Tag: culture

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Is college becoming mass-produced?

Fiala on ethics: Is college becoming mass-produced?

By Andrew Fiala

Fresno Bee, Friday, May. 17, 2013 | 05:44 PM

Soon enough, everyone will have access to the latest classes coming out of Harvard or Stanford. Massive open online courses, or MOOCs, can provide students around the world with lectures delivered by leading scholars at top universities. The democratic promise of Ivy League education for everyone is enticing.

But there has been some backlash. Last week, professors in the philosophy department at San Jose State wrote an open letter opposing MOOCs. They worry that administrators “are beginning a process of replacing faculty with cheap online education.” No doubt it would be cheaper to use prefabricated mass-produced courses than to hire real professors.

Some critics worry that online education in general is the problem. Face-to-face communication is important in the Internet age. Something mysterious happens in classrooms as students and teachers think together. Face-to-face encounters give students good practice at listening, talking and thinking in community with others. And caring relationships between teachers and students develop best in a face-to-face world.

But computer technology is not all bad. Videotaped lectures, like textbooks, are useful tools for disseminating information. And serious thinking can happen in online discussion forums. Online discussions are especially useful for shy or disabled students.

The bigger problem with MOOCs is the idea that college education is another commodity to be mass-produced. MOOCs are “massive.” A recent New Yorker article reports that a humanities MOOC at Harvard has more than 30,000 “students.” A MOOC on artificial intelligence had 160,000 “students.”

The issue of scale is significant. At some point the “student” becomes an anonymous unit to be processed, a number rather than a person with a name. Mass education treats students as spectators and consumers rather than as participants in a community of inquiry.

Mass-production generally centralizes authority and standardizes its products. But education should focus on cultivating human persons and celebrating their individuality. It should not be a mechanical process of stamping out graduates.

Decades ago, social critics such as Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno warned that “the culture industry” would create standardization and monopoly. They worried that centralized production of films, music, literature and art would turn culture into a product to be marketed and sold.

MOOCs represent another step in the mass production of culture. Mass produced culture makes all kinds of stuff easily available. Mass quantities of consumer goods can be purchased at big box stores. We can attend mega-churches and read mass media news stories. And now the sages on stages at the big universities are coming to the masses.

Mass culture is fast and efficient. It requires little effort to fill our minds with the latest stuff. Our tastes, our behaviors, even our thoughts are standardized and homogenized, assisted by search engine algorithms, which help us find what we want from among the available products.

Mostly, we like it that way. Standardized mass culture creates regularity, predictability and comfortable conformity. We can order the same food in the same restaurant chain in any city in America. We can watch the same TV shows or read the same news, while sitting in standardized hotel rooms across the country.

Everyone discusses the same celebrity gossip, reads the same bestselling novels and watches the same blockbuster films. We are all concerned about the same scandals and crises. The more of us there are, the more alike we all become. Massive online education appears as an inevitable part of the cultural matrix.

The downside is the loss of idiosyncratic points of view, local differences and diversity of perspectives. There are no more sages hiding on mountaintops, waiting to deliver wisdom to intrepid explorers. Instead, the sage appears to everyone who can click a mouse.

MOOCs bring those mountaintop gurus down to the people. But the mass production of education carries the risk of destroying the mysterious human connection between teachers and students. The most meaningful moments in education often occur when the sage becomes a caring mentor, asking how things appear from the perspective of the student. Can a MOOC do that?

Mass education can effectively disseminate information. But no Harvard genius can replace a responsive and responsible teacher, who is present on campus and in the community and who cares about students enough to learn their names.

 

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Recent Violence Raises Questions About Men

Recent violence raises questions about men

Andrew Fiala

Fresno Bee, 2012-12-29

The Newtown gunman killed his own mother before opening fire at Sandy Hook elementary school. Another gunman, near Rochester, N.Y., killed firefighters who responded to a fire he had set. He had previously killed his grandmother and most likely began his rampage by killing his sister. In both cases the gunmen killed themselves.

These stories have an obvious gender component. Mass murderers are almost always men. According to Mother Jones magazine, of the 62 mass murders committed since 1982, only one was done by a woman. The rest of the shooters were men.

It might be that mental illness has a gender component. But why do mentally ill men shoot their mothers and random strangers, while mentally ill women do not? Mental illness manifests itself in culturally specific and gender specific ways. Killing, brutality, and suicide are associated with masculinity.

Men are, in general, about 10 times more likely to commit murder than women. Suicide also has a gender component, with a ratio of four male suicides for every female suicide. We might also note that domestic violence is gendered, with incest, partner rape, battery, and honor killing usually perpetrated by men.

