Mark Edmunson’s article “On the Uses of a Liberal Education” confronted me on a very personal level. The accusations of apathy and disengagement seemed personal. Even though my own goals for college are primarily outside of the classroom, Edmundson and I would probably agree that my goals and academic engagement should be complementary. I want to grow as a person and as a member of society, to be proud of my morals and to forge life-long friendships.
While I was sitting in the coffee shop, furiously highlighting and scribbling in reaction to Edmunson’s words, a friend stopped by and asked what I was doing.
“It’s so great! It’s about college and how we all just ‘consume’ it and I feel so attacked! I’m loving it!”
Perhaps refuting Edmunson’s thesis, outbursts like this about academic reading are not uncommon on the Williams campus, and the friend (who happened to be a philosophy major, and they all have quite the reputation for being easily incited) jumped into the fun, recommending that I read Adorno if I like being attacked.
I was quick to point out that we had read Adorno—and then I realized that I hadn’t really read it. I hadn’t felt attacked at all. I had dismissed the scholarly writings of Adorno and Horcheimer as angry rantings of old German men. Clearly they didn’t mean to accuse me of defining myself through goods. Obviously they didn’t understand that I was well aware of how I define myself.
This utter lack of engagement is exactly what exasperates Edmunson. The worst part might be that after dutifully reading and highlighting Adorno and Horcheimer without really analyzing their thoughts, I came to Sociology class and enjoyed myself. Just enjoyed. Probably made a few comments criticizing them for being close-minded, probably made a slightly offensive comment about them being way off base. Never, at any point, did I feel attacked, enlighted, or truly personally involved.
What else have my personality and intellectual flaws kept me from learning? I resisted discussing tattoos as an authentic sociological issue because on an aesthetic level tattoos gross me out and I don’t believe that people who get themselves branded with a Nike swoosh or Chanel C’s are really making a statement worth analyzing. I applauded the articles about the mall and how we shop. I loved the Dialects of Shopping and enjoyed being validated—enjoyed knowing that there are scholars who “get it”—who “get” that shopping means something to me.
But how wrong is it to approach the reading packet as something that I can pick and choose from? Why agree to be attacked by Edmunson and applauded by Daniel Miller, while I merely disagree with Laermans and completely dismiss Adorno and Horcheimer. Which classmates am I dismissing? Whom can I engage with more? What can I demand from myself?
I’m not going to just passively consume this class- or any others- any more. Like Edmunson, I want to incite myself and my peers to exuberance.
Friday, October 17, 2008
On the Uses of a Liberal Education
Mark Edmunson’s article “On the Uses of a Liberal Education” brilliantly articulated the trends that have emerged in education.
The liberal arts education began as a luxury. Chatting about the finer points of a poem is certainly a luxury when compared to apprenticeships or any other forms of education focused purely on future occupation. Even today, tuitions are higher at the elite liberal arts schools like Williams College than they are at large public institutions like UCLA or Michigan. The value has changed, certainly: college is no longer a way to supply aristocratic sons with party conversation topics. But still, an elite college education is considered a springboard into elite job positions and elite social circles. You pay to come to school with your classmates, to interact with professors of a certain caliber, to hobnob with the type of people you’d like to do business with one day. The boost in salary that college graduates see is very likely a result of college’s sign value more than its use value.
A student’s journey through college today is certainly different than it was a generation ago. Edmunson’s despair is, at some points, simply an eloquently disguised “kids today” lament. It is not the college system’s fault that students want a high quality of life for four years. It is not the professor’s fault that students are better at rating their instructor than procuring an eloquent thought before their morning coffee binge. Edmunson is upset that “kids today” treat everything like consumption, that they are apathetic about the classics and that academic passion isn’t considered cool But his priorities may not be aligned with ours. After all, college is about growing as a human—growing in “mind, body, and spirit,” not just about memorizing things in the classroom or even learning how to analyze quantitatively and qualitatively.
The students who don’t voluntarily write essays about Marx may light up when planning a formal dance and go on to use that talent to plan a political campaign. Those who passively learn Economics may not even realize that the science is framing their worldview and will eventually inspire them to found a free-trade fashion line. Sports, governance boards, and every extra-curricular we pursue (even the likes of drinking and dating) can have transformative effects on us as people. Whether or not that’s reflected in every class is irrelevant to the power of our college experience.
