12/17/06

the role of intellectuals in the dumbening of america

I am willing to admit that I took a certain amount of snobbish joy in writing the essay on the dumbening of America. What is truly a depressing topic somehow brought joy to me as I wrote about it. Of course, that's why you choose to write about whatever you write about. A journalist who writes about the horrors of war in Africa can feel good about their writing because they have related important information to the world. And while I know a good deal of my joy in the "dumbness" piece comes from this, I worry that some of it comes from something deeper and more sinister. There is that lurking overwhelming sense of pride in the fact that I am not a dumb American.

Intellectuals have always celebrated their lives apart from most of humanity. Traditionally, European intellectuals were always from the privileged classes, scorning the silly masses. And though today's American intellectuals (in theory) represent all races and classes, I wonder if this better-than-you mentality is not only present, but also dangerous to American society.

Being an intellectual is always tragic; there is inevitably the sense of having battled against some adversarial force. This adversary is most commonly the society of idiots who just won't let the intellectual be themselves. But despite their complaining about this, I think there is a certain thread in the intellectual tradition that needs this opposition. There is a sense that one's greatness only exists in measure to the relative stupidity of those around you. If America (or the world) stopped being dumb, where would the intellectuals be? They'd be the same as everyone else. This is what they (we) all espouse to support, but could they (we) really stand the scenario of not being the smartest kid in the classroom anymore?

What I'm getting at is that I say I wish everyone read the New York Times every morning, but I secretly take pleasure in the fact that I am one a small number of people who actually do read the New York Times every morning. I wish that Fox News didn't exist, but I feel self-important knowing (and saying) that it is bullshit. The Daily Show is what I consider the pinnacle of television, yet it's entire premise is laughing at (and thus enjoying?) America's descent into dumbness. Is this smart, cynical attitude somehow responsible for the stupidity?

It would be very difficult to draw a direct causal connection. However, intellectuals make no secret of their attempts to cordon themselves off from the world. I am currently in a state of near personal crisis regarding my decision whether or not to attempt to enter the tower of academia. It's a wonderful, enlightened place, but the hoops are so high, and the people are so snobby, I don't know if it's worth it. This is where the partitioning of society begins. Those with PhD's scorn those without them, when in truth, being granted one is based on about 43% skill and 57% popularity contest. Being the brightest is definitely an exclusive club, and I wonder if that attitude among our best educated somehow contributes to America's dumbness.

Certainly the intellectual snobbishness doesn't aid in achieving a truce in the culture war, but does it really contribute to the stupidity of those in the other trenches? Is there something about the way that we say "everyone should listen to NPR" that makes the masses prefer Fox News? Could we be subconsciously doing this on purpose?

I certainly fucking hope not, because I feel that I honestly, sincerely believe it when I say that everyone should listen to NPR and read the New York Times. Sure I take pride in the fact that I do these things, but I don't think I would take any less pride if everyone else did them too. I take pride in doing them simply because it is the right thing to do. Doing the right thing doesn't feel any less good if everyone else is doing it. It's fun to be the smartest kid in the class, but it's also much more fun to be in a class full of smart kids than a class full of idiots.

the dumbening of america

My boss asked us all to write an essay for him. Thought I might as well post it.

When recent polls show that a clear majority of Americans now believe we should not have invaded Iraq, the obvious question is “where were these people four years ago?” How is it possible that most Americans could see the Iraq war as the scam it was/is only after four years of blood, bombs, and billions of dollars in defense spending? I believe we are dealing with an American public that has been and continues to be severely “dumbened” by its government and media. The deterioration of the public school system, focusing on standardized test scores, and not on critical thinking skills is the first cause of this problem. The second is a media that increasingly insists on breaking the world and its complexities into simple, fast thirty-second segments.

The intellectual decline of America is a significant issue not only for myself and my country of origin, but for the entire world. Due to the global dominance of the United States, the stupidity of the American public can have consequences for all nations and peoples. The Iraq war is the most prominent reminder of this fact. Many Americans do not consider issues and events in any detail, or with any analysis, often failing to perceive the connections between actions and circumstances. They have very little knowledge of or interest in the complex factors that create the world we live in. In a democratic system, a country of shallow thinkers is poorly equipped to pick qualified leaders. When that country is a world super-power, the situation has global effects.

