The Discovering of Oneself within the American Rites of Economical Passage

Topic: Rites of Passage, Self, Others

Source: Joe Rogan’s Netflix special, along with a discussion between my friends and I surrounding the ideas portrayed via this particular comedians stand up section dealing with rites of passage and how we see our selves as individuals before and after the various American rites. The main point of the aforementioned set of jokes and pod casts surrounds the idea of finding your one true self and how the rites of passage in modern America have been degraded dramatically from past ages.

Relation:  This directly relates to the sections of Chapter Six of Robbins as they deal with “The Importance of Self” on page 133 and the three phases of rites of passage on page 139.

Description:  While it has been awhile since this discussion had occurred (Winterbreak 2010), it left a dramatic impression on my friends and I that still affects us to this day. My friends and I realized that the shock comedian responsible for the commentary on Fear Factor and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (From now on mentioned as UFC; I spelled it out this time but I still argue if people say NFL, MLB, MLS, NHL, etc, without first stating the organizations full name then the same can be applied to the UFC) had more intelligent things to say about society than most people who make a living on television. This first dawned upon us as he described that people (referring to American citizens) today no longer have any “real” rites of passage at least not ones that are taken seriously. He then jokes about how many people get their license when they turn 16 and realize their parents won’t get them a car. The next big rite of passage is at 18 when we are given the right to put your vote in the presidential election however even the Federal Register FAQ can only say that this vote has “has a great deal of significance.”  The last step to adulthood is drinking beverages limited those to only people over the age of 21 however this is the easiest of the previous rules to circumnavigate and in turn nullifies it really as a step. To summarize his punch line “you end up being 25 at the grocery store buying frozen food when the 18 year old running the till calls you SIR when he hands you your change”.  He continues to explain that the real reality is that while others see you as being an adult you really know that you’re just a 25 year old “man-child” whose just living life to get by.

This is where he analyzes himself and in turn others, referencing how as children we always assume the grownups have this profound wisdom and control of everything in life.  The unfortunate reality is once you get to the other side of these rites of passage that all the adults went through, the realization sets in that they have no better a handle better than anyone else did as these rites of passage are ultimately meaningless in our nation. Lastly he goes on to explain that some individuals choose to distinguish themselves even more by forcing themselves through more rites such as college or military educations. Again these become pessimistic punch lines focusing on the cold facts that both colleges and military paths of life leave you indebted, scarred and possibly stuck without a self identity.

Commentary & Analysis:

The rites of passage in modern America prove to barely count under the “Three Phases” mentioned on Robbins page 139 and in turn creates the self image of “man-child” amongst at least the male community. The people involved in the discussion were all male so in turn this analysis is based on a male perspective of the current rites of passage in American culture. If we look at the use of a car at the age of 16 we can see the separation from the parental unit but in modern society many do not get to experience this first rite of passage. In turn without it a start of separation from the parental unit never occurs and many late high school students still depend upon their parents for transportation. Without this first step it makes the next phases of becoming adult seem even more meaningless from the perspective of someone attempting to go through the motions of the legal rights of passage. You can view the stage transitioning into adulthood as getting your first true adult right, which is the one to vote, declare yourself and independent on taxes and join the military. Voting seems unimportant and an ineffective way to become a participating member of the adult community as many don’t vote and the current Electoral College system seems to provide little incentive to vote on a presidential scale. The incentive of transitioning into adulthood by separating your self via the tax code also seemed quite illogical to those of us discussing these matters as many times staying as a dependent yields less work and more tax breaks for 18 year olds. The last thing our society allows for at 18 is to join the ranks of one of the military branches which in reality molds those without direction and gives them direction in turn eliminating much of the self image they had before. Lastly we have the phase of incorporation in which a youth finishes the final rite of passage and gains the ability to purchase intoxicants restricted only to those of 21 years or older. This last part is almost a slap in the face as alcohol has again and again proven to be more of a bane to society than an aid and is easily available to any sociable underage person.

While discussing how Joe Rogan jokes upon these matters, my friends and I looked at what really changes with this system. At 16, if you are lucky enough to get your own car or share a family car this is the economical switch from depending upon your parents’ money for gas. Then at 18 there is another variety of economical opportunities that occur at this stage that let your new more adult form pour money back into the system and even choose to separate yourself on taxes from your parental unit. The last and final phase fully incorporates you into the adult world as you are now entirely independent monetarily as you can now purchase alcohol on your own. At this point many citizens have made the transformation to adulthood but the rites of passage are no longer about moving forwards as a human but only about moving forwards as an economic entity. In turn these rites of passage do not allow an individual to test themselves and find who they are but rather prepare us as citizens to become yet another group of consumers.

