Education and Society-2

7/28/2019 Education and Society-2

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Human Consciousness and the Theory of Everything: A Study of

Education and Society

All writers take for granted a certain amount of shared assumptions

with their intended audience and a set of more basic ideas with other

contemporary or future readers. This is an extension of the principle

that different individual members of the human species have mental

concepts that, through language or another form of communication

(including active and passive), they come to regard as part of a

collective consciousness. These ideas include what is regarded as true

and normal by the larger society or by a subculture such as a

religious group.

These assumptions about society, however, are completely individual.

Each person believes or understands reality differently and has their

own fluid ideas about how things are happening. The idea of a

collective consciousness has power, substance even, because of the

individuals beliefin it.

The educational system is a microcosm, a reflection1 of the larger

society that it is part of. White male supremacy is, and always has

been, the dominant power structure of American society and non-

1 Robert Ainslie


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White students2 have statistically achieved lower by the standards of

the educational system3. The Supreme Court decision to integrate

schools, it seemed, could eventually diminish the achievement gap

that exists between students of minority races; that schools would be

the vehicles of integration in a country of so many diverse cultures.

Presently, most inner-city and rural communities still have poor

schools and poor people. To some it seems that our education system

is failing to deliver on its promise of being the great equalizer.

However, others say that individual schools are failing, or perhaps

blame the students themselves.

To create a comprehensive solution, on a national, regional or local

scale, we must understand where these above ideas come from and

what they mean. By the first component, where ideas come from, we

mean how a person comes to have one set of ideas instead of any

other combination. For our purposes, the second question asks how

the epistemologies of each individual collectively constitute the lived

reality inside the school system. The metaphor of a mirror can be used

to describe this process, since consciousness can be said to construct

reality and reality can be said to determine consciousness. In this

mirror, there is no certain proof which is the reflection of the other, but

we know that mentality and reality reflect each other. Since our goal is

2 As a category3 Grades, test scores, drop out rates etc.


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to change the current reality (of the education system), we must

change the way we think (about education). Each individual involved4

in the school system having their own distinct epistemology, as valid to

them as the next persons, may at times seem erroneous; consensus

seems a long way off. However, any change in one individuals reality-

mentality-matrix, is also a change in everything around them, and so

both people and society must be taken into consideration. Therefore,

we must strive to move towards clarity in expression, observation, and

critical analysis. Since, we can pool information about experiences,

but never the experiences themselvesevery human group is a

society of island universessufficiently like one another to permit by

the use of symbols [an] inferential understanding. (Huxley, 12-13)5

We6 begin with language; a discourse has been taking place over the

course of many millennia. How did we begin? What is real, what is

imagined; what true or false, right or wrong? These most basic

questions of human existence are answered individually by each

person, and yet many people agree that they believe the same

thing(s). There is another element to the discourse, and that is the

examination of such beliefs. What is the connection between behavior4 Involved could potentially include all persons ever and

not yet born and everything else that makes up the natural

process of the universe.5 Aldous Huxley - Doors of Perception, pg. 12-136 Henceforth, we refers to the author and the different

people who would agree with any individual component of

this thesis.


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and belief (psychology)? How does a society function (sociology)?

What is culture and how does it develop (cultural anthropology)? How

are women disenfranchised by patriarchy and what political means can

be taken to empower the female in society (feminist philosophy)? How

is racial oppression constructed, and how can it be deconstructed

(critical race theory).

For reasons that you may already understand, or may come to

understand in the future of this discourse, all of these theories apply to

education and the problem we are addressing. We are mainly

interested in the theory of everything, because every thought in the

human consciousness is a reflection of someones reality. For

instance, Jonathon Kozol mainly talks about distribution of funds as the

reason for the disreputable and dangerous state of many schools

across the country.7 As critical race theorists will point out, the

distribution of funds in American society is also racially (and in addition

socially that is by location) biased.