Williams is certainly a “northern outpost of Club Med” complete with the student activities office and ski lodge-esque common spaces. But what’s wrong with that? I don’t think being surrounded by nature distracts from intellectual pursuits; rather it probably encourages them. Joy in life doesn’t make us lazy, it makes us thirsty for more. Working hard and playing hard might worry parents, but it makes for productive and fast-maturing students.
Conversely, the damning comment that we have become an uninterested generation, “whose sad denizens drift from coffee bar to Prozac dispensary, unfired by ideals, by the glowing image of the self that one might become” rang true. After all, I was ready this at a coffee bar. And I had just walked by a poster advertising the mental health services of this fine college. There is a general despondence among my peers. I don’t know that intellectual stimulation is the cure—it might be that we need to stop the shifting sands of modernity that urge us to define ourselves instead of simply living.
The truth is, there are gaps in education today. There are students who sit passively and who never engage, with anyone or anything. For all of us, there are new challenges that we could meet.
But I think we’re all going to be OK. As Edmunson admits, “there’s still the library, still the museum, there’s still the occasional teacher who lives to find things greater than herself to admire. There are still fellow students who have not been cowed.” At Williams, I think nearly every single student will graduate having been challenged both academically and personally. I think we will have learned the joy of thinking and I think we will have a passion for something—no matter how frivolous it may seem to the ignorant outsider.
As for me? Maybe it’s just that I’m one of those “people so pleased with themselves… that they cannot imaging humanity could do better.” But I’m confident that my education has been strong and that I’ve encountered professors who really challenged me to change my mind. Still, I’m willing to spend the next in-class debate waving in exuberance, because inspiring myself to meet a new challenge sounds like a lot of fun.
The liberal arts education began as a luxury. Chatting about the finer points of a poem is certainly a luxury when compared to apprenticeships or any other forms of education focused purely on future occupation. Even today, tuitions are higher at the elite liberal arts schools like Williams College than they are at large public institutions like UCLA or Michigan. The value has changed, certainly: college is no longer a way to supply aristocratic sons with party conversation topics. But still, an elite college education is considered a springboard into elite job positions and elite social circles. You pay to come to school with your classmates, to interact with professors of a certain caliber, to hobnob with the type of people you’d like to do business with one day. The boost in salary that college graduates see is very likely a result of college’s sign value more than its use value.
A student’s journey through college today is certainly different than it was a generation ago. Edmunson’s despair is, at some points, simply an eloquently disguised “kids today” lament. It is not the college system’s fault that students want a high quality of life for four years. It is not the professor’s fault that students are better at rating their instructor than procuring an eloquent thought before their morning coffee binge. Edmunson is upset that “kids today” treat everything like consumption, that they are apathetic about the classics and that academic passion isn’t considered cool But his priorities may not be aligned with ours. After all, college is about growing as a human—growing in “mind, body, and spirit,” not just about memorizing things in the classroom or even learning how to analyze quantitatively and qualitatively.
The students who don’t voluntarily write essays about Marx may light up when planning a formal dance and go on to use that talent to plan a political campaign. Those who passively learn Economics may not even realize that the science is framing their worldview and will eventually inspire them to found a free-trade fashion line. Sports, governance boards, and every extra-curricular we pursue (even the likes of drinking and dating) can have transformative effects on us as people. Whether or not that’s reflected in every class is irrelevant to the power of our college experience.
Williams is certainly a “northern outpost of Club Med” complete with the student activities office and ski lodge-esque common spaces. But what’s wrong with that? I don’t think being surrounded by nature distracts from intellectual pursuits; rather it probably encourages them. Joy in life doesn’t make us lazy, it makes us thirsty for more. Working hard and playing hard might worry parents, but it makes for productive and fast-maturing students.
Conversely, the damning comment that we have become an uninterested generation, “whose sad denizens drift from coffee bar to Prozac dispensary, unfired by ideals, by the glowing image of the self that one might become” rang true. After all, I was ready this at a coffee bar. And I had just walked by a poster advertising the mental health services of this fine college. There is a general despondence among my peers. I don’t know that intellectual stimulation is the cure—it might be that we need to stop the shifting sands of modernity that urge us to define ourselves instead of simply living.
The truth is, there are gaps in education today. There are students who sit passively and who never engage, with anyone or anything. For all of us, there are new challenges that we could meet.
