Golden Arches

Advertising has become the cornerstone of many Fortune 500 companies like PepsiCo, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Microsoft, Apple, and McDonald’s to name a few. The average person may be exposed to as many as 5000 ads a day, compared to the meager 500 back in the 70s (“Cutting Through Advertising Clutter” CBS.com).  Just about everything we see is branded with some sort of logo. This past week I noticed that I was being barraged by numerous McDonald’s commercials. One specific commercial stood out to me due to its focus on children peering into the “old school” McDonald’s happy meal boxes. One kid says that they don’t see anything and that “it” isn’t in the box. At the end of the commercial an adult comes on and says that hope is in every box. Going on further that McDonald’s donates a portion of the proceeds to Ronald McDonald House of Charities, just as Wal-Mart does get charity work also. Somehow the fact that these companies rely on unskilled labor, paying little in wages and zero benefits doesn’t sound as good on a commercial as “hope” does.

The McDonald’s corporation has become a prominent feature of our everyday lives. In my immediate neighborhood there are two restaurants about a mile and half apart. Lots of children have memories that include the company’s characters, play areas, and especially their toys. McDonald’s has been in business since 1955 and currently serves 60 million customers a day. They have over 32,000 restaurants in 100 countries (McDonalds.com). The Asia-Pacific, Middle East, Africa (APMEA) region has 7,555 stores (Veseth 2006). McDonald’s has donated $40 million in scholarships since 1985 and continues to donate a portion of its profits to the Ronald McDonald House of Charities and other local charities. Franchise owners often donate to their local communities. For example, one franchise owner in Pennsylvania sent 15 community youths to college. The larger question I suppose is not how much good does McDonald’s do for the plentiful communities it serves, but what impact has it had on the American culture and its pervasiveness into other cultures, shaping it. McDonald’s has successfully created an image of help, hope, and children, and in return the public continuously and conveniently “overlooks” their exploitation and ideologies of consumerism and unhealthy eating (plaguing the most poorest socioeconomic classes with obesity). But don’t forget that McDonald’s supports the “working guy” with the Dollar menu, because that billion dollar CEO cares about YOUR plights.

McDonald’s standardization that consisted of speed, consistency, and low price help the company rise through the ranks to become 106^th of the top companies (CNNMoney.com). The company successfully applied Adam Smith’s division of labor, successfully taking and filling an order in 30 seconds or less. Through the diversification  of tasks and the reduction of “wasted or excess” time, you are able to get your food in minutes, maybe even seconds; as if waiting was so horrible. Unfortunately this traps us in Weber’s Iron Cage that is based upon efficiency, calculability, predictability, and of course, control. All this indifference leaves little room for creativity and personality. The employee is forced into competition and is alienated from the hundreds of burgers they make, making it “just a job.” Only through the employee’s exploitation is the franchise owners and the McDonald’s corporation able to make the millions to donate to their own charity and send the 3, yes 3, scholarships winners of last years’ competitors to college.

Fast capitalism has caused our communities and families to be sped up, blurring the line between the public and the private. Everything has been intensified making our lives a multitasking nightmare were moms discuss their children on the phone while driving to work.  We surf the web while texting and cooking dinner. Children spend unlimited hours completing mundane and “resume building” tasks in efforts to prepare themselves for the employment world. With all of the tests on performativity, is it any surprise that there is a breakdown in interpersonal communication and healthy relationships. McDonald’s has also created a summer camp that seeks to educate and groom the youth for employment.

McDonald’s has also taken commodification to an all new level, turning “hope” into something that can be bought or provided through lots of money. This has also framed their products as a way to “help” others in its efforts to raise its profit margin. Our species being (Karl Marx) has been linked to consumerism; if you want to feel connected to humanity and the self you must buy happy meals and Big Macs. It is not as farfetched as you may think; McDonald’s sales 5,000 Big Macs on an average day. On McHappy Day, Brazil raised $7.8 million from Big Mac sales in one day (rmhc.org). Everything has become a commodity in a world fueled by exploitation.

McDonald’s best represents a globalization that is standardizing our lives, in which we focus on controlling and maximizing our profits. To many other countries, McDonald’s represents American values of overconsumption, violence, sex, and domination. Even though thousands of people purchase their products and use their facilities for various reasons, it does not mean that they welcome the American culture that has the potential to disrupt their cultural values on family, relationships, consumption, work, and education. The world is filled with many good intentions that subliminally socialize people to believe in what the all mighty dollar can do instead of what the individual can create. It is important to remember while criticizing companies like McDonald’s that placing the blame solely on the company denies the individual agency; the individual is still very active in the process.

The Early Bird Gets the Worm!

After reading “Fast Families, Virtual Children” by Ben Agger and Beth Anne Shelton,I was in front of the boob tube watching some random television show, probably one about how some wealthy people survive their rough realities, and all of the sudden a commercial about learning appeared. It was the “summer” commercial for Sylvan Learning. It stated that over the extremely lengthy 2 months of vacation, children will lose all of the information they learned throughout the school year. This statement was paired with, I would say, a ten year old boy getting out of a pool knocking the “knowledge” out of his head; as if it were even possible. It then continued on, explaining that their service could increase a child’s reading level in 36 hours of their instruction. It was a sure-fire way to boost your child’s performance. It ended with a child happily learning, still in a chair taking instruction in a room with books, bland walls, no sun light; with each blink a little more creativity and vivacity lost.

I’m sure we can all relate to the fact that this doesn’t happen. Even though we might forget a random fact or statistical information or definition, skills are never lost and if raw data is your focus then maybe we all forget things here and there. The real question is what is lost in a world where children are sentenced to 6+ exhausting, mentally and physically, hours of learning. Children, nor adults, are made to be sedentary creatures, so locking either in a room and forcing them to be immobile is impractical and unreasonable. As we age, we envy children for many things like their youth, creativity, innocence, and time. Due to adult’s inability to have these, children are resented. With a mix of capitalism this turns into efforts for year-round schooling, ending recess, and increased standardized testing and extracurricular activities. We make the ten year old's life just as exhausting as someone in college. Agger and Shelton make a great point that “[t]he triumph of facts over theories already decides in favor of culture’s utilitarianism” (p.142). With things like recess and summer breaks deemed as useless, there is a push to cut them out because they are not viewed as productive.

Any sane person would question the need to be productive all the time. In today’s economic climate, time is money and “free” time does not turn into career opportunities. We often hear that it is not what you know but who you know. This language transforms every action into a business interaction; cultural capital equates to economic capital. We teach our children to take tests not to enhance their abilities, to reproduce what they’ve been taught not to enhance their analytical skills to challenge their own perceptions and ideas; ultimately we encourage docile bodies and “good” workers.