I believe it to be intrinsically true; however, that race or location could

never be the sole cause of the condition of any community or any of

the schools inside it. That is to say that any number of people

observing the situation could identify causes of any perceived event or

7 In his book Shame of the Nation, for instance


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object. Each would be different, if not even (except slightly) in their

language then probably in consciousness.

Metaphor, we then find, is a useful concept for understanding the art of

change, since reality is change meaning moment after moment

everything in existence transforms in some way, on some level.

Because we use these metaphors to understand reality, for instance,

asserting the greatness of something8, we sometimes forget the

infinitude of occurrences at any one time. We focus only on the certain

things that we are concerned with, and often forget that our

understanding of what is important changes over time. A person

changes over time, physically; after several years, they will have an

entirely new body (on a cellular level). Their knowledge, beliefs, living

conditions, relationships, attitudes, all will have changed. At what

increments and how much is so relative that it is different in every

reality-mentality-matrix9. It is even possible to claim that a person had

not changed at all, but it is also always possible that anyone else could

claim they had.

We are forever present in a moment. The material and intellectual

present is the exact way it is because of anything that has happened in

8 Which, of course, is only anything valued as great in our

reality-mentality-matrix at the time any such assertion is

made.9 Meaning that it is both individually differentiated

between people and perceived uniquely by observers.


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the past. That is to say that we individually could believe (and

sometimes explain or conceptualize) that anything in the past has

caused it to be how it is. Therefore, I use cause as a metaphor. Say

we are looking at ourselves on the page of the present, and we chose

any one thing happening on that page. If we are to draw a line from

that thing happening to the thing that caused it in the past, then the

length of the line will differ according to our perception of the scale of

the event. For instance, a line from a student falling over to another

person who had pushed them would be shorter than a line from a city

destroyed by an atomic bomb to the plane that had dropped it.

However, for both of these lines the connections would have to go off

of the page (since the past cannot be on the page of the present)

which means that that these lines of cause can only continue in our

imagination.

For our purposes this means that the cause of the current condition of

the school system is simply history. That is to say, simply everything

that has been has collectively caused the constitution of what exists. It

also means that our experience and understanding of this existence

can change as our ideas about it change. We will explain, through

practical examples that would take place within the system, this

conclusion and a little bit of we have arrived here.


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This paper attempts to uncover differing accounts of the way our

educational system functions in society. Furthermore it is my goal to

create a structured critical analysis of the relationships between the

theoretical and experiential epistemologies and realities of individuals,

and the cultural and sociological conceptions of groups of people. By

examining a body of work that draws on diverse perspectives this type

of research presents the opportunity to explore the relationship

between the way that an individual conceives of and interacts with the

world. Beliefs are expressed in language and symbol, which

correspond to an individuals understanding of reality. Language can

seek to describe fiction - a metaphorical truth, that is, an illustrative

story that reflects the human condition and the experience of the

individual. Furthermore language can be seen as an expression of

conceptual ideals in an essentialized form of conceived reality.

I have established for myself, and the reader what I call an open

framework. This means that my research consists of my life

experience, including critical observation, active community

involvement, political participation and spiritual mediation as well as

academic reading. From the starting point that each human

experience is subjective I chose to use the language of many equally

unique lenses to establish a broader context of what reality can be to

different people. This is all based on what I find to be true and logical


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in the statements of authors relative to my understanding of reality.

Through the juxtaposition of complementary and sometimes

contrasting ideas an open framework is created that allows the reader

to enter in a conversation between their subjective reality, the

reflections of the respective realities of authors that I reference and my

own conceptual standpoint.

My intention is to present not an overarching solution (in and of itself)

or consensus but simply to work towards clarity in constructing our

own structural understandings of what is happening in our society by

the creative pairing of analytical lenses to engender originality. This

approach makes use of perspectives that are relatively different in

order to eschew information that we can use to confirm, explain, and

consider our own experience and observation and the arguments being

made. Regarding many outlooks as worth examining as a reflection of

perceived reality also allows more flexibility (the argument for the

desirability of flexibility will be delivered henceforth) in understanding

what education in our society can be or could become. In other words,

if we match up ideas that work well together (that doesnt mean they

have to be the same) we will be better able to work towards solutions

that make sense for our society as individual agents of change working

together.


