On the Phenomenological Nature of Political Correctness

I cannot for the life of me understand what it's like to have grown up on the mainland. Growing up in Hawaii, I didn't know there was a difference between black, white, asian, polynesian, and other people except for perhaps the awesome cultural heritage each individual brought to the island. Pretty much everyone I knew was of mixed race and/or had immigrant parents, myself included. When I learned about Martin Luther King, Jr in elementary school, that era of a segregated America seemed hundreds of years away. Moving to Los Angeles was not a complete culture shock to me, but I didn't understand how such a diverse city as Los Angeles could be so segmented into very clear ethnic enclaves. People didn't mingle as much as I expected them to. Instead of finding an extension of the melting pot that I was comfortable with at home, I found a salad bowl of different kinds of people who were able to get along with each other and be friends, but only to some extent.

My AP Psychology Class with Mrs. Wakukawa at Castle HS

I think the thing that bothered me the most when I moved there was how hung up so many people were on being politically correct. I remember feeling so shocked after receiving a midterm back during my freshman year with a comment on my decision to use the term "oriental" in describing something relating to my Thai heritage. The comment said something about how I of all people should know not to use such a word, and how it was just not pc. I was really taken aback by this, even though I got an A on the exam and in the class taught by one of my alltime favorite professors. Living on an island where something like 80 to 90% of the people I knew were at least part Asian, the term "oriental" meant close to nothing. It really was just another term used to describe something Asain in character, I suppose. And it was most commonly used when referring to food. But still, I could not understand how this particular term would offend anyone.

Words have so much power in this society. It's almost scary! Meaning is attributed to the words we used based upon the context we have to place them within, and being that everyone in America was raised in  different cultures, what means something to one person does not mean the same thing to another. I was raised to be very aware and respectful of people 's races, ethnicities, and cultures. I was taught which words not to say and which terms were offensive. But at the same time, I think everyone had a more casual approach to this where I grew up. I didn't say those bad terms because they were wrong, but I wasn't going to bend over backwards to avoid the possibility of offending someone. Some time in my first or second year in high school, I remember a schoolwide assembly was called to talk to us, students, about the dangers of creating negative meanings and connotations for neutral words. The focus was on keeping the word "haole" from becoming a swear word. The big issue in Hawaii at the time was racism and prejudices against white people. There was a string of tourist muggings near Honolulu and Waikiki that year, and white guys were getting a lot of verbal and physical abuse everywhere. The term "Haole" in Hawaiian literally translates to "foreigner," but it was becoming an increasingly negative connotation used to put down white people. "Effing Haole" this and "stupid haole" that. I suppose being in high school people were a little more aggressive about calling white people names like that than they were in real life, but that assembly always remained in my memory. And to this day, I am very proud to call myself a "hapa haole" (half white person). The only people I knew to be victims of any harassment due to race were white people, and that was rare also. Anyway, the school had Jade Moon (if my memory serves me correctly), a popular local news anchor, speak to us on the issue, and we were told to be very careful of turning a word into something it's not.

When I was in elementary school, two of my best friends were black. And one of my fondest, funniest, and most memorable memories of them was when we were at a barbecue at Kesha's house with her family and everyone started singing this song where you have to shout, "I'm black and I'm proud!" I was so shy back then that I couldn't do it, but it was so much fun! And because of my experience with them, I always called black people, well, black. The term "African American" was a mouthful to say, and I didn't think people would get offended if I simply used the term black because no one I knew did. That was until I moved to the mainland, anyway. After having some people react negatively to the way I used the term "black," I now have to consciously revert to saying African American every time I talk about my old childhood friends or people here on the mainland. It's such a strange concept for me, and it still seems like the people who get offended when I use the term "black" are not in fact "black." Some people are okay with using the term "black" while others get offended. It seems like whether or not someone takes offense to the term depends on where that person grew up. But knowing that, is it really that the term offends people or is it simply a cultural barrier that has caused many people to fear offending othersto the point of censoring everything they say? I think it really is a cultural barrier, but because we are so polite in America, people are increasingly taking extra measures to avoid offending others. Are they necessary? Why can't we just understand that everyone comes from different backgrounds and uses words and labels differently than others? What comes to mind is when a good friend who lived in Paraguay for two years told me that Paraguayan Spanish uses several terms casually which are actually super offensive in Mexican Spanish. Is it possible for us to understand that we can and do have these sorts of cultural differences within the United States itself?

Political correctness is sometimes difficult for me because I grew up with such a casual attitude toward talking about race and ethnicity that I have to admit, I do tend to overgeneralize about populations a lot in casual conversations. But why do people take me so seriously at times? I just don't get it. Even though hearing offesnsive jokes about the "Portagee" was a part of my childhood, it doesn't mean I think any less of them because I know those jokes are based on negative stereotypes. Thus, I just don't take those kinds of jokes seriously when I hear them, if I ever do these days because I know it's not true. You just have to take these things with a grain of salt. Words and stereotypes are what you make of it. Their meaning derives from how you interpret it. It's as simple as that. So why do people have to take things so seriously all the time? If we hear something and take it to be offensive, then it is offensive. But we have the power to choose whether or not to let something offend us; why choose to be offended? True, being politically correct has a purpose. It isn't good for negative stereotypes to be perpetuated about any group of people. It is important to take these very real consequences of stereotypes into account. However, it seems to me that these days too many people get up in arms over the slightest slip up in word choice or miscommunication regarding the meaning of a term used. It's important to be politically correct in many cases, but why make a big deal out of nothing in other cases? Why turn innocent words into derogatory slang by giving it a negative meaning in our minds? Is it possible to change the way people think if we are more open minded to the different meanings certain words and terms carry for different people?

