This Is The Song That Never Ends

Eshi and I have been talking recently about something that we have dubbed "the shonen problem". For those of you who do not know, shonen is a brand of manga/anime that focuses on audiences of boys in their early teens and up. Some of the most popular anime falls into this classification: Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, Bleach, and the like. Now, "the shonen problem" doesn't necessarily only happen in shonen, but is something that is very apparent in them. Basically it is a problem that centers on escalation. Basically the story lines always follow this rough pattern with very minimal changes: hero fights bad guy, bad guy beats hero, hero trains to become more powerful, good guy fights the bad guy and wins. This, as a generic story arc, isn't terrible. The problem arises when this pattern is continued ad nauseam.

Every new villain has to be more powerful, every new case has to be more dramatic and convoluted, every new disease has to be more obscure or obfuscated, otherwise the difficulty of  manufacturing a satisfying climax is likely to outstrip the skill of the writers. Its way easier to write the same essential story over and over, changing faces and increasing disparities, than to inject novel character development. This means that the longer a series runs the more outlandish this escalation gets to the point where the audience can't help but become desensitized. Dragon Ball Z was 291 episodes of people getting more and more powerful in a way that shows that all of their previous training wasn't good enough. This is a problem that happens when you try to extend the length of a series artificially. A good story will have a message or point, but this type of "development" removes from that message in favor of perpetuating a brand.

Character death is the most poignant version of this. Character death ought  to be terminal for a storyline, even if it isn't permanent for the character. Death is something that needs to carry a lot of emotional weight, when you take that weight away from a character to justify continuing a story you diminish the character, the story, and what death means. The main character from DBZ, Goku, sacrifices himself on multiple occasions to save the universe and defeat the bad guy, but each and every time is resurrected. This removes the value behind the sacrifice. The impact of a main character who dies is huge, something that people shouldn't see coming, and all of that impact goes away if you bring that hero back. If you know that you will come back to life when you die there is no reason to not sacrifice yourself and the sacrifice is less a price one must pay and more a minor inconvenience.

American comics do this too, there is no end to escalation in story lines for most Marvel and DC comics. Superman is the worst offender in my opinion, and not just because he has been around since the 1930s but because of a trend he started in American comics. Superman getting resurrected was great for the writers in terms of continuing what is essentially a brand name, but it removed the value from his death at the hands of Doomsday. Superman is essentially a deity in the DC universe, and the death of someone who held that much sway would have changed the way comics where written if it wasn't for the cop out, which changed the way comics are written as well, just in a much worse direction. It was both lazy and manipulative and set up a precedent for other writers to follow. Comic writers didn't need to make up a new character to replace the dead hero after their emotionally charged death nor write any story lines which dealt with the long term effect of a dead superhero on their friends, family, or civilians who relied on the protection of the hero.

Really this is a problem that happens with non-episodic series in general. The X Files started strong from a creative standpoint, but the less episodic it became the more it grew to rely on threat escalation and left-field "plot twists".  Movies, TV, comics, and anime are all industries that have multiple goals, one of which seems to be disproportionately prioritized above artistic integrity: profit. I have talked about this in similar terms before, but I just keep seeing how pervasive this problem really is in popular culture and it always depresses me. These things are modern myths, and as Eshi, and countless others, have pointed out, myths are how we establish social values; trading out the core of our cultural values in order to pander to consumerism is pretty fucking disappointing.

Sometimes Its Cruel to be Kind

I watched Snowpiercer recently and it brought to mind kind of a nasty little issue. For those even more behind then myself on contemporary films, the basic premise of the movie is that the world has ended in a catastrophic ice age and the only survivors are passengers on a magical super train going around the world. Most of these survivors are people who payed to be saved and they reside in the relatively luxurious fronty bits of the train. Others fought their way on last minute and mange to eek out a rather miserable existence of hand-me-downs and brutal opportunities in the tail of the train. without getting into too deep into spoiler country, the things that people did both to stow away and to survive in the tail are pretty fucking nasty. Especially before infrastructure was developed to allow for the excess population to even barely survive. The issue that arises for me in this instance is: does it constitute mercy?

