If
you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always
got.
-Henry Ford
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
More "Help" For the Wrong People
On my quest to read a book each month, I've created my intended stack and just finished up my book for March. A trend I've realized, reading through this book in particular and pairing it up with other books and materials I've read or leafed through, is that many of the self-motivational, "unlock the inner you", happiness-builders seem to be directed at only a portion of the population, and it's predominately (and predictably) those not revolving around some catastrophic or traumatic event. The books I'm referring to aren't the memoirs or autobiographies of those facing incredible obstacles, but those written, seemingly, by those coming from an affluent, upper-middle class upbringing, writing for others "struggling" to survive their same conditions.
The Happiness Project, my book for March, certainly has made several insightful observations and doled out its fair share of advice to incorporate into my day. But by and large, the author really doesn't have any issues from which to base her book. Living in Manhattan, married (both spouses are employed and financially sound), with two healthy children. Even the author admits that she's not actually UNhappy, she just thinks she could stand to be MORE happy, going on to talk about her shopping trips and birthday parties and wanton spending on gym memberships and trainers and stopping at a news stand to buy five different magazines each afternoon. Instead of appealing to a wide range of audiences, she almost seems to alienate herself into a class-divided world, where the haves can afford the luxury of her escapades while the have-not's sit on the sidelines.
To make it clear, I don't mean to call one particular author out, this book is simply serving as the inspiration: Joel Osteen, Martin Seligman, Tony Robbins...really anyone with a book title containing any combination of "real you", "inner self", "reinventing", the "life you want", etc. are all antagonists here. The issue isn't that I believe some people shouldn't be writing on the subject or have nothing to contribute. I'm simply pointing out that many of these "self-help" books focused on "living the life you deserve", "unlocking your true potential", and "making the most of each day" seem to have a secondary commonality: none of these people have really any idea some of the obstacles facing many many people. I'm also not saying that I'm in any position to write to this invisible majority, only that if you're climbing the ladder to the upper economic echelon of society, please stop talking about how much sleep you lose at night worrying about money or the future. There are real people out there wondering how to pay for the next doctor's visit or scraping enough together to pay for an orthodontist for their child because insurance won't cover the braces. Please stop talking about how much work it is to plan a birthday party because you're stumped on the type of invitations to send. There are people with real problems.
The Happiness Project, my book for March, certainly has made several insightful observations and doled out its fair share of advice to incorporate into my day. But by and large, the author really doesn't have any issues from which to base her book. Living in Manhattan, married (both spouses are employed and financially sound), with two healthy children. Even the author admits that she's not actually UNhappy, she just thinks she could stand to be MORE happy, going on to talk about her shopping trips and birthday parties and wanton spending on gym memberships and trainers and stopping at a news stand to buy five different magazines each afternoon. Instead of appealing to a wide range of audiences, she almost seems to alienate herself into a class-divided world, where the haves can afford the luxury of her escapades while the have-not's sit on the sidelines.
To make it clear, I don't mean to call one particular author out, this book is simply serving as the inspiration: Joel Osteen, Martin Seligman, Tony Robbins...really anyone with a book title containing any combination of "real you", "inner self", "reinventing", the "life you want", etc. are all antagonists here. The issue isn't that I believe some people shouldn't be writing on the subject or have nothing to contribute. I'm simply pointing out that many of these "self-help" books focused on "living the life you deserve", "unlocking your true potential", and "making the most of each day" seem to have a secondary commonality: none of these people have really any idea some of the obstacles facing many many people. I'm also not saying that I'm in any position to write to this invisible majority, only that if you're climbing the ladder to the upper economic echelon of society, please stop talking about how much sleep you lose at night worrying about money or the future. There are real people out there wondering how to pay for the next doctor's visit or scraping enough together to pay for an orthodontist for their child because insurance won't cover the braces. Please stop talking about how much work it is to plan a birthday party because you're stumped on the type of invitations to send. There are people with real problems.
Friday, April 12, 2013
A Tangential Thought from that Sociology Class...
I just had another thought on my last post about the Econ class experiment.
It's an excellent representation of a misdirecting statement - it provides some information while phrasing other pieces in such a way to force your perspective into conformity.
