HW 37- Cool Paper: Final Draft

In a few months, I will be going to college, and within the decade I will probably be started a career. I know that I want to be successful, but what I don't really know, and what I am unsure of is how I want to define my success. The truth is, I don’t know. What I do know is that personal success is not about personal gain, but in America, personal gain is the name of the game. I don’t want to be a part of this, but unless I can understand why I aspire to the goals I have for myself, I don’t think this will change. To often, we insist that our behavior simply is, and never has a reasonable explanation. We often cite “human nature” to hide behind when asked about why we do what we do. We use the idea of "success" as a way to describe our aspirations, when in reality we have been conditioned by our communities, government and corporations, to deify hopes and dreams that we don't completely understand. In this paper I will try and explain this behavior, clearly making the connection between aspirations and that thing we call "cool", which make up this mysterious "cool factor" in our society.

In the world, we are divided by race, religion, finance, nationality and gender. Each of these categories have their own social maps that define what people who fit "x" description should do. It has become commonplace that teenagers in industrialized countries are shown wealth as the bottom line for what it means to be successful. The competition between us leads us to lavish our wealth on ourselves, and not contribute it to the community.

We aspire for an identity in America; something that we believe separates, and defines us from everyone else. This has made us uninterested in our similarities, and intent on highlighting our differences. We celebrate and embrace what makes us different, because we frankly enjoy being told we are "special" and "unique", as if being a unified species is a horrible egalitarian ideology. The social effect if this has historically been, “The Zeitgeist" (Beatrice's post put me onto this term), a German term meaning "the spirit of the times", i.e. popular culture. I think that this competition is unhealthy, as it does nothing to unite us, and only divides us. This want to be different is ideologically founded in the same place as white supremacy and imperialism around the world. The opinion that certain people are inherently superior has always been destructive throughout human history, and always will be.

Being "fresh" in New York is a common goal in the social map of a teenager living in New York City, and most cities around the world today. It's all about being dressed the best and looking the most "put together". Pretty much, it is the epitomy of the deification of consumerism. I am no exception to this trend, as I like to wear nice clothes, and am consumer minded as anybody else my age. Recently however, I came to realize that a certain triviality lies in this pursuit. "Getting fresh", like other consumer pursuits, has a goal that requires no skill or talent to achieve. The ability to be more or less fresh relies on the access to money that the person has, serving as another outlet for people to compete and flaunt their wealth i.e. success. The lack of a need to be physically or mentally gifted, is what makes social consumer maps so popular, because essentially you can buy your way to the top of your map.

Being more successful, generally = having more money. Since a better job = more money, we compete with each other to become the richest, thus the most successful. We would logically assume that the hardest workers would be the most successful, but that's rarely true. In America, the wealthiest people are athletes, actors, musicians and CEO's. The misconception of being a harder worker to achieve more, directly benefits the corporate structure, which often yields far lower than we put in (this is essentially the basis of capitalism, a system in which labor is commoditized, and the working class is a commodity). In a darkly comedic way, people have become subservient to a class of CEO’s and executives in the vain attempt to compete with each other, and become blind to the very futility of this competition.

I think that there is a much larger aspect to this cool unit, pertaining to our existence as a whole. Since society began, the human race has been perplexed by the question; "why are we here?" This is a question that like most has been approached scientifically, socially, and philosophically. Many people have postulated and nobody seems to know exactly what to believe. I think that this has created a void in our lives, which we fill by trying to set a goal, or making a purpose for ourselves. We treat this purpose as if it were actually our reason for living, but often times, we focus on one personal goal, and fail to contribute to society.

Wanting to feel important is what we hope to achieve by reaching the end of our map. Often times, this is not the case, in the upper class, being wealthy is rewarding, but not emotionally fulfilling. This is why; psychologists like Matt Fried conclude that people often turn to substance abuse, which gives the user a temporary sense of importance. The idea of "cool" is in a sense, an opiate, which gives us a sense of validation by being reassured that the people around us approve of the character we play.