The folks in the tail are fed enough to sustain themselves, in the form of "protein blocks". They have bunks to sleep in and copious amounts of free time, as they aren't trusted/don't have the skills to serve the train. They're also kept in filthy conditions, don't receive actual medical care, apparently have their children taken from them on a whim and are subject to daily abuse from an armed and aggressive police force. Sure they're some of the last people alive in the world, but they aren't even slaves, they aren't even cattle, those things are in some way useful, valuable. They apparently only exist to give the people in the rest of the train someone to feel superior to. Now in the movie their survival is framed as a perpetuated mercy, after all the deified antagonist who owns the train did set up infrastructure to allow them their meager existence. But that infrastructure took not insignificant time to establish, time that occurred after they where already on the train. Sealed in the tail. With no resources. Time in which these desperate people where left entirely to their own devices for survival. I don't even really have to go into spoilers here, you can imagine how fucked up people can get during two fucking months without anything.

I would argue that just having people in that position is fucking cruel as shit and completely justifies very nearly anything the people in the tail do to get themselves out of it. Now, yes, this is essentially the basic thrust of the entire film; but it really caught me that everyone not in the tail takes that mercy as gratis. They have decided that the folks at the back should damn well be grateful for even being alive. So if they're abused and degraded, so what if they have no rights. At least they aren't dead. Its a painfully common perspective amongst the oppressive classes, that those who are oppressed should essentially be grateful for the opportunity. To me this is the core of classicism and really the moral of the story. I think what it comes down to for me is you don't get to decide if your own action is merciful. I don't even think you have the ability to decide if your own action  was good. Once other people get involved you aren't just acting, you're acting upon.

I'm not saying that some people aren't ungrateful cunts. What I am saying is that "letting" someone live isn't necessarily merciful, and in fact just the linguistic basis of that statement implies cruelty. That describes a position of near absolute authority over the most basic aspects of someone else's existence that can in no way be positive. The most charitable thing its even remotely possible to say about that mindset is that its condescending. Being merciful shouldn't just not be about you, it can't. Like structurally. Mercy is intrinsically about doing right by other people, we can't forget that, no matter how bad things get.

Ain't No Place For No Hero

I recently re-watched The Wicker Man, and no not the Nick Cage movie; the good one from 1973, and noticed something that I hadn't before: there is no hero in this movie. There is a protagonist, the sergeant, and an antagonist, basically everyone on Summerisle, but no one that I would consider the hero of the story. This is because all of the major players receive at least some characterization, and because they all have flaws as well as a good side. You are forced to empathize with both sides. Heroes are supposed to be paragons that show us the best human qualities, but the problem with heroes is that they kind of cease to be humans after a while and end up being two dimensional.

Sergeant Howie has been tasked with finding a girl that has been kidnapped and his drive to do so is impressive at times; but he is also xenophobic, aggressive, and self righteous. He spends a large chunk of the movie breaking into people's homes and actively violating their privacy, strong-arming the population in the process. Also he spends quite a lot of time lecturing the islanders about how they are "corrupting the youth" by not teaching them about Jesus, and how their pagan beliefs are evil. The islanders motivation is that they just want to make sure that their island prospers again, which they believe will only happen with a sacrifice of sufficient quality. They are also under attack by an outsider, and as such, treat him coldly in a lot of cases, which Howie views as a kind of insubordination and as responds with hostility. Both sides of this conflict have problems as well as virtues.

The beauty of this kind of narrative setup is that it forces you to analyze the situation and realize that the world presented is not black and white (and hopefully viewers can get the fucking message). My favorite kinds of bad guys in movies are ones that you sympathize with. This empathetic response humanizes the villain and makes for a functional counterpoint to the hero, not just a monolithic evil to be overcome. Movies that tend to hit you on multiple emotional levels tend to make you think, and that is a great thing that people like me tend to look for in a story. 

Ozymandias from Watchmen is a great example of this kind of "villain". He is trying to eliminate the problems associated with nationalism by forcing humanity to have to work together against a larger foe. His point of view is understandable, even if you disagree with his methods. Another good version of this type of character is Gerard Butler's character in the movie Law Abiding Citizen. He's a justifiably broken man who's goals reflect his brokenness. All his character is trying to do is show how the justice system doesn't always work, by exploiting its flaws after committing crimes. 

