Wednesday, May 28, 2008

'Too old' or 'too young'; stop judging by age

SOCIAL STUDIES: May 26th 2008

Aging: blessing or curse?

Now there is a question that starts all sorts of discussions; because whether we like it or not, we are all in the same boat. We age, our bodies break down, our minds skip a beat, the world changes around us . . . and, unfortunately, I think our attitude makes it worse.

Consider how it works against the young: he is too young to be a lawyer; she is too young to be a doctor, that job would be done better by someone with more experience. Have you ever said anything like that? You must have at least heard someone say it.

We have a preconceived notion that with age comes wisdom -- and although it may be right that some types of wisdom come with the passing of years, such as patience, all wisdom is not time dependent. But society is focussed on the idea that the most capable person has been doing the job for some time.

But not a lot of time: there comes a moment, all too soon, when you are too old; old fashioned, too slow, out of touch, antiquated. That same doctor and lawyer are working from an old fashioned way of doing things -- we do not value the wisdom of the aged either.

I figure, if you are a man, and I suppose it is slightly different for a woman, but for a man I figure 47 is the only age where you are perfect.

This applies to wisdom, capability, sports, and of course, beauty. There is an optimum age and once you have surpassed it, there is no going back.

I remember the day I became too old to be a U.S. Marine -- it was always one of those childhood dreams like firefighter and Disney World Jungle Boat ride attendant . . . but there comes a time when it is impossible to go back to childhood dreams. And I suppose that is the beginning of wisdom.

But what I want to argue against is that this all too often becomes the beginning of a long list of things that we are told we are too old for.

Think of the President of the United States. That is a job it seems you have to be older in order to have it; and in fact, a lot of people serve in elected office of all sorts that are beyond the age of normal retirement. We trust them with such trivial things as grain storage and nuclear missile codes; and yet in the day-to-day world we think that those who are older, and I am even talking just a little older than us, are verging on useless.

I could counter this on many fronts. Halle Barre is 42 for example, and Demi Moore is 46. Sean Connery is 78 and still a sex symbol. I am pressed for time so I am not going to try and look up all the names of celebrities and work back on their ages, but you get my drift. We have this knee jerk default reaction that says that younger is better when it comes to beauty and celebrity -- but even then, if we stop and think about it, we are wrong.

So why the blind spot when it comes to age? We cannot make claims about people and their abilities based on race, or sex, or religion, but it is still perfectly acceptable to say that someone is too old or too young.

Officially, it is called "ageism" which is defined as stereotyping and prejudice against individuals or groups because of their age. The term was coined in 1969 by U.S. gerontologist Robert N. Butler to describe discrimination against seniors and patterned on sexism and racism.

Butler defined ageism as a combination of three connected elements. These were: prejudicial attitudes towards older persons, old age and the aging process; discriminatory practices against older people; and institutional practices and policies that perpetuate stereotypes about older people.

This is a real problem; a study by Joanna Lahey, Economics professor at Texas A&M, for example, found that firms are more than 40 per cent more likely to interview a younger job applicant than an older job applicant.

As people became more and more aware of the inherent problems, the terms were broadened to include other ages; and it is also true that there is economic and employment inequity for the younger set -- kids under 18 are hired for less than minimum wage; in fact, it is allowed by law in the United States. And there are other restrictions as well -- such as hours allowed to work.

Now, there is clearly a difference between older and younger folks -- and experience plays into it sometimes. But really, I know a lot of 60 year olds who have never matured and a lot of 15 year olds I would trust with my life. I am merely trying to say that we should not lump groups together based on one characteristic and say it is absolutely true for the whole; especially something as arbitrary as age.

My hope is always that we will be able to see beyond the stereotype to the individual.

I know that is not always easy, but it is necessary.

My three year old teaches me a lot of things, so did my 70 year old grandfather; and almost everyone I have ever met in between.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Human nature will keep copying alive

SOCIAL STUDIES - May 19th 2008

I was born before. . . well, before an incredible amount of things.

This morning in the shower I was mentally making a list and it is pretty interesting, or perhaps frightening. In particular, I was thinking simply about the entertainment industry.

I was born before FM radio made it big, before both eight tracks and cassette tapes, (we used to have these big vinyl disk like things). I remember when the first beta and VHS tapes became available for recording television; heck, I remember the first cable television instead of the fuzzy rabbit ear pictures. Since I have been born they have invented Walkmans, CDs, DVDs, and MPEG players. No one I knew owned a PET computer until I was like, eight, and then we owned the VIC 20 (think of it as a calculator with a big screen), Commodore 64, WANG computer, ColecoVision, and on it goes. . .

Now I am not 100; I am not, yet, even 40, although it is on the immediate horizon. All of this has changed in our world in the last three decades. It is hard to imagine.