Adulthood is being performed and produced earlier and earlier in children, hence educational enhancers like “My Baby Can Read.” This amazing program helps your baby read as early as 9 months! In this plan your child can have a college reading level by age ten, what more could you want. Instead of learning some social skills, you stuff them in a corner, only letting them out for their 8 resume building activities. Television programs like Barney & Friends and Dora the Explorer socialize children at an early age the rules of world and another language; don’t forget being bilingual is key. This “worldly self,” concept presented by Agger and Shelton, posits that the manufacturing line for adulthood begins before kindergarten.

What kind of culture and people are we creating when personal happiness and success falls upon performativity? When we calculate a GPA out to the seventh decimal point we are smashing the vase of creativity by reinforcing certain skill sets, skill sets that benefit a world of consumerism, productivity, stereotyping, gender roles, majorities versus minorities, and most importantly socioeconomic status. As a society we become purely workers with limited abilities when we stamp out anything that is not deemed profitable.

How the Sociological Imagination Affected My Life

As a returning student at the age of 24, I was unsure what I wanted to “do” with my education. I was much more aware of what I didn’t want to do than what I did. I didn’t want to keep working dead end service jobs and feeling like I was swimming against a tide that pushed me further away being the person I wanted to be. I didn’t see any way to get out and felt like I had no one to blame for my circumstances but myself. At 20 I knew I should have gone to college and could see I was getting nowhere fast. I wondered why I couldn’t break out of fast food and into the retail section, other people had and what was wrong with me that I was forced to work fast food jobs? I wondered why I couldn’t get hired to use the office skills I had gone to trade school for. I blamed myself and tried to imagine what I could have done differently and better to increase my chances of getting a better job. I felt that I had only one option –college but, for someone of impsoverished background it seemed pretty impossible and I had no idea how to fill out the FAFSA or interpret my own taxes staements.

Lucky, I landed in college but, not without alot of help. My first year at community college was filled with indecision and uncertainty, would this pay off better than the trade school? Would I be able to find a job after graduation? What career could I choose that was stimulating, paid well and would be in demand in 5 years when I graduated? Would that career bring me more satisfaction than others?
By my second year, I was content to remain undecided until I received my transfer degree and moved on to a four year university. Mostly I was happy to be succeeding at something other than a minimum wage dead end job. Just when you stop looking - you find love, or so they say, and I found my love for sociology after I stopped stressing about my future occupation. I enrolled in History of the French Revolution at Spokane Falls Community College; this class, and Marx, is at the very root of my understanding and love for Sociology.
Taking the course helped me to understand the historical context of Sociology as a discipline and showed me its roots in labor, industrial capitalism and revolution. The professor worked a lot of sociology into the lectures, although I did not realize it at the time. By doing so, he introduced us to many sociological concepts without calling them such. Social structures of the time were outlined and explained as being stratified by class and birth. We touched on Anomie as a result of peoples move from agriculture to industrialization and spent a few days discussing the Communist Manifesto and Marx’s’ various solutions to social problems associated with rural to urban migration and exploitive capitalism. This class prepared me to accept Sociology as a possible discipline because it gave historical legitimacy, concrete examples and interdisciplinary understanding to a subject that I had been very unaware of.
The next quarter I enrolled in Sociology of Race, Gender and Ethnicity and from the first day I felt intellectual stimulation like I had never experienced before. I felt like I was discovering the most meaningful subject in my education. When I wasn’t in class, I was talking about the class and when I wasn’t talking about it, I was thinking about it. So it seemed to me. It still does. I’m hooked and I haven’t really looked back since. Personally, it meant I could stop blaming myself for my failed attempt at entering the workforce without an education or social commection. I gained and understanding of how my situation is linked to political, economic and cultural factors that are both beyond my control and potentintially within societies agency to change. Sociology gave me a platform for addressing inequalities that I had felt but didn’t know how to express. Finally, my perception that society is patriarchal, racist and classist could be acknowledged through a subject that deals specifically with the differential power between genders, races and classes. I was amazed at how my concerns and ideas were shared by others, that I wasn’t “too sensitive” and others were aware and had experienced what I did. It was revolutionary.
What is it about Sociology that sets my mind on fire? I have always been interested in behavior. Sociology is the study of peoples and groups interactions - the movements between people that constitute the world we live in. I believe that I have always been studying Sociology, since I first watched two people interact and wondered, why? I love that I can take sociological thinking and apply it to any subject anywhere and look forward to “the familiar being transformed in its meaning (Berger, 1963).”
Now that I know about Sociology, I find that it permeates daily life and so I believe it to be relevant and worthwhile; two things that keep me returning to the subject. What I loved about sociology the most was how I learned to see beyond my individual experience and place my life within the context of greater forces such as economics and politics. C.W. Mills sociological imagination is defined as the ability to see the connection between the self and the greater world and is perhaps the most powerful tool for guiding and shaping our understanding of life. I no longer fear the tide that made me feel powerless, I use the sociological imagination to recognize the forces that influence my choices and in that recognition I gain the power to exert a greater influence where I am going and who I am.

A Response to Rote Education

As a student my response to a rote culture and through it a rote education is mixed. It's easier if you know what is expected but, does it prepare us for college or employment? The idea of a rote culture is introduced in Fast Families, Vertual Children by Ben Agger and Beth Anne Shelton as a way of understanding our fact based, multiple choice education which emphasizes memorization and repetition over creativity and critical thinking. Nowhere was this more apparent to me than when I transitioned from the GECR courses to those in my major, Sociology.

The expectation in most GECR classes is that you study the material until you are able to recognize the correct multiple choice answer or remember the few points that are necessary for a sufficient short answer question. The goal is to remember what you've been told and to commit it to short term memory; without a good understanding of the context or applicability of an isolated fact or event we forget it as soon as the quarter is over. Mostly, I was not expected to interpret or bring my own ideas into my test answer. Many of us probably have bad experiences associated with the few times we attempted to stray from the study topics and bring in our own interpretation or critical thoughts on the topic. We learn right away that there is only one correct answer - the one given to us by the instructor.

For students who went into the 'hard' sciences, I bet this multiple-choice-only-one-answer-fits education continues through the upper level courses as well. Perhaps this is to the benefit of the students learning and future employment but, I don't know; I went in to a liberal arts discipline that stresses interpretation, critical thinking and creativity. I have found my primary and secondary rote education has left me underprepared for the level of critical thinking and creativity that is necessary for sociological thinking.

When I took Social Stratification with Pui-Yan Lam I was challenged to think about and explain why poor minority students have a lower rate of success (statistically) than white middle class or upper class students in all most all levels of education. It was hard for me to think critically about how our educational institutions functioned and I was unable to recognize or articulate the differential treatment that poor and minority students receive compared to white middle or upper class students. Part of it was my own youthful experience as a white student in a mostly white school but, it was also my unquestioning acceptance of the status quo. Having hardly ever been asked to think outside of the box, I had a hard time breaking out of it and seeing what is hidden by our rote culture and rote education - an assembly line that produces and rewards middleclass white ideals, norms and expectations.