I live in fear of offending people everywhere I go in the mainland! In Los Angeles, because of my religious beliefs which have painted many of my personal values, I was always hestiant to tell people that I am LDS, especially at a liberal school like USC. I thought moving to Utah would be different, but I don't quite fit in here either. Many of my friends don't understand a lot of the things I say because they were raised in completely different cultures, and even though I try to explain my personal experiences to them they seem to discount them because that is not what they grew up believing. I feel like I constantly have to have my guard up and be prepared to defend myself, which can be difficult because I am one to voice my opinion if I feel like someone is being unfair to my beliefs (except I do my best to avoid politics - that's the messiest area of them all!). It is my opinion that my belief is just as valid as someone else's even though they may be as different as night and day. I understand that each individual has different lived experiences bringing them to different conclusions and ideologies in life. But that does mean they are right or wrong, and whether or not you agree or disagree with someone, it is not right to discount their personal experiences. Empirical data can say a lot of things, but lived experience and meanings contributing to one's understanding of political correctness or any other issue out there is so personal that it can never be discounted. That is the most offensive thing in my eyes. You cannot tell a person they are wrong, even if according to your beliefs and experiences they are wrong. Concepts of right and wrong are relative. They are given meaning according to each individual's lifeworld. If you think someone is wrong, that person must have very different lived experiences than you coloring their world in a much different way than yours. For instance, while I believe my church is the one True church today, I understand that other people disagree. But that does not make thier church wrong, for religion provides many values, morality, and social solidarity in this world, and that is still a good thing. And it is important to remember that other people believe their church is the True church. And that is True to them. My beliefs are different than yours, and my beliefs are not "better" than yours. Thus, I believe people can never truly be right or wrong because there is no true right or wrong, there is only difference.



Just to add to that, I believe religion is as much of a culture, if not more, than whatever race or ethnicity one is. I believe this because my mother was raised in Thailand as a Buddhist, however once she became Christian and joined the LDS church, she moved to Hawaii for college and was quick to abandon Thai traditions, many of which are Buddhist. She did not like to speak about it either. She was able to adopt the Mormon way of life very well, and as a result I have not known much about the culture she was raised in. It seems to me that many cultures with strong traditions are trumped by religion in terms of how people live their lives. Someone raised in a culture which involves drinking an alcoholic drink as a part of an annual ceremony will often change their lifestyles to suit their new beliefs and religion; if that person converted to the LDS church, they would stop partaking in this drink and perhaps even in the ceremony. (Please excuse the crude nature of this example; it was the first thing that came to mind). Religion is many times a major factor determining lifestyle and culture.

The way I understand the world is through relating whatever I am learning or discussing with someone to my own personal experiences and beliefs. I like to exchange stories on a subject to show I understand and to fuel conversation. I feel like I am able to learn a lot about myself as well as from others this way. As a more qualitative researcher and academic, I prefer this method of understanding because it utilizes real world examples which hit close to home to me and my aquaintances. It also allows me to apply concepts and theories I have learned to real life situations. I understand that a lot of people don't like that about me. Sometimes I do talk too much because I am always coming up with ways to relate to the conversation, and sometimes it rubs people the wrong way. I don't do it because I'm so self-centered. It's just how I relate to people and how I learn best. Thus, it really bothers me when people feel so entitled to their opinions that they think their beliefs and experiences are better than those of others. Today I had an experience where I felt like a friend had totally discounted my personal experiences because she disagreed with me. Perhaps that is not what she meant to do, however, it really made me think about how personal experience is such a huge factor in determining how we decide to give meaning to different things in life. We often draw upon personal experiences and conversations we have had which hit close to home in order to decide how we feel about different things. And our personal experiences tell us what is politically correct and what is not. Therefore, I have concluded that people should never ever discount someone's personal lived experiences; doing so would be the ultimate form of offense and of being politically incorrect.

It's Not Rocket Science!

As the State of the Union Address came to a close tonight, I found myself online poring over various news articles saying the same predictable things criticizing and praising our president for the things he said. However, one article in particular caught my eye. It was a NY Times article exploring the uncertain future of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Amid all the budget crises and political altercations occupying the mainstream media, the dire circumstances facing the future of our country's space program has been drowned out by most. As a former NASA employee, I take interest in keeping up on such issues.

When I started working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 2008, I remember all the fiscal issues facing the Mars Science Laboratory project, and with the Obama Administration taking office in 2009, I remember increasing uncertainty about overall NASA funding. It was an interesting time to be working for the government. Space travel and exploration is expensive. Period. No matter how you cut it. And especially after the Obama administration placed the responsibility to conduct R&D and provide space transportation on the private industry, the steadily decreasing budget is not enough to fund anything.

Mars Science Laboratory, 2008

This dilemma poses an interesting question as to what the American people value, and in terms of space travel and exploration. What function does research on outer space serve in our society? Does it really better who we are? I am so fascinated by all things relating to astronomy. I took astronomy for my science general education category, and I love watching documentaries on TV having anything to do with outer space. Since I was little it was my dream to work for NASA (see, dreams do come true!). It is something I have always been passionate about, even though I am no physicist or engineer (apparently there is a BIG difference between the two from what I heard at JPL, just so you know). But lately I have been thinking more and more about why space fascinates us, and why it's important. Of course, on a functional level having access to space has led us to build satellites and GPS systems which fuels our access to nearly every piece of modern technology like the internet, television, and cell phone signals. However, going beyond that, why is it important for us to know what a supernova or a black hole is? Why was it a landmark moment when we sent men to the moon, and if it was so important, why haven't we bothered to send them again? Space is the last frontier, and it is truly symbolic for America to explore all that we can. But is it a realistic goal? When thinking about the Voyager 2 Spacecraft, it was sent to explore the outer solar system in the 1970's, and is still transmitting data back to Pasadena today. But why did we spend money on attaching a record player and a little makeshift time capsule of life on earth for possible extra-terrestrial beings to access? What is the significance of these things, and are they worth the trillions of dollars spent on them? There are all these questions that have come to mind when evaluating the importance of space science. Obviously, many nations have poured billions upon billions of dollars into many projects going into outer space. So is it worth it?

