Previoiusly published in the Terre Haute Tribune Star, 5/9/10
Last week I noticed each of my colleagues staring into their computer screens. It struck me how much time we spend doing that. Not everyone is doing the same thing, some are answering e-mails (20 years ago it might be answering telephone messages), some are reading (used to be print journals, books, and newspapers), and some are grading (that too used to be on paper).
Four years ago my university supplied me with a laptop computer. It took me nearly three years to begin using it like one. Now, instead of a briefcase stuffed with books and papers, I carry my laptop home every night. Not only is the laptop changing what is in my briefcase, it is also changing our social life. What follows is not a curmudgeonly rant against change. Change is rarely all good or all bad.
Just as television moved Americans out of dining rooms to the “TV room,” computers, too, are changing social life. In just the last few months, I notice that at my home, with three laptop computers, we three typically sit together in the family room with laptops open tapping out a clickity-clack rhythm on the keyboard as we work away the evening. While the three of us share space, we are not really “together” as each of us is engaged in different worlds. With my laptop, my work day now commonly extends until bedtime. Before the laptop, I would descend to the basement, grade papers, and then rejoin the family upstairs. Now I finish the grading and go on to something else. In many ways, I might as well still be in the basement.
There are Internet sites set up for online marriages (I think legally they are called proxy marriages). I’m sure there are circumstances where the bride and groom cannot be physically in the same place and the capability to do this is a godsend. Weddings are being set up with live video streams for those unable to attend. I imagine a receiving line for those physically there and a digital one for those who are not.
I imagine kitschy animated hugs and handshakes, even a virtual dance with the “avatar” bride at the reception.
Facebook already has an “app” where people host a virtual Thanksgiving feast as a fundraiser. We have the capability to join far-flung families to the same digital table with a laptop and Skype connection. I imagine a soldier joining her family for Thanksgiving; mom’s video image at her seat at the table. She could digitally participate in the family’s traditional cranberry juice toast.
Virtual participation in Fourth of July celebrations would be fun. As many families put on their own fireworks shows, family members joining digitally could activate fireworks remotely. With “air cards” laptops could even be taken on boats, and Grandma, who is otherwise confined to a wheelchair, could even experience the point of view of waterskiing again.
We’ve had audio transmitting capability for a long time. It is the computer’s visual capabilities that make it so appealing. We are visual animals. It is why we like to look at pictures of birthday parties and vacations instead of just hearing about them (“a picture is worth a thousand words”).
Social life is founded upon more than two-dimensional visual and auditory interaction however, which is what computer mediated communication is. As we computer-mediate more and more social interaction, we do lose things. Twenty-five years after getting married I still recall the smell of my wife’s perfume (or maybe it was a dryer sheet). Catholic and Episcopal weddings include mass. The incense is part of the experience.
So is touch. A video congratulation is nice, but it is only filler compared to a hearty handshake or a hug. A kiss is not a visual experience. Yet, camera phones have reduced teenage flirting to “sexting.” Reducing desire or a tease to a two-dimensional digital image is a long way from a perfumed note or a cheek caressed.
Interaction is a sensory experience. The basis of social life is interaction among people even when interaction is highly ritualized, like at weddings and holidays. As the two-dimensional, mostly visual, computer-mediated interactions come to underlie more and more of our interaction, it will change the experience of the interaction and thus change our social lives. What would a digital caress feel like?
Just as industrialization changed the taste and nutritional value of fruit and vegetables, information technology is altering the quality of our social lives.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Worldwide, ‘white culture’ seems to have strong hold
Previously published in the Terre Haute Tribune Star (April 4, 2010)
TERRE HAUTE — I grew up in a tourist town. Like all tourist towns, the locals had a love-hate relationship with the tourists. My parents didn’t care for the tourists (even though they had once been tourists themselves, Midwesterners, they honeymooned on a Florida beach and ended up staying forever). I, however, found tourists to be fascinating. As a child, I recall meeting people with strange accents in our library. As I grew older and was able to get to the beach resorts, I’d try to meet visitors from faraway places.
When I am the tourist, I care less about that which draws tourists (theme park, beautiful beaches, mountain vistas, ancient temples) than the possibility of meeting interesting people. Unlike most people at a theme park who hate standing in long lines, I don’t mind. It gives me a chance to talk to others who I otherwise would never have a chance to meet. Of course, this is hard because most people are not like me, they are more interested in the upcoming four minutes of thrill ride, than in meeting new people.
