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The Price of Being Different
from the the-rights-of-geeks dept.
Joan McDonald has been a teacher in a New York State suburban public high school for nearly three decades. "While deeply saddened by the tragedy in Littleton," she wrote Tuesday, "I am appalled at the resulting backlash our students are forced to suffer" in the wake of the Littleton massacre.
The last thing we need in the 20th Century, she wrote, is another witchhunt.
But that's what we're getting. McDonald described what hundreds of other teachers, administrators and students have been reporting all week - an assault on speech, dress, behavior or values that the media, politicians and some educators deem uncomfortably different a/k/a geek, nerd, Goth, the usual labels.
In a Gallup poll this week, 82 per cent of Americans surveyed said the Internet was at least partly to blame for the Colorado killings. And schools across the country were banning trench coats, backpacks, black clothing, white make-up, Goth music, computer gaming shirts and symbols. They installed hotlines and "concern" boxes for anonymous "tips" about the behavior of non-mainstream students. Kids who talked openly about anger and alienation, or who confessed thoughts of revenge or fantasies of violence against people who'd been tormenting and excluding them, were hauled off to counselors.
Thus the students already at risk, already suffering, have become suspects, linked in various thoughtless ways to mass murder and - consequently - more alienated than before.
The number of incidents involving disaffected kids and schools is growing. In Canada, a 14-year-old boy shot two students at a high school in Alberta, killing one. In Brooklyn, five boys were charged with conspiracy after allegedly compiling a list of people to be killed in an attacked planned for their schools commencement on June 26. In Oak Lawn, Illinois, a 15-year-old boy was charged with assault and disorderly conduct after an ax, knives, a rifle, shotguns, and 150 rounds of ammunition were found in his home. In California, one student was arrested for threatening to burn down a middle school and another for threatening to blow up the high school. In the city of Chicago, a 15-year-old was caught with a .22 caliber gun taped to his ankle. Pennsylvania officials reported at least 52 bomb scares and other threats at schools in 22 counties. In Washington, more than 12,000 high school students were evacuated after a caller said hed placed a bomb in one of the citys 13 public schools. In Longwood, Florida, a 13-year-old student was arrested after allegedly threatening to place a bomb at the school and kill eighth graders who had tormented him. A note on a map hes supposedly drawn included the phrase "revenge will be sweet."
"I just came right now from the counselor's office," e-mailed DrgnD. "I scored a thousand. I had on a long coat, was wearing black and loudly told the jerk sitting next to me that I'd do my best to kill him if he ever called me a " trenchcoat freak" again. I am now officially on probation. He is not."
Among the many other consequences of the Columbine High School tragedy: the cost of being different just went up.
Take the Goths, one of the distinct sub-cultures singled out by the press and linked to the Littleton bloodbath. Gothwalker says he (Drew) wrote his principal after his school made plans to ban black clothing, trenchcoats and Marylyn Manson music.
Goths have been e-mailing me for months now.
One of the most individualistic, interesting, and yes, gloomy subcultures, Goth is a style - of music, dress, state of mind. In general, Goths wear black, hang out on the Net, experiment with androgynous styles, are sometimes drawn to piercings, tattoos and white makeup; and love Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy and the Cure. Among their cherished authors are Sartre, Burroughs, Shelley and Poe. Fascinated with death (a taboo in the media and certainly in schools, along with sex and the open discussion of religion), Goths see it as a part of life.
In general, though, Goths do not hurt people. They brood; they emote; but the idea that they are murderous is a cultural libel.
One of the educational system's pervasive responses to Littleton was to lecture oddballs and geeks about the importance of not slaughtering others. One thing geeks and nerds hardly need is patronizing, offensive lesssons about the importance of not committing massacres. They're probably one of the least likely cultures in American life to commit homicide; their weapons of choice are electronic flames, not machine guns.
Of the thousands of e-mail messages I got this week (4,000 between Friday and Wednesday is my best guess), not one advocated violence or supported assault, murder or revenge.
Although many expressed sympathy for the killers as well as the victims in Littleton (unlike, say Time Magazine, which accompanied cover photos of the killers with the headline "The Monsters Next Door"), no one threatened violence, supported it, or approved of it.
But the stories of physical, verbal, emotional and administrative abusive that came pouring in were stunning, a scandal for an educational system that makes much noise about wholesomeness and safety, but has turned a blind eye for years to the persecution of individualistic and vulnerable students.
The Voices from the Hellmouth series on Slashdot this week demonstrated the power of interactivity and connectivity. Kids passed it around to one another, to parents, friends, teachers and guidance counselors.
"My seventeen year-old son handed me a print -out of your Littleton article," wrote Bagatti. "No one seems to think that peer abuse is real or damaging. I would like to see any adult report for work and be taunted, humiliated, harassed, and degraded every single day without going stark, raving mad. Human beings are not wired for abuse."
One of the clear messages from all of the e-mail was that it's time for geeks and nerds and the assorted "others" of the world to assert themselves, to begin defining and asserting their long overdue rights, perhaps with the help of the communicative possibilities of the Net. And to begin the work of re-structuring American schools - barely changed in generations despite the ongoing Information Revolution - and their frequently warped procedures, infrastructure and value systems.
At the very top of the agenda: Freedom from abuse, humiliation and cruelty. Geeks, nerds, and oddballs have the right to attend school in safety. Teachers and administrators have an obligation to make dignity for everybody - not just the popular and the conventional -- an urgent educational concern, in the same way they've taken on racism and other forms of bigotry.
Geeks who are harassed and humiliated should report the assaults, and perhaps using the possibilities of the Internet, take their complaints farther if they are ignored or further victimized. Online, they can receive support, advice, even counseling if necessary. Judging from many of my e-mail messages, it is.
Each generation has the right to determine its own culture. Culture isn't just symphony orchestras, movies about dead British royalty and hard-bound books. For some, culture is now also gaming, websites, chat and messaging systems, TV shows, music and movies.
No generation has the right to dictate to another what its culture ought to be, or to degrade its choices as stupid and offensive. Yet geek and nerd culture is continuously denounced as isolating, addictive and, now, even murderous.
Games like Tribe, Unreal, Quake, even The Legend of Zelda, and yes, Doom, can be astoundingly creative, challenging and imaginative. They are often demanding, played in communal and interactive ways. Some people may be uncomfortable with some of their imagery.
But youth culture has frequently been offensive to adults - that's often the point - and culture has always evolved. Adults seem to have no memories of their own early lives. Early rock and roll was likened to medieval plagues by the clueless journalists and nervous educators of the time. Now, next to some extreme forms of hip-hop, Chuck Berry seems as dangerous as Beethoven.
Adolescence is a surreal world: kids who don helmets and practice banging into one another for hours each week are deemed healthy and wholesome, even heroic. Geeks are branded strange and anti-social for building and participating in one of the world's truly revolutionary new cultures - the Internet and the World Wide Web.
Or for being isolated or lacking school spirit. Or for listening to industrial music or wearing odd clothes. But perhaps geek kids are isolated partly because schools don't provide them with any means of connecting.
Educators need to radically expand their notions of what culture is, and to re-consider the messages of disdain they continuously send some of their potentially most creative and students.
Inhabitants of a new world, with a new culture, geeks often find that the old symbols don't work for them - pep rallies, proms, assemblies, etc. In fact, scholars like Janet Murray of MIT ("Hamlet On The Holodeck") are beginning to explore the ways in which interactivity and representational writing and thinking are changing the very neural systems of the young.
