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The Noise (October 2009--present) articles on non-musical topics: general interest, political and social unrest, and possible amusement |
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Normal Americans
posted January 24, 2012
The controversy that inspired this satire is over a month old now, but the Christmas season for me has a way of delaying publication of some items.--this one literally got lost in the email. If you need a reminder, google TLC and "All American Muslim" to find out what all the fuss was about.
Did you hear
about that new reality show? It's terrible, I mean, really terrible.
It's about a family of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants and it's called "Normal
Americans." They live in a town in Illinois, see, which makes it a pun on where
they live, right, which is hilarious, just like the titles of all those other
shows on television. But there is nothing normal about them.
In the first place, consider their history. We all know about the American
Indians. Most of them were killed, and their land stolen, by these very people.
Well, maybe not them exactly. But their ancestors. Some of them.
Anyhow, the point is that these people are all killers and land-grabbers.
And do you know what they did to black Americans? Enslaved them, that's what.
Forced labor. Stole them from Africa and brought them over in chains to work on
their plantations. Some of them died on the way over. Or while waiting to get
shipped out. Or on the job.
Actually, they didn't treat their women-folk particularly well, either. But hey,
that's all past history. Yours. And yours. And yours. Don't go acting like you
weren't in on it.
And it didn't stop there. Some of them set up large corporations that went
overseas and basically forced people to work for them, like 18-hour days for
about 3 cents an hour. That kind of thing is still happening. Don't act like you
don't know about this. The idea was they wanted cheap stuff, and the best way to
get cheap stuff is to exploit everybody on the production side. What are we, our
brothers' keepers?
All of them--every last one of them--has benefited from this horrific list of
crimes. There are no moderates in the bunch, no people who, if you met them on
the street, would be kind and decent to you, and maybe even buy you lunch if you
were out of funds, or make sure you had someplace to sleep. Quite the opposite.
They have been known to go into schools and churches with weapons and kill
people. They have blown up buildings with home-made bombs. Nothing is sacred to
them. They will strike anywhere.
You'd think people wouldn't want to watch a show about that. Well, it gets
worse. See, this isn't a show where young Bobby goes and mows down a street
corner in Tennessee because he thinks he's going to heaven if he does, or
because his dad told him to. In fact, if you've seen the first three episodes
already you may be wondering what all the fuss is about because it looks like a
bunch of regular people just doing the same stupid things people always do on
television.
Precisely. That's the problem. People who watch this show are going to get
brainwashed into thinking there are decent people in this demographic when there
clearly are not.
That's why we need clearheaded organizations like the Florida Associations of
Retired Truckers to point this sort of thing out to us. That way, once they get
wind of this mess, the advertisers can pull their ads, because controversy might
mean less market share, and nothing is more controversial than pretending there
are decent people out there who deserve to live in peace if they can get it
without exploiting their neighbors too hard. Let's make sure we know who our
enemies are, and not fall for any of that stuff about them appearing to be human
beings just like us. The only thing worse than bad guys who are trying to blow
you up are bad guys who aren't.
Makes perfect
sense, right?
p.s. I'm ignoring you.
Dear sirs or madams,
You are not worth wasting the time to refute. Your moronic presence is a drain
on the resources and time of our citizens when they feel the need to bother
dealing with the 'issues' you raise rather than spend that time more
productively and more thoughtfully. I will not mention your name(s) because
publicity is the way you metastasize. Go away.
To the rest of us: see the problem? Now you want to know who I'm talking about.
No wonder the bad kids get most of the attention.
Friendship, Limited
posted November 10, 2011
While I’ve been on sabbatical (from this section of the website) a number of momentous things have been happening. One was a Supreme Court decision that allowed corporate money to flow unhindered into political campaigns, because “corporations are people.” More recently, that slogan has been picked up by a Republican presidential candidate and used as an example of how things ought to be in the land of the free.
