A Magniloquent Manifesto

GOODBYE!!!

2009-12-20T20:40:00.000-08:00

Well, this is the last post for my blog.
The thing is, I don't know if I'm ready to stop blogging altogether. I know I'm done blogging about identity, I know that for sure, but I've enjoyed having a place to write things where it feels like people might actually read them.

A friend of mine suggested that I start a pop-culture blog, because I have such weird and obscure taste in movies and television. So maybe I'll do that.

As far as the blogging assignment for this class, I think it was a success. I think it was really cool to journal for an English class, and to not feel like I'm just writing for the teacher. Getting your thoughts out so that everyone in the class can read them, heck, everyone on the internet who is so inclined.

SO thanks for reading, any of you who stuck with it!
Auf Wiedersehen!

A look back on English 225

2009-12-20T20:35:00.000-08:00

So, this, my second to last post, I shall devote to taking a look back at the semester of English 225.

Likes:
-Surprisingly, I liked working with one topic for the entire semester
-I loved my peer editing group, who put up with my ridiculousness all semester
-I liked our instructor, who really wanted us to care about the subject matter

Things I would have changed:
-I wished I had understood more about the whole scope of the project before choosing a topic. If I'd maybe seen a syllabus that outlined specifically what the steps from Inquiry-Convincing-Persuade and how the topic changes along the way, it would have been easier
-At the beginning we tried to learn about the subject of Identity at the exact same time as we learned about the format of argumentative writing. I got confused and felt overwhelmed, I think it would have been better to do them separately.

It was a really interesting class to say the least, and it was my last non-theatre class at the University of Michigan, so that's pretty cool.

I ran out of witty titles a few weeks ago

2009-12-20T20:20:00.000-08:00

I've been sick a few times this semester, more often than in years past. Here's why.
I used to have this theory that if you're always a little bit sick, you never get really sick. You can snuffle through an entire semester and never miss class, and after a while you don't even really notice that you're sick. I lived this way from the middle of my junior year of high school til the end of first semester my junior year. It worked like a charm, I almost never was too ill to go to class.
Then Germany happened. I started eating healthy, walking up and down mountains, and sleeping 9-10 hours a night. I finally discovered the drawback to my brilliant plan. I really like being healthy.

This is fine, if you have time to be healthy, which I no longer do. After my first week of all-nighters I was screwed. I got sick and I couldn't get healthy again.

The other thing I've noticed, is that when a person is sick, they fantasize about being well, but when people are well, they don't take full advantage of their health. For instance, on an average unclogged day, most people don't walk around enjoying smells to the best of their ability. If something smells particularly good, they notice it and that's it. But when a person can't smell anything, all they can think about is how wonderful it would be to smell again.
Basically we take our health for granted, and instead of just dreaming of what we could do if we were healthy, we should start taking full advantage of our healthy while we have it.

Presentation Sensation

2009-12-20T20:12:00.000-08:00

For our English class, we had to further our topics by making a persuasive presentation that, well, persuades our audience to take action about our topic.

I had a lot of fun making mine. I did a satire of a newscast, because my intended audience is the general public, specifically those who have children or spend time with children. I chose satire because even though it was supposed to be the general public, I wanted my classmates to be able to enjoy it, which I don't think they would have if it were just a straightforward newscast.

Even more fun than making my project was getting to see the projects of everyone else in my class. Brett talks about how smart we are, which is fine, but to actually see it is really cool. It was really cool to see what exactly interests people in the class and the things that they want to change about the world.

That's the thing about the persuasion assignment, is that you're trying to change something in the world, which is a pretty big task. It's really cool to see what people would change if they could. A lot of people chose topics that they are actually taking part in already, which was really cool to see.

All in all, the persuasion assignment was my favorite for this term in our English class. When pathos gets involved, it's interesting to see what is important to people.

The most wonderful time of the year... right?

2009-12-16T17:20:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I think that the reason most holidays happen in the winter is because whoever planned the calendar wanted to make sure that we all don't kill each other or ourselves.