After my weeklong academic conference in Bangkok in February, I extended my trip with three days of touring Ankgor Wat, the ancient temple complex outside Siem Reap, Cambodia. This is the largest temple complex in the world (so the local tourism ministry tells us). In three days of touring ancient temples, I took about 1,000 pictures of fascinating testaments to humanity’s ability to construct monuments to its deities and earthbound rulers.
While I appreciate the experience of the ruins, the head-scratching moments (“and they didn’t have cranes”) pales in comparison to the chance to meet interesting people. And in Siem Reap, most of the people didn’t speak English (at least not as their first language) and that means I’m in a target-rich environment to meet people with different experiences and different perspectives than me.
Anyone who has traveled with me knows that I quiz taxi drivers, waiters, first mates on snorkel boats, and just about anyone who I can, about their “story.” How did “you” come to be here now? We hired a guide in Siem Reap and I asked him how he learned English, how he came to be a tour guide, what his future plans were. He graciously answered my questions. I met many people at the conference, several with whom I am having e-mail conversations. They know about my gentle prodding curiosity into their lives. It is an occupational hazard, sociologists are unapologetic about their burning curiosity into the “ways” of people.
I met a “farang” (Western foreigner) couple at one of the temples we were “exploring.” He stood out. Over 6 feet tall, with gleaming white hair, he was speaking Khmer to the children selling postcards and drinks to we hot and flagging temple tourists. He made the children laugh and he was having a good time doing it. His wife, too, spoke a little Khmer. He spoke to our guide and switched to French. I said something and he looked at me, switched to English and said “American?”
His English was tinged with a German accent. I asked him how he came to know Khmer. He told me he knew many languages, that he was conversant in 11 different languages. I guessed right, he was in the foreign service. He told me that he had a facility with language, that he found it easy to pick up new languages. He was retired now, living in France. Both he and his wife were very pleasant. As we talked, I thought, perhaps we could meet them later in Siem Reap for a drink.
And then “it” happened. This remarkably gifted person, who, despite his modesty at learning language, clearly put the effort out to learn 11 different languages and understood the importance of language and of making the effort to respect and engage people of other cultures by learning their language and culture, looked right at our guide, and said to us: “You know, white people and white culture will soon be gone. Your people, the Asians are taking over the world. There will be no more white skin, there will be no more white culture.”
I’m surprised he didn’t Sieg Heil at the end of that. He said this with a most genuine and warm smile on his face. I think he then repeated it in Khmer, just in case the children and our guide didn’t understand.
Born 10 to 15 years earlier, he might have been a Hitler Youth Camp Counselor, but given his aristocratic bearing more likely a high ranking SS officer.
I don’t know if he registered our shock. I wondered something a bit different about him. I told him that I was of German heritage and told him my last name. I know what it means in German and his reaction was what I expected. He mumbled something to the effect that “language changes over time,” broke off our conversation and walked off, with a gracious goodbye.
Three minutes before I thought here is a terrific example of the future in a globalized society. People will have to become culturally competent across many language and cultural boundaries. I was even thinking, could I learn Thai beyond the ability to order food in a restaurant or tell a taxi driver where to take me? Could I learn enough to ask one of my new Thai colleagues their story and understand it in Thai?
This German world citizen is wrong. Neither “white culture” or white people are going to disappear. “It” and “we” might, however, share some shelf space. The economic and military superiority of “white culture” is a recent historical event. The impact of freer trade is evident in the countries we visited. Indeed, the hunger for “white culture” as Herr Rassistische (translate in Google Translator if you wish) would call it, is evident everywhere we went in Thailand and Cambodia. Right down to the desire for Frau Rassistische’s alabaster white skin.
I suspect that the Amer-Asian children and grandchildren left behind by American soldiers fighting in Vietnam have now found new status as the preferred image for Thai and other Asian societies. The cosmetics industry is clearly geared that way. Last week the Thai government appointed someone to examine the claims made by various cosmetics products to lighten skin as fraud and into possible negative health effects of these treatments. Entertainment is heavily influenced by American and European trends.
I went to a Thai nightclub called the German Brewery. It was a Haufbrauhaus Thai style. This wasn’t a place for Germans weary of Tom Yum soup. This was a nightclub catering to Thai tourists, best as I could tell. While the music was not German, the entertainment was definitely more American with Thais adding their lemongrass and chiles. We even sang and danced to “YMCA.”