Arguing against the logic or wisdom of this ruling is unrewarding; it often earns labels like Radical Socialist America and/or Free-Enterprise Hater and other fun names; although sometimes the ridicule is limited to “you just hate anybody who makes a profit.” I protest at the outset that I have nothing against corporations. Some of my best friends are corporations.
In fact, I was talking to one of them the other day. I called to ask him about some of the issues of the day, the way you would naturally jaw with a buddy over lunch. The conversation didn’t get very far; my friend put me on hold right away. He was nice about it: he kept telling me, at 30-second intervals, that our friendship was very important to him, and he played some music. I think he’s a nice guy, though clearly something needs to be done about his taste in music.
My friend was very busy: he has lots of other friends. I assume he picked many of them up from Facebook, although I understand he also goes on television a lot trying to sue for friendship. This seems a little desperate. Actually, I’ve thought about writing to one of those advice columnists about my friend. No matter how many friends he gets, he seems to feel like he doesn’t have enough, and that, frankly, strains the quality of our friendship. I think he should be happy with the ones he already has. He has a really fancy name for it: he calls his friends “Market share.” I don’t know if I like being referred to that way, but at least it has the word “share” in it, so it can’t be all bad.
Another issue, while I’m airing dirty laundry, is that he’s always asking me for money. Usually I get something in return, although I have a feeling it is not worth as much as he claims it is, and he pockets the difference. I guess that’s ok. Times are hard, and we all need to look out for each other. Besides, the way he kept reassuring me on the phone that I was important to him really got to me. We’re simpatico.
I keep asking him to go to the game with me, but he never seems to be around. To tell the truth, I’m not even sure where he lives. I guess he’s one of those people with two homes who likes to migrate between them seasonally, like some of my other friends. Apparently, if he tells the government he lives somewhere else when things are going well, and that he lives here when things aren’t going well, he doesn’t have to pay them anything. Nobody likes to take advantage of a guy down on his luck. Some people tell me that if the government asked him to pay something he might move away altogether. He’s so sensitive. But I guess he’s afraid his resources would be stretched so thin he might not be able to afford his fleet of yachts and airplanes if he gave some of his money to my Uncle Sam. I don’t really know about these things. The reason I don’t own a fleet of yachts and airplanes is that my yard’s not big enough.
Sometimes I’m afraid I’m not big enough to hang around with him. And here’s the odd thing: most of my other friends, the ones who aren’t corporations, are always talking about going on diets, worried that they are getting too large. My corporate friend keeps wanting to get bigger. He tells me that if people aren’t nice to him, he might have to go on a diet. He’s actually using that as a threat, because, he says, if he has to go on a diet lots of other people will be sorry. Well, to each his own, I guess. People are all different.
I‘m not really sure what he does, exactly, but some of my Republican friends tell me he creates jobs. This is probably the most noble profession going, and I guess it really should excuse all kinds of rude behavior. Last year he actually bought and sold some of my other friends, which did not seem very nice. It was a bit of a surprise, actually, because I thought that sort of behavior went out in 1865. Not all of my friends were very happy being attached to him, but there didn’t seem to be anything they could do about it. He’s convinced that what’s good for him is good for everybody else. Sometime I plan to ask some of my friends how they like being wholly owned subsidiaries of my other friends.
I guess the thing that bothers me most about him is that he seems really self-centered. I even brought this up with him once. He got really angry, and told me that he was doing everything for the sake of the economy and that if anybody tried to bring him down we’d all be in big trouble. He said I didn’t understand how hard it was to be a corporation with all of the other corporations saying nasty things behind your back and trying to hurt you (kind of sounds like middle school). You can never make enough money because your friends don’t care about anything else and they are ready to find other friends the minute you aren’t profitable enough. And then the government and all kinds of people get down on you just because you make a little bit of a mess sometimes. I said my mother told me I had to clean up after myself and he said that just shows you don’t understand. It’s a really competitive world out there and you can’t go around apologizing for mistakes because that just shows you are weak and wastes money. Let those crybaby complainers find other friends. They are just jealous anyway. When we were through with that conversation I was actually thinking I should stop being friends with him.