Citations:

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/faq.html#whyelectoralcollege

Family Composition in the New Millenia

Topic: Family Composition
Source: Modern families including mine seem to more often than not be broken up due to the increasingly popular idea of divorce. In turn this has led to a different family composition for many American families in comparison to the older nuclear family norm. This has led to many observations and conversations on what is a normal family composition anymore as many American children grow up with entire step-families rather than their original parental units.
Relation: Throughout chapter 5 of Robbins we see the basis of family composition discussed from a variety of different cultures. However we never view or look into how these family compositions have changed over the course of history. In turn the composition of the nuclear family as illustrated on 111 of Robbins is actually very different than many American households. 
Description: Recently my girlfriend and I had a conversation with our friends on the issues that occur within a nuclear family and how the splitting of a nuclear family can lead to dramatic changes in the family composition. For many of us in the conversation our parents haven't been together for years and in turn find the structure of the ideal nuclear family to be something we had at one point in time.

Commentary & Analysis: The concept of a nuclear family amongst my friends here only exists in about 1/3 of my friends actual families. This lead to an interesting discussion in which those in a nuclear family already had a distorted view on the reality that is living in a split family. They assumed that such things as step parents just slid into place behind those members that had been removed from the nuclear group, however this is far from true in many cases. Step families always seem to be in an awkward limbo between friend and foe for the children who lost a parent to divorce. By this I refer to the fact that you want to accept them as family but they do not share that bond which exists between blood siblings. At the same time, you feel their pain as they too view you as this person stuck in limbo. Even more interesting is the awkward phase of step parent selection that occurs via your main parent. This seems less about finding someone they love but someone that they are satisfied with as a second half to the nuclear unit. This leads to less of a new nuclear family and more like 2 friends whose kids live together. While this may just be due to the point of view of a child looking at the adults relationship it seemed to be the consensus amongst those of us discussing the issues that occur with the destruction of the original nuclear unit. One thing that we did discuss but none of us had experienced is the perfect split of parents and the responsibilities that they used to share. Amongst us we all had a primary parent in which we lived with and identified with as our main parent while the other one seemed to have left the nuclear family. We theorized as a group that some parents must actually follow these "rules" of social fairness and attempt to raise/split the time with their children fairly between parents. However this is something that seems to only occur in TV perfect divorces and more often than not these relationships deteriorate in real life.

Questioning the Magic

Topic: Magic, Interpretive Drift
Source: A discussion with a friend with deep roots in what I would refer to as the stranger side of holistic healing. He has a tendency to believe in things such as the magic and truth of such predictive arts as tarot cards while I argued that they just allowed people to look at their current scenario in life with the cards acting as metaphors or personifications of things  from ones own life.
Relation: Ideas rooted in magic deal with mentally influencing things on one “plane” of reality to cause an effect in your own plane. This is discussed in Robinsons chapter 4 and is one of the aspects of modern magic that I always argue about with this aforementioned friend. Additionally he provides a great example of interpretive drift as he has only recently changed his view on magic as he became involved in a holistic healing community.
Description: This was back over the week of  Marh 11^th – 18^th as it was spring break and I was with a few of my good friends from Portland. One of these individuals is a true magic believer and is a proud supporter of anecdotal evidence. We discussed the concepts of magic and the possibility of that reality being the actual reality and that only some of us can tap into. Tarot cards were used as the best way of keeping tabs on your position in this reality. It was a difficult conversation to keep going as my observation based analytical based perspective clashes immensely with the views of modern magic
Commentary & Analysis: Throughout the conversation there is always the issue with magic and even religion of how do we know what we know. This is epistemology and the ideals surrounding it question the existence of magic. As we cannot prove magic exists with science (this has been attempted many times and always fails), then the only conclusion I can draw as a scientist is that magic does not exist. However in spite of this statistical failure, friends of mine still believe that they can influence the planes above to give them an upper hand in life.  Now I argued that this may be due to interpretive drift as he has recently absorbed the views of his new holistic healing community and failed to notice his views were changing. That would explain why he was so taken a back when his close friends from highschool rejected his views on the paranormal. However this also illustrates the perspective shifts that occur from believing in magic. For one it has taken what we consider mere coincidences as being outcomes from a cascade of magical dealings across planes. I felt that this was an interesting as it makes everything in the magic believers life about them. As the discussion moved to tarot cards I felt strongly that the only reason they can affect your life is that the cards give new meaning and faces to the people that are the characters in ones own story of life. This wouldn’t make the cards necessarily magical but more so a tool of self analysis that could be used without any belief in magic at all. However the argument from magic sake is that these cards and their arrangement are predictive in nature and can help one make the correct decisions in life. While this is still about the same thing the argument from magic makes the process much more magical and dramatic with both the reader and the person being read both intimately involved in focusing energy into the cards to get a good reading. That also brings up the inherent chance involved with such things as analyzing life via a deck of cards. When a bad hand is drawn many people will ignore it as a unlucky draw but if it’s a good hand then its magic at work. These inconsistencies are missing from a scientific and analytical point of view. The biggest and hardest hurdle to overcome is the constant lack of science validating any form of magical power no matter how hard some individuals believe in it. Until the data shows something I will always question how others believe in something so unfounded.