The only reason I believe in seasonal depression is because it explains the way I feel in winter.
It's a little weird, because
a) I love snow
b) I love the smell of snow
c) I love snuggling up in a warm blanket when it's cold outside
d) I love getting time off from school
e) I love seeing holiday decorations

See, I love all of these things, but I still hate winter. To me this means that there is some added factor, aka seasonal depression, that's working its mean little magic on me. Winter is when items a through e happen, and still, I'm unhappy.

Thinking about seasonal depression has lead me to believe that there are three types of people who endure winters in the midwest

1) The people who gush and squeal and listen to Christmas carols before Thanksgiving who are so obsessed with the holidays, that they don't care that it's winter and winter is miserable.
2) The scrooge-like people who admit to hating the holidays, hating the winter, basically just hating everything
3) Then there are the people like me, who don't usually admit that we hate winter. Maybe I just don't enjoy the holidays like I did when I was younger, but I rarely admit it, because I don't want to be mistaken for a "2". "2"s hate everything, I just hate the holiday season.

I'm too fast for Swine Flu

2009-11-19T18:04:00.000-08:00

Apparently I'm feeling very tech-savvy this week, what with TWO videos on my blog. This one just feels like it really applies to our topic of persuasion.

Let's break it down:

The Video:

The Action we're being persuaded to take: Get a swine flu shot

The Reasons: -It is easily spread -It can kill -It can effect you even if you don't normally get sick.

The Tactic: Pathos. The video is trying to scare people into getting swine flu shots in order to prevent an epidemic. The scary background music, the use of the elderly and children getting ill, even the oddly cheerful-sounding narrator, all make this video scary and would make people feel like they ought to get a shot.

Also, I just think it's kind of funny. My two favorite parts are "Joe brought it home from the office and gave it to Betty, and one of his kids". Why not the other kid? That's bittersweet! On one hand you don't have swine flu, but on the other hand your dad doesn't love you enough to give it to you. My other favorite part: "In California, Betty's mother gave it to her best friend Dotty, but Dotty had a heart condition and she died". I just like this part because of how happy the narrator is that Dotty kicked the bucket. I imagine in the time it was made this video was pretty effective.

Actually, He's a Boy

2009-11-19T17:46:00.000-08:00

As some of you know, the topic that I've chosen for class is men and women in nontraditional careers. (Nontraditional careers meaning careers in which less than 25% of the people employed are of one gender) Our next assignment is to persuade our audience that they should get involved and take action regarding our topic.
Our instructor showed me this video from the Onion News Network, a website that satirizes news programs. The video is about choosing masculine costumes for effeminate boys on Halloween.
It's hysterical. What this video does is take stereotypes to an extreme in order to show how ridiculous they are. Believe it or not, there are parents out there who try to force their children to conform to gender stereotypes, not allowing girls to play sports or get dirty, or allowing boys to join ballet or participate in the arts. This video is basically saying "Do this to your kids" while actually saying "Don't do this to your kids".
I'm hoping if you've read this far, you've watched the link from above, but if not, it basically chooses super-masculine costumes for effeminate boys, examples being soldiers, robots, a bear (with a giant head to "muffle his lisp") It uses stereotyping descriptors like "giggly" "lady-boy" and "faggy-acting". To anyone with a sense of humor, it's pretty harmless, and since the Onion's audience (see I can use ideas from class in my blog) is basically the same audience as The Daily Show and Colbert Report, i.e. politically-minded people generally on the liberal side of the spectrum, it is assumed that the audience agrees that forcing your children into gender-roles is silly and ultimately harmful.
If you still haven't watched the video, watch it now.

Lord Voldemort is the Hitler of the Wizarding World

2009-11-15T12:30:00.000-08:00

Face it, he is.

Similarities:

-Hitler = part Jewish, tried to get rid of the Jews. Lord Voldemort = Father was a muggle (non-wizard), he tried to get rid of “Mudbloods” (People with non-wizarding blood)

-Hitler took over the German government. Lord Voldemort took over the ministry of magic.