A public education system that increasingly ignores the teaching of critical thinking plays a lead role in America’s declining intelligence. Education in the United States has fallen behind worldwide standards, largely due to lack of funding. The solution to this problem has been to implement a system of monitoring schools based on standardized test scores. This leads to a situation where teachers must focus on preparing their students for the barrage of multiple-choice tests taken on a yearly basis. The problem with this approach is that standardized tests by nature cannot gauge critical thinking skills. Thus, teachers do not teach critical thinking skills, because they are not part of the standardized testing regiment. A whole generation of Americans now has memorized facts where their ability to think, question, make inferences, and see connections should be.

While the education system affects only the youth, the U.S. media makes idiots out of Americans of all ages. Most Americans no longer get their news from print (or written) media, opting instead for the speed and sheen of television. While television is not inherently bad as a media, in practice, television news is over simplified, sensationalized, and sped up to a dizzying pace. Television news usually gives multifaceted issues and events a simple treatment in a thirty-second clip, before moving on to the next story. In addition to simplification, television news fails its viewers in terms of content. Important stories that actually affect peoples’ lives are ignored, while inconsequential but sensational stories are headlines. The result is an American public that thinks in simple terms about current events, while often being completely ignorant of an important event’s occurrence or significance.

Thus, Americans are being “dumbened” by their public school system and media. This is troubling not only because of American power in the world at large, but also because of America’s influence on global culture. Will the entire world follow the U.S. down the road to idiocy?

12/15/06

seoul


It's no secret that teachers expose themselves to an unusually high amount of infection causing bacteria and viruses. Every time one of my students coughs or sneezes, I cringe and try to hide behind my podium. Unfortunately, these high-tech attempts at disease control appeared to have failed miserably, as I was made miserable two weeks ago by some sort of Asian super-cold. Rather than stay home and nurse myself the first weekend I came down with the illness, I was whisked away on a weekend trip to Gyeongju and Daegu by my boss. (A journey so bizarre it could only be related through some sort of Pynchonesque story-within-a-song-within-a-story in some future post.) By last Friday, I was producing green phlegm in silver-dollar-sized dollops. However, once again, it was time to travel, so instead of resting, I hopped a bullet train for Seoul.

Now, everyone is grumpy when they are sick, but I have a very special talent of insisting on doing something (like traveling to Seoul), and then having a bad attitude about it the entire time because I'm sick. As you may have guessed, negative attitudes tainted much of our trip.

There's nothing in principle, or in practice, to dislike about Seoul right off the bat; it's big, exciting, happening, and easy to navigate. That said, stepping off the train from Daejon in Seoul Station is much like arriving in Grand Central Station fresh from Portland. The speed of the city astounds you so much that you feel everyone around you can literally see your eyes bugging out of your face. I felt like a country bumpkin peeling and eating my mandarin oranges (kyul) in the packed and crammed subway line. Of course, the shock and awe wears off as soon as you've completed your first successful multi-line subway trip without incident.

Our first destination was Dongdaemoon, the east gate market district. I love markets, and was hoping for some crazy-exciting wares that cannot be found at the Joongangno market in Daejon. It was a real shame that poor planning brought us to Dongdaemoon right as the final rays of light were disappearing from the sky, the bitter dry chill was setting in, and the marketeers were shutting down for the evening. As an unfortunate side note, what we did see of the market seemed to indicate that it contains exactly the same cheap goods peddled in Joonangno, just more of them. By the time we were getting back on the subway, I was already making snide comments like "I don't even know why we came here."

The next stop was Itaewon, the "Little America" of Seoul. Already, we had been seeing far more westerners than we are used to, and feeling a little off put by it. But Itaewon, whoa, that place is foreigner central. Some things are annoying, like the hordes of silly white people (in no small part due to its proximity to a major US army base), but many others things were very cool and refreshing. Examples include an all black hair saloon, and a rocking English bookstore. We had a delicious (if extremely expensive) Greek dinner before it was about time to leave Itaewon.

Hongdae is the really cool district of Seoul; it is the happening University area, where bars, shops, and art schools all combine for a hip neighborhood. Taylor was ecstatic to finally see stenciling in Korea. (I am slightly suspicious that most of the stencils were Westerner-made, though Taylor disagrees with me on this point. Unsurprisingly, not our only disagreement of the trip.) Luckily, Ben X happened to be in the neighborhood, where he was working on shooting a short movie with a gay Venezuelan filmmaker he had met in a Spanish chat group. He was able to walk us down the main strip of Hongdae, but it was Taylor who spotted "Bar Da", an inauspicious second floor bar with a seemingly secret entrance. It was extremely small but cool inside. I felt like I was back in Portland. One of the bartenders was even wearing what seemed to be a self-modified sweater. My favorite thing about Bar Da was the shoe-box size diorama of the bar built into the bar wall. (Man I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.)

