Tuesday 24 December 2013

The University Experience

Five and a half years of post secondary education studying philosophy and religious studies at the University of Lethbridge is over.  School has been the only life I have ever known, but my career in formal education is now officially finished.  For the first time in my life, I have no plans.  Every moment of my life prior to this has had a calendar date circled or deadline on the horizon.  From my first day of kindergarten until now has been one long continuous period of life.  For the first time ever I have nothing ahead of me.  My whole life has been planned up to December 2013.  Without any real direction leaving university, I would like to reflect on this time of my life.    

My one piece of advice coming out of this experience is that if you don’t know exactly what you want out of life, don’t go to university.  Five and a half years of this strange reality has shown me a few things.  Five and a half years has left me with a bit of confusion and regret.  While it doesn’t feel like a total waste, it doesn’t feel worth the time and money I spent.   

I certainly took a lot of positive things from university.  I learned so much in and out of class.  I found that I love to talk about ideas.  I found a passion for writing.  I met some amazing people and did a lot of maturing.  But on the whole, I feel university probably wasn’t necessary to discover those things.  I probably could have found a less time and money consuming place to find myself.

 I didn’t know what I wanted out of life when I graduated high school.  I entered university with a sense of “well this is what I should be doing”.  I never really asked myself about how I was going to live my life as I wanted it.  Instead I looked to authority figures (teachers, parents, employers ect.) to indirectly ask what they wanted out of my life.  I’ve now learned that the only person you can ask what you want to do with your life is yourself. 

Parents want what is best for their children so long as they have the lowest chance of failure.  For parents, University is the safest route for their children with no particular direction.  Such was the case with me.  I was lucky enough to have had parents who saved money for my post secondary education.  So, university looked like a good enough option for me; at least I could focus on subjects I had some interest in.  Maybe it was the sub-par, small town schooling that held me back, but I felt incredibly mediocre.  I never excelled or had much passion for anything.  School had always made me feel stupid.

 Did I really know why I was going to university?  I’m not sure that I did.  Certainly, my first university year was a necessary social rite of passage.  The schoolwork was secondary to the rollercoaster socialization process that consumed my life during that time.  But after that year, there wasn’t much difference in what my friends and I did.  The following five years now seem to melt together in my memory.  It’s hard to differentiate the years apart.  I stayed with the same friends and did the same things with them.  I absolutely cherish those time and people I was with, but there was definitely a routine that was repeated over and over.  There comes a point in time where routine becomes stagnant.          


It wasn’t until the past year that I felt like I knew the direction of the path that was meant for me.   It was then when I realized that university was probably not the best use of mine or my parent’s money.  I know there are other people who are in university who know exactly why they're there.  They have a real goal and are spending their hard earned dollars to attend class and earn their degree they want.  People go to university to become doctors, business people, lawyers, teachers and so on.  Knowing that these people exist, I feel unworthy to be spending money that I didn’t really earn to get a degree that I didn’t really want.  Over the past summer I really felt compelled not to go back to school to finish my degree in September.  It just didn’t feel right to go back.  But it also didn’t feel right to leave a degree 90% finished.  

For the majority of my university career I was just going through the motions.  As if I was coasting through everything.  My grades were never a concern.  As long as my GPA was high enough to graduate, I didn’t care much about marks.  I feel like I’ve spent too much of this valuable time, waiting.  I graduated high school with a sense of excitement.  This was a chance to get out of this dead-end town and meet new people.  A chance to start over with a blank slate where I can become the type of person I always dreamed of being.  The things that I never did in high school would now happen.  I would no longer be defined by who I was in the past.  It felt like my real life was about to begin.    


That was my mistake, not realizing my life began when I was born.  All this time was spent waiting for the next step to begin.  My high school life felt like I was killing time, waiting for graduation.  My whole time in University I felt like I was waiting for something.  As if by virtue of simply being a university student, all the things I expected to happen were going to fall into my lap.  I was waiting for love to happen.  I was expecting a social education in growing up.  I wanted to know the highs and lows of being in a relationship.  For the most part my mind seemed to be focused on extracurricular events.  But I never really took control and was honest with myself.  I just waited.


So if you’re unsure of your place in this world, I wouldn’t recommend such an expensive occupation as university.  Find what you really want out of life and then decide if post secondary is right for you.

Monday 18 November 2013

The problem with Feminist language


I feel that the biggest problem holding back a more effective discussion about gender equality is a problem of language.  What is alienating about the feminist movement is the use of somewhat exclusionary language.  I think in order to reach a broader spectrum of people, language must be carefully used when hashing out the important issues.

When driving any kind of revolution forward, I think it’s natural to create an ingroup.  This ingroup will automatically empathize with its own members.  This causes a kind of doublespeak in some internal dialogues.  Out of convenience, these movements will create their own words to describe certain concepts.   Like any kind of political party, nationality or ideology, it’s members know more about the “real” issues than outsiders.  Projecting an image of ignorance and incredulity on the outsiders of the movement.  