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The ability to be flexible, to not have to settle on a rigid set of rules in

a society that is always changing, is invaluable. In a global world

where every situation is implicitly multicultural (every situation with

multiple people(s) is multicultural, to the extent that the different

individuals bring their own understanding of culture, but to the extent

that people believe they share a common culture this will be true as

long as they believe it is) this flexibility allows us to approach clarity in

understanding and communicating about why we think things are as

they are and how we can improve them. Different viewpoints may not

seem to fit perfectly at first but given this and granted that they can

still produce a benefit to all once this confluence occurs. This is a basic

rule of math (and specifically economics) called comparative

advantage.

Now this is not to say that every pairing of unconventional ideas will

result in improvement. We can never be sure of the long term

outcome of things put-in-motion now, however I believe that we have a

better chance of achieving personal freedom and community

improvement by using ideas that can get support because people are

conceptually invested in them and they come from the ground up, in

a manner of speaking.


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Can solutions come from the academy? No, the academy is an active

research body, it participates in and discusses (and discourses on) the

affairs of the society at large. A solution is only a real solution if it

actually works. That means a solution that is working (in actuality) not

simply one that is proven to work (in the academy). Any solution or

system that works in one situation may work again in another situation

in a similar context. However, the admission of any variant factor

could result in failure of a repeat.

Repeat is being used metaphorically here, since technically speaking

a repeat is an impossibility. What we mean by repeat is simply what

any one individual (or more) conceives of as a repeat using their own

qualifiers, even though another person may be aware of any number of

factors in the situation that differentiate it from previous occasions.

Again factor is being used metaphorically as well because we see all

things as having a potential relationship, as well as real relationships

(in my opinion potential relationships having more substantial reality to

them than real relationships - which are only based on what people

think), the latter being the dynamic interaction perceived by an

individual. A potential relationship is inherent in being part of the

process of things-that-are-happening. So the factors that one person

ascribes to a resulting failure or success of an applied theory are the

real relationships they observe. What we mean by a repeat is we


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are focusing on certain specific set of stimuli to be the same

(meaning having a relatively close degree of sameness that we can

conceive of as same despite degrees of difference that could be

observed); changes that are not seen as part of the process are taken

for granted.

A theory is simply a prediction of what could be possible based on an

individuals understanding of how things happen and have happened.

Our historiography and deductive reasoning are imperfect. We dont

have the ability, therefore, to predict with definitive accuracy if a

solution will succeed in a perpetually, and rapidly increasingly,

changing context. A solution can only be proven if working (or rather

proven in working), facilitated by the interactions of individual people

through an actualization of ideas.

We present here different models of causal relationships discussed by

individuals with different identities and cultural perspectives. The

differences in understanding are not attributed to any specific

qualifying factor, but the potential relationship is taken into

consideration and these factors are an implied part of the

conversation (due to individual interpretation). Since this paper makes

use directly of the written word as a reflection of the personal


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perception of a shared lived reality, I will begin by speaking in

generalities about language using examples from my research.

First of all let us begin to speak of cause as it applies to the

aforementioned disciplines. According to the general theory, each

analysis is subjective and important to understand because it is a

reality in some peoples r-m-m10.

For instance, the author of Social Foundations of Education11

commented of a student that He recognizes that a person from any

class may be responsible for the acceptable or non-acceptable deed.

Upper-middle-class children were the first to show evidence of this

particular stage of development, perhaps because of their higher

intelligence and perhaps because of the security their class position

affords them.12

This analysis displays that the author is, according to the definition put

forth in Moral Politics (Lakoff, 65)13, a conservative (who believes in

absolute morals). Furthermore, the author of Social Foundations was

using his own interpretation of a particular methodology he had

10 From henceforth I abbreviate reality mentality matrix as

r-m-m11 citation missing12 Citation missing 24513 Lakoff, George. Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know

That Liberal Dont. (1996) 65


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learned to analyze and deconstruct the behavior of students. The

American context also implies that the mentality expressed in these

observations is a reflection of the dominant power structure, and we

will explore why by discussing the relation of these observations with

those of research that focuses on race and gender and respectively

identifies related causes.