“White culture” disappearing? To me it looks like, through the airwaves, global travel and the Internet, that far from disappearing, “white culture” (and even the crude notion of white skin) is far from disappearing, it is proliferating. And along with it is that concept of white superiority. Too bad we can’t get beyond such crude rankings.
TERRE HAUTE — I grew up in a tourist town. Like all tourist towns, the locals had a love-hate relationship with the tourists. My parents didn’t care for the tourists (even though they had once been tourists themselves, Midwesterners, they honeymooned on a Florida beach and ended up staying forever). I, however, found tourists to be fascinating. As a child, I recall meeting people with strange accents in our library. As I grew older and was able to get to the beach resorts, I’d try to meet visitors from faraway places.
When I am the tourist, I care less about that which draws tourists (theme park, beautiful beaches, mountain vistas, ancient temples) than the possibility of meeting interesting people. Unlike most people at a theme park who hate standing in long lines, I don’t mind. It gives me a chance to talk to others who I otherwise would never have a chance to meet. Of course, this is hard because most people are not like me, they are more interested in the upcoming four minutes of thrill ride, than in meeting new people.
After my weeklong academic conference in Bangkok in February, I extended my trip with three days of touring Ankgor Wat, the ancient temple complex outside Siem Reap, Cambodia. This is the largest temple complex in the world (so the local tourism ministry tells us). In three days of touring ancient temples, I took about 1,000 pictures of fascinating testaments to humanity’s ability to construct monuments to its deities and earthbound rulers.
While I appreciate the experience of the ruins, the head-scratching moments (“and they didn’t have cranes”) pales in comparison to the chance to meet interesting people. And in Siem Reap, most of the people didn’t speak English (at least not as their first language) and that means I’m in a target-rich environment to meet people with different experiences and different perspectives than me.
Anyone who has traveled with me knows that I quiz taxi drivers, waiters, first mates on snorkel boats, and just about anyone who I can, about their “story.” How did “you” come to be here now? We hired a guide in Siem Reap and I asked him how he learned English, how he came to be a tour guide, what his future plans were. He graciously answered my questions. I met many people at the conference, several with whom I am having e-mail conversations. They know about my gentle prodding curiosity into their lives. It is an occupational hazard, sociologists are unapologetic about their burning curiosity into the “ways” of people.
I met a “farang” (Western foreigner) couple at one of the temples we were “exploring.” He stood out. Over 6 feet tall, with gleaming white hair, he was speaking Khmer to the children selling postcards and drinks to we hot and flagging temple tourists. He made the children laugh and he was having a good time doing it. His wife, too, spoke a little Khmer. He spoke to our guide and switched to French. I said something and he looked at me, switched to English and said “American?”
His English was tinged with a German accent. I asked him how he came to know Khmer. He told me he knew many languages, that he was conversant in 11 different languages. I guessed right, he was in the foreign service. He told me that he had a facility with language, that he found it easy to pick up new languages. He was retired now, living in France. Both he and his wife were very pleasant. As we talked, I thought, perhaps we could meet them later in Siem Reap for a drink.
And then “it” happened. This remarkably gifted person, who, despite his modesty at learning language, clearly put the effort out to learn 11 different languages and understood the importance of language and of making the effort to respect and engage people of other cultures by learning their language and culture, looked right at our guide, and said to us: “You know, white people and white culture will soon be gone. Your people, the Asians are taking over the world. There will be no more white skin, there will be no more white culture.”
I’m surprised he didn’t Sieg Heil at the end of that. He said this with a most genuine and warm smile on his face. I think he then repeated it in Khmer, just in case the children and our guide didn’t understand.
Born 10 to 15 years earlier, he might have been a Hitler Youth Camp Counselor, but given his aristocratic bearing more likely a high ranking SS officer.
I don’t know if he registered our shock. I wondered something a bit different about him. I told him that I was of German heritage and told him my last name. I know what it means in German and his reaction was what I expected. He mumbled something to the effect that “language changes over time,” broke off our conversation and walked off, with a gracious goodbye.
Three minutes before I thought here is a terrific example of the future in a globalized society. People will have to become culturally competent across many language and cultural boundaries. I was even thinking, could I learn Thai beyond the ability to order food in a restaurant or tell a taxi driver where to take me? Could I learn enough to ask one of my new Thai colleagues their story and understand it in Thai?