Instead of banning Doom and Quake, schools should be forming Doom and Quake clubs, presided over by teachers who actually know something about the online world ( my e-mail indicates that there's one frustrated geek on the faculty in most schools). Any school with a football team ought to have a computer gaming, web design or programming team as well. Geeks ought to see their interests represented in educational settings, to not simply feel pushed to the margins of everyone else's. When these new interests and values are recognized and institutionalized, geek kids may have more status, and feel less like aliens in their own schools.
Schools need to provide choices. Educators love to talk empowerment, but few seem to grasp what it means. Geek kids are not, in general, docile and obedient; their subculture is argumentative and outspoken. Online, each person makes his or her own rules, goes where he or she wants to go. Increasingly, it's a difficult transition between free-wheeling cyberspace and the oppressive, rule-bound Old Fartism that dominates American education.
"School sucks," e-mailed Jane from Florida. "It's run like a police state, and it's boring and clueless."
Kids raised in interactive environments - with zappers, Nintendos, computers, sophisticated games - complain that they sometimes struggle in environments where adults stand for hours droning at them about passive things. This doesn't mean they are dumb, just different. Their digital world is much more vital, colorful and engaging that their educational one.
Geeks are used to choice, a landmark cultural and political issue for them. It's the responsibility of schools to create more challenging and interactive environments for its students - a benefit for all younger people who need to learn how to analyze, how to question, how to reach decisions, not just how to take notes and then check the right boxes on the midterm.
And: freedom. Why does the First Amendment end at the school door, when many kids, especially geeks, have spent much of their lives in the freest part of American culture - the Internet? Online, people can speak about anything: dump on God, talk about sex, flame pundits, express themselves politically and rebelliously. In school, no one can.
Geeks, perhaps more accustomed to free expression than their non-wired peers, increasingly and disturbingly refer to schools as "fascistic" environments in which they are censored and oppressed. All kids can't have absolute freedom all the time but many kids, especially older ones raised in the Digital Age, need more than they're getting. Without it, they will become increasingly alienated.
A gaming website like PlanetQuake gets more than 70,000 visitors a day; Planet Halflife gets about 30,000. GameSpy, which helps gamers connect to local games, draws between 60,000 and 80,000. Estimates of online gamers in the United States alone run as high as 15 to 20 million people. The half-baked notion that this activity sparks kids to grab lethal weapons and murder their peers sends a particular kind of message to the millions of kids gaming on and off-line -- that the people responsible for educating and protecting them (politicians, therapists, journalists, educators - have no idea what they are talking about, and are posturing in the most ignorant and self-serving ways. It's hard to imagine a more alienating lesson for the young than that.
Finally: access to popular culture and to the Internet isn't a privilege. It's a right. For many kids, the Net isn't alienation, but its alternative; it's their intellectual, social, cultural and political wellspring. They need it to learn, to feel safe and connected, and to function economically, socially and politically in the next century. Obviously, no rights come without responsibilities - and those should be spelled out both in schools and in families. But access to the Net and to other facets of one's culture ought not be a toy that parents and teachers are willing to dispense to "good" and "normal" boys and girls. For many kids, it's their lifeblood, and it shouldn't be restricted, withdrawn or used manipulatively except under the most serious circumstances.
It already seems clear from the stories coming out of Colorado that the two young killers killers were severely disturbed, victims of mental illness about which we know, to date, very little. The media roadshow - increasingly our leading transmitter of national hysterias -- that quickly engulfs stories like these demands answers, and has an endless supply of experts happy to go on TV and supply them.
But Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, along with the completely innocent people that they slaughtered, are also victims deserving of compassion. Their illnesses may or may not have been exacerbated by social cruelty and alienation, they may or may not have been affected by access to violent imagery and/or lethal weaponry. We may never be able to answer the why's their act provoked. Human minds, for all we're learning about them, sometimes remain mysterious, human acts inexplicable.
Reading all these messages from the Hellmouth this week, I've been overwhelmed by the outpouring of suffering generated by the experience of going to school, and by the brutal price people have paid and are paying for being different. Few people commit violence in schools, but way too many have fantasized about it.
These messages were, in different ways, all saying the same thing. A humane society truly concerned about its children would worry less about oddballs, computer games and clothing, and more about creating the kind of schools kids would never dream of blowing up.
Postscript-just came in:
My life has been turned upside down over the last few days, all because
I wear a trenchcoat to school. The vice principal called the local
sheriff because of rumors that he herd. On Friday I had my home
searched by 3 deputies when they didn't find any thing I thought that it
was the end of my humiliation but it was only the start. When I got to
school Friday I had to spend a entire hour talking to the vice principal
and a guidance councilor. Today when I got to school I was called back
to his office and this time had a nice chat with a detective from the
local police. This time the person from the police was asking me about
rumors that when the sheriff searched my home that they found weapons
and bombs. I now have a police investigation going on about rumors of
the sheriff's investigation. In the mean time I have been speeding more
time out of class then in it. When will this witch hunt end? When can I
get back to my life? And when will the nation learn that it is
pointless to composite for long periods of inaction with extreme over
reaction.
Mootar in central IL
Not tired of it... (Score:2)
It's a tragedy that our best and brightest are often shunned, abused, and humiliated for no other reason than being what they are. I figured out long ago that it's best to just say "dude" a lot and be familiar with sports and pop music -- it saved me from a lot of knuckle sandwiches in high school.
It wasn't so bad after I graduated, but now I'm just incognito and disconnected. The statistical odds against meeting and talking to someone who shares my level of understanding are so slim that I gave up long ago. Yes, there is wisdom to be had from fools, but that is no substitute for intellectual stimulation. Therefore I tread the solitary (and apparently increasingly dangerous) path of the closet geek.
Individual people are often wonderful, but humanity sucks.
Society, Schools & Homes (Score:2)
On one side you have the bullies. They have always existed, but you don't hear about kids blowing up schools and going on killing rampages 20 years ago. Nothing has changed, they still mock and hurt in the same sadistic ways.
On the other side you have parents. Parents which no longer spend a lot of time with their kids. Kids are coming into schools with low self-esteem and no social skills. This is becoming worse as computers are being put in every home and kids are spending less and less time with other people.
So you have a ticking timebomb. Kids which don't know how to deal with social pressures and access to guns, plans for bombs, etc.
What is the answer? Well it's really simple, the parenting needs to change. Every high school or college should have a mandatory parenting class of some sort which emphises the correct way to bring up a child so that they are well adjusted.
I personally was not brought up under ideal conditions, but I spent a large portion of my early years in constant contact with friends. I practically lived at friends houses and I think that helped me adjust in school. We moved a lot so my computers were the only way I could keep in constant contact with a group of people. It was the stability I needed in my childhood.
Remember, being a nerd doesn't mean you have to lack social skills. Children should be forced to develop them at an early age so, even if they get mocked in high scool... they know how to deal with it.
--
I still didn't hate high school (Score:5)
high school.
Sure, I remember a lot of bad times; times when
administrators and teachers picked on me and my
friends for not falling into line, times when the
jocks and rich kids got special treatment, times
when I got made fun of...
Overall, though, high school was fun. I remember
laying out in the sun with my friends, water-gun
fights (probably banned now, eh?), bowling,
Denny's at all hours, parties, and just plain
hanging out.
I see all of this angst dripping around here, and
I almost feel like I have to defend my experience
because it didn't suck. And yeah, I was in the
dweeb clique -- RPGs, first person shooter games,
trench coats et. al....
Someone back me up here....
----
The Dark Side (Score:4)
I'm not sure if I have the quote correct, but in one of the SW trailers Yoda says something like this: "Fear leads to suffering, suffering leads to hate and hates leads to the Dark Side."
One of the greatest tradgedies that has become apparent in these recent posts is how many people have given into the Dark Side. The decision whether to let hate dominate our own lives is our own choice, whether we are the oppresors or the ones being oppressed.