Many contemporary researchers choose to see the institutions of race,

gender and class to be interdependent, correspondent or otherwise

related. The specific relationship is a metaphor, a construction of

consciousness, unique in each individual. The statement perhaps

because of the security their class position affords them is a simple

mirror image of the perceived status quo. When discussing neutrality

we will examine the way in which stereotypes and expectations are

normalized through belief.

The author also speaks of his assessment of the social groups higher

intelligence. The main character in Rodrigos Seventh Chronicle14

says that its part of the idea of perfectionismone mode of thought15

being always and forever better than another Enlightenment

thought and politics imply exclusion.(Delgado, 142)16 The idea of

14 Delgado, Richard. Rodrigos Seventh Chronicle: Race,

Democracy and the State from The Rodrigo Chronicles

(1995) 14215 one culture or mode of thought he says. Ibid 14216 Ibid 142


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absolute quantifiable intellectual capacity is analogous to the absolute

moralism expressed in Social Foundations. This does not mean that

one is necessarily a requisite for or an implication of the other; rather,

for our purposes, that the authors moral values and educational

theory are both reflections of the dominant power structure expressed

in his own r-m-m.

The author of Social Foundations continues, In the first and fourth

grades, boys show closer agreement with adults in their rating of

pictures [on a basis of class] than do girls.17 The focus of the author

here seems to be the development of class consciousness between

genders. This focus reveals primarily that class stereotypes are

important to the authors understanding of society. Since class is only

one subjective lens for analysis, and also a social construction like race

and gender, it is not static. This theory focuses on the existing

structure and capability to comfortably identify an individuals current

position in it. However, both context and circumstance are constantly

changing; this analysis implies that the currently perceived power

structure will stay in place. The authors political belief is reflected by

the focus of his observation.

17 Social Foundations of Education - citation missing 245


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The observations of feminist authors reflect their individual politics

which inherently assume that sexist oppression is the product of the

perceived power structure; furthermore, that feminism, like critical

race theory, is a politics of action towards liberation. This liberation

ideology implies a necessity in change of perceived and lived reality

that would alter the existing power structure. These authors also have

their own educational theories, as related to this political attitude as

the observer decides they are, since both are components of an ever

changing r-m-m. The lens of feminism is both a product and a

content of a [focused]18 consciousness. (Bartky, 23)

The division of people into two distinct and inelastic gender groups,

boys show closer agreementthan girls19, in order to ascribe

differentiated qualities is at once natural and inherently sexist.

In the arena of academic writing as in the outside world our language

often signifies a division of antithetical dualistic categories. Dichotomy

is the longest standing human tradition. Weve always had two brains,

two hands, two feet, two genders - its easy to see how a division into

opposing pairs became a useful standard way of thinking. Often, this

18 The author uses the word raised, I substitute focus

because I think the author means to say that this altered

way of apprehending one self is a product of the shift in

the selection and interpretation of stimulus (which is

parallel to a shift in r-m-m of the feminist philosopher).

Bartky, Sandra Lee. Toward a Phenomenology of Feminist

Consciousness from Feminism and Philosophy (1977) 2319 Social Foundations citation missing


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duality is restrictive and too limited to deal with the deep-rooted yet

essential problems that result in much confusion over the complex

historical connections of an issue such as racism. For instance, the

Black-White Paradigm suggests that you have to be either more Black

than White or more White than Black in your experience, when in truth

everyone has their own subjective and unique racialization through

society. Education can be a tool for liberation or a tool for oppression;

for Black Americans, it has usually been a tool for oppression.