-Hitler made himself immortal (at least his memory is) by killing millions of people. Lord Voldemort tried to make himself immortal by killing others. (In the books, he makes magical devices called Horcruxes which are infused with a piece of his soul. In order to fracture is soul, he has to commit murder, which is the only way to break one’s soul apart)

-Hitler tried to get the support of families with strong German heritage. Lord Voldemort’s supporters were from the oldest wizarding families.

-Both Hitler and Lord Voldemort could fly without the use of broom. (Okay that’s not true. Hitler needed the broom)

[Added a few days later] So in the wizarding world after Voldemort returned to power the Ministry of Magic started to register all people with non-wizard blood, and they took away their wands. This is kind of like how Hitler started with the concentration camps. No obviously murderous intent, just the desire to have these people registered, controlled and afraid.

I recently re-read the Harry Potter books, recently here meaning this summer after I returned from Germany. I read them with a new lease on the idea of a terrible leader taking power, which was when I noticed the similarities.

To my Knowledge, J.K. Rowling hasn’t come out and said that Lord Voldemort is Hitler, but there are certainly enough reasons how he could be.

Make 'Em Laugh

2009-11-15T12:29:00.000-08:00

So if the difference between convincing and persuading lies in the Pathos, I think that one of the strongest tools someone can use to persuade is having a sense of humor about the topic.

In class we talked about those commercials with the sick children in Africa, or the polar bears running out of glaciers and food because of the scourge of man. What seemed to be the general consensus is that these types of Pathos have become ineffective. It certainly isn’t that we don’t care about the children or the polar bears, we have just found a way to guard ourselves from feeling too guilty about it. That is, if we haven’t already changed the channel.

This is why humor is one of the most important tools I think should be used to persuade people to join a cause. Laughter relaxes people and makes them comfortable. When a person is relaxed and comfortable, he or she is more likely to have a positive response to a call to action.

For example it’s gotten to the point where I’ve seen enough homeless people, or people down on their luck, that I just cross the street. One day, a few years ago, I was walking and looked down to see a man with a sign that read “I won’t lie to you, I’m probably going to spend your money on booze”. It startled a laugh out of me. Maybe the sign was being honest, I don’t know. I like to think that it was just a persuasive tactic. Either way, I liked the man, and I gave him some money. He made me laugh à I liked him à I gave him money, which is what he wanted in the first place.

I think people are just afraid to joke about the important things, because they don’t want to make light of anything tragic. But in my eyes that’s the key to getting support. No one likes to feel guilty, and if you see a commercial trying to shame you into donating money, you’re not going to respond. Plain and simple. But if you see a commercial that makes you laugh and makes you think, you’re one step closer to your purse or wallet to get out your credit card and make a donation.

If I Could Be a Superhero

2009-11-15T12:27:00.000-08:00

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what kind of superhero I would want to be.

I like Batman’s ability to accessorize, and his money, obviously. But at the end of the day, pretty lame on the super-powers front.

Superman is pretty awesome, the flight, x-ray vision, super-hearing, super breath, really the list goes on and on. The man’s got a serious arsenal of superpowers. Unfortunately the whole Kryptonite allergy really gives him my stamp of disapproval. Seriously! Isn’t that what his home planet was made of? Was he like Tiny Tim all the time at home? Because seriously, he gets knocked the @*#$ out every time it’s near him. So, sorry Superman, that’s a no.

The Incredible Hulk? Please.

Spiderman is alright but I imagine I would get tired of cleaning up the whole sticky web thing after a while. Plus I’m pretty arachnaphobic, which means I wouldn’t let a spider, radioactive or not, bite me.

As far as Aquaman is concerned, all the bad guys really need to do is set up base camp in like, the middle of the desert and Aquaman’s powerless to stop them. Lame.

There are a ton more that I could go through, finding awesome advantages and obvious faults, but instead I think I’ll talk about what it says about me that I spend so much time thinking about what kind of superhero I would want to be.

