Conversations on the Road

One of my favorite things in life is roadtripping with my parents out east every summer. We're on our way to North Litchfield, SC. Somehow we got on the topic of how Carl Icahn has destroyed St. Louis (by killing off TWA, which killed our airport, which killed...etc.).

My Mom HATES Carl Icahn. She hates him because he doesn't think about how his mergers and acquisitions affect the people in the companies. We had a pilot and a mechanic for TWA in our old church and they either lost their jobs or were demoted significantly.

In my Global Perspectives class this past semester, we talked about how America is one of the easiest countries in the world to fire someone. This is great for globalization, but hurts a lot of feelings. Here is a list of countries, ranked by how hard it is to fire someone: Difficulty of Firing Index

Culture Matters

I'm reading this book called Culture Matters: How Values Shape Human Progress
which was a recommendation from David Brooks in this article. It's awesome.

In my two classes with Prof. Gilles, Social Change and Trends and now Global Perspectives and Realities, we have talked about why certain countries "succeed" and why some "fail" through multiple examples. We read the book Collapse by Jared Diamond for the Social Change class, which was fascinating.

However, there's an issue here. I'm feeling very postmodern by saying this, but, who defines success? Where one ethnic group or country might be very industrious and have a strong economy, another ethnic group or country might have a strong value for the family and community. Which is better or more desirable (because, often, they tend to be mutually exclusive)?

Here's a paragraph from Culture Matters:

"...it is first necessary to define our terms. By the term "human progress" in the subtitle of this book we mean movement toward economic development and material well-being, social-economic equity, and political democracy. The term "culture," of course, has had multiple meanings in different disciplines and different contexts. It is often used to refer to the intellectual, musical, artistic, and literary products of a society, its "high culture." Anthropologists, perhaps most notably Clifford Geertz, have emphasized culture as "thick description" and used it to refer to the entire way of life of a society: its values, practices, symbols, institutions, and human relationships. In this book, however, we are interested in how culture affects societal development; if culture includes everything, it explains nothing. Hence we define culture in purely subjective terms as the values, attitudes, beliefs, orientation, and underlying assumptions prevalent among people in a society." (xv)

So, a culture, as used here, is the worldview, the zeitgeist, the what-makes-us-different-from-them.

Of course, some cultures can have more healthy traits than others and can love honesty, integrity, and charity more than other countries or groups. But most cultures tend to be a mixed bag. Is globalization (by the definition I learned from Thomas L. Friedman - free economies, free business trade - free, not necessarily fair) really the best thing for everyone? The guys in Culture Matters say yes, if it provides better health care and overall well-being for everyone. Of course, it is kind of undeniable that a group or country with the least deaths from preventable diseases wins. I don't know...

Inspiration Nation

Great article from coolhunter.com on what globalization and our instant-access society has done to looking "cool"
(read it all here)



Getting inspired in today's culture is no easy task. It's hard to be fresh when fresh has become a commodity, when happiness has become fashionshaped, and fashion has shifted from niche pursuit to easy-access shorthand for cool. Like pulling up your hoodie to get an instant toughness boost or feeling 10% smarter because you've got new shoes on. The old signifiers of youth style and culture - music, and particularly, fashion? have become easy-access.

In short, everyone has become fashion-able. Not fashionable, you note, just able to grab hold of this week's trends with a lunchtime purchase of some cheap white pumps or a faux cameo necklace. Super-hip stylist Christiane Joy claims to have almost dropped out of the global in-on-Monday, out-by-Wednesday fashion roundabout, preferring jeans, a shirt and less obvious signals to her style: a pair of sneakers customized by a hip friend, or pumps in just the right shade of blue. Perhaps that's the answer - subtle as the new black. It's an argument that old-school music purists have had with the Limewire generation since the first Napster file-swap happened. Forget the days when it took commitment to get music (ever thought about how hard it was for Mick Jagger to get those Muddy Waters records?).

Recognizing true creativity when you see it, nourishing it and encouraging it to grow, is the only way to beat the frightening forces of things like the pop idol machine, high street fashion factories and lookalike magazines and models. Do your own thing, keep reaching up for those high ideas and never look over your shoulder; because that's what being fierce and being creative, is truly all about.
By Emma Warren and Elizabeth McGrath of Electronic Beats