The English Philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, designed a prison structure in 1785, which he called the “Panopticon”. The idea of the prison was that a tower would be placed in the center of a ring of prison cells, where each cell has an obstructed view of the tower, allowing the guards to see in, but the inmates not to see out. Centuries later, in 1975, Michel Foucault published “Discipline and Punish”, which delved deeply into the sociological importance of the Panopticon design. While the actual Panopticon designed by Bentham was never built, various prisons have been designed after it since than.

Foucault asserted that the brilliance of the Panopticon lied in the uncertainty that it created. While people mainly think in absolute terms (yes/ no, hot/ cold, etc…) prisoners in the Panopticon had to act without certainty of whether they were being watched or not. Socially, we all act as if we are being watched, but in privacy, we let down our guard and are less scrutinizing of our actions. In being competitive, society as a whole has become a Panopticon, except there really is nobody in the central tower. We all are unsure of ourselves, and thus play the role of the prison guard because we lack confidence to live beyond the walls of the prison (i.e. society).

Unlike heroin or alcohol, you cannot purchase the high of social acceptance. It has become evident that in order to gain this, you need to develop yourself into a more socially competitive and intelligent person. This has created competition amongst ourselves, and the reason we try to 1up each other. It has worked out heavenly for businesses, as part of this competition is having more expensive things, thus the emergence of consumerism. Our self made consumer haven has been so profitable, that almost all facets of our lives have been marketed to and flooded with images of what’s cool, and how you can buy, buy, buy, your way into social acceptance.

The sociologist Erving Goffman talked about the idea of our "selves" as a part of us, which we are alienated from because of the overwhelming influences of society. He asserted that in a way, Shakespeare was correct in writing that "all the world is a stage & all the men and women are merely players". The influence of society has created our character, which we play almost 24/7, and often what we confuse with our "true" self.

This unit has forced me into thinking far more critically and deeply about how I live, act, and carry myself, than I ever have before. I have tried to reach some sort of conclusion about this "cool unit", but frankly, every revelation of the topic that I've had, I logically refute a day or two later. If anything can be taken away from this unit, it won't be a concrete truth, but yet another theory, trying to define the entire world and categorize it into a little box (much like we do with ourselves playing roles, and becoming confined to our "box"), but the world isn’t a box, and not everybody is the same. The line between popular culture and the real world is fading with every product we buy and every celebrity we attempt to emulate.

As much as we hate to admit it, we are all pretty much the same, and when you get down to it, physiologically, we are virtually identical. Genetically very little differentiates us. We insist that everyone is special and unique, but really, when you look at the facts, we have created these differences in our minds through our obsession with individuality. The more we insist that it exists, the more we believe it, and the more we will sacrifice in the name of “individuality”. Our variety lies in our mentality, not our physical appearance. This is not called being unique, this is not “cool”, this is racism, and it should never be fought for, but fought against.

Between any two humans, the amount of genetic variation—biochemical individuality—is about 0.1 percent.

(The National Human Genome Research Institute)

Sources:

-- http://faithfulfiend.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/14.jpg

-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Presidio-modelo2.JPG

-- http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagegallery/igviewer.php?imgid=4590&gid=328

-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon#Conceptual_history

-- http://www.iam4re4l.blogspot.com/

-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault

HW 36 - Triangle Partner Help

After writing my rough draft, I looked at the blogs of Marco, and Beatrice who are my triangle partners, and commented on their drafts using the restructured format for commenting on our peer's blogs.

Marco's Draft:

As I read your draft, your main idea seemed to be fairly straight forward. I concluded that your point was that; While we have a lot of various influences which make up our "cool" figure, we spend far more time trying to become this synthetic image of "cool" instead of developing ourselves, and thus lack in actual self- worth.