Of course I’m drawn to the idea of having powers, because realistically, who isn’t? But I think I wish I had them because I feel the skill sets I’ve acquired over the years are just so… ordinary. Everyday skills, which lead me to dream about having extraordinary talents to really set me apart. That of course says that I want to be set apart, well recognized, liked. I also enjoy the idea of having a clear, black and white purpose. Me good + you bad = me must crush you. Having something important and cut-and-dry to put my energy into seems like something really important to me. I think that comes from all the grey-areas in my life. I want an important battle to fight, I don’t want to feel like I’m struggling to achieve mediocrity.

I think these are reasons that America has a lot of success with superheroes, I feel like a lot of people can relate to me in my desire to be a superhero, instantly making heroes both inaccessible and desirable. Also I just really wish I could fly, or blow things up with my mind.

Triumph of the Will

2009-11-15T12:25:00.000-08:00

A while ago in class we talked about whether we would have gone along with Hitler if we’d been Germans in the 1930’s. In class I think I was a little too idealistic, I hoped that I would be able to be wary of the dangers that Hitler’s ideas would unleash. Realistically I probably would have been carrying a spade at the RAD ceremony. I mean, besides the whole gay thing, I have the potential of being a poster boy for the Aryan nation. (Also I’m not anti-semitic which could prove to be a problem) But I’m tall, German, I have blonde hair, blue eyes.

It is really interesting to think about it, from the German point of view. At the time he was just a charismatic leader who could really work a crowd. I’d like to think that had they known what he was planning, the Germans wouldn’t have been so supportive, and would have tried to stop him. Of course there’s no way of knowing what they would have done.

So what I’m trying to say is that I most likely would have supported Hitler, in his time, if I had no idea what was coming next. Obviously now I don’t support him, but back then, I don’t think I would have had any way of knowing not to.

Hmm.

Crappy Movies: My Legacy

2009-11-15T12:24:00.000-08:00

If I have one legacy, it’s that most of the people in my life will think of me when they see any crappy movie for the rest of their lives. I have one of the best/worst tastes in movies, no movie is too ridiculous or stupid for me.

Lots of people go to the movies to learn something, or at least feel like they look smarter to the people who saw them leaving the theater. There are tons of dramatic, thoughtful films, (that no one understood) that find themselves on thousands of people’s favorite movie lists, because they want people to think that they like these types of movies.

That’s not me.

Give me a crappy movie that makes me laugh and I’m content. If I want to be inspired, I’d rather find that inspiration from the real world. Movies, for me, are a place to escape.

These are the top characteristics I look for in a movie:

-Teenage Angst (always amazing)

-Some sort of supernatural element. (Obvi)

-Love Story

-Any type of gender-bending

-Melodrama (my personal favorite)

-B-List Horror movies

I like movies that make fun of them selves, in a smart way. I like movies with crappy special effects. I like movies with underdeveloped plots. Let’s put it this way, I went and saw “Bratz: 4Real” in the movie theater.

You may be asking yourself what all of this has to do with my English class.

The answer is that it doesn’t really have anything to do, I just felt like sharing.

A brief look back.

2009-10-20T21:01:00.000-07:00

I just went back and read all of my blog posts, starting from the beginning and working my way to present date.
Mostly I'm just kind of disappointed. I can see right when my life started getting hectic, which was when the posts started getting shorter and less fun to read. At the beginning of the class I had free time when I could really get to know the readings and the ideas we talked about in class. I think it can be seen in my blog, when I had fun writing them.
But as the semester has progressed, I've fallen right back into my old ways of burning the candle from both ends. This means I don't have as much time to really reflect on the class work enough to have insightful and fun posts that I can be proud of.

Things I would like to see happen:
1. I want to spend more time each week thinking about my posts.
2. I want to be able to tie my posts back to class material better.
3. I want to really make this blog mine, which would mean that I no longer look at it as an assignment.
4. I really really really wanna zig-a-zig-ah.
5. I know that we are writing for our audience with these blogs, but I think I've kind of lost my voice in trying to fit to what I think people expect from me.
6. I want to start having solid endings to my posts, because normally they just sort of trail off...