During each and every year of those three decades I have done something with questionable legality. I remember back when vinyl records were in vogue buying a bootleg record of a Hong Kong concert of The Police -- I bought a Pink Floyd bootleg too I think.

I regularly used the cassette tapes to make scratchy recordings of AM Radio to listen to during the summer. I have certainly recorded television -- I once had every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation on VHS tapes . . . no small feat, I eventually had to give them away as I had no place to store them all.

I have occasionally downloaded music for my iPod and once, once mind you, I downloaded a torrent of a show I missed and did not want to throw the whole series off by not watching the rest. I have played other people's video games on my computer and even snuck into a second show at the theatre after paying for an early matinee.

Ah, the insanity of youth; of thinking the rules don't apply to you. . . But really, what are these rules?

I see the Scotland Yard warning on the beginning of my DVDs; and I understand that piracy does cause a loss of revenue -- but I don't believe it is a very high loss of revenues; and I am not sure that the industry really understands the human spirit.

You see, I believe we are going to pay for things we find of value regardless of whether we listen to them or see them ahead of time. I would listen to songs on the radio, and then go out and buy an album, or a cassette of the songs I really liked. It never really mattered if I had already copied them on my own cassette, I loved owning the album of the artists I admired. I "collected" them.

I bought the Lord of the Rings DVDs as well as the Harry Potter series. I had already seen each one two or three times, but I just wanted to own them. For that matter I own multiple copies of the same novels -- ones purchased in the states, versus Canada, hard cover and trade. . . I like things to have permanence.

I also think that the Eagles are making a whole lot more money on concert revenue then they are for CD sales. Think about it, most concerts are somewhere near 100 dollars and somewhere near 50,000 people. . . so you make five million dollars in box office take for each concert. . . I guarantee set up, travel, and crew does not run you five million a night. My feeling is they could afford to give out free CDs.

I don't want to make it sound like I blatantly disagree with copyrights. Hey, I sell words for a living; I have to believe there is such a thing as intellectual property. What I do think is that, to quote the famous Matt Groening, copyright infringement is the sincerest form of flattery. What the industry might want to do to combat piracy is to admit that for the most part individual piracy is in fact, just advertising material.

If someone tells me to download and watch something, or hands me a DVD to look at -- it usually just makes me want more from the same producer. . . and I will subscribe to or buy what I now know I need. I would even argue this to be true about movies in theatres.

Unless you are fabulously wealthy, with your own 70 inch wall mounted flat screen high definition television; HDDVD player along with stadium seating and THX surround sound and your own concession stand, you are going to go out to see some movies -- most movies -- or at least the blockbusters. There is no substitution for sitting in a darkened theatre with hundreds of strangers, munching totally death-inducing popcorn while being awed into silence by the soundtrack, effects and just blatant hugeness of the presentation before you. Almost everyone will go to see Indiana Jones on the big screen, or Star Wars, or even a horror flick, because they are better in crowds. Trust me, watching anything alone on the screen of my laptop will never compare.

So yes, if there is someone in a basement in Kelowna B.C. knocking off a million copies of Shakira's new CD, catch them, prosecute them, confine them to the outer reaches of darkness. . . but when individuals copy entertainment media for personal use it is not really going to impact the industry; and I don't think anyone should be complaining. But don't quote me out of context.

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Are we increasingly in a world of illusion?

SOCIAL STUDIES Published Monday May 12th, 2008

Most Popular Article . . . did you know that when you log on to Canadaeast.com you can get real time statistics like that? Now, kudos to Brian Cormier for writing fabulous and witty commentary on a television show -- because "American Idiot" was the most popular article on Wednesday.

But is it not a little strange that American Idol is the most popular topic for a newspaper? Last week the Neilson Ratings, that eternal bastion of everything popular on television ranked American Idol as the most watched show on television for the week, twice. The Tuesday show is number one with over 25 million people watching it. The Wednesday show of Idol is number two with over 22 million. Just for the record, Dancing with the Stars is third at a little over 18 million viewers. To top it all off Dancing with The Stars is on twice and the second show is number five on the rating. The only non-"reality" television show that enters the top five is CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

As Brian sort of pointed out in his column, reality TV is not really all that real. It may not be predetermined, and a lot of it may even be on the fly, but it is not like the people on a Survivor set are really lost in the jungle or that the contestants on American Idol are not rehearsing and rescripting the show.

There is something hypnotic about watching other people play games. There has to be. There is no other possible explanation for the salaries of sports stars and the way that so many people will sit in a darkened living room watching other people compete. And before I get completely shot down for being un-Canadian and all the rest of it . . . I am not suggesting that it is not occasionally fun to root for the home team, or try and decide which singer or dancer should become rich and famous; I am questioning why this is the most popular form of entertainment that there is.