This example came to mind:
Three men walk into a hotel to get a room for the night. The manager at the front desk tells them that a room is $30 per night. Since they're only staying one night, they each pony up $10 and head up to the room. Shortly thereafter, the manager realizes he made a mistake and the cost of a room for the night it only $25, so he gives the bellhop $5 to take to the men. On his way up, the bellhop realizes that splitting $5 evenly among three people is a very difficult task, so pockets $2 and gives the men the remaining $3. So now each man has paid $9, equaling $27, and the bellhop has $2, for a total of $29. Where's the last dollar?
Boom.
Now, would you assume a logical explanation for this phenomenon or simply be convinced that the last dollar vanished into thin air? If you expect the former, I see no reason to swallow the tale of the economics professor hook, line, and sinker...
It's an excellent representation of a misdirecting statement - it provides some information while phrasing other pieces in such a way to force your perspective into conformity.
This example came to mind:
Three men walk into a hotel to get a room for the night. The manager at the front desk tells them that a room is $30 per night. Since they're only staying one night, they each pony up $10 and head up to the room. Shortly thereafter, the manager realizes he made a mistake and the cost of a room for the night it only $25, so he gives the bellhop $5 to take to the men. On his way up, the bellhop realizes that splitting $5 evenly among three people is a very difficult task, so pockets $2 and gives the men the remaining $3. So now each man has paid $9, equaling $27, and the bellhop has $2, for a total of $29. Where's the last dollar?
Boom.
Now, would you assume a logical explanation for this phenomenon or simply be convinced that the last dollar vanished into thin air? If you expect the former, I see no reason to swallow the tale of the economics professor hook, line, and sinker...
Monday, April 8, 2013
The Economics Class Socialist Experiment
As I'm sure many of us have read already, there's a continually circulating tale on the internet about an economics professor failing an entire class through an experiment in socialism. Just in case you haven't read it (and because I'm not going to transcribe the whole story here), here's a link to several variations: Social Injustice. Take a second and read through it again so it's fresh in your mind.
Now, I know you may be worried that this post may become a long-winded diatribe about socialism (or capitalism), or even advocating for one economic system over another, but I hope to write this as neither. This is to be simply my reaction to what I see as an over-simplification of complex systems.
In the story, the professor takes all the students grades and averages them together and provides each student the same grade, regardless of effort. If he were a true economist, wouldn't he recognize that in any system, at least at the onset, each individual arrives at various levels? Think for a minute of the ten people with whom you most associate. Your friends, colleagues, etc. Are you all on an even keel regarding income? Home-ownership? Equity? Net value? Educational level? I would image that if this was to be an effective lesson, the professor would have noted that every society has certain systemic inequalities - whether those be income, ethnicity, gender, heritage, and so on. Should these not be factors in any experiment? In setting it up, then, I believe the instructor should have provided some students "A"s before class even began because their parents earned really good grades in school already.
I also wonder how he would have constructed this experiment to reflect the benefits of capitalism. Since capitalism is, essentially, one person selling their labor to another person, would this new experiment consist of 80% of the class studying really hard then providing crib sheets to 20%. That 20% then gets an "A" and the other 80% gets "C"s. Now some of those 80% may also study really really hard and eventually get a "B", sure, and more power to them. But don't forget that because half of that 20% are going to get an "A" anyway because of their parent's really good grades, so it really doesn't matter if some people don't want to study for him/her (although, let's face it, it's pretty much "him"). Oh, and if we want to exalt the American system, for every score of 100% a male student gets, we should certainly award an even proportion of female students who studied just as hard a 81%. Right? (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, page 55)
I believe this to be an incredibly vast oversimplification of a societal system - both mine and theirs - to the extent that the story serves little more than a McCarthyist legend, the same propaganda that has shaded American beliefs of anything other than republic governments and capitalist mentalities.
Am I saying one is better than the other? I am not.
Do I regardless recognize that any economic system and governmental structure has flaws? Of course.
But if we are to begin falling behind anecdotes as arguments, then our partisanship surely has completely left the harbor (pun intended). It's stories such as these that erode our ability to maintain civilized dialogue and empathetic listening.
Now, I know you may be worried that this post may become a long-winded diatribe about socialism (or capitalism), or even advocating for one economic system over another, but I hope to write this as neither. This is to be simply my reaction to what I see as an over-simplification of complex systems.
