Friday, January 27, 2012

I Am Exhausted

          I am exhausted. My eyes are tired, my shins are sore, my head won't de-fog. Whenever I feel like this, the first thing to go (meaning, the first thing I cut out of my day) is technology. I ignore people if they text me, I don't check my Facebook much less any other kind of social media, and my e-mails just keep piling up. I am a news freak but on days like this I don't even read the news. The internet becomes almost repulsive to me. I understand why, I am trying to distance myself, to give myself space and time to think. Anything would be better in those moments than a computer screen.Though I don't react quite as this guy did, I can almost understand where he is coming from.
          But this time I had a thought. How long will it be before I don't have a choice in the matter? Jessie Carter posted a video yesterday that got me thinking. It was a phenomenal video, depicting life in the midst of amazing technology. The people looked very happy, as all people in advertisements should, but today as I feel so drained, I couldn't help but think about how days like this would be if I could never get away from the technology. Right now I could shut my laptop and turn off my phone and filter it all out, but if the entire world ran that way, how could I ever escape? I feel very lucky to live with as much technology as I do, but how much is too much?
          I do realize the irony, here I am blogging about how much I want to get away from technology, but I wanted to see if it would help. Sometimes, when you don't want to do something, you just have to start, right? and then you get into it as you keep going. I'm not sure if it's working or not.
          I have lived in a time where technology was something you could escape from, at least for a little while, but I wonder if my children will be able to? Food for thought. I realize that this post doesn't necessarily have a historical application, but it was just too long for a tweet or a Google+ status.
         
         
         

Monday, January 23, 2012

When is Relativism Okay?

I understand the political argument regarding the size of government moderately well from both sides. I understand that the republican party wants a very hands-off approach of the government, they want a free-market economy, one that will drive the economy and that will enable individuals to act for themselves. The other side of the spectrum wants more government action, they want institutions set in place to protect those who simply cannot get on their feet and protection for the unexpected by making as much as possible regulated. Clearly, this is an overgeneralization, but I hope I'm hitting all of the main points.

My problem with politics is this: where is the middle ground? When is it necessary to say, okay, even though I am a stalwart republican, I think that a more regulated health care is okay because there are just too many problems with the system we have now. When is it necessary for a democrat to say, well, this didn't work lets try it your way. I think that these opportunities arise all the time, we are just to blind or too steeped in our own circle of society to realize it.

During the progressive era, I think that we saw this kind of melding of political ideals out of necessity. The circumstances were amazingly bad. Workers in factories were being paid less than it took them to survive, and thats if they were lucky enough to get a job. Farmers couldn't function because of devastating monetary deflation and the unregulated high prices of shipping. The middle class was farther than ever away from the top rung of society because of the rampant and exorbitant fortunes of a few people like the Rockefeller's and the Carnegie's at the expense of everyone underneath them.

Though these conditions were poor throughout the industrial revolution, it wasn't until the early 1900s that they got any attention. Writers like Lincoln Steffens and Ida Tarbell led the muckrakers, the people who were brave enough (and well off enough) to speak out against the big businesses that were monopolizing society. With the publication and resulting horror of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, people who had never seen the problem or who had been shielded from it were able to participate in fixing it. Through the flow of information, changes were recognized, but it wasn't until the political tides turned that we saw any real changes. The openness of information and the lack of censorship enabled people to individual start making a difference.

With the Teddy Roosevelt in office, one of the youngest presidents at that time, and certainly one of the most revolutionary for his time, came up to the plate and reversed the standard practice of a very republican government. He instituted programs that held the monopolies in check. He helped the labor unions gain recognition. With his square deal, he created checks on he food industry and workers rights. Clearly all of these regulations fall under the democratic political subheading, but weren't they needed? Yes, the country was seriously in debt after these regulations, but the economy was moving. People were on their feet again, immigrants were able to begin fulfilling that American Dream.

So when is the middle okay? In this case, it was okay years before the conditions of the country got so bad. Major corporations should have been limited before they decimated the economy and the living standards of so many, but they weren't, so the pendulum was forced to swing even farther to the left. George Washington warned again the polarization of parties, and I think that I understand more of what that means. But how can we help that now? How can we as a population function under the umbrella of neither the right or the left, and think about only the best interest of the country?

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Immigration then and now

During the 19th century, immigration in America boomed, but just like today, there were plenty of people who wanted it to stop. Ethnic minority groups grew exponentially and, as is the trend with human beings, there was always a group at the bottom of the food chain. One of the strongest arguments against immigration then was that more labor coming in in the form of immigrants would provide cheap labor, undermining  the people already working and forcing down wages.

The problem I am see in now though, is not that illegal immigration is pushing our wages down, but we are literally going and seeking out those lowered wages. Stores like Wal-Mart and Target use foreign labor and can pay workers as little as 50 cents per hour. American manufacturers cannot compete with this kind of cheap production and so we see factories and plants going out of business left and right. The ongoing argument with immigration is that in undermines our American system, but in reality, the American system is doing that all by itself. We as the American public demand the cheapest prices possible, and so, our providers of these products have supplied that, while creating one of the larges job deficits since the Great Depression.