This German world citizen is wrong. Neither “white culture” or white people are going to disappear. “It” and “we” might, however, share some shelf space. The economic and military superiority of “white culture” is a recent historical event. The impact of freer trade is evident in the countries we visited. Indeed, the hunger for “white culture” as Herr Rassistische (translate in Google Translator if you wish) would call it, is evident everywhere we went in Thailand and Cambodia. Right down to the desire for Frau Rassistische’s alabaster white skin.
I suspect that the Amer-Asian children and grandchildren left behind by American soldiers fighting in Vietnam have now found new status as the preferred image for Thai and other Asian societies. The cosmetics industry is clearly geared that way. Last week the Thai government appointed someone to examine the claims made by various cosmetics products to lighten skin as fraud and into possible negative health effects of these treatments. Entertainment is heavily influenced by American and European trends.
I went to a Thai nightclub called the German Brewery. It was a Haufbrauhaus Thai style. This wasn’t a place for Germans weary of Tom Yum soup. This was a nightclub catering to Thai tourists, best as I could tell. While the music was not German, the entertainment was definitely more American with Thais adding their lemongrass and chiles. We even sang and danced to “YMCA.”
“White culture” disappearing? To me it looks like, through the airwaves, global travel and the Internet, that far from disappearing, “white culture” (and even the crude notion of white skin) is far from disappearing, it is proliferating. And along with it is that concept of white superiority. Too bad we can’t get beyond such crude rankings.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Extreme hospitality in ‘Land of Smiles’
Previously published in the Terre Haute Tribune Star, 3/21/2010
“Sa wad dee kha!” This is the almost universal greeting one hears in Thailand. It is a very pleasant greeting and the Thai language does not seem to have as many hard sounds in it, like German and Japanese. The result is a pleasing and welcoming sound when added to a “wai,” hands held in prayer-like form with fingertips someplace between one’s nose and forehead with a slight bow, is an obvious welcome, even if one doesn’t understand the language. I returned recently from eight days in Thailand (Bangkok) and Cambodia (Siem Reap).
Thailand, sometimes referred to as the “Land of Smiles”, is appropriately named. The culture is one of extreme hospitality. It is no wonder that so many “farang,” (western foreigners) become enchanted by Thailand. Me, known for being serious, found myself smiling along with so many happy people. It was infectious.
Bangkok is a seemingly modern city with street markets that seem unchanged from hundreds of years ago except that cell phones are for sale within sight of hogs’ heads; one could get their hair dyed green and get a custom tailored silk suit two stalls down next to a table of lemongrass.
Other than rice, I don’t think there is any bland food in Thailand. Chilis, lime, and tamarind leaves seem to be the most common flavors. Lots of fresh fruit. I’ve never known people who like to eat like the Thais do. Several times our Thai hosts made light of how Thais organize everything around eating. I believe it. Skipping meals in Thailand might be evidence of mental illness.
Even to someone like me who was raised in the south and has lived much of my life in the “Bible Belt,” Thais appear to be a religiously observant people. The dominant religion is Buddhism, and often the most striking building in sight is the “wat,” or Buddhist temple. The “wat” is gleaming white, red, and gold, often the biggest and tallest building in its area. The smell of burning sandalwood is everywhere, in part, because sandalwood sticks are burning at the foot of Buddha or other Hindu deities. The seamless blending of Hinduism and Buddhism in Thailand is obvious everywhere. Every building had an offering for Buddha and a “spirit house.” The spirit house was always outside, often in the front of the building, I believe there is a specified placement for it, and the spirits are to be taken care of, lest they invade the building.
The result of the many religious rituals that Thais appear to practice on a regular, if not daily basis, are people who seem very spiritual. I was struck by how “happiness” figures into so much of the culture of Thailand. I wonder what they think of our Declaration of Independence, with its “pursuit of happiness?” I suspect they would not understand “pursuing happiness.” “Attaining happiness” would be more Thai, I think.
The Thai scholars and the ISU faculty I was part of will be working together on several research projects on environmentally and culturally sustainable local economic development. A short visit to another country, especially as one as different for an American as Thailand, is a bare scratch of the surface. Ongoing collaboration with the Thai scholars and póok mit (building friendship) may lead to some level of what sociologists call “verstehen” which doesn’t translate easily into English, but comes closest to “sympathetic understanding.”
These observations are obvious to anyone who visits Thailand and is paying attention. I hope “mú-dtì” (understanding) comes through developing friendships with the Thai scholars. I am especially interested in trying to understand what seems to be an outward contentment but which surely masks the sadness that does accompany life. Americans live in the future. We are busy, always moving, never satisfied with the present. We put so much pressure on our children at such young ages to achieve in the future that we are robbing them of the beauty and play of childhood. The Thai scholars are hard workers and seem to work all the time, but also seem to make the everyday and mundane, like eating, joyful events to look forward to, not dash through.