In fact, I was a little worried that he might not be that good for the country after all. So, next year, when the election rolls around, I think I might go to the polls and cancel his vote. At least democracy is still at work. Every person gets one chance to say who they think ought to set policy, and we all get treated equally. That’s the American way.
Corporations only get one vote, right?
To Your Health
posted April 7, 2010
By the time this gets posted we'll probably know whether HealthCare take two got passed or not. I realize some of you think I've already tipped my hand--I should have called it Obamacare, and by giving it a more respectful name I must obviously be in favor of it. So you can stop reading.
Probably that's just as well. This is bound to be a very depressing article, since I happen to find this a very depressing debate. And, since you are very busy and want me to cut to the chase, I'll tell you: I don't know whether this bill's a good idea or not. I could have tried harder to do my homework, but I've just been watching people on the floor of the House in debate, and none of them want to tell me what's in the bill, either (friends and foes alike), which is in line with everything else I've heard about it, which is the usual rhetoric.
If you're a Republican, you think we're in too much of a hurry to pass this thing. Personally, I think having a year-long debate in this most recent of skirmishes during the last 70 years of on-again, off-again struggles over this issue is plenty of time to get adjusted, but I know that anything you don't like seems rushed. Remember when the Democrats thought Bush was rushing us to war? Forget for a moment whether the war was actually a good idea or not. Don't you think that year-and-a-half, during which all we did was talk about Iraq was really not such a rush? Particularly after 13 years of tensions with Iraq, ever since the previous war. Now it's your turn.
I think it would be fun, if it could be arranged, to set up a parallel universe where the health care debate drags on and on for four years and a half-dozen different bills and see whether Republicans were still complaining about being rushed. It's true that this is too important to pass without really getting it right, but it is also true that this phrase is really just code for 'we don't want it passed at all and we figured the more junk we could throw against it the better.' It's a red-herring in a sea of mostly red-herrings. That is pretty much what has passed for health care debate around here.
Last summer, when people weren't making up things about death panels, the standard complaint was that nobody knew what was in the bill. Well, I don't know what's in this bill, either. I could bother to find out, though. Bills in congress are available--every one of them--so that anybody with internet access can read them anytime they want. One gentleman who was very angry about not knowing what was in the bill was rather surprised when I informed him of this. See, that government that some of you are always complaining about doing all these things in secret is a whole lot more transparent than you think it is, but there's a catch. You have to actually do some of your own research to get to the substance. Those punditry shows are never about what is in the bill, they are about what the on-air personality thinks you should think about what he says is in the bill. So consider this link to a place were you can see the actual bill a public service from me to you.
Of course, if you'd rather just complain about it, you'd be in the majority. It's a hell of a lot easier than slogging through a long, complex bill like this one.
While I've got your attention, would you like to know what I think you should think about this whole debate/debacle? I would, if I could figure it out myself. Maybe I'm the only one in America without a strong opinion. But here are some things I think I know:
The insurance industry doesn't like to share. People are greedy, and don't like to be told so, either. It's no surprise that the industry as it now exists doesn't want the government to get involved. It is afraid its profit margin might get tampered with. Which is quite possible. Sometimes, though, industries that pitch the biggest fits against intrusions like this go on as if nothing happened. None of their dire predictions come to pass, they just find more creative ways to pass any additional costs on to the consumer, and life goes on happily ever after. If the bill gets passed, I'll bet the insurance industry finds ways to be just as profitable as they are now. Don't bet against human ingenuity, especially when it is trying to find a way to make a buck.