To me, it seems as if this debate is playing out in real time. Congress, the White House, and NASA can't seem to agree on answers to these questions, thus creating a tricky situation in terms of deciding what projects are important, how much funding to allocate to space science, and where the future of NASA will take us. If we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on each project taking what seems like decades to complete, and all we are doing is collecting soil samples on Mars, will we be able to apply any information we gather out there to society? Will we be able to send mankind to Mars in the next 100 years, or even 200 years? I am not one to answer these questions, but if the current government is going to continue funding NASA's directives toward this kind of research, they will have to come up with a reasonable answer very soon. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, and to see if space science will start to affect our social life more broadly.

I don't mean to sound so pessimistic about the purpose and future of NASA. I do love the work that they do. However, given the present fiscal challenges we have, I can't help but think of a history project I carried out last spring. There is an empty city block smack dab in the center of downtown Los Angeles. That city block was supposed to house a new federal courthouse, a much needed building for the city. But because of similar budgetary issues and the inability of the several government agencies, contractors, and planners involved to reach a concensus on how to proceed with the construction under the budgetary and time constraints, this city block has been empty for nearly a decade. This city block was once the happening place in LA. It was huge part of the major cultural center of the city, and now all it is is a BIG hole in the ground due to the bureacratic nightmare this project has faced. And I fear that the future of NASA may be headed in this direction, doomed to share the same fate as this empty city block if our government can't get their act together.

There is an ongoing joke at JPL all across the lab: when someone faces a difficult task, people say "It's not rocket science" - oh, but it is!

Confession

At the top of Wheeler Peak, an INTENSE hike
Summer 2008

As I have so aptly named this post, I indeed have a confession to make: I love watching the Food Network. Andrea Heinrichs, you got me hooked! I first watched The Next Food Network Star, Season 1, when I was living with Andrea for two weeks over the summer in 2009 when I was in between housing contracts. How convenient is it that college housing units always seem to kick people out for a week or so in the summer? It's so stressful, but after working things out, I've had the time of my life during these "homeless" periods. In the summer of 2008, I was able to go on an amazing camping trip to Great Basin National Park with some of my best friends, including Josh Smith and Jon & Kristi Harmon, and a bunch of friends of the Harmons from Utah. In 2009, I lived with Andrea and we had girls night every night! And in 2010, I flew/drove back and forth between Utah and Los Angeles in the big move after graduation. Adventure seems to be everywhere when you are homeless ;)

Mom and I

Getting back to the subject of the Food Network, I have never cooked much growing up, thanks to my awesome mom who made us kids whatever we wanted every day (yes, I was very spoiled). But once I moved out to USC I quickly learned that I was pretty good at whatever I tried my hand at. Unfortunately, in college one has little time to cook as much as one wants to. Nevertheless, I do enjoy cooking and baking and all that jazz, and I have been very pleased with what I have been able to make so far. My favorite recipe is my mom's homemade bread from scratch, no breadmaker involved. I like to make my mom's Thai BBQ chicken, Thai popcorn chicken, chow mein noodles, mom's homemade banana bread, and even those Haystack cookies Clarissa taught me how to make last summer. I have a list of new recipes to try in 2011, including soda cake, caramel corn from scratch, and homemade lasagna. And I always want to make what I see on TV. They make it looks so easy and delicious.

As I watched one of the Extreme Cake Challenges on the Food Network last night after eating an amazing Brazilian BBQ lunch at Tucanos for Brianne's birthday yesterday, I began to ponder the world's seemingly newfound obsession with food. Food has always been a necessary part of human life, but when did it become a luxury, when did it become more of an experience than a fundamental need? Up until the medieval times, it seemed that people ate whatever they had access to, and only the rich and famous could afford more substantial and tasty meals. It seems that with the rise of Capitalism, this world has seen a rise in specialization to the extent that people have created products and needs where they never existed before. We know all this through the history of consumerism and mass markets, however it seems almost strange to apply it to food, something that is such a staple in our lives that we hardly have time to think about it unless we think we are "hungry." But really, when did all the millions of herbs and spices appear on the mass market for everyone to use? I suppose the more important question is when did recipes become so popular to acquire for people to make tasty food for themselves? I am not an expert on this subject, but as far as my knowledge extends regarding the history of consumerism, I would argue that this change in society came about with the development of Crisco in 1912, which eventually formed the idea we have of perfect 1950's housewives cooking and cleaning at home.

This idea comes from Susan Strasser's book, Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market, a great read. As food and recipes became more commercialized starting with the invention of Crisco by Proctor and Gamble, the creative realm of cooking had opened up to American families everywhere, albeit for the purpose of producing profit. Crisco began selling recipe books in order to promote ways women could cook with their product, and the rest is history. Recipe books and the domestic role of women were solidified into society. Strasser says "human needs are cultural constructs...some people need yams and breadfruit, others Post Toasties and Kellogg's corn flakes." How true is this? As all kinds of new foods and products were being sold to people in grocery stores, restaurants were gaining popularity. There are so many different types and brands of food; food which we don't truly "need." And yet, I have to buy my Kellogg's Rice Krispies when I go to the store, and not the generic brand. Food has indeed become a luxury as branding and marketing have successfully thrust themselves into this part of everyday life.