Making the good guy also have flaws that are understandable also makes him easier to empathize with, and as such also make him a more believable character. As I stated above, Heroes are representative of ideals and making them flawed twists their moral certitude in interesting and beautiful ways. This makes it harder to call them real "heroes". Superman is a hero, Batman is not. Supes is supposed to represent hope and justice and everything that is shiny, but he also holds a moral position that is incorruptible. This makes him harder to empathize with, but easier to idolize. Batman on the other hand beats the living hell out of people and uses psychological and physical torture to accomplish his goals. You might not agree with how he does it, but you can understand why. 

Humans are naturally pack animals, and because of this they will react to a deep, human, empathetic character more strongly than with a shallow, one dimensional character. More rounded/empathetic characters make for better, more believable characters and stories, and I wish we would see more of them. 

DISAPPOINTED!

We've been hitting a lot of really depressing topics lately, its exhausting. So I wanted to write about something that I enjoy. The problem is that everything I enjoy is tainted by shit that I hate. So I'm going to talk about that.

Most of my problems with the world at large stem from the fact that so many people are assholes. That is, admittedly, a bit of an over simplification but its true. There is a lack of forethought and basic consideration that boggles my mind and is not so slowly driving me insane. People are selfish, vindictive, lazy, proactively defensive, cowardly and entitled. My hatred here stems from disappointment. Almost every myth and legend in human history (myths being the primary method of imparting social values) denounces these vices and demonstrates alternatives. Almost every major belief system, religious or philosophical, decries these behaviors. Worst, on some level I think we all realize that this shit is shameful; and it doesn't stop it. Instead, people justify their shitty behavior with weak excuses involving other shitty people, either other people were being shitty so its more okay, or there have been shittier people in the world so at least they aren't that bad.

I've no tolerance left for this shit, it consumes me. I've barely left the house in the last four fucking years. I realize that's pretty damn pathetic, I'm not going to try and excuse myself. I don't know, I'm fucking tired.

Sea Life Superpowers

We've been talking a lot about some really depressing and upsetting shit lately and we're tired of it. So for today I will just talk about something that I love: Sea Life. So the Earth is 4.6 billion years old. at 3.6 billion years ago we find evidence of life starting up and we get multi-cellular organisms 1.2 million years ago and 530 million years ago we have found the first footprints of land life (though there may have been some before. I bring up this timeline because I want to point out how much time sea life has had to evolve. We get some amazing adaptations and specializations thanks to this, and that is what I want to talk about today. Basically if you wanted to find real life iterations of pokemon, the ocean would be the place to do it.

I have lots of favorites when it comes to animals that live in the ocean, but I am only going to talk to you about 4 of them because otherwise I would be typing all day. 

Ostracod: This one a simple little family of crustacean and is kind of unremarkable and tiny: around .2 - 30 mm long.

But there are two reasons it is one of my favorite sea creatures. Firstly, they have two Dicks which launch spring-loaded sperm that can be up to 6 times longer than the male ostracod, which is funny to me. I don't care if you think that's immature, dicks are fucking hilarious. The second is a defensive mechanism that it uses. Light from the surface doesn't travel very far underwater. There is no light past 1000 meters in the ocean, and rarely any good amount of light lower than 200 meters. This helps sea life hide from predators, which is where the ostracod comes into its own. 

That is an ostracod using bioluminescence to escape a cardinal fish. If a predator swallows an ostracod it releases two chemicals which create light when mixed. This makes the predator very visible, which attracts larger fish that want to eat the original predator. This is a great example of a biological fuck you to predators: "eat me and you get eaten". 

Electric Eel: A couple of quick facts I need to get out of the way: though called an eel they are actually a breed of knife fish. Also, these don't live in the sea, but rather in South American rivers, but I decided to include it anyway because it's got motherfucking lightning powers.

These creatures generate up to 600 volts of electricity to stun prey or predators, and sometimes even kill them. On its own, this isn't enough to kill an adult human, since it only produces 1 amp of current. That being said, depending on the path the current took and duration of the shock it could potentially stop a heart. Oh, and they can strobe their current for up to an hour. The other cool thing an electric eel can do is electrolocate. This is similar to echolocation in base principal. The eel generates an electric field and is able to sense any disturbances in the field. It can do this to avoid predators or hunt prey.