Globalization effects on Mixed Martial Arts

Topic: Tradition /Localization/Globalization/Cultural Change
Source: The average Saturday UFC card with a good group of friends and the ensuing discussions about the variety of traditional things that happen at a fighting event. More specifically how they have changed since the explosion of the UFC and its following monopolization of MMA as a sport.
Relation:  Many traditional remnants of specific martial arts still exist today in the MMA world and are based in the past of each individual martial arts history. But they have been dramatically changed due to the globalization of MMA. Additionally due to this alone is illustrating cultural change between previous forms and the new modified MMA form.
Description: Saturday 25^th of February, my friends and I were discussing some of the changes seen within MMA and changes we have seen in the teaching of techniques as MMA forms of them become realized. The conversation was spurred due to a variety of annoyances we have with the current format of presenting MMA on television. Additionally our conversations delved into the changes that the sport has experienced as the mega-corportation Zuffa LLC has eaten up smaller MMA offshoots in hopes of creating a unified global sport that is MMA.
Commentary & Analysis: The way a fight is presented can change the feeling of an event and in turn the presentation of MMA globally has changed drastically in the last two decades of MMA evolution. A part of this presentation is incorporating the traditional elements of different Martial arts and is mainly seen as little nods to the sports history more than anything. A great example of these is the traditional Gi and belt being worn in many fighters’ introductions or the fact that many practitioners have an image of a belt along their shorts beltlines. This is just the last remnant of the ancient belt system and still follows many of the color coded formats that have been generated to measure skill. However presentation of fighters techniques has also been dramatically changed and illustrates a cultural change within the fighters involved. When I say this I am referring to the fact that in the past each fighter was incredibly specialized in one field and in turn their introductory video illustrated those skills. Now we see fighters intro’s focusing on how they are the complete MMA fighter not a specialized in any category but amazingly skilled in all. In turn the actual technique reflects that fighters are now not training in traditionalized forms but in modified or localized MMA versions of those original cultural forms. This is leading to an ever changing evolution of fighting and leading to essentially a globalized combat form. In turn this is what Zuffa the UFC’s parent company is striving for. They want to be the only company capable of providing the world with literally “The Ultimate Fighting Championship”. This has lead to an immense amount of MMA culture over the last decade to disappear or change as the Unified Rules used in Nevada, USA are becoming the global standard. Most importantly this has removed such attacks as headstomps and legalized such actions as elbows to downed opponents. While these specific actions lack real cultural elements to them , the legalization of one and illegalization of the other illustrate to a certain degree how violent is too violent according to humans as a whole.

The True Value of Modern of Material Culture

Topic: Material Culture 

Source: A variety of discussions with friends and HSU Alumni over the last week dealing with the culmination of the Singularity event, climate change, global instability, wealth disparity, the theoretical threat of modern society failing and how these will change the value of modern material culture.  Additionally a moving Mammology lecture I attended last semester at HSU has also definitely influenced this Blog posting as it dealt with both material culture and the future.

Relation: Material culture is essentially the only physical remaining evidence of many of the extinct inhabitants of earth and these items offer a hint at what these cultures may have been like. When material culture is paired with ideas such as the aforementioned concepts its interesting to imagine how such dramatic sociological changes would affect material culture and its value in the short term and how future archaeologists may think about our American culture.  