Academics = Non-hostile Audience?

2009-10-20T20:57:00.000-07:00

We've been talking about writing an academic paper with the intent of convincing the audience that our point of view on a particular argument is correct. In these papers we don't have to motivate action or change the world, we just have to make sure that we give enough valid information, in a form that makes our opinion clear and encourages the reader to share that opinion. Our teacher mentioned that our audience, which includes pretty much all of the University of Michigan population, has a majority of academics. Also that academics are generally a non-hostile audience. This means that if there is doubt cast on your paper, they will give you the benefit of it, or at least read it with an open mind.

I think that's an interesting idea, that because of their academic nature, our audience is considered non-hostile. From what I've found, many of the academic-types I've encountered are more than willing to get a little hostile. Meeting with teachers and instructors both in high school and college, I've been on the receiving end of a lot of "I'm smarter than you, your ideas are wrong and here's why" attitude. Granted, some of the time I definitely was wrong, but it was the way that these teachers/instructors pointed it out to me, like I was wasting their time by being ignorant.

Maybe it's because I spend most of my time around a faculty of artists, who, I feel, are usually pretty open-minded, but from what I see of a great deal of academic-types is that the more intelligent a person becomes the less patient they are with people who aren't as knowledgeable as they are. I'm certain that Brett will be an absolutely non-hostile audience member, as well as my peers who will read my paper. It was just a little odd for me to think of academics as being a generally non-hostile audience.

Which probably just means I've been hanging out with the wrong academics.

Working the system.

2009-10-10T19:31:00.000-07:00

In class our teacher often references how it's possible for people to cheat the school system. Some students figure out what teachers want, and give it to them to earn top marks, without actually learning anything. So then what is the value of getting an education in a system like this? What are we really learning? If students who are taking an active role in their education and actually obtaining useful information don't necessarily earn the grades to show it, and the students who have just found out a way to give the teachers what they want, what does that say about the real world. Are the people who are most successful the ones who took the effort to learn? Or did they simply find a way to work the system?

I hate to say it, but maybe that's the point of education. In the real world, it probably doesn't matter how much you know, but rather how well you can fit into society's rubric. Sometimes it's not the best idea, but the best presentation that gets selected.

If I had to categorize myself I would say I'm a happy mixture of both. In the subjects I cared about, I genuinely tried to learn, including investigating the subject matter on my own time. But for subjects like math and science, I learned the bare minimum to get by, until I could get away with no longer taking these courses. If you asked me to use some of the equations I learned in high school, or do a "proof" I would probably look at you blankly, and have no idea how to. But for my future plans, I only need the most rudimentary math skills.

I doubt that anyone in charge of the education system would come right out and say that schools subliminal purpose is basically to teach people how to do as they are told, without necessarily taking all of the proper steps. But that's kind of the way I'm starting to see it.

Free Write for Inquiry Paper

2009-10-06T21:39:00.001-07:00

So our first real paper is an inquiry paper, which I'm still not sure I understand. I'm having some trouble nailing down a topic, so this post will serve as a sort of, flow of consciousness free write to help sort things out!

When I first got this assignment I knew that I wanted to investigate something to do with gender identity. I wanted to explore the idea that gender is a construct and may not have any direct correlation with one’s physical or biological sex. First I looked at the connection between gender identity and language. The English language has a strong gender bias. When referring to a singular person, the pronouns are masculine or feminine, it is not okay to refer to a person as being neutral or “it”. If a person is biologically male but feels that they identify more strongly with the female gender, which pronoun is more acceptable to use? The research articles I found on this topic were, well, dense linguistically. I’m not very strong with linguistics, and this would require a lot of background research that isn’t directly related to my area of inquiry.

Next I came across the term Childhood Gender Nonconformity with its relation to adult personality. This was really interesting, it dealt with children who didn’t conform to gender stereotypes either in free time activities or in hobbies and interests, who later grew up to be homosexuals. But once again, all of the research for this topic is very dense and difficult for me to make my way through.