I’ve been a part of many of these ingroups which create their own mini-languages to explain the paradigm they’re attempting to overthrow.  Its very easy to sink into a closed off intellectual bubble, where only those who are inside can understand what you are talking about.  This becomes problematic when you attempt to relay these concepts to outsiders.  This is especially problematic if your bubble is intent on overturning the current system and replacing with their own way.  

It can be most easily seen in religious movements.  its very hard for religious to address the outside world if they’re so enveloped in the language of their tradition.  Words and phrases like “redemption”, “fear of God’ and “sinner” probably have a much different meaning to those who hear them outside of their religious contexts.  This can only alienate and confuse those well-intentioned outsiders.

This unfortunately, I feel is true about the feminist movement.  Any kind of group with an “ism” at the end of their name is going to encounter alienation problems.  While the ideas behind the movement are by and large good, they present an unpleasant and alien image to the outside.  The feminist movement is appealing to those who are already alienated from the male-dominated culture.  It’s language is appealing to those who have found alienation and emptiness in gender identities.  But it’s true intention is to change the culture.  It’s not going to be attractive to those still fully connected to the gender system who in fact need feminism the most.  

The first language problem I think stops most people is the use of the word “Feminism”.  “ism” is a sure sign of a political ideology.  The root, “feminine” denotes the inclusion of the female sex as the biggest component.  The word by itself is exclusionary to anything masculine.  If someone sympathizes with feminism as a man, they often must caveat their identity with “male-feminist”.  I believe that the true ideals of “feminism” would not need anyone to declare their gender identity.  

I think the word “feminism” is creating a problem that is counterproductive to it’s own cause.  Because of its name, it’s creating an ingroup of people, simply based on a single sex or a gender. Naturally It will gather together people who are alienated and angry at the gendered system we live in.  

Its a stereotype and an oversimplification of feminists that they are “angry at men”.  For the most part, I agree that its just a stereotype.  But even the most offensive stereotypes have their origins in some kind of small truth. To illustrate this point, I would compare this to people calling atheists “angry at God”.  While the atheist would say that they don’t even believe in God’s existence.  The theist may not properly comprehend the very idea of a godless world.  They can’t truly understand the mentality of an atheist.  So, to them it looks as if the atheist is behaving like a rebellious teenager against a parent.

When someone says “Feminists are just angry and hate men.”  That person is probably well situated deep inside the gendered system.  To an outsider, all they see is a group of upset women.  Since this person takes the notion of “men and women” for granted, who else can feminists be possibly angry at?  They are like the theist who doesn’t understand the mindset of a person without a belief in God.  The outsider to feminism doesn’t understand that the whole dichotomous gender system is what is being targeted, not men.  They can’t understand a world without gender as a personal identity.  Gender is such an important part of their world, its very hard to see these issues without it.  The word “feminist” enforces that mentality with its inherent dichotomy of feminine versus masculine.        

Are there feminists who do actually just hate men? Sure, I wouldn’t bet against it.  But they’re no different than those men who hate women.  I would say that these people have legitimate complaints about their gender and its relationship to the “opposite”.  But this negative energy is just missdirected.  Without recognizing the real source of their issues.     
       
I should expand this to all kinds of movements that are attempting to change gender and sexuality in our culture.  I truly believe these groups are trying to change the world for the better.  But the way they’re presented to the world is often in an unfavorable light.  Its often because of the language used.    

Words like “patriarchy”, “hegemonic masculinity”, “CISgender” “rape-culture”, “male privilege” have a way of unconsciously talking down to those who don’t know their meaning.  How many letters have to be added to the LGBTQ..(?) abbreviation to be politically correct?  Is it offensive to call someone “transvestite?”, “transexual?”, “transgendered?”.  It feels like if I don’t know the correct term, I’m a bigot.  It’s these sorts of concepts only privy to insiders have an alienating effect to those outside.

The word “rape-culture” is one such example of a topic worth addressing that is alienating to those who don’t know what it is.  When I first encountered the concept of rape-culture, it was in a dialogue in a university newspaper. I found the term to be unnecessarily aggressive and shrill.  Whoever was arguing against rape-culture, the writing seemed to be coming from a place of high emotion.  I can totally understand why.  But keep in mind, that kind of passion will be alienating to men who’ve never heard of it.  I was one of those men.  I didn’t know what it was, but the article certainly didn’t win me over.  From then on I associated that term with an air of confrontational feminism, which I had no desire becoming a part of.  As a man, “rape-culture” made me feel guilty by association.  I’m the one of most timid guys you’ll ever meet.  I felt I would never do anything to enable that kind of behaviour.  All it did was make me even more confused than I already was about how to behave around women I was attracted to.  

Keep in mind, I’m not trying to discredit any of the facts about rape culture.  I’m just trying to point out how the concept isn’t the most endearing to those uneducated.  Many men are probably now feeling the same way I used to about “rape-culture”.  

 It wasn’t until I took a sociology of gender course, that I began to really understand these issues.  It took maturing and self examination to see feminism as a good thing.  But it took a process of becoming fluent in feminist language to fully grasp what the intent was.  To be clear, I’m not proposing any kind of alternative to the words we use.  I wouldn’t know where to start.  I’m just trying to illustrate some of the unintended problems that naturally occur in social movements and language.       

