Mirror Mirror On the Wall

Professor J,

 I'm not trying to rush you on to chapter two, my dear man! In the end all the things he tackles are related and interwoven . Isn't everything? :)  I suspect it is going to be difficult to keep subjects neatly contained by chapter or to keep the current theme on your blog from bleeding over. You are going to disagree with me? I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you! ;)

What an insightful commentary by Ryan Marsh!

 Charles Krauthammer did piece about the new Martin Luther King Memorial which is interesting in light of our current words vs. images discussion. He makes this observation which caught my attention:

"Behind the prophet, guarding him, is an arc of short quotations chiseled in granite. This is in keeping with that glorious feature of Washington’s monumental core — the homage to words (rather than images of conquest and glory, as in so many other capitals), as befits a nation founded on an idea."


The "imitative consumption" and "wild pursuit of status and wealth (have) destroyed our souls and our economy." (p. 38) Even this new "status" is an illusion compared to what real social status would have meant a few decades ago. Are there even any annoying social climbers anymore? Are they all just social purchasers, now? At least the old version were hoping to better themselves and much of the tacit price to be paid was a least feigning an interest in cultural activities and charity work.

The story of Jane Goody (p. 42,43) reminded me of several similar characters we see in classic literature who are uneducated and nearly illiterate.  In  literature we often see such characters as people to be pitied and helped, examples of the unfortunate effects of an unbalanced class system, or as shown at the beginning of a great metamorphosis.  What we now often see is the person/character in question isn't even aware of their situation and are happy to receive media attention (because isn't that what life is all about?) while they are held up to public ridicule for the entertainment of others. What would Dickens or Austen think of us? Remember Knightly's scolding Emma for being unkind to Miss Bates? Vast portions of our culture need much the same thing. Of course Emma had enough of a heart to be truly sorry for her callousness and bad manners.


Hedges holds up a painful mirror for us to look in.  As a result of using the misfortune of others for our own entertainment our capacity for empathy is diminishing. A study by the University of Michigan backs Hedges up:


"Compared to college students of the late 1970s, the study found, college students today are less likely to agree with statements such as "I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective" and "I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me."

In a related but separate analysis, Konrath found that nationally representative samples of Americans see changes in other people's kindness and helpfulness over a similar time period.

"Many people see the current group of college students—sometimes called 'Generation Me'—as one of the most self-centered, narcissistic, competitive, confident and individualistic in recent history," said Konrath, who is also affiliated with the University of Rochester Department of Psychiatry.

"It's not surprising that this growing emphasis on the self is accompanied by a corresponding devaluation of others," O'Brien said."

"Perhaps less overtly raw and savage than in the past, but perhaps even that change is only repressed and still latent"  We are quickly devolving here it seems. Regular boxing with gloves and rules has been replaced with the explosion of cage fighting, which smacks of barbarism to me. How many times when you were a kid do you remember benches at a basketball game being cleared or dugouts at a major league game so they could all engage in a public brawl. They behaved better it appears before they all became millionaires.

I have so much more to say but must ask you to excuse my brevity this time. As you know I'm in the midst of producing a little spectacle of my own. ;)