“Slavery created conditions in the South not unlike those for the Irish in Ireland. A crucial fact for both groups is that labor did not produce value for the worker, and so hard work was not initially a cultural value for either group. The work of the slave resulted in gain only for the slave owner…”

“The minimum wage in 2009 is only 73% of what it was in 1968 in real dollars.”

from Intelligence and How to Get It, Richard E. Nisbett

Hmmmm

Might this explain the modern college graduate, disillusioned by their parents’ generation’s “hard work” not paying off for the family?

And employers wonder why things other than pay are important to this generation (time freedom, for example). We want to work smarter, not harder. We’ve been shown that our hard work generates income for employers, not for us.

Not unlike the work of slaves…

It’s not enough to be well-educated anymore. We have a responsibility to make sure those around us are not ignorant.

Why?

Because internet content and media “coverage” is now being delivered to us on a “pull” basis. Whatever the majority demands is what we all get exposed to.

We have to raise our lowest common denominator to get higher quality information delivered to us.

This is why experiments like www.coursera.org are so important. Free higher education for the masses can only help us now in escaping the whirlpools of ignorance and its capsizing currents of unnecessary drama. Imagine what humankind could experience…

Fascinating discussion being had today as part of my Intro to Sociology course taught by a Princeton professor (www.coursera.org). It’s bringing up some concepts I’ve been meditating on recently, namely freedom, complicated environments, and probabilities.

Pavel, a student from Siberia noted the Stalin quote: “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.” Pavel asked, “Why doesn’t our government, when communicating with its people, tell the story of one woman and her tragedies, rather than quoting statistics?”

I thought, Barack Obama did this very well. He understands that most people lead simple lives and are more touched emotionally by drama than by statistics! This is also what CNN understands and the rest of the media, entertainment businesses, cable TV, advertising, etc.  DRAMA, DRAMA, DRAMA!! People are very comfortable/familiar with drama. This is also where Kerry went wrong. Once you become very educated, you can lose touch with the emotional side and the drama of life. I feel I have the best of both worlds. I feel very educated, but it leads me to a place of reverence, poetry and beauty, as if I get to attend a private studio session with God and watch him work on a great work of art. That to me is sociology. Those less emotionally inclined (or I might argue, emotionally repressed) would say that information would lead you to a place of dry statistics.

The essay we read said that people feel trapped by their circumstances until they develop a sociological imagination. Until we can have an understanding of the environment which brought about our circumstances, we can feel that we are victimized, or have fewer options.

The flip side of entrapment, of course, would be freedom, and empowerment.

It was nice to see the entire spectrum covered. It seems, the less you know, the more drama you experience in your life, the more fearful you will be of the unknown forces that are rocking your little boat on the big ocean. However, on the other end of the spectrum, when you fully understand all the reasons for interplay in your environment, you can become an unbiased observer, free from the confusion of emotional entanglements (but I would argue that emotions are another source of information to be understood).

The professor noted that it is necessary to learn more about your environment so that you can decipher truth from illusion. Some of the other students later brought up the question of how much of society is illusion and how much is truth. So if we agree that illusions are mostly conceived in fear, traps, and ignorance, then truth can be found in the domain of  courage, freedom, and education.

That’s about all I have energy for today :-)

Lessons becoming very clear today:

1. Never be too proud to work a job “beneath” your level of education. Supervisor at valet job commented he was doing payroll this week, I thanked him in advance, and he said, “Thank YOU, for working. Because you are willing to work, I get paid to supervise and do payroll.”

I thought that was pretty cool.

2. We intuitively know what others need, we have to create the peaceful, quiet, receptive environment in which desires can surface and be met with completion. This is a natural process which takes time, time that is normally rushed in a work week full of tasks and activities. There is a certain pace which is more conducive to individuals coming together to get their needs met. This rhythm is most easily found when immersing oneself in nature, i.e., tuning out of routine noises and tasks and tuning into the rhythms of the breezes, birds chirping, water falling, etc.

3. You can choose the interpretation of your experience of life as either a victim of your environment, or a master of your environment. The truth is somewhere along the spectrum. But if you act as though you are the master of your environment, you make it more so. This is because you take responsibility for any outcomes you see around you and work to change everything within your power to suit your vision of happiness. Conversely, one who blames and criticizes his/her environment gives power to the environment and makes the victim more impotent.

Live powerfully!