I would say, that cool is a way we break down a larger question into much smaller, manageable goals. We don't really know how to value ourselves, but we know that we must have some value. This question becomes a search for inner worth, to find a way to show the world that "you have value!". Instead of becoming valued, we end up lacking in validity, our inner selves are all but empty, but the character we put forth in the world, becomes our "true" self. What begins as a search for purpose ends up as a search for items that can be adorned on ourselves to "prove our worth".

I think that you have a really high quality draft here, and I only suggest that you expand and reorganize your paper. Being as the search for cool is about the search for meaning, you seem to start off with smaller topics and expanded into a larger topic (comprable to starting with your conclusion and ending with your introduction). I would say that you should make a new conclusion, and add your current one onto your introduction. The transition from the inner search for meaning, to the social manifestation of this search should improve your paper.

Good stuff so far, and I can't wait to read the final product. Good luck on your finals next week!

-Jakob F.

---------------------------

Beatrice's Draft:

Although you have a lot of work you need to do on this draft before it is complete, I think you are going in a very interesting direction with this paper. I think that your dominant idea here, is that "cool" transcends time, and is for the most part something out of your control. We try and determine style and fad's, but from the moment we are born, we have cut our options for our life in half (boy/ girl).

The human race has developed a strong belief in the idea that we are better than animals, and above animalistic tendencies. We have come to accept as truth, that we have an intellectual reason behind everything we do, unlike inferior species without developed minds such as ourselves. This has become deeply rooted in our society, which is based off of masking any simple human desires or behavior similar to animals. While males have a less calculated approach to choosing sexual partners than females do, men and women overlap in certain area's we consider social, which are actually quite similar to many species of animals. Most notably, females tend to choose more "in-shape" men, who have more social, sexual and genetic appeal than men with lesser physiques. This really is a physical manifestation of genetic superiority, which females find attractive as a characteristic in a mate, to pass on good genetics to their offsprings.

Sorry if this is way off topic, but I think that if I were writing this paper, your ideas seem to provide a good way to transition into this more abstract element of cool, which I don't think we'll see in other people's papers.

Good luck with the rest of your paper, and I hope to read it when it's finished. See you next week, and good luck with your finals.

Stay ^, -Jake F.

HW 35 - Cool Paper Rough Draft

In the middle of my senior year in high school, I am realizing the reality of the fact that in a few months I will be accepted into, and rejected from an array of colleges I just applied to. Than in a few months more, I will be going to college, and years later, I will be looking for a job. I know that I want to be successful, but what I don't really know, and what I am unsure of is how I want to define success. The truth is, at this point I feel that being wealthy is the definition of success. This is very typical in America, but not something I want to aspire to. I think that in order to change this, I need to understand why I aspire to the goals I have for myself. We use the idea of "success" as a way to describe what we aspire to, when in reality we have been conditioned by our communities, government and families, to deify our hopes and dreams as "the" only way to live our lives.. In this paper I will try and explain this behavior, clearly making the connection between aspirations and that thing we call "cool", which make up this mysterious "cool factor" in our society.

In the world, we are divided by race, religion, finances, nationality and gender. Each of these categories have their own social maps that define what people who fit "x" description should do. It has become commonplace that teenagers in industrialized countries are shown wealth as the bottom line for what it means to be successful. The competition between us leads us to lavish our wealth on ourselves, and not contribute it to the community.

The "rebel" image of cool in our culture has gone further than creating an aspiration to be nonchalant, and has eliminated much of the value placed on community. Being an "individual" is our idea of adulthood in America and has slowly turned into isolationism in American society. This is part of my social map as an American, and exactly what I want to move away from.

I think that their is a much larger aspect to this cool unit, pertaining to our existence as a whole. Since society began, the human race has been perplexed by the question; "why are we here?". This is a question that like most has been approached scientifically, socially, and philosophically. Many people have postulated and nobody seems to know exactly what to believe. I think that this has created a void in our lives, that we fill by trying to set a goal, or making a purpose for ourselves. We treat this purpose as if it were actually our reason for living, but often times, we focus on one personal goal, and fail to contribute to society.