Mantis Shrimp: The Oatmeal has covered this little beauty before in much better detail and with a passion that I can only hope to come close to, but nevertheless, I present the Mantis Shrimp!

And it is not just a pretty face! It can see thousands more variations in color than a Human being. Every color you have ever seen; every sunset, every work of art, has been seen through the interaction of three cones in the eye, mantis shrimp have fucking sixteen (the Oatmeal covers this in pretty great detail but its amazing enough to bear some poetry). Also, those claw like appendages on the front of the shrimp shoot out as fast as a bullet, boiling the water around them (though not for long enough to cause lasting damage by itself). And if the bullet claw misses the target, the pressure wave that the claw creates dismembers its prey instead. This amazing little creature can punch holes in glass aquariums, and it is only 12 inches long at the most! Mantis shrimp are amazing little engines of power!

Mimic Octopus: I have a fondness for cephalopods in general. This class of animal include squids, cuttlefish, nautiluses, and octopuses, and my favorite one of them (and probably of all animals in general) is the mimic octopus, also known as the Ditto of the sea. Watch This video:

Hell yeah! Mimicry isn't unique to this creature; coral snakes have a very deadly venom and a very distinctive pattern, but the Mexican milk snake, which is not at all venomous, mimics the coral snakes pattern with a minor different color order (To tell the difference remember this: Red on black, you're OK Jack, yellow and red, you'll wind up dead). Mimic octopuses not only use mimicry but raise it to an art form. Animals that mimic tend to pick one thing and focus on it. This octopus flips them all off with all 8 of its tentacles and turns into 15 different/distinct other animals. And that's just what we have observed. After all, we have only known about this animal since the 90s. This camouflage is not just for escaping predators either, it hunts with it too. It has been observed mimicking a crab looking for a potential mate then devouring other crabs when they got close enough. This is a fantastic use of an evolved defensive trait!

So there you have it, Just a few of my favorite sea creatures. I thought of a bunch more while writing this, so I might do another one of these soon. We have only explored a tiny amount of the ocean. Just imagine what other kinds of badass life could be hiding out there!

Please, Please Let it Be Dead

Alright lets kill this lumbering, convoluted beasts. I've written about education, I've written about testing procedure, all under the auspice of discussing the status quo. Now, that's a term that gets bandied about quite a bit in various contexts, but all it really means is the way things are. The problem arises (as it often does) when we try to normalize those things.

We can't help but seek to maintain what we consider to be normal for ourselves, its a basic function of the human mind and it can be quite helpful. For instance, if you can maintain an "abnormal" behavior, like exercise or regular study, it becomes normal and you develop a positive habit, a new status quo. However, there is also a natural inclination to believe that the way things are for you is also the way things ought to be for everyone else. It's a reaffirmative impulse, if other people live the way you live and value the things you value, not only are you apparently more likely to be living "right", but you have an easier and clearer point of connection with other people. Community building is great, empathy and support and whatnot, but we live in a world that is conceptually large enough that our communities require a relatively high degree of diversity to lubricate global relations and counteract exploitation.

Here's the rub though, standardizing education has difficulty when forced to engage social or creative fields, which are key points in diversification. Things like science and mathematics are naturally organized for standardization, but art and social sciences are highly nuanced fields that are both vital to the development of well rounded, well informed people, and almost impossible to effectively prioritize value metrics.

There's also the issue of establishing behavioral recursion, like deference to police authority causing police to expect blind deference to their authority causing people to be expected to defer blindly to police authority. But we've gone on quite a bit about how fucked up cops can be lately and I really don't want to get back into that right now, so if you're curious refer to previous posts.