(Gallucci, Anthony 1)20

Anthony Gallucci uses this quote from The

Effects of Educational Tracking on the Social Mobility for African

Americans in the paper Edukation, which discusses the static nature

of racial inequity referring to the practice of denying African

Americans the access to quality education and educational tracks that

lead to upward social movement within the existing structure. Not to

imply that African Americans simply want access to an educational

tracking structure that continues to misplace people into social classes

based on a superficial and ethnocentric categorization of race, gender

and sexual orientation. Only that access to the higher tracks could

nurture students of all complexions into possibly becoming active,

aware, critical and transformative people. The duality in this

statement is that access to the higher tracks is, in the context,

related to becoming active, aware, critical and transformative

20 Gallucci, Anthony. Edukation: The Social Tracking of

African Americans Via Education Ithaca College: Education

and Society. (2008) 1


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people, (Gallucci, 2)21 and that these traits are not as intrinsic to

individual growth as they are a product of an environment.

Duality is still useful to understand, however, as another metaphorical

truth. By this, I mean it is important to understand because it is so

much a part of the human way of thinking that it has a powerful

resonance in reality. Sex is the most profound traditional dichotomy.

As a cultural construct, it is another either-or paradigm that

characterizes an individuals experience as at once of themselves and

part of a group. At the same time some people believe in cultural

standards of what a member of one sex should be - an ideal. Sexism

as a dominant global force is the power hierarchy of the male in-group

excluding and exploiting woman. It is intentional and as a

conservative force it is also a reflection of learned bias. Saturation of

images and ideas about what being female or male means, which

represent historical power structures, shape ideas about reality that

line up with how we perceive these institutions in our own personal

experience.

An immediate and deeply resonant example is the presence of a sexist

mind frame in language. The orthodox phrasing of gendered pairs,

with the male first, is a cultural statement. Its meaning is contextual

21 Ibid 2


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and subjective but it is always an example of male primacy, a signifier

of its dominance. Whether or not one takes it to literally mean that

women are lesser than men, it is a confirmation of the sexist attitude

that pervades the collective consciousness and maintains a residual

image of the power structure, (which is the justification for its own

existence).

The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing asks if it is possible to emancipate

our mentality by ridding our language from unconscious semantic

bias" and "traditional male oriented language"? What standard

English usage says about males, for example, is that they are the

species. What it says about females is that they are a subspecies.

The standard language reflects the mindset that keep the sexist

hierarchy in place as the status quo. What makes this language

standard in the context is its widespread perceived authority and

natural process of duplication due to saturation. It is also standard

because it is recognized as such by the reader, whether or not the

author conceived of it as such. At a deep level, perceived linguistic

changes, i.e. - what is noticeable, perhaps peculiar, to the individual,

signal widespread changes...closer to the surface they are

exasperating. (Miller, ?)22 This exasperation echoes the confusion

experienced by some people as their reality changes and they cant or

22 Miller, Casey and Kate Swift. Handbook for Nonsexist

Writing page numbers unavailable


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wont reconcile previous expectations with their current awareness

level. I myself have experienced a sense of exhaustion around the

whole project of identity (Millner, 541)23 it being so open to

interpretation and me being easily overwhelmed with the permutation

of options for explanation. Deliberation, no matter how trivial, exacts

a cost in psychic energy, of which we have only a finite amount

(Wright, 76)24, (being the amount we believe we possess). Yet, it is

only once we know who we are...that we will be able to tell what we

should do (Millner, 543)25

so well, then, who we?, is the

determinant question ... of every conceivable discussion of ... the

ability of ... marginalized groups to muster the political power to reject

the homogenizing identity imposed by the invocation of we

Americans. (Walters, 350)26 By extension it is the question of who we

would like to be together and how our positions in society fit into the

patterns of history.