Thursday 7 November 2013

2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick’s movie 2001: A space Odyssey is a film filled with philosophical, scientific and religious themes.  Like many of Kubrick’s works, this is a film that has and will be analyzed over and over again, as long as screens to watch films exist.  It has come to a point where its very difficult to find new meanings in this film that someone hasn't already found and deconstructed to the last frame.  This is one such depth analysis of the film so If you have not seen it, I recommend that you do.  Its the granddaddy of all science fiction films.

In my research in reading blogs and watching Youtube videos about the meanings of 2001, I’ve realized how complicated and symbolically dense people seem to think it is.  Its a film where it’s cult following may have read too much into its meanings than the creator may have intended.  It’s taken on a life of its own like a book of scripture.  But, much like the canons of religious texts, it may not matter what the writer intended it to mean.  What matters most is what the audience takes from the text.  That is what is worth talking about.  Since its had such a profound effect on the speculative fiction that followed 2001, I think its worth talking about some of the ideas I took from this film and other people’s analysis of it.  I will talk about the ideas of human progress that are most prominent in the film.  As well as the themes of a future transcendence that is creeping into our cultural and religious zeitgeist.  What role does what we think of as “God” play in this film?

Why is studying the bible interesting?  There are many reasons of course.  But what what is least interesting to me is whether or not these events actually occurred.  Its not very interesting to ask what the authors of these texts intended to mean when they wrote them.  What is most fascinating is to study these texts from a retrospective point of view.  Its interesting to see the profound effect on our culture throughout the centuries that the writings of the bible have had.  It’s only as important as the people who read them say it is.  People who believe that the bible is the actual word of god, will read deep meaning into any given passage.  Of course depending on the religious context it is read.  I think the same is true for 2001.  Kubrick is known for his deep subliminal messaging and hidden meanings in his films.  Because of this, people will read as much meaning as they want to into every scene from 2001.  People watching 2001 in the year 2013 may find different meaning in this film than someone watching it in 1968.

If the books of the bible had fallen into obscurity shortly after they were written, they would not contain all the meanings they do now.  Even if they had been written word for word, they wouldn't mean anything religiously significant.  Similarly, if 2001 or Kubrick had not found the cult following of the counter-culture youth of the sixties, the film would probably not have the kind of thematic influence it has today.  Adding to the film’s mystique, Stanley Kubrick has since passed away.  So this leaves only the audience to speculate and exaggerate what this film really means.  But despite my cynicism of this cult-film phenomena, I think 2001 has some very worthwhile subjects worth talking about.

The most important message I took from 2001 was the evolutionary direction the human race seems to be going.  The ominous, rectangular monolith that appears before the characters at crucial points of the movie, signifies an evolutionary quantum leap.  These leaps are significant to our religious sensibilities because the film seems to point the human race in a direction of ascension to transcendental god-hood.  Stanley Kubrick conveniently sidesteps the hornets nest of directly commenting on religion or God by representing the divine as a race of super-intelligent, unseen extraterrestrials.


The first important evolutionary jump was made when early hominids learned to use tools, hunt for meat and wage war.  We continued on this technological path for 4 million years.  We are shown this linear progression with the juxtaposed scene of the tossed animal bone cut to directly to the spacecraft.  The next evolutionary leap we are shown is directly after the second appearance of the monolith.  The story proceeding the moon monolith scene is about the emergence of an artificial intelligence.  The invention of A.I is the most important technological event we as a species, see on the horizon of technological progression.  It will be the most significant event in human history since we developed the ability to control fire or the invention of tools.
2001 Space Odyssey Dawn of Man

The computer program Hal 9000, seems to develop a true sentience during the Jupiter mission, by demonstrating human characteristics.  Hal lies to his human masters about his true intentions.  When Hal kills the human Frank Poole, he shows a sentient desire to be free.   He also demonstrates flawed logic despite his apparently flawless programming by allowing David Bowman to survive.  He shows a desire to live and a fear of death.  The roles of man and machine are seemingly swapped as Bowman shows a machine like ruthlessness when he deactivates the computer while “it” begs for mercy.  Its interesting to note that Kubrick adds in subtle stabs at IBM with the Hal 9000 character.  Alphabetically the letters H-A-L are all one letter removed from I-B-M.  The IBM logo appears in various scenes.  When Hal is being deactivated, he sings the song “Daisy”.  In 1961 IBM scientists created the first computer so synthesize singing, the song they first had it sing was in fact “Daisy”.