Reliance on the status quo causes lag in progress, but its lag that is usually mitigated by curiosity and the inevitability of progress in general, so there's nothing wrong with a bit of normalcy. The trouble is that everyone has a different normal, and some people's normal is really disappointing. Since many of those people aren't capable of functioning on the level of some others, we play to the lowest common denominator, we make the weak the standard. People who want to rewrite history, or push poorly veiled fundamentalism as science, or assign political bias to reality (seriously fuck those guys), are seeking to make their normal the Status Quo for everyone. It goes from mitigating an existential fear and building communities to manufacturing consent and silencing opposition. I kinda hate to imply conspiracy, because I don't think its organized enough to qualify, but I do think its a bit too insidious to be allowed, and certainly too damaging to continue. Unfortunately, any solution to this issue starts to look worryingly like "sinking to their level" or worse, treading on any of various misinterpreted freedoms. So fuck it, knowing is half the battle or whatever.

For Great Justice

You know whats cool about being a cop? You can break the law and get away with it because, hey, you are the law! Did I say cool? Sorry, I didn't mean cool, I meant fucking stupid. Seriously, what the hell guys? I feel like I need to say this now: I don't hate cops. I think that they preform a necessary and valuable service for the people. I also know that there have been cases in which cops have broken the law and have gone to jail. But when all is said and done the fact that there has been no punishment for police who have committed crimes in any case at all, is something that I cannot abide.

The story that made me want to write about this is the policeman who killed the former COO of napster because he was texting while driving. The excuse they gave was that he was in the middle of texting a reply to another officer asking a work related question. This is bullshit. Do you know why texting while driving is illegal in the majority of states? Because shit like that happens! People die because someone didn't want to wait/pull over to send a message. The police are supposed to be paragons of justice in our country, hell, in most of the world. These are not supposed to be people in uniforms "just doing their jobs". They are the people we let guard our streets and uphold the rule of law. They are supposed to be the best of us. As Eshi has said, "We outsource our self-defense to these people at the most vital times". They are the ones that we chose to let represent our social Ideals. This means that they must be held to a higher standard of accountability then your normal everyman on the street.

A couple of the news stories I linked to earlier could have been considered accidents and not intentional crimes. That sucks and its super unfortunate for everyone involved, but you still killed a person. I know you don't want to be punished for something you didn't mean to do, but all actions have consequences and you have to live with them, especially if you are the one who is supposed to hold people accountable in the first place.

Really anytime a person has power that can impact people around them, they lose some of their freedom to act in anyway they like. When you have power over people if you fuck up, you hurt all of the people effected by you. You have to bear the responsibility of your actions. I believe that this is especially true if you are an elected official and you break the law. You don't get the minimum sentence or just paying a fine because you are important. No, you get jail time motherfucker. Did you cheat on your significant other, and then proceed to tell people who can and can't get married based on a moral code you possess? Nope, you get publicly fired. You don't get to resign gracefully. We elect people to represent us, and as such they should always act in a way that corresponds to that trust. You don't get to make mistakes. I get that your job is hard and sometimes you make mistakes, but those mistakes cost too much for you to ever get a pass.

Status Quo Part 2: This is Only a Test

Last time, I mentioned having an issue with standardized testing as it pertains to a school environment. I chose to refrain from really exploring testing because while it does tie into my larger point about the status quo it pertains to more than just the education system and is significant enough to warrant it's own post.

Before we go to far down this little rabbit hole, I don't have a problem with making sure people are competent, I don't have an issue with gauging people's knowledge or skill sets, there are just some significant problems with the way we tend to go about that. First, testing in general is somewhat of a troublesome idea in that most tests can only really measure one's ability to take a test if for no better reason than a testing environment is unnaturally stressful. It is essentially impossible to ensure that someone is properly prepared for a test without placing focus, and thus stress, on the test itself. People respond fucking weirdly when under stress, and test stress comes from all angles; parents, teachers, society, self, or authority figures. Anything and everything can stack stress onto a performance situation. Some people respond to stress by exceeding their normal capabilities in regard to the relevant material, thus potentially invalidating the test through abnormal over-performance. Other people panic massively and blank out any skills they do have, invalidating the test through unreasonable incompetence. Tests necessarily diverge from the normal course of affairs, so using tests to determine a person's abilities under normal circumstances is a bit unreasonable; not everything can be a test.