And so with this latest backlash the cycles continues. However, the choice of response if ours, we can choose to forgive or to hate in return.
May the Force be with you, always.
Stuff That Matters and Anti-Matters (Score:3)
I'm user #783, IIRC. I'm not some interloper here; I'd like to think it's my forum too -- /. is my browsers' start page. I'm as on-topic as anyone else. I love Ask Slashdot, the GPL, RMS, tarballs, OO, DSP, Java, a certain anti-trust case, and any number of "relevant" topics (turnoffs: sunlight, aspartame, bad hair days, and mean people). I have about seven toolkits installed on my box, and I'm wrestling with all of them in search of The Right One. Unfortunately, what we have here this week is a mania far removed from hardware, software, and licenses.
You hit the nail on the head, surely by accident: "Far worse things are happening out there". That's why I'm on-topic. Geeks, being part of society, are often complicit (directly or, more often, indirectly) in those "far worse things"; that shows me that whatever they may have suffered in high school failed to register permanently on their brains -- it shows me that their radius of compassion is woefully small. (Yes, Eric, if you're reading this, you are one of many exceptions :)
If you can't make the leap from feeling sorry for yourself (or a fellow "oppressed" geek) to feeling anger and remorse over a political prisoner or a sweatshop laborer's plight, then Katz's whole exercise is just shallow pimping. If you can't make the leap from jocks abusing geeks to being angry about the plight of the political footballs in the ghettos that your commute and your subdivision so deftly avoid, then Katz's shallow pimping is as obscene as the abuse of geek students.
Do you get it now? If not, then please explain -- in 3000 words or more -- why you think "nerds are more important than the herded masses". Can any of you explain? It is the impression I get, just as I get the impression from Katz's peers in Big Media that the deaths of affluent suburban kids are more important than, say, deaths from malnutrition occurring in the very same country.
Let me close with a quote from my favorite nerd, a bookish lawyer (and one-time journalist, IIRC), who never quite learned how to fight his way out of a paper bag, though he was often provoked.
We will learn far more about real solutions from reading the writings of that nerd (his name was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi) than we will from reading Katz and the often-hysterical "Geek Power Now!" threads from our peers here.--
Look at their side of it (Score:4)
Last night I was walking along the street around midnight and I saw two young boys coming towards me. One was wearing a long black coat. I have to admit this thought crossed my mind: what if he's planning a copycat killing?
And hey, I'm a freaky geek who was picked on in high school. Shouldn't I be sympathetic?
The fact is, these cops and principals, who are so out of touch that they probably never noticed trenchcoats before, are suddenly struck dumb with fear at the sight of that particular piece of apparel. It's not a conspiracy to suppress individuality, it's just the honest terror of the clueless whitebread types.
Will there be copycat killings, though? It seems there was one yesterday in Canada, with a trenchcoat-wearing gunman wounding one student and killing another.
Try to understand that people are very afraid right now. Try to leave your trenchcoat, your Marilyn Manson t-shirts and your skull earrings at home for a few weeks. When the urge comes upon you to utter threats in a rage or say that you understand how the gunmen felt, bite your tongue and post about it later. If parents or teachers question your right to use the Internet, quietly and calmly argue that you use it for research, that you like to read the headline news, and that you need it to download antivirus updates (point to Melissa and CIH).
This too shall pass.
Groucho
Protect Our Geeks! (Score:3)
So
More than a few high schools now have their own Web pages. Lots of high school teachers and administrators have their own email addresses. (They're probably all on AOL, but that's no matter.) And every high school principal or headmaster, I'm sure, has a telephone.
So perhaps what we need is for geeks, goths, and other HS outsiders to tell their stories of harassment and abuse -- but to tell them with the names and email addresses of the offending administrators. When Mr. Jones says that "it's just part of growing up" to be beaten by classmates, or Ms. Brown suspends a student for wearing black, or Dr. Smith encourages students to mock and harass those who don't attend pep rallies -- Mr. Jones, Ms. Brown, and Dr. Smith should get mailboxes full of polite condemnation from educated, intelligent, and successful geeks.
It's just an idea
Re:Remember, kids... (Score:2)
Bad taste is removing (or scoring down) a comment that you feel is in bad taste.
I thought it was pretty damn funny.
Death is funny. Accept what you cannot change, or something.
Re:Remember, kids... (Score:2)
I doubt you even read it (Score:2)
I DON'T think that "enough is enough" on /. (Score:2)
Our collective voices must rise to become a deafening roar that can not be silenced by the earplugs of indifference. We have an opportinity here.
Carpe Diem.
"Sieze The Day"
The message is clear: so long as we are tortured, some of us will kill as sure as the caged animal might killl it's keeper. This is not a theory, a threat, or a speculation. It is a fact.
End the torture, and you will end the death.
Get your definition of evolution straight. (Score:2)
Cultures do evolve, but the purpose is nothing more than the whims of the general populace. Think about it: American culture wasn't always the way it is now. There was in fact once a kinder, gentler time; geeks were still looked down upon but it was nothing like it is today. What we've seen is a backlash. Whyit was caused isn't something I claim to know; it could be blamed on the media, the mass abandonment by parents of their young, or any number of other things (but not the Net; this evolution was well under way long before 95% of the population even knew what the Net was).
What did goth culture evolve out of? Frankly, I haven't got a clue. Sure; it's no better or worse than any other subculture, but is is more evolved (it started from some mainstream ideal, and it has since become more and more different from the mainstream; that makes it evolved).
Wanna make a difference? Write the schools. (Score:5)
I understand the problem. They don't know. They have no idea there is a problem; their behaviour is exactly what causes kids to snap and even kill.
Ironically, the very thing which they think might be responsible could actually help them. It's a simple solution -- it's worked for Amnesty International for decades. E-mail the schools. Don't let them act without letting them know you know what they're doing, and you don't approve. Tell them about the Hellmouth. Tell them why what they're doing is wrong.
I would love to see the Geek community united to the point where it is a force for social change as well as just the technical. This seems like an excellent place to start.
Will.
Don't react out of fear. (Score:3)
Wimp. Instead of assuming they were friendly and saying 'Hello.' you reacted out of fear.
If we all continue to react fearfully instead of treating each other in a civil manner, we will continue to isolate each other.
I've been wearing a black trenchcoat for months, and I will continue to do so. I believe it would be tacky for someone to rush out and buy a trenchcoat in response to Littleton, but I also believe that it would be tacky to react by discarding a trenchcoat I already wear.
My point here is that I will continue to wear my trenchcoat because I had already decided it is what I wanted to wear. I am refusing to become more normal simply so that other people can live in a more comfortable world while clinging to labels and reacting instead of thinking.
We all need to learn to judge people as individuals or not at all. If you don't know enough about someone to make an informed, personal judgement about them you should simply treat them in a civil manner and assume that they are a decent person. You will be right more often than not.
Wow - political cartoonists that have a clue! (Score:2)
- 4-25 [priggee.com]
- 4-27 [priggee.com]
- 4-28 [priggee.com]
From Kevin Siers [mailto] at The Charlotte Observer [charlotte.com]I found these going thru the political cartoons at Cagle [cagle.com]. Of course the vast majority of them blame the parents, the movies, the music, etc.
I've e-mailed them BOTH [mailto] to express my appreciation.
Forget the mainstream media (Score:4)
The mainstream media is likely to distort any story to be as controversial and poigiant as possible while squeezing it into 22 minutes of dramatic 911 calls, crying kids and choice quotes from dime-store sociologists.
How about snail-mailing every principal, vice principal and guidance councellor in North America?
Perhaps a standardized letter?
Some of them did some good things, like promoting geeky clubs in schools and not forcing people to eat in their cafeterias. Others it seems like to degrade students as much as possible.