Even after two years in the sociology program here at Eastern, I feel like my critical thinking skills are not the sharpest tool in my shed. I still find myself looking through the texts and the discussions for the author or authorities final interpretation and relying on it as if it were the best or only answer to the question. My ability to synthesize information and come up with my own interpretations and ideas is growing but, it has been stunted by the years of rote education that continue to influence my desire for easy clear cut answers.

A rote culture and a rote education has consequences for our problem solving and critical thinking skills. If we hope to improve the world around us, to combat poverty, to end discrimination and hate then, we must be able to think critically about the way and the reasons things are. How can we do this if we don't practice critical thinking in our culture or our education?

To think about and imagine the way that our schools can be organized to promote critical thinking and interpretation is quite hard. I must first imagine schools without the authoritarian reliance on discipline and punishment, on standardized multiple choice question, on teachers who reward white middle class norms and habits. In this imagining I have already transformed schools from a rote education into a more humane and student focused environment where children are not pressured to speak white English, espouse ideas thought up by men a hundred years ago, to regurgitate knowledge out of context and discipline themselves to stay within the established lines and limitations.

Schools relay on rote education because it is easy. If the kids don't question, if they just take it all in and spit it back out at the appropriate times, teachers can rely on packaged lesson plans and standardized tests to teach and evaluate. Easy for teachers but, for students like me, who are now challenged to think creatively and critically it means unlearning a bad habit - looking for the answer rather than contributing an answer that fits the current reality; one that changes with the individual, the setting and the times.

Buffering

It occurs to me, indeed as I write this very blog, that I am extremely hard to get motivated into writing papers or doing schoolwork at times. I have noticed that these times occur especially for me when I am in my apartment and surrounded by my guitar and my PS3 and the internet and so on. In the book Fast Families and Virtual Children, authors Agger and Shelton have illuminated a new line of reasoning that may lend itself to explaining this kind of distracted behavior.

To further clarify, I don’t always have trouble getting motivated to study and indeed I enjoy most of the subjects that I have encountered in my academic career. In fact I, not being a student that lives nearby the university campus, find myself with hours of downtime between classes and nothing else to occupy my time with but studying. Furthermore, at the university, in that academic environment, the pursuit of my studies is foremost on my mind. So with my admitted energy for learning what could possibly be my academic stumbling point as soon as I cross the threshold to my apartment?

There are the usual suspects such as the ease of access of frivolous media via the internet, which I am sure has a contributive component, or even my guitar or desire to run. However, there are similar activities on campus that I could engage in, during that downtime that I mentioned, if I really wanted to avoid studying. This line of reasoning coupled with my understanding of Fast Families and Virtual Children has led me to search for a deeper and more involved answer.

What started me on this path was Agger and Shelton’s detailed account of the mess that is the modern American Family. In that account is the recent phenomena of the merging of the workplace and the home. As the authors explain it, through email and electronic media as well as reversed family and workplace roles there is a significant blurring between where the workplace ends and where the home begins.
If we can work at home and on the road, as well as in the office cubicle, where, then, is the job site? If “parenting” takes place in the workplace day-care center, from the office desk using instant messaging and e-mail, and while driving , using cellular phones, where exactly is the home? ( Agger & Shelton 2007).

What is produced by this blurring is an uncomfortable and stress filled environment where there is simply no escape from the worries of the workplace. There is no buffer that can provide a space available for pursuits that may be less productive but are far more personally enriching. I find myself wondering if this line of reasoning does not also apply to college students. If class and study are all part of the workplace of academia, with the deadlines and the stress, then would it not follow that having a space for personal endeavors devoid of academic interference might be key to lowering student stress levels?

Lastly, I being a fairly nontraditional student, living on my own far away from campus, can indeed identify where I feel the need to maintain a space in which there is no test anxiety or paper deadlines. When I can study for hours on campus but only in short spurts in my home, it seems to follow that keeping my work and home life separate to a certain degree is a good and necessary thing. However I wonder about the new students who eat, sleep and live on campus. How does this blurring of boundaries, work and school, affect them?

Agger, B, & Shelton, B. (2007). Fast Families, Virtual Children. Paradigm Publishers: Boulder.

A Response the Bias of Local News Reporting

While Spokane’s citizens were celebrating the beginning of spring with the annual Blooms day Race, protesters in Seattle were pounding the pavement demanding that discrimination against immigrants in education, housing and employment cease. A Seattle news station reported on the event but offered little insight into the motivation or demands of the protest participants. (see http://www.nwcn.com/news/Immigration-Rally-Tackles-Discrimination-121035689.html). The article in question ended with a quote from Craig Keller, part of the “Respect Washington” group that staged a counter protest on Sunday. He stated that all U.S. citizens should be treated equally, but when it comes to ‘illegal’ immigrants, “The taxpayer subsidy to illegal aliens must stop. The answer for illegal aliens is to make themselves legal by returning to their county of citizenship.”

I'd like to point out a couple things about this article. One, the reporter does not convey the national and historical context of May Day labor protests. The activists of the labor community have been utilizing May first for almost a century; and the date represents a platform for unions and other labor organizations to broadcast information and activism about a critical subject to all of us, our rights as employees. Instead the articles focuses exclusively on the local protest activities of a group organized by La Raza, a predominantly Latino organization. This focus limits the articles ability to connect the local groups demand to the national crackdown on unions and employee rights. The article presented a limited view (as only a Latino protest) of the discrimination experienced by racial minorities, immigrants and women-all marginalized workers, while setting the stage for a truncated debate on immigration; a debate that focuses on illegal immigrants as an economic and social ‘problem’ that can be solved by mass deportation. Rather than writing a well rounded article on the workers’ rights, opening debate and discussion on this subject, the articles use of the Craig Keller quote at the very end initiates a one-sided comment frenzy about how undocumented immigrants are a strain on the U.S. economy and social services and should deal with unsafe working conditions or go back where they came from. This brings me directly to my second issue.

The way the article ended with the quote from Keller suggesting that the solution to the immigrant ‘problem’ is the deportation of 11 to 12 million people. This invites people to respond to the article in narrow-minded and simplistic terms of understanding immigration, legal or otherwise. Why do we blame immigrants for doing the same thing all our ancestors did? Most people assert that we are all are descended from immigrants, who faced the same barriers in getting here and becoming successfultherfor the same to all who want to come here now, right? Perhaps not.

Initially, there were no laws regulating immigrants coming to American and no one to enforce them. That’s how the earliest settlers were able to enter the region and take the land from Native Americans. The initial settlers were privileged in comparison to today’s immigrants in that there was no law to bar their entry and the races (what we would now condsider the 'white' races) entered unrestricted, later immigration laws were developed to restrict minority groups like Asians and Latinos from gainng citizenship. Legal and ‘illegal’ immigrants are doing the same that most (white) people historically did to get to and succeed in America- they are making the journey, finding a job and living their life here.

