I am in a new Sociology class now, "Introduction to the family." Actually I just finished my second week of it, but it's new to you, just like NBC reruns this summer "if you haven't seen them all." Anyhow in the lectures our instructor is always going on about family/gender/socio-economic oppression, and using very effective examples about her "northern upbringing," and talking alot about how she had to "escape the depression and isolation of her hometown" when she was young and come over to Edmonton. I kept thinking "wow, she had it worse then ME living in Grande Prairie!!" Then she says where she was from originally.......you guessed it, Grande Prairie, Alberta!! I KNEW it wasn't just me and my friends that thought it was an absolute hole, with our old high school peers having nothing to offer society other then date rape!! I love the fact that although my instructor and I have a large generational gap, and a high status/low status rapport affecting our ability to talk freely, we can at least come together on our mutual loathing for the hometown we love to hate. I'm getting all choked up.......
However, this is the same instructor who, while discussing birth control before the rise of availability of contraceptives in the 60's made a remark on how men would wrap their penises with saran wrap for the use of sexual protection. The remark was that "of course MEN couldn't get that method to work, have you ever seen them in the kitchen?" My whole class is like that, making fun of men whenever they get the chance, and it really frustrates me. One girl is particularly offensive, saying that the reason men tend to move back in with their parents moreso then women after they have moved out on their own is so "someone could do their laundry" again. I mean we are supposed to be this unstoppable new generation, the ones to throw away prejudices and discriminations out the window, but look at us....look at out reality......we have the same racial slurs coming out of the same undereducated mouths as our parents did, and the same gender views coming out of our mouths. What is wrong with us??
Perhaps I shouldn't be too ashamed of my generation's defeat against the imperialistic oppression of conformed thought. 30 years ago the hippy generation was going to eradicate racism, gender inequalities, oppression against homosexuals among other things.....and what happened? Nothing. I guess I thought we were going to be different in the fact that we weren't, as a whole, preaching naive flower power equality as facade reasoning to divulge in casual sex and mind altering drugs. No, we were basing our open viewpoints and radicalist change ideals (so I thought) on the interaction with others, and true gathering of information that overwhelmingly proves that we are all equal, and NOT just this elementary "peace, love, and sex" rule of our long senile predecessors. Honestly though, how is that sitting in your stomach, knowing we didn't do any worse (not much better, but no worse) then our parents did at challenging the loathesome status quo? It's not resting well with this humble narcissist, I will say that much.
In regards to the sexist comments and jokes that are so prevalent in my class (only 3 males in the class of about 25), I'm not running around saying "this is horrible, a true atrocity, oh the HUMANITY" or anything like that at all, don't think that. I hate people like that, people who have nothing better to do then push their own morality on other free thinking individuals (christian coalition comes to mind). I have always felt that it can't be too harmful for well adjusted adults to be exposed to different thoughts and opinions, no matter what they are, to become fully coherent humans. Of course I know it was meant to be in humor, and in a social setting I probably would have laughed ( I admit I have been a part of many a blonde joke in my day *sly grin*). But, this is supposed to be a classroom of higher learning, where we take the facts and figures of the class and make our OWN opinions, like i have stated before, without an instructor slamming their own interjections into the muddle.....that's what being in the bachelor of Arts is, isn't it? To become a freeflowing, self inspired thinker based on the opinions we have formed given our years or social sciences classes? Again, am I the ideologist here? Perhaps I'm masked of all truth with the renewed vigor I'm experiencing of being in my first year, ready to go out and change the world. I would assume once I become a 3rd year professional student (knock on wood) I will become more of the jaded defeatist, like the other 27 year olds will be in my classes then....OOPS, wait a minute, most of my classmates will only be 21 at that time!!! ugh, why did I wait so long to go back? Well, if the worst obstacle I face in life is being older then the normal demographics for a University class, I will consider myself lucky ......
We should be enlightened creatures by now, shouldn't we? or not, considering the "technical" age of enlightenment through science was over 100 years ago. By that reasoning, we should be PAST that age of strict enlightenment. Shouldn't it now be an age of enlightenment as well as an undeniable aspect of humanity that will make for an insurmountable mix of fact and compassion? Obviously not. But think about it....the "artsy" age, the Renaissance, one of culture and feeling, has been done. The "Science" age, the enlightenment era, one of researched fact, has been done as well. Even the industrial revolution, one of intense reliance on machines as means of production, is stagnating (although ever so slightly). What is left that's all unique for us? Not much. Wouldn't the best answer be to take all of those one sided, narrow viewpoints of life's history and form an age of science coupled with a humane aspect? An era of splendid balance where we technically COULD change the world by science alone, but choose wisely on which to temper our knowledge with compassion. Perhaps then we wouldn't be seeing cases of girls aged 8 squeezing in a C cup bra because of all the hormones they inject into chicken to make them grow bigger for the mass market (yes, that is documented). Her only fault? Eating poultry and trusting government regulations existentially while doing so. This fact was mentioned the other day in that very same "saran wrap" Sociology class. If I was out to get even with my instructor, as well as a classmate who stated that the reason for patriarchal societies in the past was "because men do not know anything better then to just beat on their chests from when they were monkeys", does that give me the right to make a sexual comment about the chicken/development fact? Of course not. That would be considered terrible, insensitive blabber, bordering on pedophilia, and I would have been the first to say that. The point is, why the double standard still? Everytime I feel when we are slowly knocking down one barrier on our way to equality for all, five come erect so fast it makes my head spin, and this class is proof.
There is a poem i wrote a little while back that reminds me of this notion of thinking, science/culture/art i mean. It didn't make it to my poetry page because it's not good enough, but I will share it with you here because I think it ties in with the subject. I wrote it with alot of the same feelings that I am having now. It kinda fits, no?
*Just so we all know, Alpha patterns, or "waves" are the term of "creative" brainwaves that can be measured on an EEG machine. These patterns are reportedly at their most active when we are high on marijuana.......*
Needless Alpha Patterns
there is so much clutter
forsaking my consciousness
like a wasp in the mind
buzzing contemptuously
corrupting my thoughts
Interesting
I should still think this way
feel this way
emotionally
Rationality lost
In this thought
Where all hope seems
to spring vehemently eternal
in a world
where nothing is truth
but all things should be
and reality is science
but no divine solace ever comes from it
why bother to mask what is real?
No I'm not high
I'm just nothing........