Or perhaps at the very least, we could create a website where the outpouring of email could have identifying markings stripped off, and focus on what seems to be the problem... parents, teachers, police officers and principals who are critical or neglegant --- along with another area where success stories could be posted. Things which saved people from bitter isolation and torment.
There has to be a better way to handle this than to have bullies and jerks all over the country laugh at heart-felt testamonies from tortured schoolkids on NBC, while sociologists tell these kids to talk to their parents, teachers or guidance councellors.
Re:Problems Are Fundamental to Our Society (Score:3)
I was miserable in high school, and I drifted through (eventually dropping out) college, but once I was working for a living I realized the best way to have a good boss and to help other people was to be the boss myself. Nowadays I run a department of techs, and I have worked my butt off to give them a better environment and more dignity than they had before. I also do everything I can IRL for the same purpose.
We shouldn't complain about it - we should take over. There's no reason we can't play the game too, and better than they do. The majority doesn't know we have our own rules and our own culture, and they don't care. We, on the other hand, know their game, understand their rules, and lord knows we're smart enough to dominate them on the field of play... So why don't we?
Rights, freedoms, and general cluelessness (Score:2)
It starts with:
No it doesn't. You are confusing "rights" and "freedoms". A right is a specific type of political entity granted (in the case of the US) in the US Constitution. It is true that kids usually define their own culture, but it is not a "right". People generally tend to use the term "rights" because of the weighty connotations and implicit demand for acceptance it carries with it.
This is nonsense! A cultures choices can be stupid and offensive and should be honestly labled as such. It could be said that "gang culture" accepts violence and death as acceptable. This should rightfully be labled as evil. You seem to imply that all cultures are equal. I don't agree. No culture has the "right" to exist.
The First Amendment doesn't end at the school door. First, you don't understand what the First Amendment means (and you aren't the only one). The First Amendment gives you the freedom to criticize and speak out about the government without fearing to be thrown in jail. It does not give you the freedom to say anything you want.Total and utter nonsense. This type of statement may win fans from the high school crowd, but that doesn't make it true.
I do agree that there is some over-reacting, but it will fade as the hysteria fades. Life isn't perfect, get over it.
Your whole article seems to shout "I want to do what I want and the mean old people won't let me! Waaaaaaaah!!!!!!"
You can look different if you want, it is a freedom, but not a right. Learning is not always "fun" and just because you are learning math by a book and lecture, and not by pointing-and-clicking, this doesn't mean that books and teachers are useless or an invalid way of learning. Don't be so immature as to demand that everyone cater to your whims and make everything "fun and exciting" just for you.
I think your reasoning on these issues is very immature and worded to score points with high school kids. It doesn't really fly once you think about it past the surface. I'm 26 now, but I did think in similar selfish immature ways when I was in high school.
Here is a quote to ponder:
1 Corinthians 13:11We are not them. (Score:2)
We know what the abuse is like, but we're healthy. 99.999% of us survive the abuse and move on with our lives. We are not the shooters in Colorado. We may dress like they did, we may listen to the same music, watch the same movies, but we don't kill people. That's the main difference. The very fact that we can have compassion for the shooters as well as the victims is what makes us different from the kids that kill.
We now have two goals. We need to point out as obvious the fact that there is a difference from the kids that are out there and not trying to kill everyone from those that have. That's a short term goal. Eventually the pendulum will swing the other way, and the backlash will subside. At that point we move on to the next agenda.
The long term goal is to raise awareness of peer abuse and the damage it causes. Those who don't go through it don't realize what it's like. They think that it's just a fact of life, and that everyone experiences it. That is not correct. It should be taken just as seriously, and dealt with the in the same manner, as racial or sexual harrasment.
I'm not sure if peer abuse prevention would have stoped the shootings in Littleton from happening, but it is clear that those events have brought to the surface the need to do something about it. Perhaps for the geeks out there, this can be something good that comes from the high price of this tragedy.
Witch hunting (Score:2)
Fifty years later, schools are just *starting* to implement these ideas. Why must it take so long for schools to adapt? Will we need to wait fifty more years for schools to become wired? When will civil rights be an issue? When will people in school be treated like human beings?
Standarized education.. has failed.
--
Re:Culture evolves? (Score:3)
The responsibility of "who shall protect the children" rests where it always has -- with the legal guardians of the child. Every child develops the capacity to make moral judgments at a different pace. Being a parent should mean helping your child become an adult, not become a clone of yourself, and certainly not to remain a child. I see increasing numbers of people every day my age (30ish) and older who can only, as William Gibson put it in Idoru, only express their twin desires of murderous rage and infantile desire by pressing the buttons on a television remote and voting in presidential elections. Just a symptom of all the ways we teach children that Thinking Is Bad.
It does children no service to be anything less than scrupulously honest. While four-year olds may not need to know how to use condoms, feeding them BS that says, for instance, all substances are equally morally and physically Bad, only encourages harmful patterns of abuse, not responsible use or voluntary abstention.
Who decides what is education, and what is brainwashing and indoctrination? Only someone who believes that one size truly fits all, and has the gall to believe that they have the right to force the rest of the world into line, would dare. Try to please everyone, and you end up pleasing noone.
And to tie this back to the beginning: The ancient Greek children who witnessed incredible violence and cruelty on a daily basis did not all grow up to become despots and tyrants. Of course, most Americans seem concerned only with themselves or the current fads-or-politically-approved-oppressed-classes.
When Bill Clinton deplores the "culture of violence" while sending troops to shoot and bomb people in Kosovo who aren't even in his legal or political jurisdiction; when those who supposedly protect and serve us gas and burn men, women and children without a properly served warrant or any evidence of wrong doing, shoot an unarmed woman holding an infant and then taunt and mock her family through megaphones for days while their bodies rot in the sun; when a Japanese newspaper deplores "the warped strains of 'an advanced society'" when their leaders have only recently started acknowledging the Rape of Nanking and the so-called "noble class" systematically disarmed the poor for centuries by making it illegal to own swords and other weapons (thus prompting the development of many of the martial arts)....
Then, folks, there is some serious hypocrisy and denial going on.
Katz Komments (Score:2)
Some of the things Katz says are wrong, laughably wrong. Internet Access is a "right"??? Puh-leeeze! That is the most idiotic thing I've heard today. Internet access is no more a "right" than TV ownership. Sure, if you can afford it there's no reason why you shouldn't be allowed to have it -- but to speak of Internet access as a "right" is to trivialize the liberties guaranteed us by the Constitution in this country: rights to free speech, a free press, etc. It's not a "right". It's an economic good that ought to be as freely available (as distinguished from free) as any other economic good.
Lastly and more seriously: Katz seems to think all cultures are created equal. I'm sure he'd still think so if we dropped him into a cannibalistic culture or into Incan human sacrifice culture as a victim. "Don't complain, Katz; after all, as you said, 'Each generation has the right to determine its own culture', right? Nice knowing you..."
This is pathetic nonsense. Not all cultures are morally legitimate. They're certainly not all equal.
No generation has the right to dictate to another what its culture ought to be.
Really? Is that what you're dictating to MY culture? How "culturally tolerant" of you to dictate what my culture is allowed to do.
I've rarely read anything that is a more transparent recipe for societal collapse. After we get past the high-sounding words and the libertarian sound bites, what Katz argues for is nothing less than complete anarchy and consequent chaos. It is absurdity itself.
It is pomposity on a papal or imperial scale for Katz to arrogate to himself the authority to declare which cultures are legitimate (i.e., "all of them"). It's also absurdly lame.
A death-obsessed culture is ethically illegitimate.