But besides being exhausting, depending only on categorical

identities stifles creative thinking that can supersede the oppressive

system which concepts of race, class and gender are bound into. Even

if you thought by understanding identity as performative, contingent,23 Millner, Michael. Post-Post Identity. American

Quarterly 57.2 (2005) 54124 Wright, Karen. Dare To Be Yourself. Psychology Today

41.3 (2008) 7625 Millner, Michael. Post-Post Identity. 54326 Walters, Tim. The Question of Culture (and Anarchy).

MLN 112.3 (1997) 350


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and cultural rather than physical, biological and genetic, you were

avoiding the problems of essentialism (its ahistoricsm, inalterability,

and legacy of racism [and other forms of oppression])27 the subject

position is central28 and the question of who we are (the

essentializing question) is still always prior to the question of what we

perform(Millner, 542, 547, 543)29. Assumptions and subconscious

biases we have make up the system of thinking and active

participation that preserves the distribution of power through similar

trends. Racism, for instance, is built into the American way of thinking

and acting and as long as we are operating within that traditional

framework, which is an extension of enlightenment philosophy, our

value system is inherently geared toward Western, and White culture

(which encompasses male hierarchy and hetereonormativity).

Through the emergence of mutable self30 individuals are able to

transcend traditional limits and develop seemingly unexpected and

unpredicted approaches to old problems (current problems that

metaphorically stem from historical roots of a deep reaching

ideology).

27 Millner, Michael. Post-Post Identity. 54228 Ibid 54729 Ibid 54330 Orrange, Robert M. The Emerging Mutable Self: Gender

Dynamics and Creative Adaptations in Defining Work, Family

and the Future. Social Forces 82.1 (2003)


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If history is the chain of events-the causal, determinist

replication of a world in which everything is predictable (or would

be, if you had enough information) and the magic of total

freedom is impossible-and our revolutionary myths refer to that

other, supernatural world, the one that our dreams and desires

describe (a world that manifests itself only through transcendent

music and similar miracles: phenomena that evoke beauty and

meaning without being rationally explicable)-then what we are

really looking for are loopholes out of history and into that other

world. Such loopholes appear every once in a while; the greatest

of our myths, of course, is that we can somehow pass their event

horizon to escape forever from history into the ahistorical space

of freedom, (Nadia, 171)31

says Nadia in days of War Nights of Love, a book about alternative

counter-conservative thinking and ad-busting the supremist...

The primary campaign...is here upon us in action, thought and

premise.32 Everything we do is a part of the series of human

interactions, including the receptive aspects of thinking, learning and

absorbing engrained cultural patterns of imposed social relationships,

which lead to corresponding action. Every conscious decision and

31 Nadia. Days of War Nights of Love. (2001) 17132 Buck-65 (Canadian Bluegrass-Folk-Hop Artist) -

Precipitation


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natural reaction becomes our campaign for the world which we are

collectively (humanity as a component of a whole natural system

operating in unison) creating.

A movement is an historical force: an attempt to act within the

chain of events to shift its direction. Such efforts have

succeeded in the past, but such success is not what we want.

What we want is something that, by its very nature, has never

happened before: to break the chain of events that binds us, to

bring history to an end, so that an entirely new world can begin.

For this to be possible, well need perfect convergence of

ahistorical forces. (Nadia, 172)33

However, without understanding history first, this is all just anarcho-

mystical academic nonsense,34 and visions of collective, cultural

politics like those offered...are in the end more spiritual than political,

more intuitive than deliberative, more mystical than logical. (Millner,

550)35 After all, if we are repeating cycles of oppression through

unconscious bias that is a natural part of our behaving in and viewing

society, trying to disregard the rules before deconstructing them

creates a fantasy of real freedom. Escapism may indeed make us

unknowing agents of the structure that exists to maintain the ideology

and practice that Whiteness is the dominant and intellectually

33 Nadia. Days of War Nights of Love. (2001) 17234 Ibid35 Millner, Michael. Post-Post Identity. 550


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superior racial complexion of America, which has supported the

practice of racism or the maintenance of racist ideas since the

countrys inception. (Gallucci, 3)36 A critical race theory analysis of

Whiteness as Property explains how subordination of Blacks and

Native Americans37 through a racialized conception of property

implemented by force and ratified by law provided the ideological

basis for slavery and conquest. (Harris, 1715)38 The American power

structure, then, is founded in violent subjugation and extermination.