The article from the King 5 station that I am referring to garnered many comments by web viewers, comments that suggested that immigrants here without documentation are without rights and deserve to be treated like criminals or worse. The recent federal decision to charge undocumented immigrants with felonies helps to criminalize a group that is already deprived of rights within the U.S. because of their noncitizen status. The criminalization of people who enter this country the same way many ancestors did, without the permission of those already living here, may indicate that we are thinking and acting under a flawed assumption that immigration laws are consistent and are an unbiased reason for excluding undocumented immigrants citizenship.

More broadly though, this article reinforces the usual get-out-of-our–country rhetoric that epitomizes the immigration debate, rhetoric which focuses on blaming the immigrants rather than questioning the structure that compels immigrants to make a life threatening journey to gain employment in unsafe working conditions where they face unnecessarily low wages and racial or ethnic discrimination. This rhetoric never asks why illegal immigrants are so desperate to get away from their native countries that they risk their lives to come here. While inserting the fear that illegal immigrants reduce jobs available to citizens, this rhetoric never questions why there are less unskilled jobs in general, creating more completion for crappy jobs and fueling the discord between races and ethnicities. When more people are familiar with the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Central American Free Trade Agreement and their impact on the Mexican and global economy, then we can better understand that the reason undocumented immigrants are here looking for work is the same reason that many Americans are out of work. Jobs that used to employee the US's middle class have been transferred by corporations and big business to countries with more easily exploitable labor forces, devaluing or destroying the local econnomy and driving their standard of living down, causing the immigration that society is complaining about.

We should all stop blaming immigrants who just wants to feed their family and start understanding the ways that our national policies and global economy has increased the demand for undocumented immigrants in the U.S. job market and contributed to the push factors that influence their decision to leave their home.

$2,500 Less Next Year?

As this year rolls towards its end and we look forward to the lazy days of summer, it’s important to realize that next year many of us will struggle harder to pay for our degree. Do you know how you will pay your tuition, your rent and buy food? For those who count on their financial aid package to cover some of the cost of tuition and books, it may be time to start thinking about accepting extra loans. Most of us are in a holding pattern right now, waiting for the next year’s financial aid award and hoping that the state and federal reductions will be small and can be covered by more loans. For me the wait is becoming harder to endure as I start to calculate the potential reduction in my financial aid award.

A lot of students at Eastern are from low income families who couldn’t afford college without the substantial help of state and federal assistance. This is the case for me. I qualify for the federal Pell Grant, the state Need Grant and the federally funded Work-study Grant. These three grants are given to me for free on the condition that I maintain my GPA and enroll as a full time student. Each grant has been cut; those of us receiving them will see those cuts reflected in our financial aid awards.

The Pell Grant pays for most of my tuition and is the largest contributor to my, and most Eastern students, overall financial aid package. This grant can provide as much as $5,550 to students who qualify. This grant was cut 62% by the federal government trying to balance its budget on the backs of those students who are the least able to pay for college on their own. Did you receive the Pell Grant this year? If you did, then perhaps you should pull out your financial aid award and imagine that grant reduced by a conservative 15%. Those of us who are determined the most eligible for this grant and receive the highest award amount will also experience a larger reduction in this aid. The $5,550 a year that pays for my tuition will be reduced by $830. More importantly the overall cut of the Pell Grant by 62% means that 1.7 million students across the nation who received the funding last year will not find the Pell Grant listed on their financial aid award. No matter how much or how little the Pell Grant contributed, next year there will be less, if any, on your financial aid award.

The Need Grant makes up another big chunk of Eastern students financial aid award and is annually being reduced in comparison to the needs of students. In 2010 this grant was cut by 7 million dollars which meant reductions in all students’ funding, in addition to 2,000 students who qualified for the grant being denied because the funds couldn’t cover everyone. (DailyUW). This year is no different as Gregour has once again targeted higher education as an appropriate place to reduce the state deficit. So, where does that leave qualifying students like ourselves? Perhaps we should imagine a conservative 15% being cut from my state Need Grant. There’s another $750 that I’m pretty sure I won’t be getting

I have an on campus job funded through the Work-study Grant. The federal or state funded nature of these programs complicate an understanding of what is going to the budget chopping block and how students will be affected. For the limited number of people who get this, their funding comes from two different sources, the state or federal budget, meaning that work-study positions are affected by two different sets of proposed budget cuts. There is a proposed 30% overall reduction in the federal funding that will be decided later this summer and similar decisions waiting to be made at the state level. This funding is not paid in a lump sum like the Pell and Need grants at the beginning of the quarter and so have less effect on the resources available to pay for tuition and more effect on daily life.

Personally, having a work-study job still makes a big difference in how well I study and live. I got work-study at the Falls both years I was there, managing to go to school and not take out any loans but, I didn’t get work-study funding when I transferred to Eastern. It was really hard to manage a job that wasn’t flexible about study time and I wasn’t able to keep it very long. I’ve always made school my first priority and I took out a loan so I didn’t have to work. I feel lucky to have gotten a work-study award this year, but with the hardship and financial cost of last year fresh in my mind I can easily imagine being cut again or at least experiencing a drastic reduction in the $3,000 that is meted out in two week increments throughout the academic year. That would be another $900 deduction from my resources.

So what’s my financial damage? With 15% reductions in my Pell and Need Grants and a 30% reduction in my work-study award it’s a potential loss of about $2,500.

Let’s not forget that tuition is going up by roughly 12%. Quarterly, we pay $2,021 and a 12% increase equals $2,263 per quarter and $6,790 for the academic year. So if annually I get $4,600 from the Pell grant and about $4,200 from the state Need Grant then I have $8,800 to pay my tuition, which will leave me with about $2,000 to subsist on for the year. Each quarter I will get a refund of $600 to buy books and live on. If I am fortunate enough to get work study I can count on a steady $400 a month. So I may attempt to live on $500 a month during the school year, I may be forced to work and I will defiantly have to take out another loan. Oops, I forgot about the $200 in fees every quarter. I defiantly can’t live on the leftover financial aid and will have to take out a loan, again.

I wanted to share all my financial information so that we could have a real life example of how increases in tuition and reductions in funding will play out next year. Each person will have different circumstances than mine and I’m sure there will be many students among us who will fare far worse than this conservative estimate of my own award next year. Some students receiving these state and federal grants will qualify for a much reduced amount and others who have received these grants in the past may not qualify next year.

We haven’t gotten our financial aid awards yet but I’ve been told we can expect them by the first week in June. Until then I will continue to wonder exactly how much assistance I can depend next year and whether or not I can expect to take out more loans. At worst case, if I lose my funding I can just take out more and more loans, right? That seems to be the message behind these cuts.

I noted a statistic that estimated the student loan debt for those graduating from a four year college is $24,000 (The Chronicle of Higher Education). This seems pretty conservative; I have seen other sources state a much larger estimate of $50,000. The question becomes which average will I be and what long-lasting consequences will educational budget cuts have on this generation of students? How will mounting loan debt affect my chances of completing a bachelors or continuing on to graduate school? Will I be forced to take a less desirable job immediately after graduation in order to begin paying off my loans without defaulting? If I take that less desirable job have I limited my future employment options?