The second major concern I have with standardized tests is essentially the standardization. In an effort towards fairness and consistency we establish baselines and core criteria for success in tested fields. That's great, except for the nature of reality. In any given situation, unforeseen variables will arise that are both more integral to performance and more persistent than were anticipated. Which makes any standardized test necessarily incomplete. Standardized testing is culturally biased, unreliable, and deeply misunderstood. Honestly my biggest problem in this vein isn't even limited to testing, its the persistent idea that a uniform practice cannot be discriminatory despite it's noted illegality.

Standardized testing occurs on more levels of society than many of us are willing to admit, and has more adverse effects than I think most of us know. Fairness and consistency are relatively noble goals, but when they justify the problems that arise from this sort of system it brings to mind tropes about unfortunate roads and the good intentions that pave them.

Achievement (Not) Unlocked

Something that has been a big inclusion in modern gaming is achievements. As with most things this hides some deeper issue with the industry as a whole. Achievements are basically just used for bragging rights and serve no real purpose, unless you really really want that 1-3% rebate from Microsoft's live market. Companies like Microsoft have attached a "gamerscore" to the idea, adding up points received with achievements and rewarding Xbox live gold members with minor prizes worth about $.25, which is kinda shitty considering to get to that point you would need to play and completely beat 20 games minimum. An added requirement for these "rewards" is that you have to pay Microsoft for the pleasure of getting that 1-3% rebate, as only people with Gold Live memberships can get them. By the way a gold membership costs $9.99 a month or $59.99 for a full year, so you would end up needing to buy 10 $60 games in a month (or just 5 if you have the year long subscription) to make up for the loss from the membership cost. Alternatively, if you don't want to buy shit tons of games, you could just not pay and have more money to spend on a steam sale or something. You can also get points to spend on games in the live market, but once again these rewards are kind of negligible considering you need to pay to get them.

So anyway, back on topic: there are people who let the concern with their gamerscore choose what games they play. That article I linked is about a person addicted to getting achievements, and it displays the main problem I have with them rather well. Achievements control how gamers play games and that removes from the overall experience. Achievements feel as though the game company decided that it needed to wave a carrot in front of our faces to guide us along the best way of playing through a game. The best games act as a medium for storytelling, i.e. most RPGs, or as a great distraction for the player, i.e. one of any number of FPSs. Movies have the same basic goals in a lot of ways. Movies try to tell a good story, make a point, or just be a cathartic distraction from reality, but there are no achievements for having seen The Godfather trilogy because that would be stupid. The subjective experience is the important bit. You don't see directors and writers sitting in an audience telling them the way they should watch and interpret a movie. It is their job to nudge you in the direction they want you to go in a non-forceful, engaging way. I would argue that good game design does this as well.

Achievements seem to add extra goals for you to achieve as well as "rewarding" you for completing certain stages of the game. I kinda get the extra goals thing, most games want players to play the game for as long as possible so adding more goals on top of the main game is an easy way to do that, but this was something that happened before achievements were a thing. Did you ever play Super Mario 64? There was a non-essential quest in the game to get all 120 stars hidden in the game. If you did this you got an extra scene at the end of the game, 100 lives, and no fall damage from falling from your triple jump. So by giving the player a goal outside the bounds of the main storyline it accomplished the same goal as an achievement, but differs in a major way because it added to the game. Sure it was kind of a crappy reward considering you had already played the shit out of the game at that point, but it was something. In the Saints Row games (at least from 2 and forward) there was an in-game list of challenges that rewarded you with in game guns, vehicles, and power ups that could only be obtained if you had the genuine skill to complete the challenges. Though these got linked with achievements later, the key aspect of them was still essentially to provide benefit to the player by expanding game play. Achievements don't add shit, they just get tacked on as a way of showing off.

Because of achievements games are becoming more goal oriented and the focus of the gamer shifts from caring about the story, just looking for a distraction, or trying to have fun; to trying to show off how many achievements they can get. I am being hyperbolic here, but only slightly. We live in a world where individuality is incredibly important and largely determined by a person's role in a group. People self identify with a group and then try to show that they are the person most representative of the positive aspects of that group. They scream "Look at my gamerscore! I am the BEST GAMER EVER!". I find this sad for a couple of reasons, the amount of time "wasted" playing games not among them. First of all it denigrates the people working on the game. Why write a good story if gamers are only going to run through it just to get their gamerscore higher? The even sadder part is, by adding the socializing aspect to the game you are exacerbating the perceived need for superiority within the group. This is the way that you show you are a gamer now. It's telling people that if they don't play the game in the way that the people who determine achievements want, then they are not just not a gamer, but that they aren't having fun in the right way. And fuck them for telling me how to escapism.