My mother used to tell me when I was very young “to stop and smell the roses.” Thais seem to follow the advice. Over the next year, in addition to collaborating on some interesting research projects, I hope to learn how this industrializing people have managed to “stay in the moment.”
“Sa wad dee kha!” This is the almost universal greeting one hears in Thailand. It is a very pleasant greeting and the Thai language does not seem to have as many hard sounds in it, like German and Japanese. The result is a pleasing and welcoming sound when added to a “wai,” hands held in prayer-like form with fingertips someplace between one’s nose and forehead with a slight bow, is an obvious welcome, even if one doesn’t understand the language. I returned recently from eight days in Thailand (Bangkok) and Cambodia (Siem Reap).
Thailand, sometimes referred to as the “Land of Smiles”, is appropriately named. The culture is one of extreme hospitality. It is no wonder that so many “farang,” (western foreigners) become enchanted by Thailand. Me, known for being serious, found myself smiling along with so many happy people. It was infectious.
Bangkok is a seemingly modern city with street markets that seem unchanged from hundreds of years ago except that cell phones are for sale within sight of hogs’ heads; one could get their hair dyed green and get a custom tailored silk suit two stalls down next to a table of lemongrass.
Other than rice, I don’t think there is any bland food in Thailand. Chilis, lime, and tamarind leaves seem to be the most common flavors. Lots of fresh fruit. I’ve never known people who like to eat like the Thais do. Several times our Thai hosts made light of how Thais organize everything around eating. I believe it. Skipping meals in Thailand might be evidence of mental illness.
Even to someone like me who was raised in the south and has lived much of my life in the “Bible Belt,” Thais appear to be a religiously observant people. The dominant religion is Buddhism, and often the most striking building in sight is the “wat,” or Buddhist temple. The “wat” is gleaming white, red, and gold, often the biggest and tallest building in its area. The smell of burning sandalwood is everywhere, in part, because sandalwood sticks are burning at the foot of Buddha or other Hindu deities. The seamless blending of Hinduism and Buddhism in Thailand is obvious everywhere. Every building had an offering for Buddha and a “spirit house.” The spirit house was always outside, often in the front of the building, I believe there is a specified placement for it, and the spirits are to be taken care of, lest they invade the building.
The result of the many religious rituals that Thais appear to practice on a regular, if not daily basis, are people who seem very spiritual. I was struck by how “happiness” figures into so much of the culture of Thailand. I wonder what they think of our Declaration of Independence, with its “pursuit of happiness?” I suspect they would not understand “pursuing happiness.” “Attaining happiness” would be more Thai, I think.
The Thai scholars and the ISU faculty I was part of will be working together on several research projects on environmentally and culturally sustainable local economic development. A short visit to another country, especially as one as different for an American as Thailand, is a bare scratch of the surface. Ongoing collaboration with the Thai scholars and póok mit (building friendship) may lead to some level of what sociologists call “verstehen” which doesn’t translate easily into English, but comes closest to “sympathetic understanding.”
These observations are obvious to anyone who visits Thailand and is paying attention. I hope “mú-dtì” (understanding) comes through developing friendships with the Thai scholars. I am especially interested in trying to understand what seems to be an outward contentment but which surely masks the sadness that does accompany life. Americans live in the future. We are busy, always moving, never satisfied with the present. We put so much pressure on our children at such young ages to achieve in the future that we are robbing them of the beauty and play of childhood. The Thai scholars are hard workers and seem to work all the time, but also seem to make the everyday and mundane, like eating, joyful events to look forward to, not dash through.
My mother used to tell me when I was very young “to stop and smell the roses.” Thais seem to follow the advice. Over the next year, in addition to collaborating on some interesting research projects, I hope to learn how this industrializing people have managed to “stay in the moment.”
Sunday, February 14, 2010
What's lacking in today's world is 'kids at play'
Previously published in the Terre Haute Tribune-Star, 2/14/2010
This semester I am taking a literature course. It is refreshing to be the student and not the professor. And unlike sitting in on a course in my discipline or a related one, a literature course is well outside my “expertise.” Indeed, I am not doing much better than average, although I might be learning more.