Some of us will not be here next year and the ones who start may not be able to finish, will it be me or you…or both? When you open your financial aid award remember that you are not alone in experiencing reductions, remember that others may be affected more and know that as a student body and citizens we are not without recourse.

The Religious Disease.

What is an idea? A belief? What about an ideal?

The dictionary defines them as follows...

i·de·a
[ahy-dee-uh, ahy-deeuh]
–noun
1. any conception existing in the mind as a result of mental understanding, awareness, or activity.
2. a thought, conception, or notion: That is an excellent idea.
3. an impression: He gave me a general idea of how he plans to run the department.

-  -  -  -  -  -  -          -  -  -  -  -  -  -          -  -  -  -  -  -  -

be·lief
[bih-leef]
–noun
1. something believed;  an opinion or conviction: a belief that the earth is flat.
2. confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof: a statement unworthy of belief.
3. confidence; faith; trust: a child's belief in his parents.

-  -  -  -  -  -  -          -  -  -  -  -  -  -          -  -  -  -  -  -  -

i·de·al
[ahy-dee-uhl, ahy-deel]
–noun
1. a conception of something in its perfection.
2. a standard of perfection or excellence.
3. a person or thing conceived as embodying such a conception or conforming to such a standard, and taken as a model for imitation: Thomas Jefferson was his ideal.

-  -  -  -  -  -  -          -  -  -  -  -  -  -          -  -  -  -  -  -  -

Just recently, on the Eastern Washington University, we had two separate incidents of specific religious groups / individuals attempting to spread the word of their “God” and who are spreading the word of discrimination and segregation. And did I mention - that Saturday, May 21st, is the end of the world?!

Christianity is a broad term for countless different denominations. Their beliefs and ideals are different, but yet they all say basicallly the same things. They Know that theirs is the “only true God,” they Know that by doing / believing a strict set of “things” that they will be saved, and they Know that anyone who does not do /. follow / share in those actions / beliefs will be eternally damned to the fiery pits of hell. These beliefs when looked at from a distant point of view may appear rash and extreme - and even when looking at these beliefs, similar to all Christians, those beliefs are rash and extreme. Christianity states that all men are deserving of rights and certain protections (this philosophy overflows into the constitutions and declarations of the world’s governments), yet the right to have other opinions and view points is one right which seems to go by the way side a notable amount of the time.

Many religions state that they will accept people of all races and denominations, and of all different faiths. But they later stipulate that those people must alter their views to conform to that of the majority religion. For “there can be only one true God,” and he alone is perfect. Christianity is a plethora of hypocrisy.

For those who choose to believe their own ideas - they are cast out from the mainstream. They are looked down upon. They are castigated by the majority. They, who did not believe in the one “true” God, would be excommunicated from the Church, and be privy to the punishments of the “barbarians” who would pillage the villages of old world Europe. Notably this was a long time ago, but those who still choose other faiths to follow, or who choose to have no faith, are still subject to the “evil eye” of the Christians of today. Modern times have become more open to other ideals, but there is still the ever-present look of the Christian Church and society.

Our day-to-day lives are always under examination by those around us, and typically there is at least one person who follows the word of Jesus Christ. That person will most likely be holding you up to their standards of “Christian Morality,” and expect that you meet the basic expectations of their God.

I was raised as a Christian, my family established Churches across the US. As a child we went to every service. We were a proper Lutheran going family (with the exception of my father, who had been raised Catholic, and had somewhat lost his faith). As I got older, I began to go through the age old right of every Lutheran child, Catechism. I began to learn more about the world and other philosophies (something which my mother had primarily sheltered me from). I began to question “the Faith.” I began to see that there were many different possibilities for the meaning to life, and what exactly it means to be human (other than the singular point which I was raised to believe).

It was not until college that I finally announced my complete abandonment of the Faith. I had tried several different denominations of Christianity, including Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy (the later being my last true go at Christianity). But I finally could not take the hypocrisy. I am not trying to talk bad about any Christian denomination, I am truly only sharing my story.

I made the announcement to my mother that I no longer accepted the faith - this incident affected her deeply - it seemed as though I had told her that she failed in some way as a parent. This was not my intent, but I could not pretend to believe in something that I did not any longer.

Plato describes one incident where Socrates had been questioned about why any person should accept God. He stated that there is no reason not to believe in God, if he does exist (and you “believe” in him) you will be able to go to heaven, or if he does not exist (and you still “believe” in him) you will die and nothing will happen. I learned this in a philosophy class, and it has stuck with me ever since. I honestly tried to use it as a justification to believe in the “one true God.” But I came to the conclusion that if God does exist and he is so self-centered as to say that completely good and honest people will go to hell simply because they deny Him, that I would not want to believe in Him. That I could not believe in any deity who would knowingly punish an innocent person for a lack of believing in Him, and Him alone.

I see examples of the Christian church forcing people to accept their religion. On the very campus of Eastern we allow representatives of this “church” to pass out the word of their “God.” Because American culture is primarily Christian, and expect all who are truly “American” to believe in this faith as well, these missionaries are able to carry out this task. You can see countless people carrying around these little orange or green bibles.

This act may seem benign, but in fact it is only oppression. People who are not “true believers” but rather simply say that they “are” Christian carry this books around. They parade the word of God, without understanding what it truly means or says. They blindly bind themselves to that religion. And for those who deny those missionaries and do not accept the bibles, they are looked down upon.

If some other, less socially accepted, religion were to attempt to spread the word of their God or Gods in this manner they would be ran out, or at the very least mocked. Why should we, as a community of learned people, allow this hypocrisy to continue on our very own campus?! My very simple solution, one of two things - one, we could allow all religions/faiths to preach openly - OR - two, we could allow no religion/faith to preach on our campus. I would personally prefer that, as a community of learners, we accept all forms of religion, all beliefs, and allow all to preach the word of the God/s or lack there of, but then and again I am somewhat bias to individual freedom.

Technology and Relationships

Our modern society has wrapped itself around technology, we are engulfed in it, and I truly am not sure we know how to live without it. Essentially, we are addicted. We live in a fast-paced world where if it isn’t instant, we don’t want it. In a world where technology is everything, it isn’t farfetched to say it is affecting every part of our lives, inside and out. My question is, how can we become so obsessed with a way of living, when clearly it is tearing a healthy lifestyle and our relationships apart right in front of us? We are bombarded with standards through our socialization and connection to this world on most every matter, whether we realize it or not. Although we may not blame technology directly for all of our societal issues, it definitely plays a part in our ability to recollect our thoughts, respond and react to situations in our lives.