Description: Friday the 3^rd of February about 4 of my good friends, some of which are HSU Alumni, were discussing the future of the USA, Earth and how it will change the value of material culture to us and the following generations. There were 2 main theoretical futures being passed back and forth amongst us. One is that a Singularity event happens, which in short, is a technological breakthrough so dramatic that we cannot predict the changes that will follow the discovery (Just like a black hole or singularity in space, we cannot see what is happening  on the other side of one). The other argument was one of a post-apocalyptic USA or globe in which modern society, global or national, fails due to one of the factors previously mentioned in the Source section. Either way both of these theoretical futures will cause a dramatic shift in the value of modern material culture.

Commentary & Analysis:

The value of modern material culture is one based entirely on money, items that are considered valuable cost more to purchase. While this is common practice globally these days, it is solely based on a system in which money is an integral part of the equation. Both of these theoretical futures pose a scenario in which money may become a worthless commodity and in turn the value of an item may not be inherently marked by dollar signs on a tag. In a post-modern society without money many of us argued that value will be defined by usefulness rather than this abstract concept of money. While it is hard to theorize about a post-Singularity world, it was hoped amongst us that the modern money system would be done with as it essentially has forced us into an unstable and unequal state of citizenship within our very own country. But in a post-apocalyptic scenario usefulness really means one of a few things. Among things we considered valuable out of modern material culture it ended up that only a couple were truly valuable, such items included; medicine, food and anything that helps you obtain these. Due to this true system of value we went around the room and realized we live in a culture with way too many unneeded pieces of material culture and were embarrassed at the thought of future archaeologists examining so much seemingly useless culture. In a sense many of these items are cultural texts that relate to this time and place and would be meaningless without our immaterial culture that it is paired with. But more importantly and maybe most importantly this discussion allowed us to view the culture that immerses us and see the true value of our material culture rather than the dollar signs we spent to acquire it.

An insight on Cultural Segregation: As taught by Winco.

Topic: 

Food

Source: 

My experience of restocking my refrigerator on this Saturday the 28^th of January and the aisles of the Winco and Murphys grocery.

Relation: 

As mentioned in Robbins on page 5, “ Food is one of the best illustrations of the differences between cultures”. In turn food is one of the integral and revealing parts of anthropology when comparing or examining different cultures.

Description:

After the disappointing realization of that my refrigerator was stocked with only condiments, my Saturday plans of nothing turned into a visit to the local supermarket. While browsing the aisles I became more and more aware of the distinct segregation of foods (and non food items) into ethnic groupings. Throughout the store one can find areas with a distinct theme focusing on items that could be stereotyped as Mexican, Italian, and Asian.  Each of these foci within the store contains the appropriate canned foods, spices and even nonfood items that one would associate with a particular culture.  This variety of food in one place is interesting as it illustrates an array of cultures within the American populous.  

Commentary & Analysis:

As I have been thinking about this division of foods into cultural stereotypes within a grocery store, I have come to the conclusion that this separation illustrates more about our American culture than the themed groups of items. By this I mean that how the shelves are stocked in a grocery store, will illustrate the construct of how that particular store has interpreted what a specific cultures meal will look like. Due to this reasoning we have all grain based pastas whether Italian or not grouped with all of the Italian seasonings and sauces and all rice based noodle products in the Asian foods aisle. In turn this could be an illustration of how a majority of American citizens view a particular cultures cuisine. Additionally these representative constructs of foreign cuisine also illustrate two other integral parts of American culture; wealth and ease. The construct of money making is essentially what roots all American business and what better way to suggest other items to be purchased than to put the chips next to the salsa or soy sauce with white rice. In turn the cultural grouping seen within a variety of grocery stores may be the result of the power of suggestion and the money to be made with it. Lastly I feel that this division of foods may more so reflect the sense of ease or laziness that is ever present in American culture. What I am suggesting is that items are placed within these cultural stereotypes because it’s an easy way to generalize where things should be placed within the store. Rather than having a section for all types of rice, most stores put rice in 2 locations with Asian themed foods or in the Mexican themed foods. This could even be viewed as laziness on the part of the workers stocking the shelves or a resultant of customers themselves buying items that require the least amount of walking through the store. With both idea of wealth and the laziness it becomes a profitable scenario to sort foods into generalized cultures in which we as customers and as Americans can recognize and use as a form of organization within the chaos that is a grocery store.  As I finish typing this I realize that this became less about food and more about how we as a culture organize food and what it says about us.