Ethics and Thought (Score:2)
Sorry, but NO. I'm not about to defend our present culture at all, but there's no way that a death-obsessed one is on an ethical par with it. And while there is of course a difference between thinking and doing, and while there surely should not be laws which pretend to dictate what we may think about (though so-called "hate-crime" laws and political-correctness policies are egregious examples of it), this doesn't mean that ethics doesn't apply to our thinking. It simply means that we have a personal responsibility to monitor what we think about ourselves. While it may be legal for me to do it, is it really ethical for me to spend my free time imagining new ways to make my enemies suffer (so long as I don't actually do it)? I submit that it is not ethical in any way. We shouldn't be prosecuted for it, but that doesn't mean it's okay.
Ethics isn't just interpersonal. It's an internal thing as well. Self-control is an ethical thing. It is determining that you will/will not do X, because it is unethical. The first step on the road to doing unethical things is to give up that ethic of self-control.
So the answer is no: I cannot accept your notion. I don't have the right to think whatever I want. I have an obligation to think ethically. You can't enforce it legally, but it's no less important for all that.
Self-Criticism :-) (Score:2)
So let me clarify, if possible. I retract the following:
It is pomposity on a papal or imperial scale for Katz to arrogate to himself the authority to declare which cultures are legitimate (i.e., "all of them"). It's also absurdly lame.
This paragraph contradicts almost everything else I said, so I apologize to Katz for that.
There's nothing wrong with criticizing other cultures -- unless you have first made a point of saying that all cultures are basically equal. That would be hypocrisy. It is this that I find Katz guilty of, in that he condemns the culture of previous generations but then says in the same breath that all cultures are basically equal, that (to use his words) "No generation has the right to dictate to another what its culture ought to be." He is guilty of the very thing he condemns, and he is also flatly wrong when he says that we shouldn't judge other cultures.
I hope that clears things up a bit.
Re:Self-Criticism et al. (Score:2)
My single main argument in my second point is that all cultures are not created equal, and that we have the right and even the obligation to judge between them (including being critical of our own). The fact that you would condemn racist culture demonstrates that you agree with me, even if I did a bad job of communicating.
As to Katz: I don't think I can be charitable. It's he who said "No generation has the right to dictate to another what its culture ought to be." I disagree with this. Teenagers are not adults; they do not possess the wisdom nor experience of adults (granted, not all adults do either, but that's another problem). It is absurd to suggest that children's (or anyone's) cultural choices are somehow above criticism.
I certainly did not intend to suggest that everyone Katz discussed was death-obsessed. A segment of them were, however. My apologies if I did not communicate clearly.
Certainly there is no problem with being part of more than one culture, as you say. I don't mean to challenge that. But we still have an obligation to critically evaluate the cultures of which we are a part -- along with any other culture.
Good Post, BTW.
To The Oppressed Peoples of High School (Score:2)
Suggestions:
pettition, write to local media, start local newspapers, approach the principle (board of ed., PTA), start/join a club whose goal is to address these grivances, walkout, if there is enough of you confront the people abusing you, just something to help your situation.
--
Four years in jail
No Trial, No Bail
*** FREE KEVIN *** [kevinmitnick.com]
It's run like a police state, and it's boring ... (Score:2)
I'm originally from Panama (Central America, kids), and came during the Noriega fiasco to finish high school (10-12th), so I was in high school not too long ago and I know a little about "police states" (or military juntas)
Here are some observations;
No school uniforms.
This bothered me at first, I didn't have enough clothes, I loved using uniforms since nobody had to "compete" clothes wise. So, I had to spend more money in what I consired a waste, clothes. Also , I had many friends working just to buy clothes, instead of studying. Ridiculous.
You can take whatever classes you want.
Just like college, this could be good or bad. I tought it was mainly bad since many kids tried to take the easier classes. In Panama, you took whatever everybody else took until 10th grade. By then you had to decide between Science, Arts, Letters(Law), and others. If you choose science you had to take the same courses as everybody else in science. If you didn't like some of the classes, too bad !
It's cool to fail and get bad grades. ,failing and going to summer school !!! In Panama, getting bad grades (like a D or F) was a cause for shame. Plus, if you wore a school uniform during summer, it was obvious you failed. There was great peer pressure to do ok in school.
Kids bragged about doing bad
High school is too easy !
I had average grades in my school, when I came to the US I had a 4.0 average, and I didn't have to study !!!
And those are just some of the negative comparisons from the dozens I can make. Other more positive differences are here you have free food, free books, lots of clubs (french, art, computer, chess, acting, etc), and lots of "extra" goodies. Surely you can see that the system here is less represive than my native land , which I'm sure Panamanian schools are very similar to the rest of Latin America and probably Europe.
So, I like universities (went to USF) in the US, but high school is a joke. However, it's far from a "police state". Kids in this country are way too spoiled, and many are lazy. When I hear about kids being repressed because they can't wear a hat, trenchcoat, or dress like a vampire to school I feel little sympathy. School is a place to learn, and like a workplace it has rules you must follow.
Stop and think. (Score:2)
It would be worthwhile to distinguish between two classes of complaints here:
We're angry, and rightly so, because the media, the police, and school administrators are galloping off in all directions without thinking first. Must we do the same?
Very few generalizations about people are reliably valid, even when the people in question are school administrators and police.
Oh, yeah, one more thing: How do we all feel about the recent flap in New Jersey, about the state police "profiling" drivers? They've been stopping a higher percentage of black drivers than white. Of the drivers who are stopped, it seems that they search the cars of a dramatically higher percentage of black drivers. So how do Slashdotters feel about that, and the fact that it's happening in close proximity to Camden, Trenton, North Philadelphia, Newark, etc.?
"Once a solution is found, a compatibility problem becomes indescribably boring because it has only... practical importance"
Re:Nietzsche had a great quote about youth... (Score:2)
not entirely...it's close, but it misses the point of Nietzsche's philosophy...he disliked the word "good" (read Beyond Good and Evil) and, for him, a child is innocent...a child is the only true creator left, one who is a blank slate...one who has the ability to create for him/her-self a unique identity, untainted by the invasive efforts of other people to change us to be more like them.
Nietzsche's "Overman" (Ubermensch is _not_ translated as "superman" dammit), his idea of the final step in the evolution of man, was a child. (you can find this in "Also Sprach Zarathustra" in the aphorism about the three stages of man: camel, lion, and finally child)
"But say, my brothers, what can the child do that even the lion could not do? Why must the preying lion still become a child? The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-propelled wheel, a first movement, a sacred 'Yes.' For the game of creation, my brothers, a sacred 'Yes' is needed: the spirit now wills his own will, and he who had been lost to the world now conquers his own world." --Friedrich Nietzsche
the boys in littleton were lions, they had thrown off the placid beast-of-burden attitude of the camel and found that they had the capacity to destroy so they lashed out at what had been trying to hold them down. but they never learned to create, they never quite made it to the last stage...they learned well how to say "no" but could not bring themselves to wrap their mouths around a sacred "yes" and that, for me, is the true tragedy...rarely does the camel become a lion, but more rare is the transiton from lion to child...from destroyer to creator, from anger to happiness (_not_ contentment...that is the provice of the camel).
Will the choir become chorus? (Score:2)
Yes, many people are afraid of difference. Yes, it is terrible to spend a youth oppressed. But, there's more to it than just 'I'm being abused!'
Life is not rosey. The market is not rosey. When these kids move on to jobs, they will be competition with their peers and betters. No one will make fun of them for what they wear, but pressure of some sort will always exist.
I guess, to nutshell it, yes, it sucks to different and laughed at. It also sucks to be shot in the chest.
