Cover-a-Week #36: "The Rainbow Connection" by The Carpenters/The Muppets

A while ago, I got a new ukulele -- a beautiful Kamaka tenor. This is my first video with the new uke:

http://youtu.be/9oxouJq2Q1o

Isn't it a wonderful instrument? :-)

Thoughts on Higher Education, Opportunity, and Systemic Inequality

Education is one of the cornerstones of the American Dream. As a society, we have come to see it as the great equalizer -- a mechanism that, however imperfectly, levels the playing field for children born into different socioeconomic backgrounds and allows individuals to achieve based on talent and effort, rather than on circumstance. This is universally seen as a social benefit. However, the way we discuss education as a culture requires more nuance, particularly with respect to disadvantaged students. This article in The Atlantic raises some interesting and thoughtful points:

http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/01/the-danger-of-telling-poor-kids-that-college-is-the-key-to-social-mobility/283120/

It occurs to me that there are several different but intersecting camps of people who value education: those who see knowledge as a tool and those who see knowledge as a goal; and those who pursue knowledge for themselves and those who pursue knowledge in the interests of the broader community. I conceive of it something like the below (and pardon the primitive ASCII graph):

                    | Self                  | World                      
Theoretical  | Truth              | Intellectual Discourse
Applied       | Advancement | Social Change          

In theory, anybody should have the option of choosing any of these four paths (or even multiple paths, if they can manage it) without being told that one is better or more applicable to their situation. It's problematic that a vast population of American students is steered towards the "applied + self" box simply because of the circumstances of their birth. It's inherently unjust, even if it makes sense (especially within the Andrew Carnegie model of the American Dream) that a talented child growing up poor would prioritize climbing the socioeconomic ladder over other intellectual goals, especially compared to an equally talented child growing up in better conditions, for whom such advancement is not as crucial. The latter child is more likely to pursue one of the other three options simply because she wants to. The former child, however, faces significant societal pressures to choose "applied + self," even if she would have chosen one of the other three if fully informed and separated from external influences. After all, people tend to perform better in fields they find genuinely interesting.

This is a fundamental problem because it allows us to perpetuate -- and feel justified in perpetuating -- the systemic limitation of the free will of an entire population of our most vulnerable citizens, disadvantaged youth. It's similar to the idea: "People vote with their stomachs. Only when they are full do they vote with their minds." Just because, in practice, education allows the hungry to fill their stomachs, does not mean that education should be sold to the hungry as a means to fill their stomachs, while it is simultaneously sold to the well-fed as a means to enrich their minds. This, in itself, is a pernicious way that children of different family means are treated unequally, a way that is thus far completely sanctioned within our society. Rather, a truly just society calls for informed and educated citizens who freely choose their life's paths, and whose progress down those paths is determined not by how far behind they started, but rather the distance they are able and willing to walk -- and this will only happen when all children start on a more level field. All students should be allowed to pursue the path they find most rewarding, and to have their successes and failures reflect upon their own effort and talent, rather than on conditions beyond their control. And all students should have the opportunity to make an informed and unencumbered choice for themselves, out of the posited four, at the beginning of their journeys.

Three Minute Photoshop Makeover, the Music Video

I've watched this video a few times this week, in part because the music is catchy, but mostly because its message is powerful:



http://www.policymic.com/articles/79585/watch-this-woman-get-a-complete-photoshop-makeover-in-3-minutes-flat

Body image, especially that of young women, has become increasingly prominent in our social discourse over the past decade or so. There's been, at one end, greater awareness of eating disorders and related insecurities; on the other end, there's been significantly wider recognition of this country's obesity problem. The former is often associated with standards of beauty as dictated by media and peer interaction, while the latter is often a consequence of economics and the vulnerability of children who don't know any better than to consume what appeals to them in the short term (and the adults who were raised that way).

This video deals with the former problem -- that of media perpetuating impossibly exacting ideals, which millions of young women attempt to imitate in real life, without the aid of Photoshop. While a proportion of the changes depicted can be accomplished with cosmetics, other changes, such as altering the symmetry of the singer's face, is not something that women can physically achieve. And while humans are instinctively more attracted to symmetrical faces with higher contrast, one cannot expect a mathematical level of symmetry in our natural, imperfect bodies.

We are visual creatures. When introduced to a pair of images, we all have opinions as to which one we find more aesthetically pleasing. But we, through millennia of civilization and progress, are more than our basest instincts, more than our visceral reactions. We are rational and more evolved creatures who value each other for qualities greater than appearance. While it makes sense for us to make reasonable attempts to look pleasing to others, our society now has the tools with which to project images that are unreasonable to imitate. The crucial part here, then, is to ensure that we all recognize that it would be unreasonable to expect each other, and ourselves, to look like that.

We are none of us aesthetic ideals. Even models, actors, beauty queens -- even those we have collectively deemed the most attractive specimens of our species -- have their own insecurities. We must learn, in our most vulnerable and susceptible years, that we are valued not for how closely we conform to our society's standards of beauty, but rather, for our contributions in areas deeper and more within our power to shape. In appearances, we are limited by genetics, by environment, by the hand we are dealt. In what lies beneath, we are bound by fewer and less arbitrary constraints.

Moreover, we cannot take it with us. At the end of the day, it's all transport. We keep the engine primed and the moving parts oiled so that we might achieve more, and live more happily, in our time. The parts of us that are not flesh -- these comprise what we have made of ourselves.

On another note: this video is a testament to the power of activist art. Slogans and speeches will only get us so far, after all. In order to effect change, people must want the change themselves -- and one of the most effective ways to influence somebody's viewpoint is by creating empathy and emotional connection. As much as I believe in solving problems rationally and logically, there are many situations where the visceral reaction evoked by imagery is a more powerful motivator. As Lincoln famously said to Harriet Beecher Stowe, "so you are the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war!"