But don't blame them for trying, either. And the best way to try is to scare people by using their traditional fears of government involvement. Does the government screw up everything it touches? Well, sure it does--some of the time. With all due respect to my readers, I'm pretty sure you screwed something up at work today, too. It was probably fairly minor, but multiply that across an agency the size of the US government, and throw in the fact that whenever they do something right nobody notices. Of course they are going to make health care complicated and frustrating. As if private companies haven't. What's odd about this is that I know folks who are convinced the government is always a mess and seem to think this means private industry is the antidote. I personally spent more time on the phone last year trying to get large private corporations to fix a mistake of theirs that caused me some frustration than I did with any government agency. I'll bet most of you did, too. See, I don't understand how people can look at two huge forces, government and industry, and conclude that one is a knight in shining armor and that another is a dragon. They are both made from the best, and the worst, intentions of actual people, and they are so impossibly large (most companies have grown so big they can't keep track of your account from department to department) that they can't be counted on not to make our lives miserable some of the time. The principle difference is that what the government mandates has the force of law. In the other corner we have the pursuit of profit, which leads to suddenly and staggeringly increased premiums and people getting dropped from programs when they actually cost something. It seems to me reasonable to have a healthy fear of both of these giants. What is interesting, though, is that people would rather not have a reasonable fear of both; they often tend to be friends with one and scared silly of the other.
While we are on the subject, I'd like the congratulate Obama for managing to get so many Americans to suddenly love their current health care. I can remember the bad old days when people complained that the costs were out of control, and that we had to do something about it. But this past year we all love our health care. And by 'we all' I especially mean Republicans. I want to underline that because the folks I heard speak on the floor of the house liked to point out how everybody in America hates the health care bill. If they repeat that enough times maybe the other half of the country will get the hint and start hating it, too.
The more moderate Republicans just want to start over. Remember, this is the second try. How many more tries do you think we get? If we keep doing this, do you think the new media will ever get so board with this argument that they start reporting on items in the bill instead of the power struggle in Washington? Nah.
If we don't pass this thing, the insurance companies will role over, heave a sigh of relief, and keep raising prices on health care beyond some folk's ability to pay it. By next year we'll be complaining about the status quo again and wonder why somebody hasn't fixed health care. Maybe the chorus won't get too loud until Obama is safely out of office. But complaining is never out of season. If you're a Republican, treasure this moment, because you like your health plan now more than you're ever going to again.
And if it does pass? This is harder to gauge. It will be historic, certainly. But what is it that is passing, exactly? A bigger, badder version of Medicare? Here's my guess: insurance companies will still find a way to raise prices. The government will try to hold them down, which will result in more complaints from doctors that they aren't getting compensated enough for patients. Private insurers will find all the loopholes they can and charge exorbitant rates wherever they can to make up for the times they can't get what they want, which will result in an even more confusing plethora of pricing than we have now. Like airline pricing, it will be all over the place. Some of us will get caught in a web of paperwork and bureaucracy that will practically kill us just when we least need the hassle; others will miraculously experience expediency. It will seem random. The battle of wills between profit and law will continue. It will be worse than before. There will still be uninsured people, just fewer of them. Only now the government won't be on their side, they'll be exacting penalties.
If you can't tell, I'm kind of rooting for this thing because Democrats have been trying for so long to pass some kind of reform (70 years) and every time the industry has managed to get the country so wrapped up in impossible nightmares that ignored the real issues that it would be nice to be able to say "See, all that stuff didn't happen. Why don't we grow up a little and have a real debate next time." Only from what most of us know, the battle has been so hot and fierce that whatever survives is probably not going to do what it promised anyhow. And if we really wanted to fix health care we'd have to fix ourselves first.
Things I read in the Newspaper
posted November 16, 2009
Here are a few things I’ve read in the newspaper recently:
Most Americans agree there is something wrong with our health care system but are unwilling to pay actual money to fix it according to a poll. Apparently people want the benefits (make it cheaper, already!) to miraculously occur without the sweeping changes requiring anything of themselves. Who knew?