2001-ibm
The next quantum leap is represented when Bowman encounters the monolith in orbit around Jupiter.  In the story, the monoliths are supposed to be artifacts left by extra-terrestrial intelligence.  Whenever humans come into contact with them, they gain some sort of knowledge left behind by the extraterrestrials.  In the third encounter, the meaning of the knowledge or power that is imparted onto Bowman is very cryptic on screen.  This part of the film is where an endless amount of symbolism and meaning can be gleaned by its viewers.  (Whether or not Kubrick intended them to).
Bowman is thrust through a psychedelic tunnel of information and colored light.  Then possibly witnesses a abridged narrative of the universe’s history.  He apparently sees the big bang and the expansion of the universe.  Then he sees the development of life and a tour of unknown alien worlds.  The way I saw this sequence, Bowman had an encounter with an incredibly higher form of intelligence attempting to impart it’s knowledge onto him.  The way this experience is portrayed on film is analogous to a powerful psychedelic drug experience.  This movie was released during the peak of the introduction of LSD among the counterculture of the sixties.  I think the significance of the imagery of Bowman’s experience would not have been lost on those who would have experienced similar things with LSD.
The "Star Gate" sequence, one of man...
He then finds himself inside a renaissance styled hotel room viewing himself in the third person, rapidly age and his own bodily death.  In a making-of documentary I watched according to one of the commentators, the sterile hotel room was supposed to be a kind of human nursery.  The same way human beings would construct a familiar jungle environment for gorillas in a zoo, the higher intelligence provides a familiar human setting for Bowman.
30-bedroom
The fourth and final encounter with the monolith occurs at the moment of Bowman’s apparent bodily death.  What the monolith gives him is a rebirth, over the Earth as some sort ethereal being.  “The Starchild”.  Its representative of what we see ourselves eventually becoming.  We aspire to become that which we've always felt we are.  We’re animals but we feel like we’re more than the sum of the flesh and blood we’re made of.  We feel angelic but trapped in the shell of an ape.  One of organized religion’s main purpose is to address that very feeling.  This film is a story of our struggle towards that ineffable other we can sense.  The film represents the other with an extraterrestrial artifact.  The ominous tone of the monolith encounters signify our simultaneous fear and fascination with something so alien and ineffable.  Our religious traditions have the same kind of fear and reverence towards their transcendental object, usually God.
Star_Child___from___2001___by_Lukasx
A very interesting blog I found explained to me the symbolism of the monolith.


The Monolith is supposed to represent a movie screen.  Proportionally, its the same size as the screen that 2001 was intended to be shown on.  The creepy music that plays during the monolith encounters, is also played during the intermission of the film.  The intermission is a blank movie screen.  So you are actually staring at the monolith itself.

movie-screen
Now, heres where I go off the deep end of crazy.
In the film when the monolith/film screen is encountered, the characters begin to realize they are inside a movie.  This makes sense to me as a philosophical principle.  Every time the characters encounter the monolith, they achieve another level of intelligence.  The movie screen is a feedback loop of awareness.  An evolutionary step.  They become more self aware when they look inwards at themselves and they realize what the game is.

bowman helmet reflect
 In real world, sentience is achieved once the agents realize the matrix they’re inside of.  Humans achieved a higher level of sentience when they began to realize what kind of biological game they’re a part of.  We started using tools and technology to “hack the system”.  The first monolith encounter was supposed to represent this.  The second encounter was supposed to represent when human created technology(Hal 9000) will reach a higher level of intelligence.  The last two monolith encounters represent transcendence to higher forms of being we may see in our future.
The last thing I’d like to point out is the period of chronological time between each monolith encounter.  Between the first and second monolith there is a period of millions of years.  Between the second and third, there is a period of 18 months.  Between the third and fourth encounter, there are only minutes.  This may have just been the way the film turned out.  It may have been unintentional, but to me this is significant.  If this is a film commenting on the progression of the human race, it would be helpful to notice the pattern in time in the way progress seems to follow.  Each major evolutionary step happens in shorter and shorter intervals.  I’m reminded of Carl Sagan’s cosmic calendar from the old TV show, Cosmos.
cosmiccalendar
Whatever.  That was only my interpretation of it.  Take what you want out of this review.  but more importantly, watch this movie for yourself.  What hidden cryptic messages can you find?  Did Kubrick produce a film to demonstrate that he helped fake the moon landing? Or did Kubrick predict a race space fetuses invading earth? Who knows.

Sunday 27 October 2013

Why are you reading this?

Yeah you! Why are you reading this?  What gives me the right to your free time?  Did you arrive here by chance? Are you family? Are you my friend?  Are you my facebook friend?


With the internet, everyone now has a voice.  There is now an over abundance of soapboxes to stand on, but this is causing the real question to now be who should we listen to?  In the old days, all you needed was a Tv or radio show and people had no choice but to listen to you.  There were only a handful of soapboxes.  You had to catch a lucky break with a newspaper job or publishing contract to have any hope of sharing your thoughts with the world.  Now everyone has access to everyone else’s opinions if they want.  Anyone can write a blog or start a Youtube channel.  But now, how does anyone gain a foothold in a writing career?  How does anyone create a voice worth listening to?


Unfortunately, this is the life path I have chosen for myself.  I feel like my calling is in writing and expressing myself.  But a great amount of my anxiety lies in the question of why should anyone listen to me?  Nothing gives me a free pass to everyone’s attention.  I don’t have have many credentials.  At the same time, I don’t want to feel like I’m representing any kind of respectable institution like a newspaper, magazine, school curriculum or a university.  Perhaps I’m too artistically idealistic, but I hate any kind of censorship or compromise to my work.  I wouldn't want to write if I couldn't say “fuck” where its appropriate.          