But I think we’re all going to be OK. As Edmunson admits, “there’s still the library, still the museum, there’s still the occasional teacher who lives to find things greater than herself to admire. There are still fellow students who have not been cowed.” At Williams, I think nearly every single student will graduate having been challenged both academically and personally. I think we will have learned the joy of thinking and I think we will have a passion for something—no matter how frivolous it may seem to the ignorant outsider.
As for me? Maybe it’s just that I’m one of those “people so pleased with themselves… that they cannot imaging humanity could do better.” But I’m confident that my education has been strong and that I’ve encountered professors who really challenged me to change my mind. Still, I’m willing to spend the next in-class debate waving in exuberance, because inspiring myself to meet a new challenge sounds like a lot of fun.
Monday, September 29, 2008
on "Hidden Persuaders"
The first rule of anthropology is that simply observing can change the interactions of the observed. This is not true for say, gravity. To dissect and describe and understand nature and its laws does not change its fundamental truth. But to study a society or determine the rules of social interactions seems to have a very real influence on it. In the case of underground marketing, it seems that knowingly following social rules destroys the very foundation of social interactions.
In truth, everyone always has an agenda. Even small talk at a cocktail party is layered on top of a bargain: trading information for entertainment or a listening ear to build your own reputation. Ulterior motives need not be sinister, and indeed most of what motivates us remains unspoken and therefore hidden.
Information is power. Weak ties have great strength. To influence is to feel we have worth. We like what we know. Few would refute these as basic elements of social psychology. But when individuals and the companies they work for use these to profit, people get nervous.
It may be that leaving those motivations unspoken- even refusing to acknowledge them to ourselves- keeps our actions that much more genuine. When BzzAgents choose to volunteer to buzz a product, they are forced to acknowledge to themselves that they are, in a less-than-upfront way, using their social connections to benefit corporations. It's obvious they're not totally comfortable with this, because they don't disclose the full story of how they "discovered" whatever product they're talking up. Because most individuals are not completely comfortable with admitting that they're voluntarily using their social skills to bring profit to an outside company, the agents defend themselves by professing a very real attachment to the product they are pushing. Psychologists might argue that this is a byproduct of cognitive dissonance: we rationalize our behavior until it seems to align with our preferences and values. But clearly, it's the buzz and not the product that keeps the agents coming back.
Objectively, these agents are nothing but unpaid peons. But their individual experiences seem to be about empowerment- BzzAgency gives them control over new information and the opportunity to disperse it as they see fit. To the producers, the agents are free labor- and maybe it's only the directive of discussing the product with strangers rather than friends which gives this army of volunteers any mobility or influence. Weak ties are stronger, in terms of spreading information, than intimate circles, because those who are closest to you already know just about everything you do. So the companies see boosted sales and the volunteers get some social currency. Maybe BzzAgency is the real winner.
The question of how influential "normal" vs. "magic" people are is an interesting one. Credibility matters, but only as a means of preventing angry backlash. In truth, just hearing the message is valuable, and it's most of the battle for advertisers. Both average and exceptional talkers probably do comparable jobs of earning their target's mind share when they speak. For certain products, like tech gadgets, some trendiness will go a long way. But for others, just being able to talk about it is "street cred" enough. After all, chicken sausage is lower in fat than pork sausage whether you hear it from the lead singer of an indie band or the shift manager at your local Starbucks. Seeing someone drink a certain brand of seltzer can make me thirsty, regardless of what brand of jeans the person is wearing.
Word of mouth is not, as Seth Godin claims, "a new kind of media." People talk. People talk about products. The fact that it's not new is the only reason buzz marketing can be underground- it's not unusual; the agents blend in with everyone else that's doing it. The business behind the buzz- the development of guidelines and the attempts to direct it- is what's new. And while underground marketing attempts may be a little sketchy or surprising, I don't think that following social rules for profit has any real or damaging effect on the fundamental existence of social currency.
In truth, everyone always has an agenda. Even small talk at a cocktail party is layered on top of a bargain: trading information for entertainment or a listening ear to build your own reputation. Ulterior motives need not be sinister, and indeed most of what motivates us remains unspoken and therefore hidden.
Information is power. Weak ties have great strength. To influence is to feel we have worth. We like what we know. Few would refute these as basic elements of social psychology. But when individuals and the companies they work for use these to profit, people get nervous.
