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
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