When it was time to sleep, we slipped into a Ben X recommended jim jil bang (previously called a "jil jil bang"). You may know these as the public baths, but there are also sleeping accommodations, which involve one large room with hard floors that you sleep in with a bunch of clothed (or unclothed) dudes (or ladies). Did I mention I was suffering from a cold? This was not my ideal sleeping arrangement. But, in order to fulfill my ongoing desire to make the world (or at least Taylor) as miserable as me, I decided to assent to staying there so I could complain about it later. Not that I was lacking in things to complain about. The dark communal sleeping room had hard floors, and tough leather pillows. There were only three dudes in there when I crawled into bed around two, and I thought "this could work". That soon changed. Soon the room was full of (mostly) drunk, snoring Koreans, about thirty of them. I finally drifted off around four, only to wake up about five to find that the room's population had nearly doubled, and that I was centimeters away from being spooned by a half-naked Korean man. And I had to piss. I knew that as soon as I got up, my space and pillow would be devoured by the wall-to-wall sleeping mass, so I didn't even bother going back upstairs to the sleeping room. Instead, I opted to try passing out on the floor of the well-lit locker room, as roughly 15 other dudes had already done. I don't think I was drunk enough to achieve that task. By the time Taylor and I met at our appointed time of ten a.m., I was really, really salty, and looking to take it out on someone. (As a pleasant side note - my sleepless hours gave me plenty of time to boil away in the tubs, which actually helped clear out my sinuses and bronchial tubes.)

Our morning was expectedly filled with snappy comments and fights on the quarter hour. This was inflamed by the fact that the Western breakfast place we tried to go to (which, incidentally, is run by the US army) was closed. We didn't have the energy (or resolve) to battle our way through Itaewon again so early in the morning, so we had to bail on our coveted Western breakfast. We instead headed to Korea's version of a fake colonial town where you buy "authentic" souvenirs, Insadong. In retrospect, it was actually a pretty cool place, but Christmas shopping was about the only activity I felt could make me more miserable than I already was. Finally, Taylor dumped me in a Starbucks with a copy of the International Herald Tribune, and set out on her own.

It was actually a kind of blessing that our train tickets home were only available in separate seats. This allowed Taylor to make a new Korean friend, who is in the army, and thus needs a place to stay over the weekends, who will be joining us in our home for Christmas Eve. By the time this was relayed to me as we got off the train in Daejon, I was so burned out on being in a bad mood that I couldn't even come up with any nasty comments to make.

12/5/06

moon base


So, we're going to build a base on the moon. Awesome. Now, I'm about as stoked on science and understanding the universe as they come. And I have to admit that it just sounds really fucking cool to say "Yeah, we've got a base on the moon." And of course, the moon is the best place to try out our hand at space colonization. So yeah, there's a part of me that says "Go moon base!"

However, if I think about the moon base for more than 87 seconds, the glitter and coolness starts to wear off, and reality starts to sink in. The moon? I'm pretty sure there's not much going on there. At least not much that humans need to be around for. Like I said, I'm all about research, but I think robots can tell us most of what we need to know about the moon, or Mars for that matter, for about half the cost. But I don't think this action is about research. I think some people think that we can/should set up viable colonies on the moon, and then Mars. Again, of course this appeals to the 8-year-old boy in all us, who would love to run around in moon boots and chase Martians. But well, we're not 8 anymore, and despite how cool it sounds, there is absolutely no reason for people to live on the moon. There isn't even an atmosphere on the moon, much less water*, plants, ecosystems, etc., all of which we need to survive. Also, I don't understand what people think the moon has that we want. Not only is the moon useless to use as real estate, it's a real hassle to live there. It's like Arizona without water, air, or regulated temperature. In other words, hell, but worse.

One argument I've heard for colonizing space is that we're going to have to, because we are destroying our own planet so quickly. I agree that we are making Earth an uninhabitable place for humans, but I really don't think the moon and/or Mars is the answer. As it stands, we will really have to do some serious damage in order to make Earth harder to live on than Mars. My opinion is, since it will cost astronomical amounts of money to move to space, can we instead just not ruin our planet? I really don't think it will be that hard. Certainly easier than building a new civilization on the red planet.

The biggest argument I have with myself on this issue is trying to imagine myself as a 15th century European flat-earther. Am I just lacking in imagination? Is space really a great place for us to live, I just can't seem to conceive of it properly? I've decided no, I am not being closed minded in my assessment of space colonization. In the time of European trans-Atlantic exploration, people didn't know exactly what they were going to find, but they were pretty sure it was something they would be interested in. They knew it would be be land with viable resources and food production potential, and/or convenient transportation passages. In contrast, we aren't sure what the moon has for us, but we know enough to know it's not really anything that we need. You can't grow anything there. Any resources that happen to be there would be way too expensive to ship home. And I'm pretty sure there aren't any moon people for us to enslave.

