Tag: consumerism

As a recent immigrant to British Columbia, I have less exposure to Canada-specific examples of institutionalized racism than typical Canadians; however, thanks to my Cherokee heritage, I’m especially sensitive to aboriginal concerns. This week’s workshop on ‘First Nations and the Social Studies Curriculum’ encompassed several assigned readings that augmented my understanding of the complexities surrounding this dark chapter in North American history. In particular, I found Jean Barman’s article, “Schooled for Inequality: The Education of British Columbia Aboriginal Children”, strikingly cogent. Arguing that ethnic and cultural inequalities were inherent and explicit within Canada’s residential schools, the author presents a damning critique of Canadian apathy. Disproportionate funding for residential and ‘normal’ schools insured that aboriginal students lacked appropriate learning materials, facilities, medical care or food (64). Aboriginal students spent significantly less time each day in the classroom than their Caucasian peers (60). Thus, after years of ‘studying’, aboriginal students left school without much practical understanding, hope, or realistic prospects for independence. Lacking adequate federal support, residential schools were playgrounds for proselytizers and ideologues. In contrast to the professionalism expected of teachers in ‘normal’ schools, teachers in residential schools were often zealous missionaries more interested in ‘saving souls’ than creating informed and independent citizens (63). Finally, a pervasive assumption of cross-cultural ‘sameness’ permeated residential schools and society at large (56). Rather than recognizing divergent aboriginal groups as culturally unique, they were typically pigeonholed and subjugated.

Barman’s arguments reflect a growing awareness of the racism and misanthropy that underpinned Canada’s historic relationship with its aboriginal population. The cross-generational malaise lingers, and is readily apparent in the low percentages of aboriginal graduates. The author makes no proscriptive declarations on what should be done to account for these travesties, but sometimes increasing awareness of problems and leaving the reader with a question is far preferable to having all the blanks filled in.

Socially, I don’t advocate reparations or perpetual servitude to an anachronistic guilt complex. Rather, I favor emancipation. I don’t think the modern idea of property is sustainable or rational, so I don’t think there’s any need for a redistribution of wealth and resources. Rather, I favor a complete dispersion of wealth. I don’t think much can be done to recover or reconcile what has been done. This isn’t a popular perspective in some quarters, but I tend to see it as bad karma. Many westerners misunderstand the concept of karma, so it may help to illustrate my point with a parable once told to me by my Sifu:

Two Buddhist monks were walking through a beautiful mountain valley when they came to a wide and quickly moving stream. While removing their sandals, the younger monk noticed a female standing at the edge of the stream, a few hundred meters up the riverbank. He alerted the older monk to the girl, who then got up and walked over to her. She told the monks that she wanted to get to the other side, but feared the current. With that, the older monk offered to carry the girl to the other side. Having accepted the monks offer, the three waded into the stream and crossed to the other side. Now safely on the other side, the girl thanked the monks and ran off into the forrest. The two monks resumed their journey through the valley, and didn’t stop for rest until nightfall. After building a fire and enjoying a modest meal, the younger monk asked the question he’d been burning to ask, “Master teaches us that we should never corrupt ourselves, but you have broken his teacher by touching a girl. Why?” The older monk serenely looked over at the younger monk and replied, “I put her down hours ago. Why do you still carry her?”

That’s karma. It’s a choice to be free in the moment, enslaved by the past or enchanted by the future. Canadians face a similar predicament today.

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For the workshop on ‘Social Class and Social Studies Curriculum’ we were given another hefty set of readings. Although a few of the assigned readings in this class have had some pragmatic value, I haven’t found any of the readings I’ve been assigned during this program especially enjoyable. Paul Orlowski’s “Social Class: The Forgotten Identity Marker in Social Studies Education”, however, stands as a notable exception.

Orlowski set out to gauge the state of class awareness as enacted through curricula in social studies classrooms in B.C. (29). The article is only one facet of a “much larger project [which] explores the ways in which political ideology has influenced discourses of race and class in both the formal curriculum and teacher attitudes in B.C. social studies education” (30). He conducted a comparative analysis of provincially-endorsed social studies curricula from 1941-1997 (32), and analyzed interviews with social studies department head teachers from 10 Vancouver secondary schools (36). Framing his analysis through the lenses of liberalism, socialism and conservativism, “ideologies that arose out of modernity” (31), Orlowski suggests that there has been a progressive reduction in attention to class consciousness within B.C.’s mandated curriculum.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe once suggested that many of us are under the collective delusion that we are free, but Orlowski reminds us of Marx, who knew that “from a broader, historical perspective, the liberal idea of freedom is unattainable for most people within capitalism” (31). Wealth requires disparity and money = debt; therefore, liberal ideology is fundamentally misanthropic.