I would think Battlestar Galactica should be at the top of the list. Here is a show that is exploring the truly dark nature of humanity and survival. Topics covered by the writers include marital affairs and fixed marriages, racism and sexism, psychosis and ambition, torture and retreat. If you watch a season of Battlestar Galactica you walk away wondering if we are really like that; and this is what art really should do for us -- make us explore humanity at a deeper level.

MacLean's recently talked about the artist Emily Carr and concluded that what made her famous was the passionate darkness of her painting. If you ever found yourself lost in a British Columbia rainforest after dark you would totally think yourself inside an Emily Carr original -- because when you look at one of her paintings you feel something deep inside.

It is not a trivial feeling such as you get when you watch sports or reality TV.

Jean Ralston Saul, the award winning essayist and novelist wrote a book a while ago titled "Voltaire's Bastards" and this has become, I now realize, one of the defining books for my evolving mind. It is a book about how society is run -- really run -- and how the way we imagine things being decided is not the way they really are. Essentially he argues that society is way off track, being run by a mindless process set in motion by the ruling elites who have fooled themselves into thinking there is an actual point.

I may be doing a disservice to the author by simplifying it all so much; I merely wanted to draw attention to one of the small parts in the book where Saul makes the point that we have somehow been tricked into focusing on the wrong things and therefore overlook the important things.

The main way we have been distracted from what we should be focusing on is through the "Cult of Celebrity" and the way that we increasingly care about people that make absolutely no real difference to our lives.

We worry about who will win the Stanley Cup and we worry about who will win American Idol, but almost none of us care who will win the election today.

It may sound a bit like a conspiracy theory; but at least it is an ancient one.

Nero, arguably the most influential of the Roman Emperors, devised this neat little spectator sport; the Gladiatorial Games, thinking to himself that the average person will sit still with eyes glued while people fight to the death. He even gave them a free loaf of bread to eat while they watched. Thus the Senate, and the Emperor himself, were free to run the government any way they chose because the people were full and distracted.

The result of all this, Saul maintains, is a civilization of immense technological power whose peoples increasingly dwell in a world of illusion.

I would love it if people actually stopped and gave some thought to what is going to happen when everyone moves away from rural New Brunswick and into the City of Moncton.

I think we needed to seriously weigh the pros and cons of building a casino in downtown Moncton.

I personally want to take the time to figure out why it is that whether we elect the Conservatives or the Liberals it makes no real difference to the amount of money in our pockets or services we receive for our tax dollars.

Perhaps some time should be spent figuring out how to get more people to vote.

There is a long list of things to figure out, from homelessness right through to air pollution.

I'll get to them soon; but I have to stop writing . . . American Idol is starting.

Humans are all the same

RELIGION TODAY Published Saturday May 10th, 2008

One of the problems with the Bible is that it is too easy to take it as history.

The stories we read seem to have specific settings -- for example Jesus was born in Bethlehem during the reign of Herod. When we read something like that we can get out a book and look up the exact years that there was a king named Herod. Then to narrow it down, we can cross reference Roman records to tell us when Cyrinius was Governor.

History does not move us as much as story does. If you watch a historical documentary, for example, you might learn something that happened in the past; but you don't laugh and cry the way you do when you get wrapped up in an excellent movie. I think the Bible was intended to be the type of story that gets inside us, that moves us, that brings an emotional response that makes us fall in love with God.

If Peter and the other disciples were moved like that in their encounter with Jesus, and I believe they were, then the best I can hope for is to read about it second hand and say, "Good for them."

If we could only hear stories from the Bible in a way that they impacted us more directly -- if we stopped thinking about it as "history" and used the Jewish tool of Midrash, or telling stories about stories, to bring it to life -- it might impact us the way it was intended.

Here is a story of Pentecost: A fair chunk of time after the believers had last heard a message from God they were having coffee together at Timothy's. It was a beautiful day and they were sitting out on the street side café. Suddenly, inspired by what could only be called a spirit of truth, they began to talk about their faith to each other. Now, it happened that there were people from all kinds of faiths living in Moncton -- and all varieties of Christianity. And as the people moved along the sidewalk and overheard this heated conversation; each of them recognized something tugging at their own hearts. Whether they were Baptist or Jewish, Roman Catholic or Islamic; Presbyterian and Buddhists, United Church, Wesleyans and Baha'i -- each of them heard this small band of believers talking about what they themselves believed... and it shocked them. What if, they ended up saying to each other; What if God is bigger than we thought? What if God speaks to all these other people too and we are not as different as we always thought?