Take life's lessons, and grow from them. Don't abuse others, but don't expect to be treated well or fairly. I'm a complete introvert; I could never just jump in someone's face when I was younger. But, we grow and we learn. Those kids being oppressed and picked on will either get stronger, or they'll snap and shoot everyone. Some people will react to it the right way, and some the wrong. Glorifying or glamorizing _either_ viewpoint is equally wrong.
Re:Katz and Slashdot doing the right thing (Score:2)
I'm sure years of humiliation had a lot to do with this. Does that make it right or acceptable? Of course not, but it does somewhat explain it.
Like a lot of other people, I was somewhat of a loner/outcast in junior high and high school. Another thing that made life hard for me was that ours was a military family, which meant we moved around a lot. Imagine not fitting in very well, and then imagine getting uprooted every four years or so and dumped into a new environment. Believe me, it doesn't make anything any easier.
I haven't seen it widely publicized, but Eric Harris was a military child, too.
A good way to start fixing this situation is to make school officials more accountable to the emotional health of their students. I tried to go to guidance counselors in junior high, too, and while they wanted to help, they weren't willing to hand out punishments to any of the popular people who assaulted me. I'm not sure what they were scared of. Maybe it was a backlash from other parents, disciplining their kids when all other signs showed them to be "okay" (good grades, lots of friends, played sports, whatever).
Somehow, the perception that teenagers being cruel is okay or just a fact of growing up needs to change. I expect immaturity, but by age 14, kids understand their actions. Most of the time they just don't care about the ramifications. They know the worst thing likely to happen is a slap on the wrist.
Re:Role of parents and role models? (Score:2)
Parents and role models cannot be ignored in the development of children. However, they help to form the behavior of the bullies and the popular conformist crowd as well as the geek crowd, so any solution that targets parents will need to deal with the 'problem' children as well.
We can't say it's okay; it isn't because it is hurting our children. Do you have children? Are they tormented? Is it okay to torment them, as long as you are there in order to comfort and guide them afterwards? That sounds like the attitude you are espousing.
It's something I think we can and should be dealing with, and not just passing off. You talk about freedom of expression, but fail to see that many children and people seem to think that the school system itself is tyrannical and facsist, denying the children the rights and freedoms we as adults take for granted, online and outside in real life.
No one deserves persecution or abuse.
AS
The school system sucks:what to do? (Score:3)
I don't want to justify their behavior in creating this kind of situation, but I would like to explain some of the their reasoning in all this.
At least in my schools, there were overcrowded classrooms, aged and retiring teachers who just didn't have the energy or youth to deal with us, and and not enough funds to do anything they would have liked. In order to handle and deal with a class, conformity was stressed over performance, individuality, or creativeness. How could a teacher handle 20 wildly independent, unique, creative, inquisitive students? Whether intentional or not, they managed to convey to us the idea of conforming, of not rocking the boat. They were happy and excited whenever one of us showed initiative or intelligence, but they did not actively try to push us towards that goal.
Kids picked up really quick; they became the enforcers of the norm, and if you were different of race, of behavior, of attitude, of anything, they'd target you for this.
This was a school system which actively recruited for GATE students, but didn't have the resources to actually do anything with/for us once we were identified. They actually used us to gain more funding for stuff such as books, repairs, maintanence, etc. They didn't have the training or resources to manage a handful of gifted students, so we were left to our own devices, and then resented for it by all the other children.
This goes on all the way up to high school, in which I finally figured out how to look cool, how to act cool, how to be cool. I also happened to gain a foot in height and 40 pounds of bulk, so I guess people didn't figure I was such an easy target either.
Something does need to be done to change the system. We live in a society that does reward innovative unique and creative people, but the system we use to train and manage the kids tries to destroy and contain these things because they cause too much trouble.
I was talking to my dad about this, and he mentioned that even private schools have this fascist need to maintain conformity, except that they raise the bar and expectations much higher than in our public school. Are there any real solutions available?
AS
Re:Look at their side of it (Score:2)
Another option: use this as an opportunity to change people's minds. People tend to sort of believe what they see on the nightly news, but they really have a gut reaction to the things they actually encounter on the street.
So wear that trenchcoat, the skull earrings, the black lipstick and all that jazz... and be friendly to everyone you meet. Yes, even the assholes (at least, don't be hostile to them). Hold doors for people, smile, and generally make it clear that even freaky-looking weirdoes are nice people.
I and my friends do this sometimes -- it's amazing how many people you meet that way. And it's been fairly obvious to us that we're having some effect on at least some of the people we run into as we cruise down the street in our black leather, spreading goodwill.
Try it.
Re:Katz and Slashdot doing the right thing (Score:2)
Katz and Slashdot doing the right thing (Score:5)
Now I am 31. I'm very mainstream. I've reached equilibrium between my continuing concern for my fellow living things and my relative powerlessness. I'm actually happy. All of this personal revelation is just to lay thr groundwork for what I have to say.
Even now I am forgetting (as I think most adults have forgotten) how powerful adolescent emotions are. I wept, I raged, I suffered. In retrospect, it was a lot of wasted energy, but at the same time I miss the passion I had then.
When I heard the news of Littleton, I heard the demonization of the children who perpetrated this crime. Adults do this so we don't have to own up to our own painful responsibility for this event and others like it. Adolescents need the involvement of caring adults in their lives, not the intrusion of fearful or mistrustful adults. These were not monsters, they were CHILDREN. What they did was monsterous, but there were not adult enough to be monsters. They were not "gunmen" as I hear in the press all the time. If anything, they were "gunboys." Until you have lived through some adult pain (like the death of a parent, etc.) until you know the emptiness of unconsolable loss you don't REALLY know what death means. To these "gunboys" death became a game. Not because they played Doom, but because they hadn't learned through loss the value that life has. They held life cheaply.
I do actually think violent games and movies are a problem, but I do not think they are to blame. I think each of us, parent and child, game maker and movie producer, employer and worker (the economically induced absence of parents plays a part I do not hear enough about), jock and nerd, each of us needs to take a look at how we treat ourselves and one another. We need to ask ourselves if our lives should be this way. The world is not immutably a place of cruelty. We have the power to make this world what we want it to be. We just have to decide within us what has value. Money and power, or compassion and love. It is our choice. It is my choice. It is your choice. Choose.
AMERICA, land of the free???? (Score:3)
Just the other day in Lincoln , NE a guy i know, who is a Goth, walks into my former High School and a teacher says, "It's because of people like that things like this happen." the teacher was of course refering to the Colorado events. What kind of society do we live in that this is tolerated? The kids mother called a lawyer and it looks like something is going to happen in the courts, but it will not be enough. I am going back to my high school to talk with the Administration, but I know it will be futile, they just cater to the jocks and the popular kids. But I feel obligated to try. This is something that we all should do, let the schools know what we think, they don't use the 'net, they know it's nothing but porn and sites that promote viloent behavior. And having never used the 'net themselves they are completely justified in their beliefs.
no.
High school was no picnic for me, but I found out the other night, while getting drunk with some people from high school, that I was aclutally looked up to, people liked me, and they respected my views. That blew my mind. The guy said it was because I was dtudent council president, and people thought that made me good people. When do I find out though? two years after I graduate. WTF? So to all you people still in the schools, life does get better, just hold on, we are with you.
to the rest of us do something about the current issues, visit schools, there will be at least one group who will listen to you, start a community group, but get out and make a difference.
just my thoughts. I am also going to move to Canada, the US is not the place I thought it was.
Re:In a nutshell: Those unlike you have rights, to (Score:2)
nice job katz / suggestion for followup (Score:3)
Katz mentioned previously that reporters were trawling this site looking for people and stories. A nice followup article would be to analyze any resulting press to see how well they grasped the issues. Might let us know how well we do at communicating our views 'out there'.