I’m currently at a loss for what my topic should be, because gender identity as a whole is too big of a topic to tackle, but when you start getting more specific, the research becomes too difficult to work with. I have ideas for my paper, but as of right now, I don’t have enough research to say whether or not I can use them. I think I’d like to do something with the occupations chosen by gay men and women, to see if they are less likely to coincide with gender role stereotypes. I’m sure there is lots of research on this topic, and it would be interesting for me personally, because of the nature of my future occupation. Costume design deals with a lot of things that fall on to the feminine side of the gender spectrum, sewing, style, etc. But as a career it attracts a lot of men, often men who are homosexual.

The problem I have with finding a topic is choosing what it is I want to say about that topic. Do I want to make a comment on how some occupations like costume design have high percentages of males, but are still considered feminine. If so how does that deal with the issue of identity?

Drew meets Andrew and bad things happen.

2009-10-06T21:16:00.001-07:00

So, I spent six and a half months in Germany. I don't want to be a cliché, but it changed my life. I got to be Drew, the funny, outgoing, down-for-anything guy, that I've always wanted a chance to be, but never found myself in the right surrounding. I'd always been Andrew, the constantly stressed, always tired, burning-the-candle-from-both-ends control freak.

I arrived in Germany and the change was instantaneous, I slept more than I have in years, I had time to kill, and a new found blood-lust to kill that time. Life was perfect. I was taking classes, sure, it was a semester abroad, but everything came easy. I finally got a chance to see what living like an average college student was like. I loved it.

But now I'm back in America, in the town I grew up in, going to the school I'd always dreamed of going to, and I'm straight up exhausted. Readjusting has proved to be somewhat insurmountable. I'm doing the roughly the same amount of work I did before I left, but everything constantly feels like I'm barely keeping my head above water.

So the question is: if who I am as a person changed, but this new person doesn't fit into my old life, how do I reconcile these two selves and become a complete person? I like Drew better, but I'm back in Andrew's world now, and there's very little place for Drew here. Most people change gradually, and in a lasting environment. I see it as being the frog, in the whole boiling-a-frog scenario. (If you put a frog in boiling water it will jump out, but if you put a frog in cool water and heat it gradually to boiling, the frog stays. Which by the way is a really unpleasant concept, but fitting for this example.) If a person changes gradually they don't notice until they look back at who they were. But I changed rapidly and in a different environment, and coming home just feels like being thrown into boiling water I can't jump out of.

The obvious answer is to just change my life here, but that is way easier said than done. Andrew's world is exciting and challenging, but it doesn't leave much wiggle room. I'm at a point where I'm either all in, or all out. I guess I just have to see if the boiling water cools down before I have to jump out, or just end up boiled.

Costume Design and Identity.

2009-10-06T20:58:00.001-07:00

When you go see a play, whether it's on Broadway or in a regional theater, there is almost always a costume designer responsible for the clothing seen on stage. Most people don't think about the process that goes into selecting and providing costumes. What people don't often realize is just how good at recognizing personality traits a costume designer has to be.

When we first become part of the creative staff of a production, we generally get a copy of the script, and occasionally meet with the director to talk about his or her creative vision for the play. The next step is reading the script several times, taking note of the characters themselves, but also anything in the text that needs to be addressed in the costuming. For example, if a script mentions that a man gives a woman a handkerchief, where does he get it from, and what kind of handkerchief is it?

Costume designers have to be able to get an idea of what kind of a person each character is, and then find a way to translate it into what they wear, taking into consideration any special notations in a script. This is a lot harder than it sounds, because in the real world people don't always dress like the people they are. For example, bad people aren't always easily identified as being the person in the black top hat and cape. An added difficulty is that plays are often set in a certain period, or performed in a specific style.

It is our job to find a way to represent who a person is, without making them a stereotype. In my opinion, a designer has done an exemplary job, if during the performance the audience doesn't even think of the costumes as being costumes. If the audience sees the characters and not the actors dressing up like the characters.

But Why Should I?