The last thing I want to bring up is how eating food has become more of a social experience than anything today. The kinds of food one eats most definitely reflect one's social class. Many times rich people like to eat fancy, expensive foods like caviar at expensive boutique restaurants, and poorer people like to eat at fast food joints like McDonalds. I was raised in a family which could not afford to eat at restaurants. We weren't very poor or anything, but my mom always cooked, and that's the way things were. So when I started college in Los Angeles, one of the biggest food obsessed cities in the nation, if not the world, eating at restaurants was such a foreign experience for me. The idea of leaving tips was annoying, as most of the food at any restaurant is generally overpriced for what you get. And I had to learn restaurant manners quickly, as I ate out a lot on dates. I also had to learn how to decide what I want to eat and quickly. I learned to eat many different kinds of food this way, and really I had to adopt a new lifestyle in order to feel comfortable at restaurants at all. It blows my mind that I generally pay nearly $20 to eat at a meal that is about as half as good as my mom's food, but I'm okay with that. I have to be, or else I would not be able to live with myself after eating out. When I was in middle school, for my best friend's 12th birthday she took three of us out to eat at Anna Miller's restaurant in Pearlridge. It is by no means a fancy restaurant, but it was my first time eating out and all I wanted was a hot dog. I was so confused as to why they gave it to me all fancy in a toasted bun and why it had cost around $10. I've finally understood that when you pay for such a meal, you really are paying for the experience more than the food. People eat at restaurants to enjoy each other's company in a specific setting first and foremost; eating seems like a secondary task no matter how good the food is. In America, it seems like we have been conditioned to fork out the cash for everything these days, so naturally we pay people to cook us food as we socialize with our friends and family. It's like how at Disneyland you pay for experiencing the novelty of being in the "happiest place on earth," and at restaurants you pay for experiencing a good chat over good food. Eating food is no longer just a basic need, but a social platform in itself as well.

Condi

 

I haven't been online in a while, but here's something I wrote on Thursday night to post:

Today was one of those days I was glad that I go to BYU. Today, I was privileged to hear the former United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, address our student body. Every Tuesday, Brigham Young University holds a university devotional or a forum where a prominent university professor, a general authority for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or an important academic and/or American dignitary gives an hour long talk, sometimes followed by a Q&A session. The Wheatley Lecture series is also brings an amazing set of exceptional American leaders to campus; early last year many of my friends got to see General David Petraeus address the student body as well. And the best part is most of these lectures and forums are recorded on video and in transcripts for everyone to access in the future (see BYU Speeches Website). (Unfortunately, Rice’s address was not broadcasted).

Today’s forum, which occurred on a Thursday, was a particularly remarkable one. The Wheatley Institute helped put this together making it an especially valuable learning experience. The Wheatley’s are close friends of Rice and invited her to speak this year. Generally devotionals and forums are spiritually uplifting and encouraging, which is great, but I enjoy the more academic themed ones the most. As Rice has been a professor at Stanford University since the early 1980s, this was one I could not miss. As usual, the forum began with an opening song and prayer. We sang Rejoice, The Lord is King, which is typically an LDS hymn (fact check), but, as my friend Michele pointed out, Condoleezza was singing along as well. “I like her already,” Michele said. Rice comes from a deeply religious background growing up in the deep, segregated South in Birmingham, Alabama. It’s always interesting to me to hear the personal views and life experiences of people with that kind of background as I feel so far removed from such a time. I didn’t know the true meaning of racism or prejudice for most of my life growing up in Hawaii where everyone was expected to come from a million different race and ethnicities.

While I may not have agreed with everything she said, Rice gave a wonderful talk. After all, there aren’t many people (if there are any at all) with whom I agree with completely, and I think this should be true for most people with the level of diversity we have in America. Her talk reminded me of my commencement speech this past May given by outgoing USC President, Steven B. Sample. While I love President Sample and everything he has done for USC and helping us Trojans to become not only an athletically prominent school, but also an academic one (US News Report Rankings list us at 23 this year – finally above UCLA and just below Berkeley) – I have to admit that I was disappointed with the commencement speech he gave in 2010. As a hostess for the university’s Protocol and Events office, I often heard him speak, and as the president of the school he was supposed to address us anyway. I feel like it would have been more appropriate to include his speech with another more traditional speaker from the world outside of academia, the world most of us were about to enter. Anyway, as Rice spoke, I kept thinking how great it would have been to have someone like her speak at my USC commencement last year.

One of the most interesting things that happened at the forum wasn’t what Rice said at all; it was the reactions of the supposedly conservative student body surrounding me. There was this random guy who sat at the end of my row at the last minute, and when Rice walked into the room, everyone rose to their feet and applauded her until she was seated. This strange guy all of a sudden turned to me as we were clapping and said, “We stand and applaud for the prophet and apostles who come to speak here. Why are we applauding her? She’s not anything! Just a former politician!” I was quite taken aback by this man’s disrespect. I told him, “well, she was the US Secretary of State. That means something.” The man kept going, “She’s not even a politician now! That means nothing.” Seriously? No matter who it was, if someone came to speak to my student body and they had served in a difficult, respectable position for this country, I would stand and applaud them as they walked in as a sign of respect. Even former politicians have accomplished great things, whether or not I agree with their political views. I told this guy, “Well, wouldn’t you applaud the former President if he came to speak to us?” and he said no! What a strange guy. In our religion, “we believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates” (Article of Faith #12) and in obeying the law of the land. I always thought that a part of this responsibility that comes with being a citizen was loyalty and respect for our leaders, whether they are in office or not. I was utterly shocked to witness such a sign of disrespect, and at BYU nonetheless! And I heard many other classless comments regarding their opinions on Rice based on any political differences that exist between them. Regardless of politics, Rice has accomplished many reputable things in her lifetime. I mean, Stanford is one of the best universities our country has to offer, and she is a highly regarded staff member there, even before her service as the Secretary of State.