Wanting to feel important is what we hope to achieve by reaching the end of our map. Often times, this is not the case, in the upper class, being wealthy is rewarding, but not emotionally fulfilling. This is why, psychologists like Matt Fried conclude that people often turn to substance abuse, which gives the user a temporary sense of importance. The idea of "cool" is in a sense, an opiate which gives us a sense of validation by being reassured that the people around us approve of the character we play.

The sociologist Erving Goffman talked about the idea of our "selves" as a part of us which we are alienated from because of the overwhelming influences of society. He asserted that in a way, Shakespeare was correct in writing that "all the world is a stage & all the men and women are merely players". The influence of society has created our characters which we play almost 24/7, and often what we confuse with our "true" self.

Unlike heroin or alcohol, you cannot purchase the high of social acceptance. It has become evident that in order to gain this, you need to develop yourself into a more socially competitive and intelligent person. This is what breeds competition amongst ourselves, and why we try to 1up each other. It has worked out heavenly for businesses, as part of this competition is having more expensive things, thus the emergence of consumerism. Our self made consumer haven has been so profitable, that almost all facets of our lives have been marketed to and tailored to fit peoples ideas of what is socially acceptable,and even in some cases, determined what people have come to accept as cool.

Being "fresh" in New York is a common goal in the social maps of teenagers in New York City, and most cities around the world today. It's all about being dressed the best and looking the most put together. I like to wear nice clothes, but recently I came to realize that a certain triviality lies in this pursuit. "Getting fresh", like other consumer pursuits, has one goal, but no skill nor any constructive aspect to it. The ability to be more or less fresh relies on the access to money that the person has, serving as another outlet for people to compete and flaunt their wealth i.e. success.

Being more successful, generally = having more money. Since a better job = more money, we compete with each other to become the richest, thus the most successful. We would logically assume that the hardest workers would be the most successful, but that's rarely true. In America, the wealthiest people are athletes, actors, musicians and CEO's. The misconception of being a harder worker to achieve more, directly benefits the corporate structure, which often yields far lower than we put in.

This unit has forced me into thinking far more critically and deeply about how I live, act and carry myself, than I ever have. I have tried to reach some sort of conclusion about this "cool unit", but frankly, every revelation of the topic that I've had, I refute a day or two later. If anything can be taken away from this unit, it won't be a concrete truth, but yet another theory, trying to define the entire world and categorize it into a little box (much like we do with ourselves playing roles, and becoming confined to our "box"). I predict that most other papers will refer to "people" as a way to generalize, but really, I think we are pretty much all the same, and physiologically, we are only about 0.1% different from one another. People have been told that everyone is special and unique, but really, when you broaden your focus, you see how basic and conformist people are.

Between any two humans, the amount of genetic variation—biochemical individuality—is about 0.1 percent.

(The National Human Genome Research Institute)

HW 34 - The Cool Pose and Various Approaches to Life

Today in class, we discussed so called social maps. These maps have been theorized to be the framework for which each race, gender, nationality, and economic class exemplifies its values and aspirations. Mainly, we discussed how the African American community has developed a "map" that values appearances and money, but not so much the steps needed to get money. For the black community, the social map they have, causes a majority of the people to value expensive clothing over ambition, and athletic ability over education. To be clear I don't think this is at the fault of the African American community. Also, I don't think this is directly the fault of the caucasian community either. I think that this transcends race, and is a more "economic class map" than a "racial class map".

As a whole, the percentage of black people in the lower economic class in America is the highest out of any other ethnic group in the US. For that reason, the black community has become the face of the lower class in America, fairly or unfairly. If you looked at other ethnic groups, and observed the lower classes of those groups, you would probably find that they had similar tendencies and goals as those in the black community. The difference is, that for the black population in America, the odds of getting a job or being wealthy are heavily against them. Black people are still discriminated against, and have to work harder than their competitors of other ethnicities to succeed.