The history of America is racism: a polymorphous agent of death39

corresponding to the corporate legal institution codifying the extreme

deprivations of liberty already existing in social practice40

Racism is the system of thought and action that says that people with

power get more opportunities and more desirable outcomes, and White

people have more power than anyone else. A long healthy life and

access to beneficial social institutions such as good educational

programs are among these desirable outcomes. The idea of

Whiteness as Property is that racism is the legally realized tradition

of making these things a part of being White. The right to white

36

Gallucci, Anthony. Edukation: The Social Tracking ofAfrican Americans Via Education Ithaca College: Education

and Society. (2008) 337 Harris, C. Whiteness as Property. Harvard Law Review

106.8 (1993) 171538 Ibid 171539 Harris, Leonard. Racism: Key Concepts in Critical

Theory. (1999) 43740 Harris, C. Whiteness as Property. 1718


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identity as embraced by the law - is property if by property one means

all of a persons legal rights. (Harris, 1726) property is nothing but

the basis of expectation...in tangible and intangible things that are

valued and protected by the law. (Harris, 1729) To escape the Black-

White Paradigm it is also useful to understand the historical context of

how Whiteness has been defined (and how its mainstream definition

changes in a world of the emerging mutable self and post-post

identity) to reconcile multicultural, class and gender politics. Beyond

slavery and Black subordination, we can start to put together a

framework of understanding how all types of oppression are

manifestations of the same underlying social roots. Racism and

sexism are both forms of economic exploitation which offer material

and psychological rewards to [one group] that has the power and the

will to dominate or eliminate another ... group that it defines as

inherently different from itself in ways justifying the treatment it

receives.41 They embody the principal of exploitation in classism, the

excluded masses suffering more negative consequences and receiving

less benefit from their own work than the privileged in-group. In short

all forms of oppression can be seen as a denial of property rights in the

context of an affluent society.

41 Citation (148? 21st Century?)


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The institution of property is inherently exclusive, because it means I

have, you do not. So even an argument against racism or sexism

based on the denial of property-rights (including the rights to life,

liberty and the pursuit of happiness42), is an argument supporting their

underlying conceptual basis. In this sense the argument that African-

Americans should have equal access to and presence in higher

tracks of education supports the existing education system in

abstract. This is the same American education system which is shaped

by a standardized conservative value system of scientifically proven

and culturally accepted concepts of best, right and intelligence. These

are aspects of the society reflected in the educational world where

students learn their identities and ranked status and learn to

participate in the work and consumption market of global domination.

In Edukation, Anthony argues that tracking continues to misplace

people into social classes based on superficial and ethnocentric

categorization of race, gender and sexual orientation (Gallucci, 2)43. I

would say not that people are wrongly put into classes which keep

them from being free, transformative people but that the very idea

of a system of social classes imposes on that freedom. Realistic

approaches are a sign of our faith in the overarching system in place.

42 Declaration of Independence43 Gallucci, Anthony. Edukation: The Social Tracking of

African Americans Via Education Ithaca College: Education

and Society. (2008) 2


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This faith is a manifestation of the presence of the conservative myth

of normality.

So the essential struggle towards clarity is between understanding who

we are because of the system, and what that means about what we

can do to change the system. Who we are because of the system,

includes our beliefs about its own nature. Jane E. Humble says The

System is a vast, organic entity that includes everything within its

boundaries, even the recluses who flee from it and the terrorists who

die fighting it. To fight it is always to fight it from within, for it creates

and molds us, even when it directs us against itself. To claim to be

outside it for even an instant, living as we do in a world that is made

up almost entirely of human constructs (whether physical, social or

philosophical) is worse than madness - it is misplaced fanaticism.