2009-09-26T11:50:00.000-07:00

Dear Toulmin Method,
I appreciate how thorough you are when it comes to analyzing arguments, and I absolutely respect your intended purpose, that is to say, what you do. However, I'm having some problems getting motivated to make use of your... services. You see, I am studying to be a costume designer for the world of theater. It's true that theater performance in itself is a form of rhetoric, there is a speaker or speakers and an audience, but unfortunately there is very little argumentation in my future career.
When I meet with a director to discuss a production, the only times when I need to make claims and prove them, happen during conversations, which provides little time for me to apply your method. Argumentation and mature reasoning mean being willing to exhaust a claim until it's fully supportable, or you are forced to find a new one. Unfortunately if costume design followed these same processes, there would quite possibly never be another costume made. Costume design is about analyzing a character and making a decision on how to best represent that character, the process also has a time limit, meaning the faster a decision is made, the better for the production.
What I'm saying is that I will use you during my English class, because that is what I'm required to do. It does not mean I like you, or that I will ever call on you again. I just want to establish clear guidelines and boundaries for our relationship, so you won't get too attached and end up being hurt. That is all.
Yours for now,
Andrew Hill

"High School Musical" and the varying weights of social identities.

2009-09-17T11:05:00.000-07:00

High School Musical is, to be sure, a campy, self-satisfying Disney Channel Original Movie (or for us regulars, a DCOM) However, if you take the time to look deeper into it, it has the potential of making some pretty interesting points about social identity.

There's a musical number called "Stick to the Status Quo" where several stereotyped teenagers (played by actors in their early to late twenties) reveal that they are capable of branching outside of their cliques and engaging in activities not listed in their expected categories. The reaction, of course, is shock and outrage.

So if you believe William James when he says "a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him", then what does it mean when there are many individuals who recognize a person as one specific thing?

For instance, in high school I became well known as a "theatre kid". As more and more people began to recognize me as such, I found that the way I acted changed. I started to embody what was expected of a "theatre kid". Does this mean that social identities can hold different weights? Every person has potentially dozens of identities, not including those provided by the "others". What I've noticed is that when there are lots of people that recognize one particular identity, it becomes a stronger part of that person's self.

If your self is made up of all of the identities that other people see you as, than it becomes possible to create a hierarchy of social identities. While I see that people act differently depending on who they are around, I think it can be said that a person's other identities trickle out, even when he is with a specific group of people. So if hundreds of people see me as a "theatre kid", that effects who I am, even when I'm not around the people who see me that way.

Cliques in high school are formed based on groupings of students who have similar social identities that the student body as a whole recognizes. It's almost a chicken-and-egg situation; do we associate ourselves with other people because we have similar social identities, or do we have similar social identities because we associate with one another. And if high school can be viewed as a microcosm of the "real world", then this sort of grouping doesn't stop upon graduation.

In summation, the more people that view you as having a particular identity, the larger a role that particular identity plays in who you are as a whole. What this does is give the external entities in your life a lot of power over who you are. The main character in High School Musical, may have always loved to sing, but until he tried out for the "Spring Musicale", he was just a basketball player, which was the strongest part of his identity. What you do, really is one of the largest factors in who you are, at least socially, and singing a rousing chorus of "We're all in this together" won't change that.

Does Benny have a "Self"?

2009-09-16T15:22:00.000-07:00

This is Benny.
(this isn't his most recent photo, but it's probably my favorite)

Benny is now a three year old Golden Retriever, and in this post I am going to argue that he has a Social Self as defined by some of the authors of the reading for class this week.
First there's the famous dictum by René Descartes which goes

"I think, therefore I am."

Now, I have no way of proving that Benny thinks, but I can argue (and strongly, I think) that Benny recognizes himself as his own entity. I believe this mainly because he recognizes and responds to his own name. Benny [probably] can't spell his name, and to the best of my knowledge he can't pronounce it, but when someone calls his name, he knows that that means him. The fact that he recognizes his name means to me that he has some sense of self, or at least the ability to differentiate between himself and others.

