I eat and my freedom, but as I continue to learn I find that my expectations of what freedom is continues to rise as does what I am willing to eat. For starters, I am not willing to support farm and corporate practices that include CAFO’s (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations), GMO’s, non-organic pesticides. The list of what I will not support continues to grow as does the necessity of my taking responsibility for where I spend my money, what I do with my time, and what I put in my mouth. In other words, as I limit myself, my freedom grows.

Often these issues are perceived as political, and in a way they are, but so is the concept of freedom. By limiting what I will accept I have found that the freedom that I have (through the continued path towards self-sufficiency) grows ever deeper and wider. Michael Pollan puts it appropriately.

“Of all the roles the economist ascribes to us, “consumer” is surely the least ennobling. It suggests a taking rather than a giving. It assumes dependence and, in a global economy, a measure of ignorance about the origins of everything that we consume…” (Cooked, 407)

If we truly are what we eat, then food is freedom in the end.