How can we continue to make this argument when we won't protect the jobs we have?

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Romanticism- Can I sign up for that?

In the early 19th century, the budding movement that started in western Europe made it over the Atlantic ocean to America. Romanticism took form on the plains of this newly freed country, and began to shape and define the "American Dream". It was a cultural movement that encompassed art, literature, music, and even education. People began to see things for their beauty and divinity as opposed to their practicality. The Romantic movement was a strong reaction the the previous cultural norms of rationality and classicism that had fueled the revolutions of the previous century as well as the strong commercial and economical ventures of all major countries at the time. The early 19th century was also the time of the Industrial Revolution and was surrounded by war, so romanticism was a kind of escape from reality.
Washington Irving

 In America, the romantic period has some of it's most definitive works in the field of literature. Writers like Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Uncas, Nathaniel Hawthorn, and Walt Whitman wrote about the ideal, the possibilities of man and the supernatural qualities of nature. Writers esteemed to express their feelings of nationalism and pride in the America they saw and what they thought it could become. This movement also differed from its predecessors in the fact that it spoke not use to the wealthy, but to the common man, the peers of the writer, the fellow sufferers in a world filled with war. Writers wrote to lift spirits and to inspire awe.


Artists like Albert Bierstadt and Thomas cole painted with a style never before seen. They painted the land for it's beauty and for the sheer respect they felt for it. The nationalism felt in all examples of romanticism was never far from art of this period and showed a great deal about the inspiration artists received from the world around them to participate actively in American Society. 
The Rocky Mountains, Lander's Peak- Albert Bierstadt


There were certainly problems going on in the world at the time of the romantic period; wars were raging, America was fighting to become a stable and productive country, foreign and domestic affairs were simply a mess, but regardless of all of this, I have to be envious of this kind of mindset. We live in a culture today where it is almost trendy to be critical of our government and our nation as a whole. We are one of the wealthiest nations in the world, and yet there always seems to be something to complain about. I can't imagine being alive at a time like the romantic period, when the pop culture of the time was encouraging American audiences to be grateful for the beauty around them, to be open and aware of their capabilities. I argue that while this time in artistic and literary history may be called frivolous or irrational, we need a little more frivolous and irrational. We need positive thinkers that are louder than the clamor of complaints. There will always be something to complain about, but I believe that we also need to take the time to find something to praise about our world today. 


A positive and awe-filed media, where can I sign up for that? 



Monday, January 16, 2012

We Protest for Change With Change

All of this talk about SOPA/PIPA has really gotten me thinking about our current form of government. I'm also in a Political Science class this semester and as I was reading about the inspiration for our current constitution, I had an overdue thought. John Locke made a great contribution to our political ideology when he said, "And that all men may be restrained from invading others' rights, and from doing hurt to one another, and the law of nature be observed, which willeth the peace and preservation of all mankind, the execution of the law of nature is in that state, put into every man's hands, whereby everyone has a right to punish the transgressors of that law to such a degree, as may hinder its violation".(Second Treatise, Chapter 2). He was saying that law lies in the hands of those it governs, that the people have the right and the responsibility to change what needs to be changed and to give voice to those who cannot speak. 


This past year, we have been privy to watching, and perhaps contributing, to the largest protest America has seen in years. The Occupy Wall Street movement was the reaction of American citizens to actions of government that they deemed corrupt or unlawful. These thousands of people used their rights as citizens to voice their concern and upset. This protest was physical for the most part. People used their sheer physical mass to draw attention to themselves and to get their point across. All other campaigns or protests that have occurred within the last two hundred years have been conducted in this way as well, by physical and very vocal means. The Civil Rights Movement is one very notable example. Thousands were physically present to hear Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech and to show their support. 


The protest surrounding SOPA/PIPA, however, has taken a very different form. While protesters to these bills have been very vocal in their rejection of the legislation, they have done so in a completely new and very apt way; on-line. My realization was this, that technology has even changed the way in which we speak out against our government. The anti-SOPA/PIPA conversation has been going on for as long as the legislation has been on the table. It has been re-hashed, re-worked, dumbed-down for the newbies, and over-analyzed by the technological geniuses of our day, but still our government leaders talk about it as if it were this small, potentially annoying piece of legislation that might just be overlooked. We are fighting change with change. One of the main arguments of anti-SOPA/PIPA people is that the government is trying to control something that it doesn't understand, but as far as I can see, the problem is that the government doesn't understand the people it is trying to govern. 
Firefox add-on DeSopa circumvents internet blacklisting if SOPA becomes law


Our governmental bodies are functioning as they always have, with the same set of rules, the same set of ideals, but we as a nation have changed dramatically in relation to this cause. We are not getting up and shouting or marching down board-walks, we are talking about it on-line. We are discussing the issue with an audience that holds the same view as our own. That audience does not include our officials, apparently. Here we are, one more time, at the Tower of Babel, trying to reach out to on-another in seemingly foreign languages. The legislature considers the problem to be one of geeks and nerds, people with too much time on their hands and who aren't contributing to the tax pool fairly. The internet community sees a problem that could shake the very foundations of their livelihood being handled by money-greedy politicians who would sooner lie to them than shake their hand. I think that this issue, more than any other our nation has seen, is exposing the sheer vastness of opinion and polarity that we have to either deal with, or face grave consequences. 