The main problem in America, is our sense of entitlement. Although their are many philanthropic people in the upper class who contribute large sums to charitable organizations, the majority do not. People who are born into wealth will often just flaunt their wealth, consuming expensive liquor and purchasing expensive clothing, without considering the fact that while you may be buying a pair of $400 dollar Louis Vuitton shoes, you could be buying 20 pairs of Starbury's for people who need shoes, for the same price. Really though, this is expected, this is part of the American cultural map, and it knows no race or economic class.

This American map, is that asinine thing we like to call "The American Dream". Because we all know America is the "land of opportunity", but not who we step on along the way to a better life. Social climbing is naturally how a country without caste system works, thus we have a country of people trying to fill up the top class by pushing everyone else to the bottom. We think about how we can improve our own lives, and never give any thought to the fact that all people want a better life, not just us. Unfortunately this has bred excessive lifestyles and indulgent lives, revolving around us and a select group of people close to us. We have our cultural map, starting at poverty, ending in wealth. We have become a society which more often than not adheres to this map, and every so often, the select few people who actually are living the American dream try to ensure people with a good life.

I think that in a way, laws of physics play a part, being that the law "every action has an equal and opposite reaction" applies to economics as well as physics. What I mean by this, is that for every dollar we make, someone will have less, and for every dollar we spend, someone has more. Only when their is no action, will their be no reaction. It is at this point an equilibrium is reached, and nobody has less or more than anyone else. In order for our country to truly provide the American dream, we don't need a perfect equilibrium, or division of wealth amongst the classes. What we need is not to have classes at all. The upper class is the reason why we have a lower class, and the middle class is the main commodity of the upper class, thus completing the cycle.

In this cycle, we have three different classes, each with their own map. The lower class has a map, which starts with poverty, aspires for wealth, and ends up remaining in poverty. The middle class map starts off slightly about the lower class, aspires to achieve wealth slightly greater than their parents, and ends up achieving that (for the most part). Than, the upper class map comes into play and fucks it all up. The upper class aspires to stay right where it is, and does so by using the labor of the middle and lower class to turn a profit. This gives the middle class college graduates the majority of these jobs, and the lower class only a small percentage. In the end, the best class to be in is of course the upper class, but the middle class manages to achieve its goals equally as well.

Knowing about the lavish lifestyles of the wealthy makes the middle and lower classes aspire to achieve that, as if it were the golden standard of a life worth living. We look up to this, and find joy in purchasing expensive things when this is actually part of the reason why people live in housing projects, and my mother works 12 hour days. Emulating this lifestyle is possibly the worst thing a lower class individual can do, and is the only real part of the poverty in America that IS the fault of the lower class.

Pretending we can live beyond our means is why kids in the projects have 20 pairs of Jordan's, but live on food stamps, and why the middle class has become horribly in debt to the credit card companies. It's pitiful, but our social maps sometimes are so blinding to us, that we ignore reality completely. The money we spend on "shit", could be used within our communities, to improve our own living conditions, to get an education, but it's not. We spend it on Jordan's, Louis belts, Gucci bags, and in reality, the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and the middle class is on the verge of not even being able to maintain a steady income anymore. If this continues, the current middle class today will be part of the lower class in a matter of years.

HW 33 - Cool Paper Outline

Thesis: Becoming accustomed to defining ourself as individuals in the physical world makes us unable to present ourselves as thinking and feeling people,but instead as consumers and competitors amongst ourselves.

Intro
Today, as I am in the middle of my senior year in high school, I am realizing the reality of the fact that in a few months I will be accepted to and rejected from an array of colleges I just applied to. Than in a few months more, I will be going to college, and years later, I will be looking for a job. I know that I want to be successful, and I know that I define success through money, possessions and having a family (that I can support).