Perhaps my interest in working for the State Department colored my interest in her speech today. I have always been interested in doing something in diplomacy for my career, especially coming from a state where everyone has a parent or grandparent from a different country (myself included) and with my experience working on the state student council and interning at the Hawaii State Legislature in high school. The work the State Department does against human trafficking also interests me. I always read their annual Trafficking in Persons Report which compiles global information regarding the status and nature of trafficking events we know about in each nation as well as efforts to prevent it. Working at the Thai Community Development Center in Los Angeles which has a heavy hand in the work against trafficking in America has developed my passion in this area of advocacy. It takes a lot of work to manage a department in charge of such broad, important issues: international development, human trafficking, the defense of our nation, managing our foreign relationships and affairs, and more. It’s a tough job, and I truly respect anyone who holds this position.

Coming from the recent Bush administration, many people are very critical toward Rice, and perhaps

unnecessarily so. I’m not one to decide that, however, ever since September 11^th, there have been lots of finger pointing and name calling regarding the state of our nation in all its different capacities. I have noticed lots of this occurring in the Obama administration with lots of blame and name calling directed toward the Republican party in his public addresses in 2010; whether or not he was right, name calling seems like a pretty immature way to address party differences from my perspective and as an Independent. I never understood that. People are so quick to point fingers and blame others, especially for political purposes. But I’m not sure who to believe about anything in politics. Now, all I know is that it really bugs me when people point fingers rather than try to unify this country and fix problems first. Do people really want someone to blame for things that go wrong? Why does that seem almost more important than fixing any problem itself? Maybe I’m just too much of a pragmatist.

Anyway, Rice made an interesting  statement that seems to fit in with the theme of finger pointing, name calling and blame in the political arena: “Today’s headlines and history’s judgments are rarely the same.” How true this is. Today’s headlines are fabricated by the media. They can choose to put a positive or negative spin on almost any story (i.e. 30% of the Legislature votes to ban chocolate milk from schools vs. Chocolate milk to remain in school lunches with 70% of the Legislative vote). Headlines are all political. History needs time to develop. And it’s important to note that history itself is also fabricated to a degree. For instance, people’s idea of King Richard III of England from 1483 to 1485 is mostly negative tainted with accusations of the murder of his two nephews. All this controversy mostly surrounds Sir Thomas More’s account of him in his book, The History of King Richard III. However, most people fail to realize that More was just 6 years old when Richard passed away, thus More barely knew any facts about him. Either way, "much of the traditional account of the evil Richard III is based on this work, and Sir Thomas More's reputation as a saint and a martyr has had a pronounced effect on the history's acceptance." Even Shakespeare's account of Richard III is heavily based upon More's account of his history. This just goes to show that the way history is written and whether or not it is based on accurate facts is so fascinating. After all, More's account is now famed more for its classical Renaissance style than for its historical accuracy. These dynamics at play in what comprises "history" is so interesting to try to figure out. It just goes to show how history is most definitely a socially construction of reality as opposed to reality itself, which is especially true the further one goes into the past and the further removed one is from the actual records, "facts," and events. I wanted to study history as my major, but I couldn’t see myself having a practical career in that area. Nevertheless, the history of what happened during the Bush administration will be written by future generations. We won’t know what people think about him until people can only look back, not from experience, and believe certain things about it. This is how history is written.

I think I have written enough for today, but I will be sure to address some of the other interesting things Rice said in my future posts. Laa gorn na kha.

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

I love reading the news. I check websites for the New York Times, CNN, the LA Times, the new Star Advertiser (from Honolulu), and Planetizen regularly. I subscribe to weekly issues of Time Magazine and even National Geographic. I read the school paper when I have time. The news fascinates me. I prefer reading these shorter soundbites and analyses about the "current events" occurring around the world to longer books and academic articles. But as I read the news as reported in the many different sources I review daily, I cannot help but think about how little actual information I am getting from all this information and all the reading that I do. The articles I enjoy the most are more like dialogues on daily life such as Kwame Anthony Appiah's amazing 9 page New York Times article, The Case for Contamination regarding his views of cosmopolitanism and globalization in the world today (a topic for another day). They are thought provoking and interesting texts which manifest many of the different and at times more subtle aspects of social life to the public. When it comes to actual news, however, I am not sure how much I trust the media. At the risk of sounding like a strong critical theorist, I do believe that there is an agenda set in every news article that has ever been published to this day.

When I was in undergrad, there were many government agencies and corporations which would recruit at USC and give presentations to all interested students. I remember on one occasion, I was listening to a clandestine agent speak about his experience hearing the news coverage of a certain event he was knowledgeable of and knowing that it was only a fraction of the real story. In fact, this happened almost every time he heard about a story he was familiar with. Ever since then, I have always wondered what the true story is to anything covered by the media.