See, that is the story of Pentecost. As it is told in the Bible and set in Jerusalem it becomes a story about cultures and languages; Jews and Greeks, Arabs and Edomites are all mentioned because it is precisely these characteristics that separated people -- nation and language. But in the world of today, almost everyone knows English -- especially if they use the internet; and almost everyone who might overhear us is Canadian; but we are still a people divided. And we are a people divided, mainly, because of our personal beliefs.

This even holds true if we break out of religious circles -- we define ourselves by which hockey team we root for, whether or not we believe in capital punishment, what political party we claim to support, where we went to school; it is in fact our beliefs about issues that allow us to say "I am not like you, thank God."

We were, however, the story of Pentecost assures us, supposed to be together. Humans are small and fragile in the face of the dangerous world we inhabit and when it comes right down to it we need each other.

It could be as small as needing someone to hold the door open for us when our arms are full; or smile at us when we are having a bad day, or as large as wrapping their arms around us when a parent dies. We need each other because life is hard -- and we, for some inexplicable reason, make it worse on ourselves by pretending that all those other people out there are completely different than us and would never understand.

The miracle of Pentecost is that something, some force of the universe, intervened with these people and reminded them that when it comes right down to it, we are all the same.

Let's let that same spirit blow through our community this spring!

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Considering that violence rises from scarcity

SOCIAL STUDIES - May 5th 2008

I listened to a lecture by Hector Avalos from Iowa State University the other day.

As an aside, the Internet is an incredible tool for knowledge; sort of like they promised television could be. If you can wade your way through the inconsistent and the irrelevant, you can find university courses and famous speeches offered for free. This lecture was part of a symposium on violence and I found myself fascinated by the one sentence claim of professor Avalos, from which he spun his entire presentation.

"All violence derives from privation."

Or, to put it in simpler language, which he himself does, violence happens because we feel we are lacking something -- we react violently to scarcity.

Is it that simple? Avalos thinks it really is and he goes on to give example after example of ways in which this plays out. As children we get in fights when we think that there is not enough love to go around; and so if a parent or a teacher, or even another friend pays more attention to someone else -- we get angry. When we think that there is only so much money a company pays to employees and someone else gets more than their fair share -- we get angry. When America seems to be running out of oil and, say, some Middle Eastern oil rich country wants to control access -- we get angry.

He even found more subtle things to prove his thesis; for example, religious violence. What if we think of salvation as being a limited resource, only certain people get into heaven, and therefore we get angry with those who claim that it is them, and not us who are going? Or what about the fact that deep down we know there are only so many sunny days in a year and when someone tries to take one away from us with work -- we get angry.

You see the pattern here eh? I am not completely convinced that life is so black and white and simple, but I do think he might be on to something. Whether it is time, gas, health, or money; just about everything in this world seems to be a "limited resource." Certainly most of the stressful situations in my life come about because I feel deprived of something; whether it be one of the above, or even deprived of creativity or energy.

There is always a reason too, isn't there? It is always someone else's fault that I am deprived -- it never has anything to do with the choices I have made. Or at least I keep telling myself that. It is easier to believe that I am powerless in the face of the big bad world and everyone in it; because if that is not true then the real culprit behind anger and violence is, in fact, me.

I once took an anger management course in which we were told that anger is not a real emotion, which seems crazy to anyone who has ever lost their cool because of a scratch on the new car, but when you stop and think about this there might be truth here. Anger is in fact a reaction to a real emotion.

So, what I am really feeling is shock that the car has a scratch, and disappointment because it is already ruined, maybe even some post purchase anxiety because this just proves how quickly a car depreciates in value.

Events and people make you disappointed, they make you sad, they make you worried -- but how you react to these emotions is in fact a choice -- and if you choose to get angry you are probably going to become less capable of actually handling the situation and making a difference. There are numerous other things we might choose if we remain calm.

One of the choices we can make is to re-evaluate the real world enough that we are more competent in our decision making. That is to say, forewarned is forearmed, or, to go full circle to Professor Avalos, realize that often it is our perception that there is not enough which is worrying us, and in truth there might be nothing to worry about.

One thing I know for sure is that the Beatles were right, "All You Need is Love", and love is not a scarce resource -- it just seems like it is. The reason I say that we need love is that for the most part, our ability to deal with other scarcity is mediated by the amount of love we feel. If you had no money to spend on a date but ended up talking all night on a park bench with the love of your life, would you feel satisfied? If your kids did without the new Xbox but knew that they were loved unconditionally, don't you think they would turn out all right? If you felt enough love in your life that you did not need other people to pay more attention to you than they were capable of, then you would not be jealous.

I know it will never buy enough oil, or pay for the best cancer treatment, or feed the hungry of the world right away. Enough love however, might get us to share these resources that we hoard out of fear -- it might make it so that we could stop worrying so much and start sharing. It might, just might, counter the violence that seemingly erupts every day.

It may sound simplistic, but John Lennon was always on the right track.