According to William James, "a man's Me is the sum total of all that he CAN call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank-account."

Benny doesn't have clothes, and while he lives in my house he couldn't call it his. He certainly doesn't have a wife, land, horses, a yacht or bank-account. Some would say that as a dog, he doesn't have any possessions or even the capability of recognizing objects as belonging to him. Tell that to Benny when I grab his leash from the garage. Benny has chew toys and food dishes and a bed. If you try to take a toy from him, he acknowledges the invasion on his property with a playful growl or an immediate seizure of the toy.
We have a small summer cabin on Lake Michigan, which is arguably Benny's favorite place. Every summer, when we get ready to go, we set a small blue and red duffle bag by the door, containing various toys, dishes, brushes, collars and other essentials that Benny will need. When Benny sees this bag, he absolutely loses control of himself. As far as I or anyone else can tell, Benny recognizes the bag as belonging to him.
All this means that in some way Benny CAN call these things his, despite the fact that he can't express it in the way that a human would.

Charles Horton Cooley thinks of the Self as more of a looking-glass. This means that one's Self is a person's perception of how other people are seeing him.

Unfortunately I'm not Doctor Doolittle, which means I can't prove what Benny is thinking or feeling, but I can see Benny's demeanor change depending on who he is around. When I walk in the door after a long day of classes, visibly exhausted and I greet him, Benny approaches me amicably but non-assumingly. When I am angry or upset with him, Benny is timid and nervous around me. When I'm smiling and laughing with him, he is much more aggressively playful. This just shows that he's able to see the differences in the way that I am seeing him. He also does this with other people. When interacting with my father, who is not quite as cuddly as I am, Benny is reserved. When dealing with my brother and his, um, energetic fianceé, Benny is positively spastic. Therefore I see that Benny is seeing himself and his role through Cooley's looking-glass.

Another interesting point, which I think helps claim that Benny can see himself through Cooley's looking-glass, is how he interacts with me, when he's done something wrong while not in my presence. When he was younger and not yet potty-trained, if he had an accident while I was out, it would be reflected in his attitude when I returned, even before I saw that he had had an accident. What this says to me, is that Benny is capable of seeing himself through my eyes, even when I'm not there to reinforce it. He thinks because he did something wrong, that I will view him negatively, and it's reflected in how he acts.

So, to summarize:
Descartes: "I think, therefore I am" CHECK
James: "a man's Me is the sum total of all that he CAN call his" CHECK
Cooley: Looking-glass CHECK

I would take this to mean that Benny does in fact have a Self, and that he is capable of recognizing it.

Introductions

2009-09-10T20:42:00.000-07:00

So. This is the introductory post for my new blog, a chance to explain what this is, who I am, and most importantly, why you should read this.
The first question is, of course, easy to answer; it is a requirement for my English class. It is to be an insight into my thoughts and views on rhetoric as well as various factors, characteristics and components of what is known as "identity". It should be pretty interesting.
The second question is a little more complex. Am I who you see me as? Am I who I see me as? Am I some hodgepodge mixture of both? In which case, how could anyone, including myself, know who I really am? I could no sooner tell who you see me as, than assume to have you fully understand who I see me as.
Well, this is getting rambly.
So I think I'll take the easy route and tell you what I do.
I'm a senior at the University of Michigan, studying theatrical costume design with a minor in Germanic Studies. I grew up in Ann Arbor and am proud of being a townie. In my rare free time, I can almost always be found doing some sort of handcraft (knitting, sewing, beading and wire-work) while watching some sort of television show on DVD. I am a vegetarian of eight years for social, political and health reasons. I am openly gay and extremely interested in gender identity studies. I spent six and a half months in Germany, studying and traveling, and could easily picture myself moving there someday.
For the final question of why you should read this blog, there are many reasons, with two standing out above the rest. The first being that you are also in my English class, in which case you were probably assigned to. The second is if you are interested in my perspective or enjoy my narrative voice.

That about covers it for now. Tune in at the end of each week to follow what will surely be an interesting journey into identity.
Tschüssi!