Lately, I've noticed how the media tends to fixate on certain issues. Last year when the "tsunami" was coming to Hawaii after the Chilean earthquake, I was annoyed at how every news station and network wouldn't cover any other story for days. When the media thinks they have hit the jackpot with a story which could boost their ratings, that's all they show. It seems almost impossible to get information about any other story at these times. Another example is when Michael Jackson died, Farrah Fawcett passed away on the very same day, but for some reason the media thought the people wanted to hear about Michael more than Farrah, thus there were a minimal number of articles available on her at that time while every station covered Micheal's story.

There is such an agenda the media wants us to buy into! Not only has advertising made its way into this mainstream source of information which permeates our everyday lives, the actual news we read has become marketing. They give us ideas and "facts" which we either accept or refute with a passion, and the number of stories gives us options of which stories we want to read. I mean, who actually reads each and every story that gets published by any news source at all times? As I learned in high school, the news is written at a 10th grade level of understanding, mainly so it can appeal to the masses. In James C. Scott's book, Seeing Like a State, he goes through the history of state power through the simplification and appropriation of everything in society. For example, the creation of last names allowed governments to keep track of its population more clearly while cadastral surveys helped them keep track of all the land; this led to more accurate and increased taxation and thus greater funds for the state. In essence, his argument is that simplifying and standardizing life into clear categories which are easily accounted for has given states increased power and legibility. The more the state knows about its population and its land, the easier it is to control them (and most people will not resist a state's power). Scott's argument seems easy to accept in terms of planning and taxes, things which are easily recognizable as ordered and standardized in life. However, I would argue that the news media also helps to give increased power and legibility to states as well as big corporations and capitalism by simplifying what we think we know about the world. This helps us to be increasingly at ease with the world and unwilling to take radical actions agaisnt higher powers because we feel like we know about what is going on out there. Instead of experiencing much of these things for ourselves, we read the news, make personal statements and develop our thoughts and "opinions" on the matter, and go on living our individualistic contented little lives. I'm not saying that people don't take action from reading the news, but as Alexis de Tocqueville said regarding stratification in society, if people have the slightest hope that things can be different, that will pacify them. The media gives us a sense of what is going on in the world and allows us to postulate about reality, and that seems to be enough for most people. The media simplifies reality into a few hundred words, sometimes more, per article, and in those articles how much "fact" and how much opinion and opinion or propaganda, for lack of a better word, are we getting? And do we just accept it all as fact?

Just as there is a natural bias in the way sociologists and social scientists select research topics and research questions which reflect their worldviews, often unintentionally, there is an even stronger bias in the way the media chooses which stories to cover. There seems to be no real way to avoid such a bias as everything we read reflects the personality of the writer, however it is necessary and ethical for social scientists to be upfront about their beliefs and backgrounds when writing anything while the same is not true of most journalists. This scares me. How much of the news do people take to be facts about the world? Most of it. The only time we dispute the news is when it comes from more personal, openly biased sources and programs such as Glenn Beck's show and other various programs on networks like CNN and Fox News. But whether you are conservative, liberal, or of any other political belief, it is difficult to argue against pure news articles as they are published in sources like the New York Times. (Just a side note: I'm not an expert as to which newspapers or networks are biased with which ideologies, so I'm just trying to give examples to the best of my knowledge. All I know is I try to read a variety of sources to get a well-rounded account of issues).

The media plays to people's emotions. They want to publish the quotes that have the most visceral effects on people, whether they are good or bad. This is why the media thrives off controversy. With the rise of the media came the rise of partisanism in the United States. The news has always been biased and in the past, it may have been even more radically so. I watched a documentary on the Los Angeles Times for a class on Government and Business in undergrad called Inventing LA: The Chandlers and Their Times, and it seems so crazy to me how much of a monopoly the Chandlers had on city life because of their power over the politics of LA and even California in general. Their newspaper is why many people moved West; they published a catalog about life in Los Angeles for the East Coast during the middle of winter, attracting many people to the warm, sunny fields of California. They had a lot of power in their day, and they were openly conservative and anti-union. They decided who and what could do business in the city for a very long time. In today's world, the media hides their partisan leanings a little better, but for the most part the difference is in the access people have to the news. Now that more people than ever are literate and follow the news, more people are developing stronger opinions about their political beliefs. By having the ability to choose which news sources turn to, we have the opportunity to tune out any news sources which go agianst anything we believe. This perpetuates a groupthink philosophy among many individuals. For example, many people who watch Fox News are strongly conservative, and the way Fox does its reportings only strengthens how its viewers feel about certain controversial issues in many cases. And I would say the same goes for the more liberal news stations as well.

I could go on and on about the negative aspects of the news media, speaking as the critical theorist inside me. However to get to my point, I will make this part short. Despite all its biases and shortcomings as a news sources, I truly enjoy reading the news. Which brings me to my last point, speaking as the postmodernist inside my soul: the news is not much more than a form of entertainment in society. It serves many functions and does inform us about "current events." But we can never know the "truth" about reality. Thus, the media drives a major part of the circus that is the political arena in society, and it is happy to generate as much buzz about anything that it possibly can. The new media's main purpose in society is for entertainment.

ดิฉัน ชื่อ ทิปปี้ (My name is Tippe)

My New Best Friend!

This semester I (finally!) started taking Thai 101. I was so disheartened last semester when I discovered that 101 was only to be offered in the Winter semester, but now that January is here, I am very excited to learn my mother's language.

Languages are a crazy thing. If you are religious, then you will be familiar with the story about the Tower of Babel. Can you imagine what it would be like if no one could understand each other? What chaos would ensue! It's such an amazing and beautiful thing that we have so many different languages in this world, and it's even more wonderful how humans find ways of communicating with those who we cannot initially speak with. Just a few hundred years ago, before the age of the printing press, very few people were literate in all the world. Now, literacy is a key component used to measure success and happiness around the world (see the Human Development Index, for example).