Role of parents and role models? (Score:3)
What I personally fear more than that the torment of "geeks" will continue is schools and society will make it nearly impossibel to interact with others without fear of words being taken as harassment or torment.
Most of us who had to suffer at the hands of bullies, and the "popular" crowd did not go and blow 12, or even 1 person away. We learned to deal with. I think the most succesful of us who dealt with it had good support from our families.
With the ever declining strength of the family unit, and lack of almost anyone in the US taking responsibility for their own actions, kids have no place to turn for support and positive reinforcement.
I think these are the issues that need to be addressed, not the teasing that goes on, has gone and on, and probably will go on for years to come. Freedom of expression has a price, and I'd rather pay that price, and help my children pay that price, than see those freedom's restricted.
Re:Katz Komments (Score:2)
Having said that, I agree with you that the notion of the "right" to Internet access is absolutely absurd. We are FREE to use the Internet, but we do not have any RIGHT to do so.
high school sucked (Score:2)
i remember waiting with the rest of the seniors at the beginning of our last semester in high school for our class picture. me and a friend of mine who were "troublemakers" (i had been called to the office all of one time during my 3 years at this school, for smoking. outside. after school was out.) were pulled out by the vice-principal. we'd done nothing wrong, but because of our attitude and how we were dressed, she asked us our names (nope, she knew we were troublemakers, but not what our names were) and proceeded to look us up in her book to see if we indeed had enough credits to be able to graduate that year. imagine her surprise when she saw all the AP/Honor classes we were enroled in. her non-existent apology was great, i'm glad i'm out of school, and even though it's been four years already, i still harbor anger and resentment to the people who had nothing better to do than to check up on me for no reason other than for who i hung around with.
At last, a voice of reason. (Score:5)
One day, I stopped myself from snapping back at somone, and thought about it for a second. What exactly did 'nerd' mean to me? It meant someone who did well in school, who liked learning, who loved science, computers, and being their own person. At that moment, it stopped bothering me, and within a month of that, they stopped bothering me. They started to respect me, because I respected myself, and realized that I could be proud of myself.
So, to all you nerds out there, I have a few words of encouragement. Stand up for yourselves. Stand tall, be proud. We are the people who really make society run.
--
Matthew Walker
My DNA is Y2K compliant
Re:I still didn't hate high school (Score:2)
High school sucked for me somewhat, but really it was doings in my personal life, not due to bullies or anything. Because of problems at the time, I did dream of putting the smack down on those who bothered me, but it was never serious. Not everyone on slashdot had sucky times in high school, or sucky times due to peers, but I think the majority did. We're not wrong, but lets face it, alot of people w/ the same interests as us have gone through hell. -jeff
Pink Floyd said it best: "No more turning away.." (Score:2)
Moving on won't help anything. Don't forget about it just because it's not entertaining you anymore.
Re:Self-Criticism et al. (Score:2)
On your second assertion, I disagree completely. There are two salient points here that I want to address: the relative validity of cultures in general and the meaning of the term culture in this context.
You would be right about Katz being arrogant if he were somehow excluding "your culture" by affirming another, but that's not what he is doing. He only says that "your culture" doesn't need to affirm itself by denying and denigrating other cultures. That's a sign of insecurity, not superiority. Your examples of "other bad cultures" are similarly telling. (I use the quoted phrase "your culture" to indicate mainstream American culture, with which you seem to associate yourself. I apologize if this isn't your feeling.)
In the context of this article, "culture" doesn't mean a national or even regional culture, it refers to a clique or "sub-culture" within a larger framework. The existence of such a sub-culture does not invalidate or impugn the values of the larger culture, nor does it in any way restrict of the larger culture's right to ignore this clique. This is true irrespective of the tenets of that sub-culture, as long as the actions of the sub-culture do not violate laws of the larger culture. Thus "a death-obsessed culture" for example is not "ethically illegitimate" unless you think that blindly ignoring that death exists is fundamental to the wider American culture. Which isn't to say that you can't criticize it, just don't dismiss it out of hand without actually experiencing it, or at least getting to know someone who is a part of it.
You also show yourself as a promulgator of a problem "sub-culture" when you categorize anyone mentioned in Katz's article as "death-obsessed". In my experience, goths and Doom players alike are no more obsessed with death than cheerleaders or basketball players.
It has been my experience that some "mainstream" Americans are overly dismissive of all things unfamiliar. The "sub-cultures" (from jocks to teachers to parents) criticized in this article are an ugly instance of this kind of behavior. Your implicit assertion is yet another example. An example of a similar sub-culture that is "ethically illegitimate" would be the KKK. Obviously that is an extreme case, the criteria for which neither jocks nor goths nor geeks can fulfill.
Yow, that's really too many words. Hopefully I got my ideas across to you. I think that my most salient point is the one implicit in my argument: that all people are members of more than one "culture", and that's okay. I feel that this underscores the entire problem of this whole witch-hunt mentality in the aftermath of the horrible events in Littleton.
Re:Culture evolves? It certainly does... (Score:2)
evolve
Pronunciation: i-'välv, -'volv, E- also -'väv or -'vov
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): evolved; evolving
Etymology: Latin evolvere to unroll, from e- + volvere to roll -- more at VOLUBLE
Date: 1641
transitive senses
1 : EMIT
2 a : DERIVE, EDUCE b : to produce by natural evolutionary processes c : DEVELOP, WORK OUT evolve social,
political, and literary philosophies -- L. W. Doob>
intransitive senses : to undergo evolutionary change
- evolvable
- evolvement
No where in there do I see anything about evolve implying a better or more sophisticated change. While that is certainly true much of the time, you will find that not all are for the best (reptiles evolutionary adaptation to heat gave them a serious disadvantage in the cold). Segmentation also occurs along the pathways of evolution; just look at the varieties of bird of any single species; the number of subspecies for, say, finches will undoubtedly astound you.
As far as cultural evolution, well, I have heard about it; our anthropologists at the university discuss it, not a change for the better in the culture, but a change that results in a more complex environment (i.e., more rituals, differing religions are introduced, living to an older age, etc.). Events like these force a culture to change, because all culture are defined by a set of "rules" (for lack of a better word) that allows an outsider with knowledge of them to gain an idea of the structure a particular culture. Segmentation has and will often occur; just look at the differences in the Oriental and Native American cultures... a few similarities, many differences, and a common root. So, yes, Katz was correct with using "evolve" in context with changing cultures, although, for a nit-picking point, perhaps the use of "adaptation" would have been better (since, biologically, you must adapt before you can evolve). Either way, evolution does have a place in cultural anthropology.
-G.
Problems Are Fundamental to Our Society (Score:5)
What we need to understand is that the jocks, preps, and wacko administration kiss-asses do not go away once high school is over. They become the new generation of teachers, cops, judges, businessmen, etc. They do well in life because they already have the advantage of being well-to-do, accepted by the rest of the mundane society, and "on the right track." In case anyone hasn't figured it out, high school is a training ground for the workforce. All the necessary skills of obedience, blind acceptance, kissing butt, the willingness to sacrifice 66% of your day to mind-numbing and pointless work or sleep --- these are the "job skills" that need to be learned by the innately free-willed human being to fit into our mechanical capitalist hell.
Of course, nothing of this has to do with the fact that our society has been running on an authoritarian structure that places a small group of people as an elite over other groups and, ultimately, all of the "masses."
Black, poor, gay, freak, geek --- your individualism is useless to the machinery of global profit-making.
But there is more to it than that. Your individualism is more importantly dangerous to the button-pushers and their servile middle-men (the managers -- cops, teachers, landlords, corporate scum). They will always do whatever they can to appease you. And they will try to appease you over Colorado. They will become more "open" -- at least on the record. But in the end, when push comes to shove, they are "they" for a reason: they have the power and they will do anything to keep it.