Some cities are using parking tickets as a source of revenue and are trying hard to make sure their parking regulations are difficult to follow and that enforcement is swift. Who knew? (Back in the 90s when I went off to college I sent several mock postcards to friends and relatives with pictures of the campus and ‘wish you were here’ sentiments on the back. One of them was a pictures of a street on which no legal parking was available to the people who worked in the area, so every day the entire street was lined with cars with at least one, maybe two or three, bright orange parking tickets on the windshields. )
There is a thing called road rage and some people are worried about it. Apparently people get angry with each other out on the road and sometimes personal assaults occur; other times persons assault one another with their vehicles. Did you know about this?
Also, driving while texting with your cell phone is dangerous. 23% more dangerous, according to a study. One individual got into an accident recently while talking on one cellphone and texting on another. I think he was partially driving as well. I thought I had better pass this on as a public service. Evidently, not paying attention to your driving can be dangerous. I was shocked to find this out, as I knew you’d be.
Rather than making this entire column about the blatantly obvious masquerading as news, I thought I’d leave you with a couple of things that make the paper worth reading.
The Catholic church made some fellow a saint recently. He worked with lepers in Hawaii. One of the things that have to be on your resume to make you a saint is the presence of two confirmed miracles. Some woman claimed in 2008 that praying to him cured her leprosy—miracle number two. That was good enough for the church, which decided he should be a saint. After all, he gave his life to his ministry. Anybody want to guess what he died of?
Yep. Leprosy. It took him 12 years in the colony to contract the disease (or at least be diagnosed of it)—leprosy turns out to be a difficult disease to catch—and five more years to die of it.
Persons who are wondering why he couldn’t heal himself are perhaps not steeped in the doctrines that quiet such ironies. Critics mouthed similar words at the foot of the cross, missing the point. Then again, Father Damien isn’t exactly Jesus. Though, giving your life to minister to those who are outcast is not a bad way to get close. I don’t know if Damien really thought that way or thought he was invincible and was in denial until the end. Once it was too late he may have even regretted his decision. I don’t know. The story book doesn’t say that of course. But if he knew he was risking his life to minister to those folks, then I think he deserves a medal at least. Instead he will be venerated and almost (that almost is incredibly important to Catholics)—almost worshipped by those who can’t understand why others might find them gullible. All the same, given what he actually did do, sans post mortem reputation, maybe he ought to be a saint. If people make him a fetish rather than an example, I guess that isn’t his problem now, is it?
Here’s another. This article caught my attention in a very strange way. It was buried on page 4A of USA Today on Friday, October 9. It is a tiny article, consisting of three short paragraphs, two of which seem so cliché as to hardly merit a glance—which is why the ending caught me off guard. Here are the first two paragraphs, under the headline "Official Denies Paying Boys for Sex:"
"France’s culture minister denied paying boys for sex in an impassioned response to critics demanding that he resign over a book recounting encounters with make prostitutes in Thailand.
"’I condemn sexual tourism, which is a disgrace. I condemn pedophilia, which I have never in any way participated in’ Frederic Mitterand, 62, nephew of the late president Francois Mitterand, said in a prime time TV interview."
So far this is just your typical story of a political figure getting caught in a scandal, issuing the typical denial, and hoping it will go away. While scanning the page with news from all over the world, I hardly connected with what I was reading—I was just skimming, and would no doubt have completely forgotten it 30 seconds later. But here is the final paragraph. Like the punchline to a good joke, it made several ‘wuh?s’ come to my mind within seconds of each other, crashing about like frightened bowling pins. Here it is:
"In a 2005 book, Mitterand describes Bangkok’s brothels and the joy of paying ‘boys’ for sex. On Thursday, Mitterand said on TF1 television that the book was not a strict autobiography. He said he had relations only with men his age."
Wuh number one: you mean he wrote a book himself in which he actually said in print that he was having sex with underage boys and liking it? In print? He got this published? Himself?
Following by item number two: let’s back up a word. Notice the book was published in 2005. You mean it took four years for this to become a scandal? What were his political enemies doing the whole time? (maybe he hadn’t risen to prominence yet).