The theme of the course is “hope.” One of our authors located “hope” in family. Our professor asked us to respond to a section from the readings, asking us to write about a family-like activity that fit the author’s idea of family as a “training ground” of skills for a larger community. I wrote about “play.” Five minutes later, we were sharing our responses.
Professors must listen to each student and respond to them. I, however, not being the professor, got to just listen to my classmates give their answers without having to respond. The first handful of students gave very different answers than mine. They wrote about being on a team, or the marching band, in the army, in a church youth group or some other formally organized activity. Eventually a student talked about helping out at a nephew’s first birthday party and another talked about Thanksgiving dinner. These are rituals. No one else played.
Our professor asked us to write about what skill these family-like activities taught us for the larger community. Those who spoke of formally organized activities, like athletic teams, youth groups, and marching bands, spoke of leadership and discipline. I wrote about problem solving, conflict resolution, and leadership.
My response, so different from the other students’, reflects, I think, a significant generational difference. Kids today, especially middle-class kids, grow up in a tightly organized, over-organized really, environment, that begins in pre-school, enlarges to school, carries on after school with lessons, practices, and activities, takes up the weekend with performances, matches and church activities. When do kids ever get to just “play?”
I wrote about playing in my neighborhood. Playing ball with multi-aged boys and girls. We didn’t have adult referees to make calls for us. We often altered the rules (permanent pitchers), manufactured additional players (invisible runners), even had different rules for different players (older kids get two strikes, while younger get five), and calling your fields (changing foul territory to accommodate only two outfielders). We resolved conflicts without adults and (usually) without violence (lots of “do overs” and rules negotiation). Our goal was to “keep playing,” living in the moment, not for a spot in the playoffs. When a mom would call one of us home, we’d adjust the rules, adjust the players, and keep on playing.
We invented games. I recall variations on hide and seek, two-person baseball (we called it “pop fly”), three-person football, wiffle ball golf, and other games that I don’t recall the names of. I was involved in formally organized activities, too. I played Little League baseball in the spring and summer and took piano lessons in the fall and winter. I played more “pop fly,” three-person football, and wiffle ball golf than I pitched and played third base in Little League, however.
Today adults try to teach conflict resolution to kids in schools. I learned conflict resolution playing in the neighborhood. I learned about fairness, not from an umpire, but from making it so all the kids, little kids and big, could play together. Young adults today think leadership is a position and not a quality.
Last Christmas, I spent a lot of time playing with my 5-year-old grand niece. She engaged in play this way: she wanted me to tell her to do something and she would do it. Frankly, this wasn’t much fun (for me) because she got to play with the Playdoh. I negotiated with her to alter the rules a bit; we alternated the roles. She enjoyed telling me what to make and eventually some of the older kids joined in with all of us rotating roles of being the baker or the customer.
Rather than leadership and discipline, I think the over-organized world our kids face today teach “followership” and routine. Through play kids learn “personal responsibility” because they have to problem solve and they use their imaginations to break the routine. It is not a question of either/or, but a matter of balance. I think kids’ lives today are over organized. It is beginning to snow. Maybe all the activities will be cancelled tomorrow and kids can play in the snow.
This semester I am taking a literature course. It is refreshing to be the student and not the professor. And unlike sitting in on a course in my discipline or a related one, a literature course is well outside my “expertise.” Indeed, I am not doing much better than average, although I might be learning more.
The theme of the course is “hope.” One of our authors located “hope” in family. Our professor asked us to respond to a section from the readings, asking us to write about a family-like activity that fit the author’s idea of family as a “training ground” of skills for a larger community. I wrote about “play.” Five minutes later, we were sharing our responses.
Professors must listen to each student and respond to them. I, however, not being the professor, got to just listen to my classmates give their answers without having to respond. The first handful of students gave very different answers than mine. They wrote about being on a team, or the marching band, in the army, in a church youth group or some other formally organized activity. Eventually a student talked about helping out at a nephew’s first birthday party and another talked about Thanksgiving dinner. These are rituals. No one else played.
Our professor asked us to write about what skill these family-like activities taught us for the larger community. Those who spoke of formally organized activities, like athletic teams, youth groups, and marching bands, spoke of leadership and discipline. I wrote about problem solving, conflict resolution, and leadership.
My response, so different from the other students’, reflects, I think, a significant generational difference. Kids today, especially middle-class kids, grow up in a tightly organized, over-organized really, environment, that begins in pre-school, enlarges to school, carries on after school with lessons, practices, and activities, takes up the weekend with performances, matches and church activities. When do kids ever get to just “play?”
