How many times have I witnessed young parents, or grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. say of some young relative: Oh, Barbie is SO SMART. Or: “Sure Rambo is a bit ornery but he really is a smart kid.” Being SMART is inevitably am accolade is it not? Maybe not in families of the “Deliverance” and “Homeboy” societies we portray in our art forms but those are pretty much exceptions to the norm are they not? That’s why we cast them as “inbred” or “deadbeats” in the movies. Such depiction validates our personally assumed valuation of “smarts”. In fact for most of my educational journey, smart was actually measured with codified intelligence testing. And when someone did well on their testing it was a very good thing. At least in my world. Our culture has a particular reverence for intelligence or smarts. It is subtle but very pervasive. What is intelligence anyway? I dont think the meaning of intelligence is quite as elusive for most of us as the meaning of success. BUT the emphasis on the success of displaying intelligence is none the less so revered in our culture that there is actually a populist backlash against “intellectually”. This backlash that I note is what some politicians play upon by talking about the “liberal media”. Well... how many reporters or newscaster didn’t get a college education? Is a college education something that makes someone a liberal? Actually some of the greatest liberals of recent history had the highest education possible of their time. Thomas Jefferson was certainly one of the most progressive liberals ever, at least according to his writings. Is it not ironic that the extreme faction of the “righteous right” loves to reference Jefferson’s words: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants . Ain’t that sumpin? The so called “Patriots” and the ultra-conservative wing of the GOP, revere the words of one of the most liberal thinkers of all time. Go figure. Nonetheless there is an obvious backlash having to do with smarts and intelligence as the relate to progressive thinnking. Sometimes this backlash against “intellectually” is overtly conducted such as when George W. Bush told reporter Bob Woodward, you are one of those intellectuals.. (according to Woodward). Of course we all know what the term egghead implies or what it means to say “he lives in an ivory tower”. We may not know exactly what it means when we say someone doesnt have any common sense even though they have a string of accolades behind their surname. What we are implying is that they don’t have something important that we have; something to do with ability to learn and exist in our everyday world, however we might think of that world. Or someone will say oh yeah that person is book smart with an implied smear that points to a lack of something that “we agree” is valuable and important. Personally, I really dislike the word intelligence. I try to refrain from referring to a child as smart at least in their presence. I dislike this reference because it is judgmental in the sense that just like with the word, wealth our culture reveres evidence of its ownership. Success, intelligence, wealth, all these are descriptors that we as a culture promote. How? Or maybe the real question is “why? We human beings love to create hierarchical structures to measure each other. We create pyramids and exalt those closer to the top of the pyramid at the expense of implied discredit to those at the bottom of the pyramid. The pragmatic results of a capitalistic economic system left unregulated will be a pyramid. It may not be a perfectly shaped pyramid but it will be a pyramid of power wherein those at the top exist leisurely upon the labor and backs of those at the bottom. If it wasnt so sad it would be humorous that the righteous right yammers so loudly about free market capitalism. They chastise the ideal of being a liberal because liberals want to stifle free markets with regulation: i.e. pollution control laws, banking laws, gun laws,taxation, etc. The irony of this situation is that some very high percentage of the righteous right --the Jerry Falwell crowd, the Moral Majority, the Baptist Belt folk of the South -- arent all that far up on the economic hierarchy. Left unregulated for less than century this class of middle class folk who abhor liberalsthat interfere with commerce would be little more than indentured servants of a small class of elitists who own everything while their network of friends and relatives get to cautiously participate in what amounts to 99% of the pie of of success as represented by ownership of material possesions that give them access to possiblites not available to the rest of us. The media plays into this “hierarchical mentality” very effectively. Not the ”liberal media” so much (although one can go down that path a ways with credibility I believe). I am referring to the advertising media. Retailers pay a lot of money to convey a simple message to “we the consumer” who, by our labors and spending, fuel the economic transaction machine that serves the leisure of the elitists. The retailers and marketers utilize the profits they gain from our buying habits to generate widespread media messaging in order to sell moe of their products and increase their profits. THIS is what unregulated capitalism is all about. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe that is all bad to promote profits through competion of individual effort. The problem, as I see it, is that, without any awareness of the long term impact upon our culture, this subtle message implies “If you own this, you too will be one of the elite. You too can be just like the rich and famous.” It isn’t an overt message, it is a subtle form of worship of ownership of certain kinds of items, items that subtly indentified with “success”. The common consumer buys into the message and yearns for Gucci accessories, Calvin Klein Jeans, or the latest swimwear touted in the vaunted “Swimsuit Edition” of Sports Illustrated. Every young athlete aspiring to make it in the game of hoops is led to believe that a pair of “Air Jordan tennies” (obviously Im not current....) will help him or her become a “winner” and make it to that place where athletes are paid millions. These subtle conveyances of “you too can be one of the elite” are everywhere in our society. Even religion gets in on the act. I know of a very successful “church” nearby that has a million dollar sound/vidieo/recording system so that they will one day be at the top of the pyramid of religious leadership in our society with their message viewed on Television worldwide. To quote our President most recently: “Horse shit”. JC advocated for the poor, the downtrodden, the oppressed, even the criminals. He himself was a criminal. THINK about that. And who was Jesus greatest enemy on earth? Why the King of the religion of Judaism: Herod. THINK about that, good pious folk. It’s all about comparative thinking. We are taught to compare our actions, our values, our interests to “winners”. Inevitably winners are those who end up with the most of something that has to do with consumption. Little wonder that Pharaohs built pyramids to signify their eternal status as a God. Little wonder that a pyramid is carefully depicted on the almighty U.S. Dollar. Pyramids or hierarchies are the “pecking order” that we easily see in mammals and even in reptiles to some extent. Shoot, even ant colonies and bee colonies have queens, workers, scouts and do-nothing members. Life, whatever that term implies, certainly depends upon hierarchy. Hierearcy is necessary for group organization to facilitate greater survival rates though individual assignment and coordination of behavioral functions that have to do with survival of the group (often species in the animal world). However we humans take “hierarchy” to the most sophisticated of levels and not always in ways that have anything to do with what “serves the long term interests of the group”. For example we revere those who are “successful” even when their behavior is despicable. Just look at more than a few “famous athletes” - professional, collegiate, even Olympic - whose behavior is reflective of integrity of character that most of us wouldn’t promote in our own offspring. Winning has become so important in the sports we revere that cheating to win is common place. Thus the extraordinary measures that “regulators” go to in order to uncover the act athelets constantly relying upon performance chemicals in order to win. Winning has become far more important that “how we play the game”. Saying “whatever it takes” (even obvious lies and mistruths) in order to be elected to public office has become far more important than character and integrity. We are a society that has become more about “image” than about “substance”. (And I’m not talking about “substance abuse” irrespective of my own behavior). . WHAT does this observation about our social world that I am attempting to elucidate have to do with “you and I and success”? More importantly what does it have to do with how we conduct our lives and how we personally feel about “who we are and how we behave” on a day to day basis? What does our does faith and belief have to do with all this? Everything my friends, everything.
Posted on: Thu, 14 Aug 2014 10:35:58 +0000
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