But as a concerned person, I want to do something that benefits others as well as myself. The loner mentality has eliminated community in human society, and created a new concept of self sufficiency. While we all want to claim to be self sufficient, we really all do rely on one another in highly significant ways. '

It has become commonplace that teenagers in industrialized countries are shown wealth as the bottom line for what it means to be successful. The competition between us leads us to become more self aggrandizing and lavish our wealth not on the community (keeping in mind that it is all but gone), but instead ourselves and those close to us.

Becoming "fresh" in New York is a common practice amongst teenagers in New York City, and most cities around the world. It's all about being dressed the best and looking the most put together. I like to wear nice clothes, but recently I came to realize that a certain triviality lies in this pursuit. "Getting fresh", like other consumer pursuits, has one goal, but no skill nor any constructive aspect to it. The ability to be more or less fresh relies on the access to money that the person has, serving as another outlet for people to compete and flaunt their wealth i.e. success.

self fufiling prophecy:

the world has limited options, we try to 1up eachother and have created this consumeristic competition which has worked heavenly for business. Our self made consumer haven has been so profitable, that almost all facets of our lives have been marketed and tailored to fit peoples ideas of what is socially acceptable,and of course benifiting corporate customer bases

i.e. the gym has become a way to enhance our physical appearence, and has also made us more driven and energetic workers.

being more successful = having more money. since a better job= more money, we compete with eachother to become the richest, thus the most suessfull, thus the harder worker, benefiting the corporate structure, which often yields far lower than we put in.

Society in the human race began in a tribal form, and at first was not only about community, society was synonamous with community. Being able to get along with your peers was not a skill, it was programmed into who you were. If you didn't get along,you were kicked out of the tribe, and you wouldn't survive.

HW 32-Tattoos & The Presentation of the Self

In our culture, we have become very accustomed to the idea of placing a monetary value on everything. In the event that we cannot define a monetary value, we find some equivalent tangible value eventually. This value, is what we call "worth". In a store, worth is what you pay, i.e. a candy bar is worth $1.00, and we will pay that much for said candy bar. Similarly, we have "self-worth". Self-worth is taboo in our culture, as a topic which really cannot be precisely measured, nor given a value. This leaves it up to each and every one of us, to define our own value, elevating ourselves above each other to be able to claim a higher self worth than those around us.

Culturally, certain things demonstrate worth, and others simply do not. Being rich is a monetary measurement of worth, and "popularity" is a social measure of worth. Those things however, are external, and have little bearing on our own feeling of self worth. The value of ourselves is something that only we can increase, and is completely dependent on our own emotions. As a result, we recognize the high value of emotional worth, and try to do things which will increase that value. Specifically, we want to be able to control and regulate our emotions as to use them to our advantage. That makes us need to externally flaunt our ability to control our emotions, and demonstrate the power of those emotions. Tattoos are a way which people often use to symbolize their emotions, no matter what the reason.

Some people say that tattoos are worthless if they don't have "meaning" behind them. I think this is an uneducated statement, as a tattoo which has no emotional value behind it, incidentally has as much value as a highly emotional one. Think about a tattoo as a window into a house. If the person is crying in their house, and doesn't want people outside to see them, they will close the window. If the person is sitting on the couch watching TV, they may leave the window open, but either way, the window still exists.

Just like the window, a person only gets a tattoo if they want the "window" to be open. If you want people to see something about yourself, you will put an image on your body to show it, and if you don't, than you won't get it in the first place. If you have a truly high emotional value, than you should be able to express your emotions through thought, action, and conversation. Having a tattoo is supposed to symbolize a certain event, emotion, or object in an attempt to demonstrate internal balance and confidence. When the reason for a person's tattoo is not emotional, and simply to seek social acceptance, this shows internal conflict, and has the exact opposite effect (think a window you can't close that you may not want open).