I wrote about playing in my neighborhood. Playing ball with multi-aged boys and girls. We didn’t have adult referees to make calls for us. We often altered the rules (permanent pitchers), manufactured additional players (invisible runners), even had different rules for different players (older kids get two strikes, while younger get five), and calling your fields (changing foul territory to accommodate only two outfielders). We resolved conflicts without adults and (usually) without violence (lots of “do overs” and rules negotiation). Our goal was to “keep playing,” living in the moment, not for a spot in the playoffs. When a mom would call one of us home, we’d adjust the rules, adjust the players, and keep on playing.
We invented games. I recall variations on hide and seek, two-person baseball (we called it “pop fly”), three-person football, wiffle ball golf, and other games that I don’t recall the names of. I was involved in formally organized activities, too. I played Little League baseball in the spring and summer and took piano lessons in the fall and winter. I played more “pop fly,” three-person football, and wiffle ball golf than I pitched and played third base in Little League, however.
Today adults try to teach conflict resolution to kids in schools. I learned conflict resolution playing in the neighborhood. I learned about fairness, not from an umpire, but from making it so all the kids, little kids and big, could play together. Young adults today think leadership is a position and not a quality.
Last Christmas, I spent a lot of time playing with my 5-year-old grand niece. She engaged in play this way: she wanted me to tell her to do something and she would do it. Frankly, this wasn’t much fun (for me) because she got to play with the Playdoh. I negotiated with her to alter the rules a bit; we alternated the roles. She enjoyed telling me what to make and eventually some of the older kids joined in with all of us rotating roles of being the baker or the customer.
Rather than leadership and discipline, I think the over-organized world our kids face today teach “followership” and routine. Through play kids learn “personal responsibility” because they have to problem solve and they use their imaginations to break the routine. It is not a question of either/or, but a matter of balance. I think kids’ lives today are over organized. It is beginning to snow. Maybe all the activities will be cancelled tomorrow and kids can play in the snow.
What's lacking in today's world is 'kids at play'
Previously published in the Terre Haute Tribune Star, 2/14/2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Religious oppression, repression doomed to failure
Previously published in the Terre Haute Tribune Star, 1/31/10
When the headlines read “China jails three for religious activity,” Americans generally don’t buy the reasons that the three threaten “public peace and harmony.” When the headlines read “Indonesians deny establishment of Christian church” because non-Christians invoke a law requiring “community approval,” we recognize the infringement on religious freedom and repression involved. When Algeria passes a law that sets prison terms for proselytizing by any religion other than Islam, we recognize it for what it is, religious repression and persecution.
What do we make of laws barring the wearing of crosses? Or bans on nun’s habits claiming that it is repressive to women? Or a country voting to make it unconstitutional to build steeples on Christian churches? The proponents of the ban argue that because the Bible offers instruction on the relationships among people, prescribes the relations between man and God and man and woman, that Christianity is more than just a way to life after death, but a way of life in the here and now. The steeple is a symbol of the growth of this dangerous movement, so eliminate the steeple as a symbol of Christianity’s place in town.
I think most Americans would recognize the above as violations of what we understand as freedom of religion and when criminal penalties are attached to violation of these laws, it is political repression. And that the examples given above are of countries that are, at best, democratically challenged or repressing Christianity, make it that much easier to recognize as “bad.” After all, the countries listed as repressing and persecuting people because of their religion on Human Rights Watch’s Web site are countries that we don’t need much convincing are bad actors: Tajikistan, Eritrea, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, China, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, to name those on just one of 42 pages.
Despite this long list of violators of values that Americans hold dear, we optimistic Americans believe that eventually these other nations will realize there is great value in religious freedom, that there is nothing to fear, that nations work well with religious tolerance, even if feathers occasionally get ruffled.
Furthermore, it is not just America, but the “west” that achieves what so many other countries seem unable: diverse religious populations that live in relative harmony with a state that protects the rights of all people regardless of religion.
Yet France is dabbling in religious repression, the banning of the burqa in public, claiming that by passing laws against women wearing this religiously and culturally related garb is really striking a blow for women’s rights and freedom. How silly. You will be fined or put in jail for following your customs in order to free you? That puts an entirely new twist on “live free or die.”
In a country known for its remarkable tolerance and commitment to pluralism, 57.5 percent of Swedes voted for a constitutional ban on minarets on mosques.