It may be that leaving those motivations unspoken- even refusing to acknowledge them to ourselves- keeps our actions that much more genuine. When BzzAgents choose to volunteer to buzz a product, they are forced to acknowledge to themselves that they are, in a less-than-upfront way, using their social connections to benefit corporations. It's obvious they're not totally comfortable with this, because they don't disclose the full story of how they "discovered" whatever product they're talking up. Because most individuals are not completely comfortable with admitting that they're voluntarily using their social skills to bring profit to an outside company, the agents defend themselves by professing a very real attachment to the product they are pushing. Psychologists might argue that this is a byproduct of cognitive dissonance: we rationalize our behavior until it seems to align with our preferences and values. But clearly, it's the buzz and not the product that keeps the agents coming back.
Objectively, these agents are nothing but unpaid peons. But their individual experiences seem to be about empowerment- BzzAgency gives them control over new information and the opportunity to disperse it as they see fit. To the producers, the agents are free labor- and maybe it's only the directive of discussing the product with strangers rather than friends which gives this army of volunteers any mobility or influence. Weak ties are stronger, in terms of spreading information, than intimate circles, because those who are closest to you already know just about everything you do. So the companies see boosted sales and the volunteers get some social currency. Maybe BzzAgency is the real winner.
The question of how influential "normal" vs. "magic" people are is an interesting one. Credibility matters, but only as a means of preventing angry backlash. In truth, just hearing the message is valuable, and it's most of the battle for advertisers. Both average and exceptional talkers probably do comparable jobs of earning their target's mind share when they speak. For certain products, like tech gadgets, some trendiness will go a long way. But for others, just being able to talk about it is "street cred" enough. After all, chicken sausage is lower in fat than pork sausage whether you hear it from the lead singer of an indie band or the shift manager at your local Starbucks. Seeing someone drink a certain brand of seltzer can make me thirsty, regardless of what brand of jeans the person is wearing.
Word of mouth is not, as Seth Godin claims, "a new kind of media." People talk. People talk about products. The fact that it's not new is the only reason buzz marketing can be underground- it's not unusual; the agents blend in with everyone else that's doing it. The business behind the buzz- the development of guidelines and the attempts to direct it- is what's new. And while underground marketing attempts may be a little sketchy or surprising, I don't think that following social rules for profit has any real or damaging effect on the fundamental existence of social currency.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Modernity and the Consumption of Ideas
The “vertigo of existence” is simply Berman’s way of saying “angst.” I’ve experienced my share of it, too—that feeling of your foundation sweeping away when your worldview is confronted, my stomach falling away when a relationship goes sour, a sudden light-headedness when you stand up too fast after a philosophical debate.
Those who opt out of our self-centered modernity—or those who pretend to—distinguish themselves as ‘emo’ or ‘nonconformist’ with long, eye-shielding hair and black nail polish. They spend their consumer dollars on band t-shirts at Hot Topic instead of blazers at J. Crew, and they still seem convinced it’s the world vs. them.
Why are we in such a rush to define ourselves? Why is it- sincerely- so hard to float through life? Entering and existing relationships with objects, places, and people give us vague data points on the role with play in the world. Intimacy with other human beings pierces through the things we consume, but we consume together to build intimacy.
Even subscribing to certain beliefs or values is consuming a message—existentially the same as buying into a brand’s image.
You can try too hard, but it’s not really possible to stop trying, unless you are seriously depressed and spend your time sobbing in bed instead of putting on clotehs and walking to class. After all, putting on any kind of clothing (or lack thereof) is inviting others to judge you and the signs you’re sending into society.
The good news is that you do define yourself- do you smile or sigh when you get out of bed? Get coffee or tea in the morning? Flip flops or Ugg boots with your sweatpants? Plastic sunglasses or Ray Ban aviators or Tom Ford investment pieces?
And then others ask questions and judge your decisions. Who were you spotted with this weekend? Were you sloppy drunk or stone sober Are you a fixture in the library or a social butterfly?
And there are the questions we all, inevitably, grapple with ourselves: Who am I? Who do I want to be? What kind of story do I want to tell?
Those who opt out of our self-centered modernity—or those who pretend to—distinguish themselves as ‘emo’ or ‘nonconformist’ with long, eye-shielding hair and black nail polish. They spend their consumer dollars on band t-shirts at Hot Topic instead of blazers at J. Crew, and they still seem convinced it’s the world vs. them.
Why are we in such a rush to define ourselves? Why is it- sincerely- so hard to float through life? Entering and existing relationships with objects, places, and people give us vague data points on the role with play in the world. Intimacy with other human beings pierces through the things we consume, but we consume together to build intimacy.