I’ve got to believe that the only hope for this kind of life-path is the attractiveness of a totally honest and unique personality.  The only way to create an internet voice worth listening to is the total uninhibited expression of my true honest self.  I look at the people I admire.  These are never the smartest people.  They are not usually academically credentialed.  But somehow their honest self is expressed through their creations.  Music, comedy, artwork, books, acting, lectures or however they express themselves.  This is my ideal.  I’m not sure yet what my greatest strength is, but my guiding light is myself.  If I can bring an uncompromised and unique personality to the forefront of what I create, I believe this will be the correct path to take.  


This all sounds like an excersize in ego masturbation, but what other choice do creators have?  A kind of confidence, or maybe arrogance has to exist in order to think that people want to hear what we have to say.  I routinely post some of my artwork on facebook.  I get a kind of satisfaction every time someone “likes” or compliments my drawings.  At the same time I have a pang of narcissistic guilt, every time I post something that I’ve created.  What right do I have clogging up other people’s facebooks with posts that seem to scream:  “look at me!” “look at me!” “read my blog!” “don’t you think I’m smart?”


On the same coin, what right do other people have in clogging my facebook with vacation pictures, dessert recipes, conspiracy theories, drunken photos and articles somebody else wrote. But I digress this is a topic for another time.

Its all very gross. but perhaps all this self promotion is a necessary evil.  If you don’t like it, feel free to block me.  If you can tolerate it, thank you!    

Wednesday 23 October 2013

So, I wore a woman's purse

For my sociology of gender course, we had to do something that would subvert our gender in some way. So I decided to wear a woman's purse to school for a few days. I thought I knew what I was getting into, but the experience was more overwhelming than I had expected.

First of all, I want to look at what makes a particular bag a “woman’s purse”.  It apparently is a very subtle difference that genders the object.  The bag that I chose is a turquoise in colour and is leathery.  It has a thin black leather strap with large ornamental metallic rings connecting to the bag.  It’s soft to the touch and the shape is malleable.  The difference is small, but definitely noticeable.  My subversion experience gave me a keen eye for what other people were wearing as well.  A few people I noticed were obviously subverting gender with their bags because they were transgendered.  But there were no other "cisgendered" men wearing women’s bags  A man will wear a bag if it doesn't call attention to itself.  It will usually be dark coloured.  Black, brown, blue, green and red are usually found on men.  The kind of bag that is appropriate for a man to wear is much more modest.  If a man does wear a purse, he might call it a “Man purse” or a satchel.  Very specifically named to indicate that it is not a woman’s purse.  What is most important to note is that men’s bags are gender neutral.  It wouldn't be a diversion or subversion of gender for a woman to wear a bag that is also appropriate for a man to wear.  A modestly coloured backpack, shoulderbag, duffel bag, suitcase would be totally normal for a woman to wear.  There doesn’t seem to be a social restriction on what kind of bag a woman can carry.            

My experience with gender subversion began when I actually purchased the bag.  The university book store was selling some miscellaneous used objects on a clearance table.  I had to gather up some courage to pick up the bag and bring it to the cashier.  I placed the bag in front of her, handed her two dollars and said “don’t ask”.  She responded with “hey I don’t judge”.  Its interesting that I felt like I had to explain myself for why, as a young man I was purchasing such an unusual object.  Another woman who was also present, jokingly remarked, “Its beautiful. It matches your eyes.”

A few days days later, I decided to bring it to school as my means of carrying my stuff instead of my usual backpack.  I wrote my name in big letters with a black sharpie on the bag just to aleve my fears that people would think that I stole some woman’s bag.  I decided that I would I use my purse to carry my wallet and cell phone.  I typically carry both of them in my pockets but I think that women usually carry these things in their purse.  This way I would have to carry the purse wherever I went.  It would give me the full purse experience.  I haven’t experienced being this uncomfortable in public in a very long time. Not since being an insecure junior high school kid have I felt so visually awkward and out of place.  As I approached the school on my bicycle, I was petrified as I passed some of the other students.  I wasn’t sure if they noticed my purse or not, but what mattered was how I felt. When I got the school, I tried keeping the purse out of sight as I ate breakfast.  I think I’ve observed a few people giving me odd looks as I walked pass them with the purse in full view.  I smiled at people a lot more than I usually do.  The kind of smile you have when you’ve been thinking of something funny.  Maybe because I was trying to unconsciously tell everyone who saw me that this odd situation seemed very silly to me as well.  Right now I’m writing this paper at a school computer, its nearly 3 pm and I’m hungry for lunch.  But I’m too embarrassed to walk up to the food court and get something to eat.