Some might blame biology. The “demonic male” thesis popularized by Richard Wrangham and Dale Peterson holds that male violence is a common trait among male dominant apes such as humans and chimpanzees. According to this idea, male dominance is a useful tool for social organization, even though it results in occasional atrocity.

But biology and evolution only explain so much. Culture also matters. Brutality, toughness, and fearlessness are deeply woven into cultural images of masculinity. We celebrate mean and ruthless men — on the sports field, in films, and in our military mythology.

The NRA’s Wayne LaPierre appeared to blame cultural images of violence in his remarks earlier this month. He deflected criticism of guns and called for armed guards in schools. He also blamed violent video games. Most interesting was his description of violent video games as pornography. He said, “Isn’t fantasizing about killing people to get your kicks really the filthiest form of pornography?”

The porn connection points toward the gender issue. American men grow up in a culture in which sex and violence have become vicarious events. It is easy to watch people have sex and to watch people kill. What kind of affect does this have on our relationships and our ideas about morality?

The larger problem is one of dehumanization. Pornography turns women into two-dimensional images to be observed and consumed. And violent games and movies turn killing into a thrilling spectator sport. The consumer is able to view other people as objects to be used, without consideration for the experience of the other person.

This problem of dehumanization may explain the connection between mass murder and suicide. The philosopher Immanuel Kant noted two hundred years ago that lack of respect for others is connected with lack of respect for self. Suicide and murder are two sides of the same inhuman coin. Like suicide terrorists (who are also almost always male), mass murderers have embraced death. The shooter wants to die. But he wants to take innocent people with him as he kills himself. This points toward a kind of rage against life, a hatred of everything.

Games and films are not to blame for deep moral nihilism. Most game players do not end up murdering strangers. And most porn-consumers do not become rapists. The causal story is complex. Nonetheless, the constant dehumanizing imagery of popular culture can have an insidious affect on the disaffected and mentally ill. Imagining murder in a game makes it that much easier to commit it, when life falls apart around you.

Rage and despair combine with images of masculinity and easy access to deadly weapons to create a deadly mix. Maybe that’s the price we pay for liberty: for the freedom to own guns, consume porn and enjoy violent entertainment. Gun control would make suicide and mass killing more difficult. Maybe censorship would help. But the problem is larger than the guns and the games. The deep question is why some men hate life enough to kill mothers, grandmothers, children, and themselves; and why women rarely do.

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Find Christmas Joy in Magic of Cultural Imagination

Find Christmas joy in magic of cultural imagination

Andrew Fiala

Fresno Bee, 2012-12-15

Some atheists sponsored a billboard in Times Square that encourages people to “Keep the Merry, Dump the Myth.” The word “Merry,” accompanies a picture of Santa, while “Myth” is associated with Jesus.  Bumper-stickers on the other side of the culture wars insist that we have to “Keep Christ in Christmas.”

Must we choose sides between Santa and Jesus? Why can’t we have our fruitcake and eat it, too? Christmas is a cultural mashup, combining stories and legends from multiple traditions. Kids who want to put Santa and the Grinch in a stable beside Mary and Joseph are a bit confused. But so what?

The cultural references jostle together during the holidays: Dr. Seuss and Charlie Brown rub elbows with Santa Claus and Jesus. Themes like love and hope, gratitude and generosity connect the dots of this jolly jumble.

Even the pope admits that cultural accretions matter. Pope Benedict’s new book acknowledges that there were no animals in the nativity scene of the Gospels.  But he argues that the ox and the ass at the manger with Mary remain an important element of Christian iconography — an interpretive addition with allegorical significance.

Some people want to refine our stories and images in order to get back to something original and pure. Neo-pagans want to return to ancient Yule and Solstice celebrations. Santa is a Nordic creation, after all. He has a lot in common with the Norse god Thor, whose chariot was pulled across the sky by magical goats.

Christians want to return to the original event in Bethlehem. But there is nothing in our culture that is original and pure — it’s all a mashup.

A few Christians reject Santa completely, seeing him as a sinister pagan idol. He is a laughing deceiver, ominously dressed in red. He gives children toys and candy, distracting them from God.

A few websites fret that if you rearrange the letters of “Santa” you get “Satan.”  Such word play does not enlighten. However, our fascination with word magic does tell us something about human culture.

We like to play with words and rearrange images. We conjure meaning even in meaningless things. This is what allows us to enjoy art and literature. We transform dots, lines and pixels into spirited beings, alive in the mind’s eye.

The joy of Christmas is the magic of the cultural imagination. Think of the effort expended by parents on Christmas Eve.

Some worry that it is immoral to foist the Christmas ruse upon children. But the desire to enchant our children is a work of love. We want them to play and enjoy. They’ll outgrow magic soon enough.