Even subscribing to certain beliefs or values is consuming a message—existentially the same as buying into a brand’s image.
You can try too hard, but it’s not really possible to stop trying, unless you are seriously depressed and spend your time sobbing in bed instead of putting on clotehs and walking to class. After all, putting on any kind of clothing (or lack thereof) is inviting others to judge you and the signs you’re sending into society.
The good news is that you do define yourself- do you smile or sigh when you get out of bed? Get coffee or tea in the morning? Flip flops or Ugg boots with your sweatpants? Plastic sunglasses or Ray Ban aviators or Tom Ford investment pieces?
And then others ask questions and judge your decisions. Who were you spotted with this weekend? Were you sloppy drunk or stone sober Are you a fixture in the library or a social butterfly?
And there are the questions we all, inevitably, grapple with ourselves: Who am I? Who do I want to be? What kind of story do I want to tell?
On “Learning How to Consume”: I didn’t have to.
Laermans writes about the feminization of consumption and the socialization of consumption, and as someone who is female and social and who shamelessly enjoys consuming I take serious issue with how this part of my existence is labeled.
As humans, there are a lot of things we know- some of these we are explicitly taught, some we have learned from experience, and some we seem to genetically understand.
It's true that I know a lot about how to consume, and I recognize that a significant part of that is taught to me by marketers and other "social messengers". I'm willing to spend $5 on a fashion magazine that is essentially a handbook for consumption: it will tell me which brands I should be emulating, which shampoo Kate Hudson uses. I was certainly taught that Bottega Veneta is to be lusted after, and that Yves Saint Laurent was an artistic genius.
There are also things I’ve learned myself: how to navigate a sales rack or where to park at the mall. That shopping at the same stores as your friends- but always for different items- is a good way to know you are dressing acceptably.
But I am still convinced that as an individual, there are things about shopping that I simply get- that no one taught me, that I didn’t have to learn. It’s simply not true that development of the department store or the mall turned consumption into a social thing. Consumption has been social since cavemen hunted and cavewomen gathered and families sat down to eat together. More recently, town centers- centers based on a market, on commerce- served as social magnets long before King of Prussia became an international shopping destination.
As for the feminization of consumption? Like anything, gender lines are blurry and there are men who like to shop and women who don’t. The “metrosexual” phenomenon was the byproduct of advertising, and its death a few years later is perhaps a testament to the weakness of trends in the face of genetics. Truly, I think women’s tendency to shop is just a byproduct of the fact that women bond with each other verbally, and wandering through stores is a great venue for conversation. It’s a psychological fact that women say more words every day than men do. So let the men play video games and grunt and let women wander with their credit cards. Clearly, Mr. Macy did not set my internal verbal barometer higher when he built his legendary New York store.
As humans, there are a lot of things we know- some of these we are explicitly taught, some we have learned from experience, and some we seem to genetically understand.
It's true that I know a lot about how to consume, and I recognize that a significant part of that is taught to me by marketers and other "social messengers". I'm willing to spend $5 on a fashion magazine that is essentially a handbook for consumption: it will tell me which brands I should be emulating, which shampoo Kate Hudson uses. I was certainly taught that Bottega Veneta is to be lusted after, and that Yves Saint Laurent was an artistic genius.
There are also things I’ve learned myself: how to navigate a sales rack or where to park at the mall. That shopping at the same stores as your friends- but always for different items- is a good way to know you are dressing acceptably.
But I am still convinced that as an individual, there are things about shopping that I simply get- that no one taught me, that I didn’t have to learn. It’s simply not true that development of the department store or the mall turned consumption into a social thing. Consumption has been social since cavemen hunted and cavewomen gathered and families sat down to eat together. More recently, town centers- centers based on a market, on commerce- served as social magnets long before King of Prussia became an international shopping destination.
As for the feminization of consumption? Like anything, gender lines are blurry and there are men who like to shop and women who don’t. The “metrosexual” phenomenon was the byproduct of advertising, and its death a few years later is perhaps a testament to the weakness of trends in the face of genetics. Truly, I think women’s tendency to shop is just a byproduct of the fact that women bond with each other verbally, and wandering through stores is a great venue for conversation. It’s a psychological fact that women say more words every day than men do. So let the men play video games and grunt and let women wander with their credit cards. Clearly, Mr. Macy did not set my internal verbal barometer higher when he built his legendary New York store.
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