Monday, April 27, 2009

Think About It

It came to my attention that one girl in my class advised another girl in my class that she could be more popular if she wouldn’t act as smart as she is. I don’t even know where to begin.

How in the world did the slacker image become something to aspire to? Surely it is some backlash against some generational work ethic, but still. In Thomas Friedman’s book, The World is Flat, he describes an event he attended in China several years ago. The event was in a sports arena, I think, and the crowd was going wild. The crowd was not excited over some sports play or rock star; Bill Gates had just come on a stage to address the throng. Friedman realized that in China, Bill Gates is Brittany Spears; in America, Brittany Spears is Brittany Spears.

How is it not cool to think? How did intellect and social status become mutually exclusive in the minds of our kids? And that’s not even the right question. How did we get to a point where we would rather not be thought of as thinkers if it costs us the perception of being socially relevant?

I mentioned John Stonestreet in my previous post. He talked about a book that I would like to read: Amusing Ourselves to Death. In the book, the author delineates the differences between the prophetic writing of George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Both seemed to believe that technology would create a non-thinking society and not a utopian state. Orwell predicted that people would be oppressed externally—by Big Brother. Huxley predicted the oppression would come from within the culture. Orwell predicted that government would control and limit the information that people would have access to. Huxley believed we’d have a glut of information, an onslaught of news so entertaining, non-stop, and overwhelming that people would not have time to think about any of it. In Huxley’s version, society is so healthy, comfortable, and care-free that no one would risk challenging any of it.

Sounds like Huxley was closer.

And that’s not all. Carl Bernstein wrote “The lowest form of popular culture -- lack of information, misinformation, misinformation, and a contempt for the truth or the reality of most people's lives -- has overrun real journalism. Today, ordinary Americans are being stuffed with garbage.” Our low culture has become pop culture.

Rainbow Dreams—a blog I enjoy—posted some of the new Dove commercials about beauty. While I question their motives (they didn’t seem to have such a broad definition of beauty when the Baby Boomers were in their twenties and thirties), they do address the caustic nature of beauty thrust upon women and girls. You can even download their self-esteem kit for young girls so that you can help prevent them from swallowing the beauty industry’s kool-aid. Is that really going to work? If we’re not thinking and we’re not teaching our children to think, is a self-esteem kit going to do the trick?

How do we then live? …to borrow from Francis Schaffer. Paul writes in Philippians, “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Stonestreet used several authors to suggest that as we approach culture, we approach it this way. We should use our minds as we appreciate art that is excellent and well-done; that we look for art that speaks truth; that we hold art that is noble. This is, of course, only the beginning of a great conversation.

I use a lot of poetry with my third graders. A couple weeks ago, we were talking about the difference between poetry and songs. On a whim, I offered a quote I heard. (Is this Mark Twain? I’ll have to look it up.) “Anything too stupid to be said is sung.” They thought that was funny and tried it out on some songs. They stood up and with great oratorical presence began to speak Hannah Montana lyrics. It really was hilarious. I asked the kids what the songs were really saying. The response: We never thought about it before.

I hope I never hear that again.

5 comments:

valis said...

I agree with you. I think Huxley was more right than Orwell, although Orwell got some interesting points in there about manipulation of language and history and information.

One of my favorite quotes your post brings to mind is from H.L. Menken "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."

(There. That's a little loftier than Batman)

Paulson said...

I always wondered who said that. And, Batman made a good point; your connection with writing was well-done.

Variations On A Theme said...

I know I've done this. And when I didn't do this at Moody Bible Institute, I was accused of being a "feminist".

And when Olivia was very young, I simultaneously wanted other moms to notice her unique verbal abilities, but at the same time, I didn't want anyone to feel "threatened" and not like her because of it, so I'd sometimes talk over her so people couldn't hear her.

This is a real insult to other people: to assume they might feel threatened and not like her. But it does say something very telling about my past. It's much easier to be liked if you're not too smart.

Paulson said...

One of the main reasons I like Marcy is because she's brilliant. She thinks so deeply about everything. It's also one of the reasons I like you, David, and everyone in your family so much.

My hope is always that people will be smart and inspire others to aspire to great things.

Rainbow dreams said...

If only it were as easy as a self esteem kit, perhaps we could buy everyone for Christmas and sort out everyone's problems in an instant fix...I'd be first in the queue!

There is such a lot of pressure to conform and fit in and not stand out and that it is more 'socially acceptable' not to be seen to need to work or think..

It would be fantastic for example if the library were seen as a cool place to frequent...sadly it isn't and we are left constantly trying to help children who are torn between being true to themselves and being and doing what they want or else compromising themselves for the sake of fitting in with the crowd...

an interesting exercise with the Hannah Montana lyrics, I like that!! :)
Katie