I ran into a female friend of mine at the end of the first day with the purse.  We talked about various small talk things including what I was doing with the purse.  What I found interesting was that she said she wouldn't have noticed anything unusual about my bag if I hadn’t brought it to her attention.  If I may be rudely judgmental for a moment, I’d have to say that I consider this particular friend of mine more of a girly girl(bleached blonde hair and lots of pink).  If she didn’t notice anything odd about me, why would the rest of the university?  The university is probably the most “progressive” and non judgmental place in Lethbridge, so why would people be constantly judging me as if I were in high school?   This made me think that I was making a bigger deal about carrying a woman’s bag than was necessary.  This may have been a sign that this gender subversion project was telling me more about my autobiographical identity, rather than how the rest of the people in my world see me.  Maybe it was just pointing out another instance of insecurity of my own failure to live up to this culture’s image of masculinity.  Previously I thought of myself as someone who didn’t care about being thought of as sub-masculine.  I’m never the most physically imposing person.  I don’t exhibit many overtly masculine qualities.  I didn’t think I cared too much about by place on the gender scale.  But this experiment showed me that I really am concerned about my own place in this gendered culture.  

Why are the bags we carry so important to our gender identity?  Could it be about body image?  Is it about the different kinds of gender specific objects we carry?  I think its a combination of several things.  I think what may look like an arbitrary difference in bags, is more a result of other cultured gender differences.  When I wore the purse, I used it to carry the things I usually carry in my jeans pockets.  Keeping things in their jeans pockets is the usual place men carry their everyday objects like a cell phone or a wallet.    But its very rare to see a woman carry a large object, like a wallet in her back pocket.  Well, a close look at pants fashion will give a possible clue to why this is.

Women’s pants tend to be much tighter fitting than men’s pants.  So carrying a wallet in her jeans would be uncomfortable perhaps.  But maybe more importantly, her figure would be undesirably distorted.  The purpose of her tight fitting jeans in the first place was to reveal the attractive shape of her backside.  It would then make more sense that she keep her pants clear of any object that would change her shape.  I found out that this intention is even more blatant than I thought.  In discussion with one of the female class members, I discovered that many styles of women’s jeans have impractically small pockets, making it virtually impossible to carry large objects anyway.  Men’s pants are relatively more loose fitting than women’s and have larger pockets.  This could be an example that the apparent shape of his butt is not much a concern to his body image or his masculinity.                  

Since I spend most of my time at the university, I see that men and women both carry relatively the same amount of stuff.  But in the real world, a woman may carry a bag because of a perceived need to bring more things with her.  On a daily round of errands, say a day shopping around town, the average man will not likely bring more than whatever he can fit into his pockets.  But you might expect a woman to bring her purse with her in the same scenario.  Why is this?  I cannot say for sure, but I can speculate.      



 A very interesting thing I noticed was the difference in the way I held the purse made.  If I put the shoulder strap across my chest onto the opposing shoulder, it felt a little more appropriate.  Hanging the bag on the shoulder of the same side made me feel more uncomfortable.  The way a woman carries her bag also has an effect on her body image, this could be a reason why strap positions I experienced, felt gendered.  A woman will usually wear a shirt that will reveal the shape of her breasts.  A purse strap that crosses her chest, will awkwardly obstruct her breasts if she is wearing a revealing shirt.  In order to preserve her body image, the purse will be held on the same shoulder.     

A deeper and more speculative reason for gendered bags may have to do with men and women’s difference in mentality.  Men are expected to be more dominant and possessive.  Men are expected to be more independent and personally responsible for the things we own.  We keep our wallet and cell phone very close to our body to make sure we are always in possession of it.  We can constantly feel them against our bodies.  Throughout the day, I habitually touch my wallet in my back pocket, just to comfort myself.  In fact, some men wear chains on their wallets just to be safe.  This was another odd feeling I noticed when I carried the purse.  I had to double check for my important things inside the purse throughout the day, just to make myself feel better.  Frankly I feel naked if I don’t feel the bulge of my wallet in my back pocket.  It would take a lot of time for me to get used to the state of mind of letting go of these personal objects.  

in our culture, women are often thought to be more passive and docile.  They’re not expected to be as owning and controlling as men.  The idea of a gendered bag reflects this attitude of feminine passivity.  The purse puts more distance between the object and the owner.  The woman is not as intimately connected with the objects she possesses.  Its a subtle but noticeable difference in my own experience.  Another fact that makes the purse representative of feminine domestication is how susceptible to theft it is.  A woman has less of a physical connection to her valuables   The purse is a more exposed object at risk to be stolen then say, a (chained) wallet.  It illustrates how women are viewed as defenseless in the face of adversity, requiring a man to be responsible for her.  Of course this is all conjecture, but I thought it was an interesting idea anyway.    

Wednesday 2 October 2013

The future of art in the age of the Internet

Is there a living to be made in the future as a musician?   Some of my more musically inclined friends are currently facing this dilemma.  How can the average up and coming musician expect to make enough money to sustain themselves while pursuing their artistic passion?  The internet has created an environment where no one has to pay for any music if they choose not to.  I can empathize with their struggles.  But like everyone else I also take advantage of the convenience that so-called “piracy” gives us.  I’m not particularly opinionated either way.  On one hand I can see that the internet is breaking down so many barriers, some we didn't even know existed.  I see the widespread distribution of all information as a very good thing.  But I’m also aware that people need to be able to feed themselves and pay rent.    