Conservatives, on the other hand, accept the inevitability of a hierarchical society “in which people [know] their place” (31). Essentially reactionary, conservatives typically prefer tradition over progress. John Lilly once suggested that all animals resist new information, and Thomas Kuhn’s most enduring contribution to his field may have been the idea that entrenched scientific paradigms can be notorious for embracing tradition and resisting progress. The conservative’s fear of uncertainty has correlates throughout the biosphere (and beyond?), but it is irrational, unsustainable and fundamentally misanthropic. Without progress, species stagnate. Once stagnant, ecosystems collapse. Since conservative ideology resists proactive engagement with novelty and progress, it stands in opposition to cosmologic principles. If the universe operated similar to conservative philosophy, nothing would exist.

The third ‘modern ideology’ was socialism. Orlowski suggests that socialism ‘spun-off’ from liberalism, and that the two are very similar – except in their differing interpretations of the ‘prime social unit’. Whereas liberalism emphasizes the individual as the core component of a healthy society, socialism prioritizes social class itself (31). Orlowski was less critical of socialism, but this may have been due to the over-representation of conservative and liberal ideologies. He paints the Canadian socialist movement favorably, and highlights its relevance in the implementation of federalized health care (32-33). Although Saskachewan’s experiment with socialism produced tangible benefits for the common good of all, popular sentiment still holds socialism in low esteem. Nonetheless, I tend to think historic examples of socialism poorly represented the potential of what a designed society could look like.

To his credit, the author was transparent in the methodology used to interpret and compile data from the interviews. His findings were disquieting. Although psychologists, anthropologists and sociologists recognize the relevance of class in the construction of individual identity, those interviewed disagree (37). Resorting to fanciful rationalizations, they deflected scrutiny of a class divide within Canada. Comparisons were made with poverty in developing countries in order to avoid the face of poverty here in Canada. Conservative and liberal ideologies co-mingled, and poor were characterized as ‘culturally deficient’, ‘genetically inferior’ and ‘psycho-socially weak’. Adding further injury to insult, these “lumpenproletariat” proliferate similarly destructive memes within their classrooms.

Throughout much of the article I found myself aghast but in complete agreement with Orlowski. His incisive discourse was a powerful indictment of the status quo within Canadian social studies. Since there was so much common-ground, I’d like to highlight a few passages that stood out:

”The elites have long recognized the potential of the school curriculum to be used as a hegemonic device” (32). Finally! This realization often gets subsumed by noise, but it’s an important consideration to bear in mind! There are nefarious factions of grotesquely wealthy elites clandestinely working to further their ends, and it’s a collective delusion that their interests coincide with ours. Social studies teachers need to not only be aware of this context, but they also need to be proactive in opposing oppressive forms of hegemony.

”By overstating the case for material consumption, the curriculum performs once again as a hegemonic device in that it normalizes a major aspect of capitalism, namely, the purchasing of wants and not just needs” (33). The intermingling of wants and needs is the raison détat of the public relations industry. Unfortunately, this is an area of history that far too few explore. During my undergraduate study I took a military history course that had a semester long research component followed by a defense before a panel of peers. I chose to examine MG McClure, the avowed ‘father’ of Psychological Operations (PSYOPs). I followed his career and traced the impacts of psychological theory, much of which was brought to the West following WWII by Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud. To that end, Adam Curtis’s documentary series “The Century of Self” bears special relevance:

[googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8953172273825999151[/googlevideo]

The story of the relationship between Sigmund Freud and his American nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays invented the public relations profession in the 1920s and was the first person to take Freud’s ideas to manipulate the masses. He showed American corporations how they could make people want things they didn’t need by systematically linking mass-produced goods to their unconscious desires.

Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticising the motorcar.

His most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile.

It was the start of the all-consuming self which has come to dominate today’s world. (link)

”Requiring some labour history in teacher education would clearly go a long way toward rectifying this situation” (44). I couldn’t agree more! Prior to moving to Canada my exposure to labour studies was very limited, but since UBC didn’t recognize all my transfer credits from Alabama I needed to complete a few tedious prerequisites: 3 credits of literature, 3 credits of geography, and 6 credits of upper-division Canadian history. Time was of the essence, so I enrolled in a 6 credit Canadian labour history course through Athabasca University. The course consisted of 6 essays of varying assigned lengths, and cumulatively I wrote more than 130 pages. In spite of the frustrations, I came out of that class with a strong appreciation for organized labour, and an informed opinion on the methods of capitalists. Orlowski’s advice – that social studies teacher candidates should be aware of the history of labour conflicts – seems noble and appropriate.