Things I know

During the creation of this blog I mockingly chose the title of “Things I Know”, playing with the idea that at UBC we come to learn, to gain Knowledge with that capital “K”. Knowledge creation is a challenging issue, both in popular culture as well as academia. Where Knowledge is created or comes from is often unquestioned and assumed. Without critical examination of knowledge, we risk ignoring the structural context that shapes not just what we know, but also how we think about it.
The ideologies that surround and encompass our society go unquestioned, but they shape how we think. This is the aspect that I seek to unpack here. Whether the ideology is Science, Feminism or Capitalism, each provides a way to look at the world, and often when submerged within a particular ideology, one is unable to interpret without utilizing that particular framework.
If we take the ideology of Science, Knowledge creation arises from utilizing a value-free and unbiased scientific methodology, grounded in empiricism. Researchers seek to remain distanced from the subject that it studies. How do we enact social change if we seek only to observe society rather than engage with it? This ivory tower methodology has recently come under attack, but still there remains the issue of value-free research.
Back to the reflection of Knowing and the search for Knowledge, it seems a bit naive to think that knowledge only comes in the form of a neatly packaged education, but it remains the only means of knowledge accreditation.

This blog post is in response to a recent post about “Global-McDonaldization”. The author highlights how following post-modernism, we are living in a world of globalization and how increasingly American culture is spread through this mechanism.
This concept of McDonaldization becomes an ideology that becomes the basic logic for which decisions, values and goals are decided. It is pervasive in all aspects of our culture and with the new global economy, in all cultures. McDonaldization arises from the rise of Rationality and the division of labour, where individuals are trained in one particular repetitive task in order to streamline production. This follows the fordism model of factory production.
One of the primary problems of this model was first anticipated by Marx, when he explained that the division of labour will alienate the worker from the product. When a worker is coerced into making only a piece of a product, they are no longer attached from the product as a whole entity. Additinally, worker is also alienated from their labour as well. By making only a particular screw for a chair, you are no longer attached to the actual chair, and you are no longer attached to the labour as a carpenter, you are merely one aspect of the chair making factory line. Working in the factory prevents you from actively engaging with the individual who will eventually purchase that chair too. 
    Similarly, when McDonalds reduces the task of making burgers into a series of steps, which are then introduced as a working manual that is sent to locations around the world, the worker is not making a burger, they are not learning how to be a chef and they are not connecting with the customer. They are reduced down to a function of a burger making facility, reduced down to an aspect of their previous humanity. This is the alienation that Marx feared under capitalism, and this is the pervasive ideology of McDonaldization that encompasses the globe.
The previously mentioned blog post can be found here

Global-McDonaldization?

Consumption
In our current society there, consumption is the basis for interaction. This consumption can be broken down into 3 basic forms, which depending on the perspective, carry various levels of agency and power.
These can be broken down into orientations towards agency and usage.
1) The Rational Actor: Here the individual utilizes the purchasing of goods and survives for their practical and instrumental uses. The individual is a rational being, calculating the best outcome from their actions and purchases. When I buy a computer, I am doing this because it offers the best value for the service I require of it.
2) The Communicator: The individual utilizes consumption as a means for symbolic communication about class, status, group membership. Thorstein Veblen uses the concept of ‘Conspicuous Consumption’ to explain how individuals use luxury good to display economic power and social status. Here that same computer, it draws upon all the connotations that come along with the particular brand of the product.
3) The Manipulated: Here the culture industry manufactures a homogenous and predictable mass culture which is consumed uncritically by the masses. Where you might think that your customizability of your purchases highlight how you are a unique individual, you are in fact just buying into the rhetoric of the marketers. This is pseudo-individualization at its best. Now the computer, instead of highlighting my individuality, only demonstrates the illusion of choice when it comes to buying a computer. The differences between brands is minimal, and overall, unimportant.

Following these three forms of consumption, where do you think you fit? As a rational actor who only buys what they need and uses it foe that express purpose? Or are you using your purchases to explain something about yourself? Claiming group membership or highlighting your individuality.

Storey, J. (2012). Postmodernism. In Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction (6nd
ed.). Essex, England: Pearson Education.

I have the perpetual problem of not being able to enjoy films pop culture artifacts due to a critical and inquisitive nature. I am the one who people hate watching films with when I point out that everyone fits a racial trope or that the film doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test. This, coupled with an endless supply of sociological journal articles relating to race, gender, stereotypes and class prevents me from engaging with the new blockbuster films that are always coming out.
Recently I was invited to watch Guardians of the Galaxy with a group of friends and was shocked by the blatant sexist imagery and remarks as well as the overt connection between the protagonists and american media’s portrayal of terrorism against the country.
Within the film, the super villain is Ronan, an ultra conservative fanatic who seeks to destroy the Xandar people exemplifies this in his quote here.
“They call me terrorist, radical, zealot because I obey the ancient laws of my people, the Kree…. and punish those who do not. Because I do not forgive your people for taking the life of my father, and his father, and his father before him. A thousand years of war between us will not be forgotten”
The terrorism of Ronan and his army closely mimics the representation of terrorist organizations by the American media. As radical religious fanatics who hate the “way of life” of Xandar and are willing to suicide bomb to make their point known, this parallels the war on terror and the representation of the other as fanatical religious terrorists, who are willing to do anything to destroy the American way of life.
On the other side of the equation, there are the “Guardians of the Galaxy”, who are seen as reckless criminals until their military intervention in Xandar results in the destruction of Ronan. The connection between the US military policy and the media’s interpretation of both their own and the terrorists actions are so blatant that it seems that it must be intentional.
Perhaps that I am reading too much into this, seeing various social and political undercurrents being represented in popular media where they don’t exist. On the other hand though, Hollywood films have always been a means to look at the American psyche, whether it be Iron Man and the American Dream or Captain America and the Korean War, popular culture both shapes and is shaped by societies opinions on the political.

This is the curse of the sociological imagination.