Thursday, October 2, 1997
Society only skims surface
RESPECT: Money-minded educators scrimp on depth, shrug at
integrity
The typical undergraduate has experienced plenty of these
"introduction conversations." Generally, they go something like
this: "Hi, what’s your name?" followed by the appropriate reply and
"Nice to meet you." Sometimes "What kind of name is that?" follows.
Inevitably, the person is asked, "What’s your major?" followed by:
"That’s interesting, I have a friend …" and "So what are your
plans? What do you want to do with your major?"
Obviously, being confined to an academic setting and
understanding each other’s mutual status as a nine-digit ID number
in a multiple-year struggle to earn a degree that leads to
financial and social "success" leads to cookie-cutter conversations
like these.
More interesting, however, is the way we describe ourselves. I
remember one class last spring in which my professor asked each
person to describe himself. The way students replied shed light on
many aspects of the way we classify our individual and collective
identities.
Most students started with something like: "I am Chicana and a
physics major," or "My mother is Laotian and my father is German,"
and the occasional "I am a woman." Every person came with a
lifetime of experiences and thoughts, but their dominant identity
was primarily ethnicity- or gender-based.
This isn’t too surprising, living in a society where we are
categorized by ethnic check-boxes, where racism and xenophobia are
rampant and the success of many industries is based on the
exploitation and objectification of women.
Our class eventually wrote a paper about our identity and place
in the world. Rarely does our educational setup allows many
opportunities like these – structured, critical self-evaluations.
We’re too busy studying economics and biology, in a collective
crusade to attain the almighty dollar, to get around to studying
ourselves – on our own or in the classroom.
But we should. Take some time to reflect. Ask yourself these
questions: "Who am I?" and "What am I?" And if you can handle it,
"Why am I?" Then ask yourself, "Why am I this way?" "What
influences me?" "What motivates me?" and "Should I be this
way?"
Realize that we don’t exist in a vacuum. Our identities, as much
as we strive to be distinctive individuals, are products of what
lies around us, whether it be family, language, culture, religion,
gender, socioeconomic grouping, friends or education. The list can
go on indefinitely.
It’s interesting – even the people who try so very hard to be
social outcasts tend to look, dress, talk and smell like each
other.
It’s also quite disheartening that many of our vices, both
individually and collectively, are reinforced by our
environment.
Racism should be expected in a culture that dropped two atomic
bombs on the expendable Japanese people in the name of freedom,
prolonged the suffering of syphilitic blacks in the name of science
and decimated a native population in the name of "manifest
destiny."
Cheating and dishonesty run rampant in the university
environment, fostered by a culture that values material affluence
more than personal virtue. As educational interests become more
intertwined with corporate interests, the competition for quick
marketing of new products often leads to falsified data.
Many manifestations of women’s exploitation stem from general
disrespect and are conveyed through advertisements, music videos,
locker rooms or in Westwood Plaza.
Last week, one Daily Bruin columnist asked, "How many of you
feel like you learned something substantial?" in a critique of the
general education system at UCLA that requires most undergraduates
to pick from a group of "carefully selected" classes in order to
supplement their major studies.
Maybe he should have asked, "How many of you feel like you
learned something substantial in the classroom setting in
elementary school, junior high, high school or undergraduate
university studies?"
For many South Campus majors, the majority of learning is done
through inane regurgitation of "facts" that often get "revised" or
disproved every few years, prompting new editions of $80 textbooks
to the capitalistic delight of publishers and the textbook store.
There are some dedicated teachers and wonderful learning
opportunities available, mind you, but these are the exceptions
rather than the norm.
The Random House Webster’s College Dictionary defines education
as "the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge
and of developing the powers of reasoning and judgement"; and "the
act or process of imparting or acquiring particular knowledge or
skills, as for a profession."
When the extent of reasoning and judgment becomes choices of
Republican vs. Democrat, Coke vs. Pepsi, and "Is O.J. guilty or
innocent?" it is an indication that the nature of education, as
currently practiced in this society, needs to be evaluated. When
the "real world" is synonymous with "workplace," it is an
indication that our priorities need to be evaluated.
By and large, the term "education" has to be qualified when used
to describe the current Western model. It could be called
"functional education" or "indoctrination education." It certainly
imparts tangible skills to be another cog in this producer-consumer
society. It certainly imparts the ideals of social apathy,
individualism and materialism. It’s certainly good business.
It’s interesting to note that in the same issue (of The Bruin),
the new chancellor is described as "chief executive officer of a
multimillion-dollar corporation" and the university is described as
a place where education is "offered to anyone" like it was some
sort of commodity.
This year’s entering class is seen as a lucrative new market for
the new $30 million UCLA Store because it is the "first class to
see the store in its full glory – an entire class of freshmen and
transfer students who will undoubtedly feel the urge to buy UCLA
paraphernalia" with their fresh-for-fall "financial-aid money,
summer job money and graduation money." The oh-so-fortunate
freshman can now visit the Clinique counter that’s a hop, skip and
a jump away from the computer store, where $69 modems cost
$100.
Take some time to think about what’s going on. I received this a
while back in an e-mail message:
"A TV show about the Gulf War had (Noam) Chomsky as a
participant via a telephone hookup. Another caller called in to say
that he thought that the professor they had on was a kook; he had
never heard such nonsense. Chomsky replied that the caller was
saying something very important, namely that dissident opinion in
this country inevitably sounds off-the-wall when it’s boiled down
to TV-sized soundbites, because the evidence gets left out.
"By contrast, no such burden is placed on those regurgitating
approved ideas, because the ‘evidence’ (much of it false) is
already assumed by the listeners."