My point? We as an on-line community need to be louder. They as our legislature need to figure out how to use a search engine. Compromise has to happen now while it still can. No, I don't think that SOPA or PIPA will pass, but they will not be the last legislature to come through regarding these issues, but are the first of many until we can come up with a reasonable solution to our current problems. 

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Education Now

What fascinates me most about any given century or era is the people that come to represent it. Undoubtedly, one of the people that has come to define the 17th century is Sir Isaac Newton, father of the telescope, calculus, the three laws of motion, and hundreds of other ideas that have come to define our lives. As I studied Newton and his influence, it amazed me how many areas of expertise he had claim to. I couldn't get over how amazing the breadth of his research was and how influential he was, not just in science, but in mathematics, religion, and astronomy.

Now, I understand that Newton is not a good representation for people of his age, he was revolutionary and an absolute genius, but his amount of knowledge made me think about the average people that were his contemporaries. In that age, a persons education spanned a wide humber of subjects, and was inclusive of skills like art and music and lengthy historical understanding. Knowledge was compacted and could be called upon at will in a persons mind, as far as I understand. Now though, because of this digital age and how much access we have to information, I feel that the way we learn has completely changed.

Education over time, even in the course of my lifetime, has shifted exponentially away from that kind of compacting knowledge. I now feel very confidant in the fact that my education is not functioning to give me certain facts, but to enable me to get the information I need to function in society and to be a contributive citizen. I hardly think, now, about the fact that I can find whatever I need on the internet in seconds. We have developed a kind of technological intuition; without instruction, we are able to figure out how to do almost anything on our own and are able to troubleshoot and fix problems without even breaking a sweat. My cultural agility isn't based on what I know, but how fast and how accurately I can get the information needed. Creativity is a much larger part of our culture now than 400 years ago, as is our willingness and eagerness to share what information we know and join the global conversation. Information is no longer static, it is alive and changing.

On an eternal level, I can't say which of these two types of learning is better. I really think that sometime in the next 10,000 years, we will have to master both. We will need to be able to think quickly and to compile information, but we will also need the patience and the determination to memorize and to know a lot of information and to understand history. But still, I really feel lucky to be living now. I love the fact that we learn the way we do, I appreciate so much our abilities to learn and adapt so quickly and love being connected to the other side of the planet through my computer screen. I can't wait to see what the future brings in the area of education, and how technology will integrate itself more fully in the classroom.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Google+...Plus?

I read a very interesting article in the NY Times today. Apparently, Google has merged its search engine features with its social media site, so when using this feature called Search Plus Your World, not only do you get listings typical of any other search engine, you get information from your Google+. The point of this new service would be to "...provide relevant information." according to a Google Fellow, relevant meaning anything and everything relating to you personally. Google also wants to integrate other social media into this new feature, so ideally, any social media you use, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. would show up in your search engine. Facebook has declined the invitation as of now, and Twitter released a negative opinion of the idea which is cited in the article.

I don't know how I feel about this. On the one hand, it could be nice to be able to search for absolutely anything all in one place, I am constantly going through my Facebook looking for old posts or pictures and this might be the solution to that problem. On the other hand though, how much personal information would I be subjecting to outside control? Do I actually have as much privacy as I think I do? To stoke my curiosity, I just had to try this out and actually didn't find this new search any different than the old Google. Maybe thats because I am a beginner on Google+, but as of right now, I am not seeing the change in this new program. Time will tell.

Check out the article and join the conversation.  Google Adds Posts From Its Social Network to Search Results

Thursday, January 5, 2012

How Digitally Civilized Am I?

I would love to say that I am extremely civilized digitally, and that I can find my way around any internet site or program without a problem, but that is just not the case. I Facebook, I have had a blog in the past, I love things like Tumblr, but the only real motivation I have had for extensive internet searching or participation voluntarily is aesthetic. I love fashion and all things related and have participated in that part of the internet, but truthfully it is probably one of the most easily accessible genres as it is one of the most commercial. I am also a news junkie as of late, so I am getting better and better at getting the news I want from my favorite papers for free.
I am going to be come a journalist eventually, and in that field changes are happening so fast because of the digital revolution we are experiencing. The idea of being paid to write is a more foreign idea than ever because so many more people are doing it for free. I am extremely interested in how this change in the industry is going to pan out and what new forms writing and selling that writing will take. I know that to be competitive in that marketplace, I am going to need a great deal of digital literacy and am going to need a large understanding of what the digital world is and what it has come from. It could be a very scary career path, but it could also be extremely rewarding, and I am excited to see where a digitally enhanced future could lead me.