Hearing that someone has been convicted and may be put to death in Pakistan because they violated Pakistani blasphemy laws, we shake our heads and probably think “how medieval.” Yet at the beginning of this year, Ireland’s new blasphemy laws went into effect. Medieval? The U.N. is discussing such measures as well.
When has repression ever worked? In the short run, it can shore up a teetering, corrupt state apparatus. Does it work in the long run? Early Christians were repressed but they found ways around it. They developed secret symbols and laid low, but they were not extinguished. The Soviets tried to repress all religion. Russia is far from a religiousless society today. And once the weight of oppression was lifted, the bloody Balkan civil wars erupted.
How often does the history of repression end with the repressed and oppressed eventually overthrowing their oppressors? You can ban minarets and ban the wearing of burqas in public, you can ban and imprison people who hold prayer meetings in their homes. You can even try to exterminate the members of the religion. Despite the ultimate failures and eventual self-destruction that occurs, Nazi Germany, South Africa, the Soviet Union, to name some easy examples, these actions reflect fear of and a lack of confidence in freedom, especially religious freedom.
Religious freedom, both freedom of and from, not repression, is the best (not easiest) public policy.
When the headlines read “China jails three for religious activity,” Americans generally don’t buy the reasons that the three threaten “public peace and harmony.” When the headlines read “Indonesians deny establishment of Christian church” because non-Christians invoke a law requiring “community approval,” we recognize the infringement on religious freedom and repression involved. When Algeria passes a law that sets prison terms for proselytizing by any religion other than Islam, we recognize it for what it is, religious repression and persecution.
What do we make of laws barring the wearing of crosses? Or bans on nun’s habits claiming that it is repressive to women? Or a country voting to make it unconstitutional to build steeples on Christian churches? The proponents of the ban argue that because the Bible offers instruction on the relationships among people, prescribes the relations between man and God and man and woman, that Christianity is more than just a way to life after death, but a way of life in the here and now. The steeple is a symbol of the growth of this dangerous movement, so eliminate the steeple as a symbol of Christianity’s place in town.
I think most Americans would recognize the above as violations of what we understand as freedom of religion and when criminal penalties are attached to violation of these laws, it is political repression. And that the examples given above are of countries that are, at best, democratically challenged or repressing Christianity, make it that much easier to recognize as “bad.” After all, the countries listed as repressing and persecuting people because of their religion on Human Rights Watch’s Web site are countries that we don’t need much convincing are bad actors: Tajikistan, Eritrea, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, China, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, to name those on just one of 42 pages.
Despite this long list of violators of values that Americans hold dear, we optimistic Americans believe that eventually these other nations will realize there is great value in religious freedom, that there is nothing to fear, that nations work well with religious tolerance, even if feathers occasionally get ruffled.
Furthermore, it is not just America, but the “west” that achieves what so many other countries seem unable: diverse religious populations that live in relative harmony with a state that protects the rights of all people regardless of religion.
Yet France is dabbling in religious repression, the banning of the burqa in public, claiming that by passing laws against women wearing this religiously and culturally related garb is really striking a blow for women’s rights and freedom. How silly. You will be fined or put in jail for following your customs in order to free you? That puts an entirely new twist on “live free or die.”
In a country known for its remarkable tolerance and commitment to pluralism, 57.5 percent of Swedes voted for a constitutional ban on minarets on mosques.
Hearing that someone has been convicted and may be put to death in Pakistan because they violated Pakistani blasphemy laws, we shake our heads and probably think “how medieval.” Yet at the beginning of this year, Ireland’s new blasphemy laws went into effect. Medieval? The U.N. is discussing such measures as well.
When has repression ever worked? In the short run, it can shore up a teetering, corrupt state apparatus. Does it work in the long run? Early Christians were repressed but they found ways around it. They developed secret symbols and laid low, but they were not extinguished. The Soviets tried to repress all religion. Russia is far from a religiousless society today. And once the weight of oppression was lifted, the bloody Balkan civil wars erupted.
How often does the history of repression end with the repressed and oppressed eventually overthrowing their oppressors? You can ban minarets and ban the wearing of burqas in public, you can ban and imprison people who hold prayer meetings in their homes. You can even try to exterminate the members of the religion. Despite the ultimate failures and eventual self-destruction that occurs, Nazi Germany, South Africa, the Soviet Union, to name some easy examples, these actions reflect fear of and a lack of confidence in freedom, especially religious freedom.
Religious freedom, both freedom of and from, not repression, is the best (not easiest) public policy.
Friday, January 1, 2010
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