The attitude for creation

lately I’ve been an evangelical preacher about pursuing what you are passionate about.  To a point where it may be irritating for those around me.  If you find something you are passionate about and have the freedom to pursue it, I believe you have to dedicate your life to that pursuit.  If you think you don’t have a passion, I believe you must drop everything in order to discover that passion.  At a certain level, pursuing a passion requires great sacrifice.  You may not be able to support a spouse or family.  You may not be able to dedicate yourself to school or higher education.  You may have to live in poverty.  But you can’t have your cake and eat it too. If you’re an aspiring artist, realize that you will have to give up many things to become a master.  But it should feel like a duty to give yourself to the higher cause of art.  If you really believe you are an artist or creator, it shouldn't feel like a choice to pursue it.  I think this attitude is going to be crucially important as we move into the internet age

The cult of personality.  

We live in a society where we worship musicians.  I obsess over and idolize many bands.  Hell, I even got a Iron Maiden logo tattooed on my leg when I was 20.  When someone gets to that kind of immortal status as an artist, it’s no longer just about the art.  The art becomes secondary to the person who created it.  You become more like a prophet or mythical figure.  If the band Rush releases anything new, I eat it up like candy.  I’m almost unable to recognize it’s true artistic value objectively.  When we get into the same livelihood as those we idolize, we work with the far-fetched distant fantasy in the back our minds where that kind of success is possible.  A fantasy though it is, we still realistically expect to be recognized individually for the art we create.  Because we have a sense of “owning” that which we create.  This ego driven desire, causes a need to be personally recognized for the art we create. When someone appreciates our art, we want to be known as the person who created it.  

The problem with the music “industry”

Perhaps the environment that produced a “music industry” in the first place was itself, unbalanced.  The music scene of the past century has been of an ego-driven and fame based nature.  Because of its democratic nature, the internet is now just revealing the true value of the art.  Maybe the internet is just revealing the realistic expectations we should have about artistic pursuits.     

The concept of owning art doesn't exactly jive with my sense of fairness.  Music as a commodity doesn't make sense to me.  If a piece of music can be recorded and replicated infinite times, what are you selling exactly?  Certainly its not a scarce resource.  From my understanding of economics, I think at the most basic level, there is no way that information like music can be “sold”.  The only reason there ever was a market for music is because of the method that music used to be delivered.  Either by radio or solid media like tapes, CDs or vinyl were the only way you could hear music.  It cost manufacturers and radio stations to distribute this music.  So the only commodity that was actually being sold were the time and services of those with the platform on which to distribute it.  This is probably how we ended up with an over inflated value on popular music and a small population of millionaire musicians.  But the internet has now destroyed any kind of scarcity of distribution to speak of.  How now shall we determine the monetary value of music?   

Plus, the skill it requires to produce music is decreasing.  I’m afraid to insult any electronic music fans here but, I doubt it requires as much effort to create a Deadmau5 album than a Van Halen record.  There aren't many actual instruments being played in dubstep or techno.  Should the effort it took to create a piece of art equal the cost to buy it? There are many unanswerable questions when it comes to knowing how to pay musicians.

The only option moving forward is voluntary donation directly to the artists.  I really don’t see many other ways. But I’m trying to be optimistic about the future, I’m not discounting the unseen possibilities.

Music as the exception

Why does the music industry seem like its the only victim of this market shift? I think nearly all forms of art are going to be affected by the gargantuan presence of the internet.  If not directly affecting the platform to distribute it, its changing people’s attitudes towards art.  The necessity to purchase the results of creativity is no longer there.  We don’t feel obligated to pay for anything creative anymore. I don’t know, but perhaps thats the way things should be.  This keeps the artists free from any financial motivations that may taint the pure passion of their art.  We’ve all heard the story of the once great musician, comedian or actor who “sells out”.     

Here I am, publishing blogs for the world to read without any need for a magazine, newspaper or journal.  Granted it’s a very small audience at the moment, but it doesn't stop me from writing passionately about the things I care about.  I write to hone my craft.  I write because I feel like I have to.

My blogs aren't my “intellectual property” to sell.  It would be ridiculous to expect to be paid with money every time someone read my blog.  I’m just ecstatic that one person took time out of their day to read what I have to say.  My blogs are my own exercises in writing.  They are a growing and (hopefully) improving collective body of unique work on which I try to build an honest intellectual reputation.        

In regards to the music “industry” this may be a helpful attitude for up-and-comers.  Things aren’t going to be like they used to.  But I think there is a place in the world for every passionate individual with a little talent.  Don’t ever expect to get financially compensated for what you do, just be excited someone wants to hear your stuff.  Just keep putting all your passion and effort into this and maybe one day you’ll get what you feel you deserve.    

Wednesday 25 September 2013

The Myth of Memory

In modern times we have a distinct conception of the past.  Two kinds of the past exist in our heads.  We have a version of the past we think of as absolute fact.  This is what we call “History”.  We treat history as all we need to understand humanity and its place in the world.  History is the truth, or at least the pursuit of past truth.  History is the documented version of the past as it happened.  Documented evidence and first hand witnesses are used to to write the history of the world as it truly was.