And lastly, Mitterand says it wasn’t a ‘strict autobiography.’ That I found hilarious. The way he is going to disavow his confession in print and in mass production is to say that he was exaggerating a little. Ah, the joys of reading the funnies in the newspaper!
The reason I found this article such a joy to read was the way it snuck up on me. Like a good short story joke or even a parable of Jesus (!) it sets you up and then knocks you over at the end.
I gave up on cable news a couple of weeks ago because I was tired of hearing the same people getting into the same fights over the same issues without an ounce of civility or the desire (or format) to actually discuss the substance beneath the flame throwing. Have I missed anything? I’ll bet I haven’t. I’ll bet Obama got in trouble with Republicans over something trivial again yesterday, somebody posted something on Facebook that got them fired and her lawyers are fighting with somebody else’s lawyers, some parents are angry about something their kids learned in school (more lawyers), some little girl went missing and all the networks are covering the tragedy 24/7, and Glenn Beck or somebody said something stupid that has people mad and talking about it, also 24/7. That’ll show him. Also, there is bound to be some racial unrest, and the folks in the middle east are still mad at us.
So every once in a while, it is a nice moment to see something in the paper with a funny twist on the end of it. If only immaturity and greed were that funny all the time….
postscript
I've been trying to give up Letters to the Editor (maybe for Lent this year if I still haven't kicked the habit) but I thought I'd respond to this one. It is by a person in Champaign-Urbana who is less than pleased with Mr. Obama. I think that is understating it a little. She uses the phrase 'he scares me' eleven times in her letter. (If I have your gender wrong I apologize; I can't really tell from the unusual name).
Dear 'scared':
You certainly have the right to sound off about our president and his policies. However, I think for your peace of mind, you might try an experiment. Stop listening to the radio or television personalities whose extreme rhetoric are making you so terrified. I say this because most of your letter contains what sound like direct quotes from those persons I am referring to. It sounds to me like you are getting most of your talking points from a tight circle of individuals rather than from a number of sources. These persons are, in essence, telling you what to think (protesting, all the while, that this is exactly what they are not doing). The fact that you are using mainly their words, rather than your own, is what gave it away. I could, of course, suggest that you attempt to listen to some more 'liberal' persons in an attempt to see things from a fresh perspective, but I doubt you would be interested, and in fact, spending all of your time yelling at the television or radio would just raise your blood pressure. So instead, why not just turn everything off and go somewhere and do something relaxing. See if life isn't quite as bad as it seems right now. Now, to your specific points:
"He scares me because after months of exposure I know nothing about him." I would submit that, if you had listened to the man himself speak in a town hall or campaign stop, or read the full text of thousands of speeches available online, you would feel as I do, that is, I know him as well as I know anybody who is not my best friend. Rather than having people tell you what you are supposed to think about him, listening to him directly. That doesn't give you instant access to his innermost being, but I'll bet you come away with a very different impression of him if you listen long enough, and sympathetically enough. You might still dislike him, but you won't be so scared.
I think I'll just print the bulk of your concerns without comment. They are all things I have heard on the radio from conservative talk show hosts who could make a case for plagiarism here, except that you are entitled to your opinions, however they were obtained. I think even the phrasing sounds like direct quotes:
"He scares me because he has never run a company or met a payroll. He scares me because he has no military experience and doesn't understand the military. He scares me because he lacks humility and always blames others. He scares me because for over half his life he aligned himself with radical extremists who hate America. He scares me because he is a cheerleader for the blame-America first crowd and delivers this message abroad. He scares me because he wants to replace the nation's health-care system with one under governmental control. He scares me because the media gives him a free pass on everything he does. He scares me because he prefers controlling over governing."