Status Quo Part One: Book Leanin'

I may be a day late and somewhat deficient of appropriate remuneration, but insomnia is a hell of a thing. If possible, I'll try to make up for doubling up on Brian's day with all the wit and vigor sleep deprivation affords me. Its been suggested that I discuss problems I have with the idea of a status quo. I like that idea, but in order to do it proper justice I need cover a fair bit of additional ground. I've chosen to start this little journey by exploring education.

My first target here is standardization. On paper, setting a standard is great; it seeks to ensure maximum saturation and retention of information while minimizing the percentage of the population abandoned to hopeless ignorance. The problem (as has been discussed ad nauseam by everyone from ivory tower academics to the self-congratulatory "wont someone think of the children" idiots) is that the size and relative complexity of our society demands that focus be placed on that second part. This means that in order to keep that percentage of failure low, the limited resources of our education system tend to be funneled into greater standardization. Some of this is problematic because those standards tend to define success at progressively lower levels of retention, dragging the whole system ever closer to incompetence. We manage this by taking a page from capitalism and rewarding success. We give more subsidies to schools that have a higher pass rate on standardized tests (more on this next time) which allows them to afford better teaches and more classroom resources, it also leaves schools that were already struggling pretty well fucked. As more of these schools start to suffer the habit is then to essential only teach children how to pass the relevant tests, forgoing anything like actual education. More schools "succeed" but the actual value and density of the information students receive has less context and less use outside of passing a given test. But, rather puzzlingly, that isn't the part I find most disturbing. High level standardization of education demands an increasingly rigid structure in the classroom. Which would be great if childhood wasn't a thing.

Think for a moment about all the things that are going on for a child. They are (hopefully) starting to develop the awareness of other people as people, dealing with these newly extant people, learning empathy, constantly expanding a rudimentary understanding of a massive and complex world and themselves, growing and changing at a frankly terrifying rate, and trying to construct a conceptual universe that can justify all of those experiences. That is completely ignoring any schooling and all but denying anything other than an optimal home life. Now imagine how a fucking disgustingly high percentage of these children are dealing with some form of abuse at home. Oh, and all the while they're being told that if they lack focus in class it could ruin their lives. In the midst of this clusterfuck of, what is to them, completely new and complex experience we tell them to sit down, forget all of that and focus on poorly contextualized facts and over-abstracted maths for between four and eight hours a day, depending on age. Now pack thirty or forty of these things into desks together and see how many of them "fail to perform to expectations".

The other major concern I have with the bastion of competing ideology that is education is just that, we can't seem to agree what its supposed to accomplish. Some people argue that schooling is meant to make children into well rounded adults, others argue that it's supposed to prepare children for the "real world" usually meaning the job market. Now, I'll reign in from the bile-spewing polemic about children spending all their time learning how to best sell themselves into slavery and try to only address these issues in themselves. If the idea is to produce well rounded adults then school would be more of a guided discussion with teachers and students interacting with concepts and generally progressing toward relevant details. Alternately, if the goal of education was to prepare children for the "real world", there would be a much greater emphasis on understanding social roles and the mechanics of various industries. The really tricky part is that either interpretation on its own would demand a higher regard for practical application. Unfortunately, the prevailing combination of the two is a gross maladaptation where general concepts and contextualization are largely ignored and the realities of economies and market factors are denied in favor of either hollow optimism or cynical resignation. Practical skills are all but left out entirely.

We place so much weight on the importance of education that these holes in the system don't just fuck with our children, they end up tearing at society as a whole. Because we don't really give children the opportunity to become real people, we end up with a population where many of us never get past stupid high school bullshit. Because we can't agree on what purpose education ought to serve, it largely ends up doing nothing for those twelve mandatory years, and even if you pursue high education you'll still have to fight through the shit to get anything out of it.

I know this might not seem like it leads into a critique of status quo mentality, but give me a couple posts to work through the details and I'll try to lead us into a coherent narrative.