In the story, the professor takes all the students grades and averages them together and provides each student the same grade, regardless of effort. If he were a true economist, wouldn't he recognize that in any system, at least at the onset, each individual arrives at various levels? Think for a minute of the ten people with whom you most associate. Your friends, colleagues, etc. Are you all on an even keel regarding income? Home-ownership? Equity? Net value? Educational level? I would image that if this was to be an effective lesson, the professor would have noted that every society has certain systemic inequalities - whether those be income, ethnicity, gender, heritage, and so on. Should these not be factors in any experiment? In setting it up, then, I believe the instructor should have provided some students "A"s before class even began because their parents earned really good grades in school already.
I also wonder how he would have constructed this experiment to reflect the benefits of capitalism. Since capitalism is, essentially, one person selling their labor to another person, would this new experiment consist of 80% of the class studying really hard then providing crib sheets to 20%. That 20% then gets an "A" and the other 80% gets "C"s. Now some of those 80% may also study really really hard and eventually get a "B", sure, and more power to them. But don't forget that because half of that 20% are going to get an "A" anyway because of their parent's really good grades, so it really doesn't matter if some people don't want to study for him/her (although, let's face it, it's pretty much "him"). Oh, and if we want to exalt the American system, for every score of 100% a male student gets, we should certainly award an even proportion of female students who studied just as hard a 81%. Right? (Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, page 55)
I believe this to be an incredibly vast oversimplification of a societal system - both mine and theirs - to the extent that the story serves little more than a McCarthyist legend, the same propaganda that has shaded American beliefs of anything other than republic governments and capitalist mentalities.
Am I saying one is better than the other? I am not.
Do I regardless recognize that any economic system and governmental structure has flaws? Of course.
But if we are to begin falling behind anecdotes as arguments, then our partisanship surely has completely left the harbor (pun intended). It's stories such as these that erode our ability to maintain civilized dialogue and empathetic listening.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Bully-Free Zones
It's been on the news quite a bit recently: the issue of bullies. Now, I've been to a fair number of schools for work, and frequently I see signs indicating that the school is a "Bully-Free Zone".
And that just seems to be a backward route to tackle the issue.
Isn't a sign advertising that no one in that building is a bully merely inviting bullies? I mean, to someone - often with mental issues and an addiction to bully-filled video games - walking down the street, they see the sign, and recognize it as an easy opportunity to just go in and start bullying people. Simple as that.
Instead, I think what we need to do is allocate federal money to bully-training and begin posting bullies in each and every school. I mean, trying to stop a bully using only your words or telling a teacher is a bit like trying to fight a fire without a fire extinguisher, isn't it? You need the right tools to push back against the problem.
Mutual assured destruction style.
After all, the only way to stop a bad person who's a bully is a good person who's a bully.
Makes sense, right?
Teach violence to combat violence, right? The more bullies we have on the streets, the less likely it will be that someone is bullied. It's really quite simple!
And that just seems to be a backward route to tackle the issue.
Isn't a sign advertising that no one in that building is a bully merely inviting bullies? I mean, to someone - often with mental issues and an addiction to bully-filled video games - walking down the street, they see the sign, and recognize it as an easy opportunity to just go in and start bullying people. Simple as that.
Instead, I think what we need to do is allocate federal money to bully-training and begin posting bullies in each and every school. I mean, trying to stop a bully using only your words or telling a teacher is a bit like trying to fight a fire without a fire extinguisher, isn't it? You need the right tools to push back against the problem.
Mutual assured destruction style.
After all, the only way to stop a bad person who's a bully is a good person who's a bully.
Makes sense, right?
Teach violence to combat violence, right? The more bullies we have on the streets, the less likely it will be that someone is bullied. It's really quite simple!
Monday, April 1, 2013
Facts and Truth (Quote of the Week: April 1, 2013)
These quotes are possibly the best summary of any Truth and Fact conversation we can have:
"There are small truths and great truths. The opposite of a small truth is a falsehood; the opposite of a great truth is often another great truth."
-Niels Bohr
“It does take great maturity to understand that the opinion we are arguing for is merely the hypothesis we favor, necessarily imperfect, probably transitory, which only very limited minds can declare to be a certainty or a truth.”
-Milan Kundera
(see also: Facts and Truth #1 and Facts and Truth #2)
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