Our generation has the cynicism from watching the extended hippie revolution joke, the anger from being further polarized and born into a violent, oppressive culture, and the numbers to make a difference.
So what are we doing whining about it on this message board? Let's overthrow the music industry with MP3's, overthrow the tech industry with free software, and overthrow the corporation-state's power monopoly through plain old internet anarchy!
-----------
open source everything
The very ignorance you display . . . (Score:5)
I would hate to be in school as a teenager now. I lived thru years of torment/alienation from ignorant people like you. Take the time to understand the people that are picked on. Those 'jocks' & 'preps' that took the time to get to know me, the 'freak', knew I was someone worth liking. Kids needs to understand that. Befriend those in your class because it is they that have to deal with you. Once they know you, understand you, they may even stand up for you. I had a 'jock' friend that was willing to fight my fights with the 'jock' bully who was picking on me, calling me a fag, threatening me. Take the time . . . it works . . .
This tragedy(s), & the ones gauranteed to follow from more copycats like Taber Canada, touch me deeply because I lived it. I feel that the persecution from the 'jocks'/'preps' is only being justified by the school administration when the schools themselves persecute. What kind of message does it send to a developing mind when the school administration isolates/persecutes/alienates/traumatizes people that so happen to dress the same as Eric or Dylan? There has to be a place for the kids being 'attacked' by the school systems to log their complaints! It has been labeled before, but this WITCH HUNT needs to stop before they pust another kid over the edge!
I have created a place for everyone to discuss these issues. Where to get help, where to take your complaints, what to do, why, when, & who . . . stop by!
LITTLETON TRAGEDY DISCUSSION [t10.net]
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I get knocked down, but I get up again;
You're never gonna keep me down
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Talk is good, but let's DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! (Score:4)
I've made a start. Have you?
I wrote a letter that I entitled, "An Open Letter to My Child's School District". It was a three page piece calling attention to the things being posted here, and how it relates to ALL schools EVERYWHERE. I voiced my concerns calmly and with as much logic as I could muster. I appealed to the readers to remove the gloss from their own memories of their school years. I urged that the letter be made available to every member of staff in the District.
I attached Jon's articles, as well as several of the responses they generated. Made a pretty long attachment, I must say!
I hand delivered a copy to each principal in the school district, as well as one to the District Superintendent.
Then, just so the whole thing would be less likely to be met with a "Thank you" and shelved, I delivered a copy to the editor of the local newspaper (the only media outlet here), who expressed an interest in helping keep their feet to the fire.
I'm moving on to our Congresspersons, the Secretarial levels of state and federal government, the Governor, and the President.
In order for this sort of thing to be effective, though, many more have to play the game. It's far more enduring than a flash in the media pan is going to be, even though it takes a bit more effort. However, since there is a lot of hand-wringing going on, with a lot of people saying, "Somebody's got to DO SOMETHING about this!", I would that we be the ones to start doing the doing.
The letters need to be signed and accompanied by the information necessary to contact you. You might wish to offer to sit on a committee that works on policy recommendations.
Since students who say these things are targeted for even greater levels of scrutiny (and even abuse), it would seem advisable that the letters come from concerned parents and other adults. There are also some things that you might like to consider in the process...
While we might be offering a wake-up call, we should also be offering solutions and suggestions. Emphasis needs to be placed on identifying problem areas, defining needs, and devising age-appropriate solutions. This is a pervasive problem that begins in early childhood education and continues on, with ever-increasing cruelty, through entire school careers. Geeks, etc. are not the only ones who are being tormented. Anyone who is classified as "different" by ANY school caste group is going to be abused in some fashion by the members of at least one of the many other caste groups, unless education and intervention are inculcated from the earliest ages possible.
Since education begins at home, community awareness needs to be significantly heightened. There are instinctual elements at work here that are going to take a lot of work to counteract. If there is a pecking order amongst chickens, one of the least intelligent critters available, you can bet your boots that every higher animal is going to have individuals singled out for torment. That's not to say, however, that the most intelligent of the animals can't overcome this.
It's just going to take some work, is all...
This is NOT just an "American thing". It happens EVERYWHERE in the world. You can change the names of the authority levels to meet your own situation. Remember, civilisation began to happen because an individual found a better, easier way to do something important!
There are several things that need to be brought to the attention of officialdom, and I think we can all appreciate that the wheels of authority don't turn in the direction we want them to unless enough of us begin hollering loudly enough in a reasoned way to merit serious consideration. Things to bring to the table in your letters would include:
Littleton didn't happen beacause:
-- of the Internet
-- of violent computer games
-- of violent movies
-- of easy availability of weapons
-- of adopting an "outsider" culture
-- of drugs
-- of a lack of anger control
-- of lack of parental supervision
-- of the general decline of society
While some or all of these may have played contributing roles to a varrying degree, we need to get the nation...and the world..to understand that Littleton, along with similar incidents, happened, and WILL HAPPEN AGAIN, largely because of the severe emotional stress placed on people too young to handle it by the incredibly rigid and cruel caste systems imposed by young people in the sxhool and neighbourhood social systems of the young.
In common with the caste system we see operating even today on the Indian sub-continent, once assigned to a group, you are hard pressed to ever rise above it. In common with what happens in chicken society, those at the bottom of the pecking order become incredibly abused and left out of all opportunity to remain healthy.
Most of those so abused in our education systems make it out alive. However, far too many kill themselves out of despair. Some use alcohol or drugs to ease the pain. A precious few snap in another direction and seek active revenge. A small minority of these actually succeed in killing those who they perceive to be tormenting them. In cases where the targets appear random, chances are that is because the killers perceive that EVERYBODY hates them.
I would like to make certain that the President comes to rise above political gun control rhetoric to understand that his proposals will not help reduce the chances of this happening again, because they won't. That won't happen unless enough people step forward with calm, reasoned words that counter the present knee-jerk reations we are seein all around us.
I want every Congressperson and Senator to understand that there are problems that need to be addressed, and that it's going to take some resources to bring about change for our children.
I would like people to make enough well-reasoned fuss that we see Congressional Hearings on the issue of caste system abuse in American schools (along with schools in all nations). I would like to see students of all ages and from all school and neighbourhood castes to be among those testifying. I would like to see adult survivors of this abuse testifying, and I would like to see our educators and developmental and emotional health experts testifying, too.
It won't happen without a lot of serious noise from the crowd.
The world needs to hear from those who snapped, telling why they snapped, as well as from those who endured, and why they didn't snap. We need to learn a WHOLE LOT more from those who are going through this now, from sides of both the oppressed and their oppressors.
We can't get there, though, unless enough of us speak up ON PAPER. We can talk amongst ourselves until we are blue in the face, and we can talk to talk to all of the reporters we want to, but it won't do any good for our kids until we can get the people in charge of their educations to address the problem in an effective manner.
At the same time, we are ALL going to have to address our responsibilities as adults in the process of raising the next generation of leaders and followers. It doesn't matter whether we have children of our own or not, we all have a part to play in the process. We can either be silent and let things go on as they have before, or we can get up and make a difference. Each of us has the choice.
For those of us who are parents, we have to pick up on our responsibilities to our own children. Some of us have children who are being tormented in school. Some of us have children who are tormentors. Some of us have children who have feet in both camps. We have the responsibility to know where they stand in this, and we have the responsibilty to work with them to help them prevent being part of the problem where that is indicated, and we have the responsibility to advocate for them where that is appropriate.
Nobody is going to be neutral in this one. You are either going to be an advocate for change or an enabler for the status quo. That's a choice that each person is going to make, whether he or she reads this or not.
Norman MacLeod