Take marriage for instance, the changes in standards behind what marriage stands for and how one thinks about it can be seen generationally. Marriage is hard work, and older generations were very accepting of this. Marriage used to be widely recognized as uniting two lives together and these two lives would remain as one forever. I don’t think people went into marriage thinking this is going to be really easy and fun all of the time, but they made a commitment to each other for life. The idea was that no matter how long or hard one had to work at issues to reconcile with the other, it would be done because two people loved one another. Marriage is still a very big deal and will have a phenomenal impact on a person’s life. I don’t believe marriage itself has changed at all, but the ideas and standards around it have certainly been shaped by newer generations of society. Today our divorce rates in the United States are reaching upward of 40%. Let me repeat, marriage is hard work, and it’s work that takes time. Time is one thing that younger generations of today do not have excess of. The unfortunate standard idea of today that marriage has become is that it’s okay if this isn’t the right person, or if it doesn’t work out because I can always get a divorce. It’s not uncommon and its hardly looked down upon anymore, so why would a person think they had to work hard at something if once again, there is a quick fix, an easy way out that won’t interfere with the rapid lifestyle of today.


This lifestyle and the technology that allows it keeps us constantly moving, yet constantly connected to one another through a variety of social media. I believe this distanced and impersonal interaction is directly related to the emotional detachment almost half of all marriages are experiencing. Marriages may end for a variety of reasons, but our society seems to be lacking what it takes to deal with the problem that resulted in the divorce in the first place, and it also lacks the standard that they should have even had to try to solve it. Every marriage is going to endure hardships that will take emotional commitment, communication and time to heal. Technology has detached us from even recognizing when and how to deal with these deep relational situations because the majority of our interactions exist on the surface level or through a technological device. Why would we take the time to deal with something hard when we are so used to finding shortcuts?


I don’t believe we will be backing away from the use of technology in our rationalized social world anytime soon, but I do think as human beings we need to take a step back and be aware. Even being aware is hard in our world because we are so used to repetition and going through the motions, but unless we want to become the technology ourselves we need to stop running like machines. We are human beings with feelings and emotions and no matter how far we detach ourselves from the real and personal world, we must realize that the remnants of these quick fix solutions can be found deep in our psyches, in our wounded relationships and in our society as a whole.

The new Spokane Jail Bond and Challenging the Politics of Small Things”

In class, we've just finished reading the Politics of Small Thingsby Jeffrey C. Goldfarb. In this book, I found a summation of one of the main themes that I consider to be a flawed premise, and I wish to examine how it relates to the Jail Bond that is going to be on our ballots next year.

According to Goldfarb:

“Education and journalism both discipline, both prepare people to serve the existing order. Schools, from kindergartens to universities, prepare students to serve the powers, and they place students into positions that reflect the existing injustices of the social order. Similarly, journalists at major newspapers and magazines make it appear that the existing historical order is the natural order. They may be critical at the edges, but overwhelmingly are supportive of the status quo... These gross generalizations are not, to my mind, even half truths. .. The real promise and meaning of free institutions of higher learning and journalism is in the details: what goes on between and among students and teachers, journalists and readers.(119-120)

I have a real problem with this theory: this emphasis on the process of creation and not the end result neglects to account for the effects that the process will have on later processes. An example of this theory is the pending bond issue in Spokane County in relation to its recent history and my (liberal) assumptions regarding what it will mean for the future.

If anyone cares to follow what I'm talking about better, then I'd suggest reading the story that was on all of the local news channels last night. Basically, the commissioners have said that they're going to introduce a bond to fund construction of a new jail and improvements on the Geiger facility, and they've told the Police Commissioner to go out and sell the idea to the public. The counter argument is that massively increasing spending on jails without addressing preexisting shortages in job skill training, prevention, and rehabilitation will only hurt the community more.

A few starting facts for this study. First, a recent follow up to a study done ten years ago was conducted through Whitworth University that charted the community's feelings about local police, and the results were dismal, both compared to national rates and the study done previously. Second, there are currently charges pending against the last Police Commissioner (who resigned) accusing him of covering up police brutality. Third, the Spokane media is nationally acclaimed as one of the most biased news machines in the nation, and they LOVE to talk about local crime.

For the purposes of my argument, the people who are arguing either side of the case are educators, trying to share their views with the population. However, the local media has historically been known to cast local governmentin a good light, and even if they didn't have that reputation, they're still responsible for their “fear sells” emphasis. The point is that one side of the argument is on the same side as the media, and has been for a long time. This constant stream of violent information, combined with increasing illegal police activity, has developed a culture of fear in the local community.

This culture of fear limits the ability to carry on a productive dialogue about the points and structure of the debate. First off, both sides agree that crime is a huge problem in our community and merits a large tax increase. Second, the police commissioner's words count for extra because, while they aren't being given any extra weight right this moment, they have still been given a lot of air time for a very long time. It doesn't matter whether people think the police are scared so they respond brutally or they think the police are responding appropriately and well: the result is the same. People want to spend more money on the crime problem, and the Police know best about fixing crime problems (according to local media).

And what will happen if the bond measure is passed? Five years in the future, if we are still facing a crime problem (because let's face it, building jails or hiring cops DOESN'T WORK TO CONTROL CRIME), who are we going to listen to again when we look to fix the problem? Judging by the past, I'd say it'll be the person we've been listening to and about in the intervening time again.

“It is not the political coloration of institutions that is most significant. It is rather that they establish a field for free public interaction, which exists, or does not, in the details of the social interactions.” (121) What the book misses here, and what this local political issue shows, is the effect of time and the shaping of our selves by our experiences and culture that heavily and directly influences the details of social interaction. While both sides of the political spectrum may have an equal say at that specific moment in history, the community at large and the individual in specific is always, always being affected by both past and present, not just the heat of the moment.

Hateredy in the Commons: The Church of Family Values

Well, I'd like to start this blog with a quote. It's a lengthy one, so bear with me, but it sets the stage for my godless little rant. In class we read Fast Families, Virtual Children by Ben Agger and Beth Anne Shelton. One of the concepts that really struck me was familization of the public sphere, which is described as follows;

“Arlie Hoschild (1997) argues that as women enter the paid labor force and life accelerates, an inversion occurs: the workplace becomes like a family, and the household becomes a chore, becomes work like. This is precisely our argument, although we take he issue a step further as we discuss the process of what we term 吐amilization,by which we mean that social relations outside of the household take on certain positive qualities often associated with some idyllic, if mythic, families.(55)

One fantastic example of this projection of idyllic, mythical family values on society at large came the other day when the street corner, sin-obsessed preachers came to our campus. The guys were the epitome of Christian values they incited a screaming mob and then called the cops on it. But they also were there with a purpose: to lambast anyone and everyone in hearing for every sin they've ever committed.

Watching the differences between what they practiced and what they preached was like a brand new episode of the Fox prime time comedy block... we all know what's coming and why, but the situation's somehow still funny. In this case, it's because these guys went to a center of liberal thought and broadcast an absolute, inflexible concept of right and wrong that specifically deals with hot-button social issues. They went looking for a fight over beliefs that reject fighting: a projection of an alternate authority to the norm of the environment and an assumed common definition of right and wrong. Hilarious.