Magical thinking can be dangerous, especially when it lingers beyond childhood. It can distract us from reality — and it can be manipulated. Advertisers use magical thinking to sell us stuff we don’t need.

That’s why Scrooge called Christmas a humbug. He thought it was a fraud and a scam. But even Scrooge was swept away by his memories and dreams. And he overcame his cynicism.

Scrooge’s ghosts do visit us this time of year. Memories of Christmas past creep into consciousness with the smell of baking cookies. We hum along with once forgotten carols. The icons and images evoke a mood, even though we grown-ups know better.

The trick is to harness the images and moods for moral purposes. The goal is to conjure up generosity and grace instead of greed and ingratitude.

This is explained by Dane Scott, director of the Ethics Center at the University of Montana, in a recent essay about Christmas. Scott argues that Christmas provides an opportunity for children to practice generosity and gratitude. Scott also explains the magic of what he calls, “emotional fire,” the magic of ethical or spiritual transformation.

Good stories assist this process. Stories and images move us. Purists may think that only some stories count. But maybe what counts is the power of the stories to kindle a fire and soften our hearts.

Winter darkness breeds Scrooges and Grinches. If you discover hope in this dark season, it doesn’t matter much where it comes from. If you’ve found it, be grateful. Then mash it up and pass it on.

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Step out of comfort zone to learn about others

Step out of comfort zone to learn about others

Fresno Bee, February 11, 2012

I’m writing this column from Tel Aviv, Israel.  I’m on sabbatical, working on a book on justice, ethics, and religion.  A day after arriving, a friend drove me to Ajami, an Arab suburb south of town.  He said that the falafel there was delicious.  As the muezzin sang the call to prayer from a mosque near the old port of Jaffa, he explained that middle class Jews from Tel Aviv rarely set foot in such neighborhoods.

As we prowled dark, dusty streets looking for parking, I realized that there were no more signs in English.  My mind was spinning with jet lag and cultural dislocation.  The locals were oblivious to the foreigner munching falafel.  Kids played tag in the traffic.  Beautiful women walked by in headscarves and high-heeled shoes.  Families walked by with babies in strollers.  We ate in peace.

You don’t have to go to the Middle East to feel uncomfortable in certain neighborhoods.  There are parts of Fresno where middle class Fresnans never go.  We stick to familiar places and operate according to unconscious prejudices.  And so we rarely see the problems of those living just across town.  But it is important to cross the boundaries we impose upon ourselves every now and then.

Jane Addams described one of her first memories as a trip across town.  When she was six, her father took her to some nearby slums.  Young Jane asked her father, “why people lived in such horrid little houses so close together.”  From that original, naïve insight that some people live rough lives, Addams went on to found Hull-House in Chicago and eventually to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

One of Addams’ important insights, derived with her work with immigrant families in Chicago, is that cosmopolitan cities help people overcome prejudice.  She thought that living and working in proximity with diverse others teaches us to get along and reminds us all people deserve equal respect.

I was reminded of the importance of cross cultural interaction even before arriving in Israel.  We were stuck for most of a day in Istanbul, due to a snowstorm.  Istanbul is the crossroads of the world.  The airport was full of stranded travelers: Chinese men in business suits, Muslim women in black burkas, Indian families, and African students.

The counter for rebooking cancelled flights was a mess.  There was no line—just a mass of people pushing toward the counter, complaining in various languages.  A German who had been stranded for a couple of days, pushed back against the masses, trying to establish order in the line.  A flushed American got into a shouting match with a clerk about a misplaced passport.  A tall dark man in a three-piece suit elbowed his way to the front.  He pounded on the counter and loudly demanded to know who was in charge and what was going on.

Those of us who had been waiting smiled and laughed: no one was in charge and nobody knew what was going on.  Despite this, most everyone waited patiently and things eventually worked themselves out. Hope for the future is to be found in the patient forbearance of the vast majority, who just want to go about their business and get on with their lives.

This is true despite vast cultural differences.  It is reassuring how easily people from different parts of the world get along.  But unless you leave your own neighborhood, you don’t notice this.  Segregation, poverty, and prejudice remain problems.  This is true at home and abroad.

Future progress will depend on taking these problems seriously, stepping outside our usual comfort zones, and truly seeing the challenges confronting people around the world and across the city.  Jane Addams once said, “the highest moralists have taught that without the advance and improvement of the whole, no man can hope for any lasting improvement in his own moral or material individual condition.”

It is difficult to put yourself into the shoes of someone else.  It takes effort to venture across town.  Courage is needed to confront your own fears and prejudices.  But there is no excuse for ignoring the problems of our fellow human beings.  And if you take an unfamiliar path to the other side of town, you just might discover that the falafel there really does taste delicious.