I think what this is really about is that pesky little inconvenience we know as the military-industrial complex. Lockheed-Martin is already scheduled to make a bundle of money building the new human cargo space-craft. You can bet they will also stand to run away with a sack of money on this whole moon base scheme. What the government thinks we really need, more than a base on the moon, is for their buddies in the defense industry to get big business in government contracts. This isn't about going to the moon, it's about somebody making huge profits building the equipment that will take us to the moon. I recently accidentally ran across this graph of NASA funding, which shows a very substantial jump in 2001. Does it just happen that space exploration is the one area of science Bush is not opposed to? No, NASA is inextricably linked to the military-industrial complex.

Finally, my major concern with the moon base is not that it is bad in and of itself. No, even if useless for colonization, a moon base would still be cool. My concern is the opportunity cost. There are LOTS of people in the United States who do not have health care. There are many people who are much worse off than this. Our social security system is about to crash. Our public schools are rapidly deteriorating due to piss-poor funding. And that's the reason we can't afford another couple hundred billion dollars on pet projects for the defense industry. A moon base would be cool, I guess, but universal health care, a functioning public school system, an end to homelessness, and I don't know, maybe legitimate combat of AIDS in Africa would be pretty cool too.

*Turns out, there might be water there, which we would use for oxygen (for breathing) and hydrogen (for fuel). The feasibility of this is questionable.

12/1/06

political turmoil



While the world is still bitching and moaning about North Korea, by far the most consistent and continuing news story in South Korea is the ongoing FTA negotiations with the United States. I found it particularly of note when I read a news article back in the middle of October about the fact that the National Police force was sending 10,000 "troops" to the fourth round of FTA talks. I mean, I know that Free Trade Agreements are not popular around the world, but seriously, 10,000 policemen? This in a country where laws seem to just be abided by, despite the visible lack of any kind of police presence. I see a police car on the street maybe once every three days. If you would have asked me, I would have been surprised that there even were 10,000 police officers in the country. Yet, all the plant stores leave their merchandise outside all night long, and no one steals it. I couldn't imagine what they thought the FTA protesters would do.

As it turned out, on the second day of talks, the protesters stormed the fortified compound where the talks were taking place, managing to tear down a shipping container and hospitalizing several police officers. I talked about this incident with my students, telling them I was surprised, considering how mild mannered, polite, and law abiding I had found Koreans to be. My students were not surprised. I now realize why they were not surprised. Since then, violent FTA protests have occurred at least twice a week, all across the country. In Seoul, there are major labor protests almost every day. Some of these target the FTA, others are for completely unrelated reasons. It seems universally known that protesters bring sharpened bamboo spears to every protest, and pictures of black masked people lighting buildings on fire seem commonplace in the newspaper. How is it that a society I find to be so respectful of the law can have this continuous violence?

The answer I have gotten is that it is related to Korea's semi-recent political situation. If you have only been alive since the early 1980's (as I have), you weren't alive for the huge political turmoil that characterized this country from the 1960's to the early 1980's. I still know very little about this period of Korean history, save that there were military coups, assassinations, extremely repressive military regimes, etc. So, even though South Korea has had a period of political stability and economic growth for the past twenty-odd years, this legacy of social and political upheaval seems to have survived. And despite a general feeling that everything is business as usual around here, I recently found out that President Roh (pronounced No (I don't have time to explain, or really a good understanding of, the reason the President's name is different in Korean and English)) Mu-Hyun's approval rating is significantly below that of even our beloved Bush (whose name, incidentally, in Korean, is pronounced "Goji Bushi"). This actually has nothing to do with North Korea, and everything to do with what Koreans see as a lack of job opportunities.

I had always assumed that South Korea was a stable, developed country; that political turmoil was limited to Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. My experiences here initially did nothing but reinforce this notion. The atmosphere is calm, people are generally prosperous (at least moderately), and society doesn't seem to be extremely polarized. However, the FTA protests and other events have changed my mind. While I am not worried about serious political instability, or a coup of any sort, I can definitely see the effects of decades of turmoil still rippling around society. My favorite example of this came today, regarding the issue of a conservative group writing new history textbooks that glorify the military regimes of the 1960's. At an academic conference discussing the new book, violence broke out, including desks flying through the air. Not generally the type of behavior you expect from academics at a nation's top university.