But the even more interesting thing is the well-defined sense of rights within a public sphere, as they discussed a social platform that instinctively negated those rights. In other words, they incited a riot and then stepped back and acted like it was all some little bird's fault, because we are considered within our rights to speak our minds in public. However, their attempt to regain authority and control of the situation by calling in the police when the situation arguably didn't merit it as a way of quieting down the noisy children so the “parents” or whatever could speak again, inherently undermined the same rights that protected their presence where it wasn't wanted in the first place. In other words, they practiced what I interpreted as a familial expectation of respect and authoritative, parental rule enforcement in a manner consistent with certain lower-class, religiously based philosophies (respect thy father/speak when spoken to and corporal punishment for rule violations).

Finally, the college-age daughter of the speaker was among the crowd, meaning this was a combination of public and private spheres for this family. I learned about this when I said something derogatory about her father to a friend of mine standing next to her, and she got incredibly frustrated and stormed off. I thought her presence was very strange here. She was actively entering an area where her father was going to be ridiculed, but didn't have the same, for lack of a better word, thick skin that her father did. This really basically set her up for shouting matches until she went hoarse while she tried to defend her family. Does this guy not realize what he's doing to his daughter? Does he not realize the fundamental differences between him and her, and see what this negativity is doing to her? This is an example of the idea that this blurring of the line between family and public goes both ways: she is expected to be an adult and master her feelings in public, when she is obviously not ready to do so in this context. But the assumption that she is able to do this put considerable pressure on her to maintain a behavior set that she plainly could not do. It was a real shame... That kind of pressure on a young person isn't healthy. But it's the expectation: she's old enough to be used as support for a political platform without regard to her own feelings or emotional development.

For a church that emphasizes family values so much, I must say that that isn't how I was taught to love and nurture my offspring, regardless of age. The fact that she is so young just further reinforces the extent to which this trend has occurred.

The Responsibility to Avoid Cynicism

One of the concepts I've found most interesting and powerful in my classes this quarter is the idea of a bill of rights and responsibilities within families. The book, “Fast Families, Virtual Children” by Ben Agger and Beth Ann Shelton. The concept within this bill of rights that struck me as most important for future sociologists like myself is the responsibility of a parent to avoid exposing their child to cynicism. The authors contend that children are born open and optimistic, and, “Become cynical by watching corrosive television and movies and by hearing their parents talk about their own misfortunes in fatalistic terms - 'It has always been this way.' Sometimes cynicism flows from religions that portray people as fallen and immoral.” (167)

As a student of sociology I feel I will really have a hard time with this in my future, and here's why: in a field of study that emphasizes analyzing greater social trends with the intention of applying those findings to a personal level, we tend to get absorbed in our world of concepts and ideas. Also, since the emphasis of these studies is on social problems and not social successes, a varying amount of negativity is likely to become ingrained. As sociologists we frequently look at social problems, and by looking at social problems, our worlds become a little more jaded.In other words: as we create, so are we created.

The first idea, that we get absorbed in our world of concepts and ideas, is dangerous because our field of study has inherently flawed assumptions that we must be aware of: the relative unimportance of free will on a macrosociological level, an assumption that blame for personal difficulties almost always rests on higher levels of social organization, and the ever present ideal that, as scientists, we have some better idea of the “truth” of things than the next guy over. These ideals are just a short list of the faulty or flawed premises that are often encouraged or insinuated in sociological studies, and all tend to encourage fatalistic attitudes.

The second idea is that an individual is reflexively created: that people's ideas, values, and whatever else you want to call the sociological projection of the soul is influenced by how we act and how others respond toward those actions. This ties in to the above concern, with the added worry that focusing our life's work on removing negativity by analyzing its root causes in turn makes us absorb a great deal of negativity; another form of psychic scar. Wether this translates into cynicism or not is an interesting concern. However, according to the reading, “One becomes cynical through one's own misfortunes, which are often totally unjustified.” (167) The idea I just suggested implies that this interpretation of the cause of cynicism on an individual level is not necessarily just one's own life experiences, but rather, it can be influenced by interacting with unjustified misfortunes on a regular basis. This constant interaction with the gross power imbalances in the world influences our “sociological imagination” - our ability to imagine things a different way.

Knowing that we run the risk of absorbing the mental stress of the issues we delve into, how can we still carry on? How can we, in good faith, place our children's precious and impressionable psyches at risk by damaging our own? Well, I don't believe I have a ready, canned response. I am just a young man. But I can say that I have an unshakable commitment to this world I live in. How can I not? It makes us, just as we make it. I feel that, as a scientist and as a human, I have an option between two less-than-perfect options: to neglect studying, examining and constantly evaluating the outside world in favor of protecting my heart and soul, (a self-defeating process,) or I can sell my soul to improve the world around me for the next person to come along. Negativity may be an ever present struggle, but if the inherent flaws of the sociological perspective are not true; if I don't dream of the blame game and the irrelevance of free will, if I hold my beliefs loosely and treat my scholarly prestige like the joke it is, then hopefully I can overcome the effects of extreme negativity in my own life. And hopefully, by remembering that I do have the ability to imagine a brighter future, and that simply imagining other solutions is the first step to making them possible, I will be able to share with my children a world in which they can dream.

$100,000+ Salary, Work From Home, Always Hiring.

“Were you just laid off? Fired? Let go? Or do you hate your job, and hate working for some jerk who makes money off of your labor? Are you living hand-to-mouth, or having a hard time saving for your kids' college funds? Or are you just plain looking for a new career that offers opportunities for creativity, flexibility, and a demand for strong moral principles? Well then we have just the thing for you...”

Does this sound familiar? Well, that's because it is. Every day our email inboxes and unconscious minds are spammed with pyramid schemes promising easy success at no personal cost. They approach our every inner desire; from a desire for creativity, emotion, and “the erotic” (as Audre Lorde put it) in our daily lives, to an appeal to the Weberian “Protestant work ethic”or even Marx's prediction that people will always find happiness through being in control of their lives and livelihood.

Here's the catch. This is actually available. It has been for decades, in the form of mom-and-pop grow shops. That's right, I'm talking about commercial marijuana growing.

I'm not writing to preach about the benefits of marijuana, or to glorify its production. It is illegal and has been so for quite a long time. However, in order to discuss why people do it, I must explain some of the benefits a grower receives.

First off and most importantly, marijuana cultivation, when done on a small scale in private residences, can be both discreet and very profitable. An experienced grower can pull anywhere from $5,000-$50,000 every two months out of a functioning operation, with little risk of being caught. Secondly, plant care at the level needed for indoor horticulture at a competitive level is very demanding and requires an extreme amount of attention and research. Their marketability, profit margins, and professional reputations are dependent on high quality harvests, which require the best possible care on a daily basis. No one can put in that kind of effort, then get that kind of a reward for their efforts, and not feel emotionally attached to their labor. It's just plain not possible.