Aside from such an astounding change the world has gone through in such a short time, on a more personal level it's also crazy to me that I can't seem to truly pick up a second language. I can't help but think that if my parents were fluent in some language like Spanish or French, I would have been able to pick those languages up in a breeze growing up. On one hand, I think it has to do with the the fact that the increasingly fast paced and interconnected media we are exposed to which, to some degree, helps us run our lives; my generation and those after me seem to want everything in short sound bites (see this great NY Times Article: Growing up Digital, Wired for Distraction). When our minds learn to function this way, when society teaches and conditions us to live distracted lives, it becomes difficult to focus enough to study a language enough to learn it fluently. After all, those who I know speak foreign languages the best are Returned Missionaries, people who devoted 2 years of their lives to nothing but studying the language and religion with no distractions to impede their learning. On the other hand, I am painfully shy at speaking other languages. I am always afraid that I am saying something wrong. I can't seem to get over that mental barrier. Even if I know how to say something I am called upon to speak in front of a class, I will all of a sudden forget everything I know and struggle to reach into my memory for the right thing to say.
 
As someone with a passion for cities, traveling, and geography, doesn't it seem like learning languages would be a natural thing for me to be able to do? Especially having two multilingual parents. It came so easy for both of my parents. For me, I have taken 4 years of Spanish in high school, one semester of French in college, and now one semester of Thai. If I can't learn anything here, I'm not sure what else I can do until I graduate for good and travel around on my own. I really wish I could have studied abroad in undergrad. It's what I had always looked forward to most about college, but it seemed more worth it to graduate early, at least at the time. In this globalized world, it seems that in order to succeed, one must be fluent in multiple languages. All my friends who are getting great, well-paid jobs know Spanish or Russian and other awesome languages. Hopefully I can finally grasp this language which I am at least familiar with hearing on a daily basis. I'm doing well so far, so wish me luck! As a "white" person, I can finally claim to be Asian once I learn Thai :)

Flying Home

 Alright, so I haven't been so great at logging onto my account lately, but I have been writing a bit each day, even if it hasn't been posted here. I need to make a habit of visiting this site more often! Anyhow, this past Wednesday I flew back to Utah from Hawaii. My laptop was already dead when I was attempting to work on my PSA article a little more, when I had an interesting train of thought provoked by the beautiful sunset I was privileged to see from some 15,000 feet in the air. I wish I could write down every brilliant thought that comes into my head but for some reason my memory and lack of focus do not seem to want me to do this. Luckily I had my phone on airplane mode by my side, and this is what I wrote:

As i flew back to utah from hawaii, i realized that dusk is my favorite time of day. The few moments where the sunlight gives everything a vivid orange tint makes the world seem so much like a painting, a work of art more than a physical space and being. Its such a different view to see the world from so high above the middle of the pacific ocean. Who knew man would see these skies, these uncharted, unlivable area of earth's terrain.

In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner gave his renowned address at the Columbian Exposition, the Chicago Worlds Fair, dubbed the "Frontier Thesis." In it he identified the american frontier a critical component of the american identity, and with no new frontiers left to discover (in the west) at that turn of the century, what it meant to be an american had forever changed. Indeed our nation dispersed and settled into the vast north american continent, densifying our population then uniting it over periods of war and peace, of prosperity and depression. While the physical character of the (western) frontier was gone, it has transposed itself into all things we americans have ever done. The frontier became science, technology and outer space -- other-worldly things our ancestors may not have even dreamed of. While Turner has argued that american character changed as a result of this "loss" of a frontier, i would argue that the development of new and creative frontiers has only perpetuated the american character, enriching our country and allowing it to succeed over the past 100 years as it grew into a global "superpower."

The reason ive been pondering these things relates to the fact that im currently drafting out the psa article about transportation. The biggest factor allowing americans to explore new frontiers of all sorts has been the development of transportation methods and technologies over time. The horse allowed omnibuses to become the first mode of public transit allowing people to live further from the city center, consequently expanding the city itself. Then trains came furthering this trend while aiding long distance travel and shipping as well. Soon airplanes and rocket ships came along allowing people like me to travel home from college traveling thousands of miles in fraction of a day, multiple times a year. And if i wanted to (and could afford it) i could travel the same distance to visit exotic, distant lands like europe, just because. (Yes, Europe is very exotic to me!) This gives people the potential to be exposed to entirely new frontiers whenever and wherever we choose.

Transportation has revolutionized, globalized and developed the world into what it is today, a world where we cant imagine life without access to our cell phones, email accounts or computers. No one would argue the development of transportation technologies has been a bad thing for this world. For some reason development is almost always seen as progress, even when its not. Take the loss of the art and skills associated with masonry over time for example. Architects and construciton workers are now able to build tall, grand buildings, giant monolithic skyscrapers, but at the same time the things that are built don't last as long and are not as beautiful as, say, Gothic or Baroque style buildings. Assuming this is progress can be a valid assumption given the areas in which we have updated and improved our knowledge of the world (i.e. the world is round and revolves around the sun). However, writing this psa article is making me rethink the capability of human kind to know when to say stop, to know when enough is enough. We don't need buildings that are over a mile high (as they are building in Dubai), and we don't need every person on this earth to own a car. In Time magazine, I read that this year there will be 7 billion people on the earth. 7 billion. The world cannot handle 7 billion people, much less 7 billion automobiles. There simply is not the space or the infrastructure for that amount of cars. Pushing car sales in places like southeast asia only harms the ecology of place, community and the enviroment. No one gains anything from that....