(Humble, 128)44 I find this statement to be biased by the idea that

systems of oppression and violence are the largest superstructure. In

fact, the system of racism, for example is only part of the process of

human existence, yet it manifests a myth of dominance that has actual

ramifications.

In the reality that many Americans live in, property rights, identity, and

systems of oppression are interconnectedly very important to a

44 Jane E. Humble. Days of War Nights of Love. 128


27/29

persons ability to translate desires and expectations into actualities.

Yet, when uncontaminated by outsiders, primitive hunters seemed to

enjoy good health and long lives, while they had the good sense to

maintain their wants at levels that could be fully and continuously

satisfied without jeopardizing their environment. One researcher even

suggests that this was, after all, the original affluent society. (Bodley,

22)45

We live in a market-driven society whose members are dependant on

it. Our very desires are a part of this system. The restriction of

freedoms exists not only because people are denied access to material

and non-material tools and technologies but because their will to act

and sense of satisfaction in acting are contingent upon their

membership in society. If we look at the development of civilization, it

is clear that the majority of people have less autonomy as larger social

structures have brought rapid social change and greatly increased

wealth for some persons while denying it to others. At the same time,

it weakened traditional mechanisms of social control and led to

frustrations due to inequities in wealth distribution. (Bodley, 173)46

"Competitive human relationships depend on and perpetuate a feeling

of impoverishment in the individual, a scarcity economics of the soul:

for in the status quo she is unable to do what she wants, and at the

45 John H. Bodley. Cultural Anthropology and Contemporary

Human Problems. (197?) 2246 Ibid 173


28/29

same time she must feel this helplessness and poverty of life to be

willing to play instead the loser's game of power. To assuage this

feeling impoverishment, the individual seeks-more than mere physical

possessions, which are just a means to this end- identity, the

consolation for lack of freedom (if "I can't," a least "I am..."). Identity

as a concept, works in terms of contrast: one "is" a fill-in-the-blank, as

opposed to the "others", who are not . . . thus, to the desperate lost

soul of modern society, nothing is more precious than opponents,

people to despise, so he can reassure himself of his own worth: as

faithful patron of brand X ideology, for example. The young "activist,

though heretofore unaware of it, has quite a stake in maintaining the

alienation of others, and it should not be surprising when he acts

superior, threatening, et. in order to maintain the distance between

himself and the 'normal' people." (Nera, 134)47

There is no conclusion, a politics of immediacy and authenticity means

that a struggle continues and no permanent practical solutions can be

found. This is a process of constant negotiation. We will continue to

strive for clarity in understanding our own conscious reflection of

reality.

47 Nera, Stella. Days of War Nights of Love. 134


29/29

Works Cited:

Bodley, John. (197?) Cultural Anthropology and

Contemporary Human Problems.

CrimeThinc (2001) Days of War Nights of Love

Delgado, Richard. (1995) The Rodrigo Chronicles.

Harris, C. (1993) Whiteness as Property. Harvard Law

Review 106.8

Harris, Leonard. (1999) Racism: Key Concepts in Critical

Theory.

Huxley, Aldous. (1963) Doors of Perception. New York,

NY: Harper Colphon

Galluci, Anthony. (2008) Edukation: The Social Tracking of

African Americans Via Education

Lakoff, George. (1996) Moral Politics: What Conservatives

Know That Liberals Dont.

Miller, Casey and Kate Swift. Handbook for Nonsexist

Writing

Millner, Michael. (2005) Post-Post Identity. AmericanQuarterly 57.2

Orrange, Robert M. (2003) The Emerging Mutable Self:

Gender Dynamics and Creative Adaptations in Defining Work,

Family and the Future. Social Forces 82.1

Vetterling-Braggin, Mary. (1977) Feminism and Philosophy.

Totowa, New Jersey: Rowman and Allanheld

Wright, Karen. (2008) Dare To Be Yourself. Psychology

Today 41.3

Walters, Tim. (1997) The Question of Culture (and

Anarchy). MLN 112.3

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