So what does this mean, from a sociological standpoint? Why do people grow marijuana illegally? Well, each of the attributes I've listed relate both to pyramid scheme advertising headlines and to a separate core principle of sociological thought. The sociologists I have chosen to refer to are Marx, Weber, Durkheim, and Lorde, though I have not yet found a single acclaimed scholar whose ideas do not directly relate to this issue.

Karl Marx's big stick with the modern world was that laborers were and still are getting further separated from their labor. In other words, you might work as a machine operator, but you don't make the airplane. You make a little piece that no one will ever appreciate unless it fails, and then it's your ass on the line. Or you might work as a teacher, but you don't make your study plans. You have a list of objectives, requirements, and often times, even expected subject matter that you're supposed to teach. You don't make a house, you might just install the plumbing, hammer on the roof or plant the shrubs around it all day. You don't get to look the consumer of your product in the eye and say, “I have done you a service this day, and I appreciate you trading me worth for worth; money for my food in exchange for my time, hands, and mind.” Where is the pride in this?

Well, as a marijuana farmer, this is not a problem. The time investment is huge, but that's because you have to learn and perfect every step of production. Every new thing you learn adds money to your paycheck, and every mistake you make costs you greatly. This daily, hands on experience that uses both mind and body creates a strong bond with the finished product and with the production system itself. It's said that a grower who sticks with it more than a couple years will always, always go back, out of sheer passion for the work. Is that something that the Auto industry can claim?

Instead of preaching to you about Weber and the Protestant work ethic, I'd like to share with you a short story that will stick with me for the rest of my life. I'm sure you've heard it, and even played out it's role yourself.

About a month and a half ago, a “mid-level” marijuana smuggling ring into Cheney was broken up by the State Drug Task Force. The 28 year old “leader” of the ring was accused of laundering $380,000 in the last year through Northern Quest Casino. What caught my attention with this case was the comments responding to it. There were the short, stereotypical, to be expected comments, like, “Good, he got what he deserved!” And, “Legalize it, man! It's at worst no worse than alcohol!” But the ones that really caught my eye were from older, law abiding members of the community. They went something like this.

“I've worked hard to provide for my wife and children. I've been a ______ manufacturer for fifteen years now. I'm astonished and horrified that this kid was clearing in a year tax free what I take home in a decade! I've paid my taxes, worked hard, saved paychecks, and followed the law. Where are my tax dollars going? Why do I personally pay for an anti drug effort that only allows children to make a mockery of my values and my life's work?”

If this response doesn't sum up, then allow me: Weber's belief that what America feels makes America strong is hard work, deferred pleasure, and seeing to the welfare of your family before all else. I do know that many, many people have started growing marijuana because of feelings like these. If an adult doesn't believe that marijuana is innately evil or particularly harmful, the temptation to add a few extra hours to your workday for a much greater contribution to your nest egg is powerful indeed. This is why the majority of the marijuana historically consumed in the United States is produced by small time growers who are often middle aged and have families--- true mom-and-pop shops. They blend in with the community; the parents still have regular jobs, the kids go to school and soccer practice, and often don't even know that mommy and daddy are breaking the law in order to save for Harvard. They are the embodiment of the Protestant work ethic.

Durkheim's most referenced work is Suicide, where he examines suicide rates across national boundaries and within different faith communities in order to potentially investigate social reasons for people committing this final act of escape. What he suggests is that there are two types of glue that hold communities together: a physical connection, in terms of person to person contact (which I don't really examine here), and also in terms of familial and social bonding, and an innate sharing of values, ideals, and “norms” that give people definition within the group and some conceptual framework for acting out their lives.

The Drug War is a cause and symptom of a serious social disorder. For the time being we'll ignore it's causes, and focus on the problems it causes in turn. At its most basic level, the Drug War is fighting against what people do in their private lives. In other words, a significant percentage of the population is and will always do drugs; moreover, they will believe it is their right to pursue pleasure or numb pain as they and they alone see fit.

The idea that regulation will reduce rates is fallacious: the more risk involved in an enterprise, the more profitable it becomes. The more profitable it becomes, the more people will want to get their piece of the pie. Both trends have been historically validated... marijuana production and cost varies highly state-to-state, but rates of consumption are actually comparatively stable. That means the government is fighting against basically a completely uncontrollable market variable.The belief in free will and the desire to succeed in this case conflicts with the underlying assertion that the majority has the right to rule.

Similarly, the idea that people have a right to seek pleasure or freedom from pain conflicts fundamentally with current drug policy. Regardless of the cause of the desire to consume a mood and mind altering substance, the fact remains that people will usually act in their own perceived best interest, and both of these behaviors are, in the most basic sense, attempts to improve one's quality of life. The conflict between an individual's desire to “do good” and to help himself or herself obviously and understandably causes great tension on many levels, for both the individuals and their families.

Basically this means that the larger the size of a chunk of the population that rebels against the mainstream based on claimed similar values, the greater the level of stress on both the system and the individual members on either side of the debate. This state of “anomie” is caused by societal normlessness, because both sides have a seemingly equally viable claim to this country's unifying ideals. Durkheim specifically studied this anomic state by measuring suicide, but it was intended to be somewhat applicable to social disorder in general, and is treated as such by scholars. If we are classifying grey market operations as a social disorder, then the individual choice to join the grey market should arguably be understood through similar mechanisms --- A polar cultural understanding of right and wrong on this issue. Simply put, if making money, being happy, caring for your family, and loving your job is “right”, then why is growing pot wrong? And if protecting your children from drug dealers and tolerating discomfort for some greater good (such as saving for the future or giving up your recreation for the sake of your family) is “right”, then why is this supporting this allegedly destructive pasttime “right”? It's not that people have different core values, it's that they disagree on right and wrong.

Finally, the plants themselves are fragrant and aesthetically appealing. Viewing and working with them can be compared as everything from a spiritual journey to a lover's embrace. It's not something you can understand until you've done it, much like caring for a pet or taking a beautiful woman on a date. It is a job as well as a personification of Lorde's concept of “the erotic”... the idea that life's true beauties are an almost visceral knowledge – when we see a child laugh, or hug a parent, or make love to a partner, we know in our gut that something is right and good. It is a powerful knowledge that defies conscious, intellectual examination. And once you grow marijuana for a while, you feel the tingle, too. You have the knowledge. Living, fragrant, sparkling flowers are undeniably and unfathomably beautiful, and bringing this beauty into the world just feels good.

Basically, I could go on and on about this. This is a profession that is caused and propogated by the society we live in, and the more we fight against it, the stronger its appeal becomes, and the better its practicioners learn to hide. Whether it's to numb the pain of a soulless job, or to block out the screaming children or the aching joints; whether it is to practice your freedom, or just to unwind at the end of the day and laugh a little more, it is all spawned from the same core beliefs that drive our culture and our country: freedom, hard work, and the pursuit of happiness.