[I wrote something brilliant here, then my phone decided to delete the last 3 sentences I wrote - sorry].

People would rather buy a car to show they can afford it than to get around. In short, transportation has increasingly become a luxury and social status symbol losing its functionality and practicality in everyday life.

Correspondence

This March, I will be traveling to Seattle, Washington to present an academic article at the Pacific Sociological Association's annual conference on the negative effects of the growing transportation market in Southeast Asia. For one thing, I am excited to be visiting Seattle for the first time! I love to travel, even if it is just to visit America's great metropolitan areas rather than some new, exotic country. Each city is so unique that it's just like being in a new world anyway! I am also very excited to be presenting my very first piece of research in a professional setting, and as a first author. In general, my main argument focuses on the fact that increased access to modes of transportation such a motorcycles has improved the lives of people living in rural areas of Southeast Asia, particularly women, but with automobile industries continuing to over-assert their presence in these markets (mostly for profit, unfortunately) there will be an increasingly negative effect on everyone's lives.

My advisor sent me this article from the Jakarta Post (click here) showing how important it is to pay attention to the effect transportation issues have on the quality of life in any city. In a way, it presents a new sort of development curve or Kuznet's curve relating the saturation of the transportation market to the quality of life, and I believe Southeast Asia has come to the point where that curve is beginning to move in a downward direction. Here are my thoughts on the article with which I breifly responded to my professor.

This is exactly the kind of situation I am trying to get at with our PSA article. I think this will be a great help in conceptualizing the problems of traffic congestion and of too much "mobility" not really being a good thing. I think we should include it as a real life example in our presentation to talk about the ramifications of car ownership in places like SE Asia.

On a different note, while I do think public transportation, when done right, can really ease congestion burdens of large metropolitan areas, it is rarely ever done right. The only truly successful example is the original Bus Rapid Transit system established in Curitiba, Brazil, and even that system has seen decreased effectiveness in recent times with a booming population that is starting to become unmanageable for them. Public transit is generally on a success where there is already a demand for it, which is why it works well in places like NYC. Not a lot of people own cars there, and taxis are expensive, so people use the subway often. But still, only 20-something percent of people in the NYC area use public transit, and when a rising amount of the population are car owners, 20-something percent population use of public transit is quite frankly not enough.

Also, the article's recommendations for implementing congestion (road) pricing and better parking management have all been effective in very particular cases (i.e. downtown London for congestion pricing, although this has not seen complete success either). While the author is right to say something needs to be done, I think these are all lofty goals which are not localized enough for a Southeast Asian city like Jakarta. It's a really unique case, particularly with all the motorcycles on the roads. There aren't a lot of examples of good traffic calming or traffic management tools in these cities which are new to transportation development booms. Since SE Asia particularly has been seeing a fast rise in congestion in recent years being at the end of the Auto Industry's drive for profit, they are facing especially crude advertising campaigns for the sake of more automobile sales. It's going to take something completely new, different and very creative in order to even begin to "solve" (or at least slow) the problems in SE Asia.

It's also sad to hear about the flooding issues in Jakarta; this issue is a testament to the fact that we are trying to develop in places where we just shouldn't be building, which also means we cannot extend the city infrastructure, much less the transportation infrastructure, much more in island nations and other places which are geographically bounded in many ways. This is important to consider in our analysis of SE Asian countries.

Ring Out, Wild Bells, to the Wild Sky

As I promised, this year brings a new addition to my life: blogging. I am not one to publish my thoughts very often, being the self-conscious perfectionist that I am when it comes to my thoughts and my writing. But 2011 seems like a good year to face my fears and to use blogging to polish up these parts of my life.

2010 was a good year full of important decisions and accomplishments. I was able to graduate an entire year early from the School of Policy Planning and Development at the University of Southern California with a degree in Public Policy, Management and Planning, emphasis in Urban Planning and Development (mainly so I can go into Community Development). I am well pleased with my work in undergrad, and I am glad that I chose to attend graduate school at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah in order to study Sociology at the master's level. The reason I bring this up is because my graduate program emphasizes reading and writing to a nearly unfathomable degree, which isn't such a bad thing when one is attempting to better oneself, especially in an academic light. Throughout my entire first semester in graduate school, I cannot tell you how much I have heard from my professors, advisors, and colleagues about writing as much as possible. Reading as much as possible is important, too, but finding time to write everyday seems to be the more important factor in developing strong skills as an academic. They have given me dozens of articles on the subject, and I feel like it's about time I start to take their advice. Writing even just 30 minutes a day should help me to become a better person.

I don't intend for this blog to be about my personal life so much as my thoughts on the world in general. I hope I won't bore anyone with my ideas, and I encourage you to leave feedback and start discussions of the things I will bring up.

2011 will be a great year, and in an effort to constantly improve myself I hope this blog will help. Happy New Year!

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light;

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,

For those that here we see no more,

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out thy mournful rhymes,

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.

                 ~ Alfred Tennyson

Resolutions

2011 is going to be just grand :) Hauoli Makahiki Hou!

Resolution #1: Start a blog (preferably an academic one) to keep up my writing skills. Every graduate class gave me articles to read on how it is important to write (and read) for at least 30 mins (each) a day to stay on top.

Resolution #2: Travel more! In 2010 I visited 4 large cities -- Boston, NYC, San Francisco and New Orleans -- and several other new places as well. This year my goal is to visit at least 4 more. So far I have one down: Seattle in March to present at the Pacific Sociological Association!

Resolution #3: Be more active! I'm enrolled in Gynmastics and Latin Ballroom, and I'd like to get back on top of weight training.

Happy New Year everyone!