The second kind of past is myth.  Myth is a version of the past we have extensively marginalized in modern life.  If a sketchy story of the past is told to us, we often disregard it with the phrase, “Oh thats just a myth.”
If we are told about the stories of Sasquatch living in the Pacific Northwest, we may scoff at it and roll our eyes.  To the modern thinker any narrative of the world without evidence is of no use to us.  Without a body of Bigfoot, what good is talking about him doing?  We hate myths because they don’t bring us any documentation we can canonize the history of the world with.  As modern, rational, scientific thinkers we have no time for silly stories that are simply untrue.  We bravely march into the future and discard all the stories that don’t provide us with any hard testable evidence.  By removing all meaning or purpose to the past, we can discover it’s true nature.  But we don’t give as much thought to what myth can tell us about the nature of human beings .
Fact? Fiction? or does it matter?

I think that we misunderstand the purpose of myth.  We think of myth as just a primitive version of history.  I think myth is telling us much more than just what happened in the past.  Myth tells us about how humans view the world around them.  They are stories of the way other cultures view existence.  Myths are how cultures tell their stories of why the world is the way it is.  They characterize our collective fears and aspirations into clean and easy narratives.  History is way too complicated and messy to extract any kind of story worth paying attention to.       

I’m going to outline a rather radical idea I’ve come up with.  I think most of what we think of “history” more closely resembles myth.  Not only that but I think our personal memories of our lives are more like myths rather than truths.  I want to argue that we need to change the way we think about our own lives.  In order to evolve and progress as individuals and as a civilization, we need to outline a more mythical version of our past.      

One of my favorite Youtube channels, Idea Channel outlined an example of history that is more like myth.  The historical Nikola Tesla is not really the man with all his personality and characteristics but a retold version of him created by culture.  History creates a simulated version of everything.  It takes the important parts of the past and compacts it into what we need to know.  Like a myth, history is the version of the past that tells the story of why the world is the way it is.  


This is one of the reasons I find religion so incredibly perplexing.  Why are Christian fundamentalists so insistent about knowing what Jesus actually said?  Why does it matter that Jesus was truly the son of God?  Why does the crucifiction have to be a factual event?  What matters is the meaning people take out of or read into the Jesus story.  The story has been translated and retold so many times by fallible humans to create a cohesive narrative that it is truly absurd to think that these are facts.  Don’t use the bible as a historical document.  Take lessons from it like every other great myth told.
     

The Myth of your life

I recently watched a film called Dark City for my Religious Studies and Science Fiction class.  One of the features in the movie that interested me was the the idea of memory manipulation.  The humans had their memories changed and manipulated by a race of higher beings.  They would experiment with humans and change personal identities by swapping memories with other humans.  People would live their lives thinking that everything was normal but in reality, their identities had been repeatedly rewritten.    

It made me think about how we take our own memories as unchanging truth even though they are so easily changeable.  That “historical” truth becomes the bedrock of our personal identity.  We treat our memories as if they were photographic records of past events.  We pretend that we are walking video cameras that document the world as time passes by the second.  When in reality we are incredibly subjective and selective with our memories.  Memories are re-formed over and over again.  Until they are no longer factual truth. 

If you have been alive for some time, you may have had the experience of sharing a distant memory of an event with an old friend and come to the realization that they way you remember it resembles nothing of your friend’s version of it.  In any given event of our lives, we’ll tell our own version of what happened, but it will be a totally unique version of the event.  What this fact should tell us is that memory should be thought of as not historical truth, but as myths with meaning. Our own memories take the important parts of our lives and add significance to them.  It removes the boring details of moment to moment experience and adds story structure and plot.  Yet we define ourselves by these fractured and colourized versions of the past.  

Many of us are memory fundamentalists.  We treat our memories like they were written in stone facts about the past.  Our memories become the written history of ourselves and we identify with that past.  This is reinforced by the fact that you are incredibly judged by other people’s memory of you.   If you have done bad things in your past, then you are defined by those bad things.  No matter how much you have changed.  No matter how much you desire to move on with your life, you are a bad person because you ARE your past.  If you’ve been to prison, then you’ll always be a convict in the eyes of others.  We define others around us by the past as we remember it.  We hold grudges against people we should probably forgive and cling on to illusions of people that we should let go of.  

I believe the theory of the mythic memory is a great strategy to empower yourself.  By distancing yourself from your past, you don’t have to be held back by it.   Instead of being defined by your past, use it as a story to learn from.  Every instance you’ve fucked up is no longer a stain to be ashamed of.  Those instances are now examples of what not to do in the future.  Your past life is now a story to tell the world. No matter how insignificant you think you are, I believe you have a story worth sharing.  Start narrating your life as if you were the author writing the novel, The Adventures of (your name here).  Think of your life as a movie and you are the playing the hero.  Your life is no longer a historical document but an epic tale of how you turned your life around by overcoming whatever shortcomings you were perceived to have, and decided to live the life you always dreamed of having.