Many of these things could have been said about past presidents, including Republicans--the experience and military comments, for example. Others I would simply term exaggerations--pretty gross ones, in some cases. But if you are under the influence of a particular narrative--for instance, that there is A media, one big thinking-alike machine, and it is ALL LIBERAL ALL THE TIME and you don't listen to it so you don't notice when a reporter or pundit asks a tough question of a liberal or allows a conservative plenty of air time to get in a shouting match with said liberal so their views don't go unchallenged--it is hard to break free from it. Maybe I could sober you a bit by mentioning that cults work the same way. From the inside they keep you from engaging the rest of the world on your own by making it seem as unsympathetic as possible, so you don't engage it, and you don't let anyone near you because you know they are dangerous before they even begin to speak and so they can't, and this perpetuates your second-hand ideology, making it stronger every day...
We could certainly debate some of your points--if you believed they were open for debate. But you crown your letter by pronouncing that "he scares [you] because [you] believe that if he serves a second term [you] will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in eight years." Now, this sort of thing has been part of the American political landscape for eons. The party out of power is always worried that all of their freedoms are going to be taken away from them and that America as they know it will vanish because the president will manage to single-handedly ruin everything. Ask any liberal you know (if you know any) how they felt during the Bush years. I am writing as if your letter is genuine and honest, but really I have to ask you, how did you manage to sit through all of those other liberal presidents--you say that you've lived under 13 presidents so far--and not be scared of any of them? Telling us that for the first time you are afraid is also pretty standard rhetoric for this kind of operation.
But I have to thank you for your histrionics all the same. It shows us all that free speech is alive and well in this country (even if it is sometimes bought and paid for). As long as I see letters in the paper from panicky folks like you, worried that we are losing the right to dissent from the administration, and there have been a steady stream of them lately, I'll know John Q. Citizen (or John Q. Political Action Committee) is just crying wolf. I there ever comes a day when letters like yours stop appearing in the newspaper, then I'll be worried.
October is, if I remember correctly, S. A. T. month for all those lucky high-school seniors out there. This is an article I wrote in 2004 about the battle over how to construct the test. The story as reported in media outlets was, as you can imagine, a bit sensational. Behind it were teacher's groups, determined to get rid of a proposed essay. How did that turn out, anyway?
Testing, Testing.....
posted October 5, 2009, originally posted March 25, 2004
Let's all give a great big "A+" in mass communications to the opponents of standardized testing. They certainly know how to support their thesis with pungent examples. They've gotten our attention and made their detractors seem patently absurd. Even if their supporting details are a touch false.
You've certainly heard about the complaints regarding a possible essay portion that would be required on the S.A.T. test. Teachers performed a "test grade" on samples of well-known literature and concluded that certified geniuses like Shakespeare and Hemmingway would have fared poorly, while a notorious criminal like Ted Kaczynski, otherwise known as "the Unabomber" would have scored excellently and thus had no problem getting into Harvard ahead of these unfortunate Littérateurs.
This is the sort of tidbit that is supposed to make us sit up and go "whaaa? How could this be? Obviously the test must be seriously flawed!" But before we pass silently over this subterfuge, I'd like to give it a quick look.
Let's start with Mr. Kaczynski. Have you ever read his essay? It's quite good, actually. The man himself is a total nut job, but he does know how to write an essay. It is filled with cogent arguments, interesting analysis, and, what is most important for an essay, it provokes thought. It is also quite original (thank heaven for that!). If the entrance examination were based solely on this essay-- I'd have to let him in.
What about Mr. Shakespeare? His contribution must have been beyond critique, right? Well, as it happens, the passage they selected for grading was the speech of Hamlet that begins "All the World's a Stage." One problem here: It's not an essay. It contains no supporting details. Loosey-goosey with the grammar in places. Not long enough. Conclusion: William didn't do the assignment. It may be great literature, but it is not even close to the kind of writing the test asked for. Shame on you, William!
We aren't supposed to be picky about this, of course. The reason this little nugget was chosen to hit the media is that even if we haven't cracked open a book in eight years, we all have this little equation memorized: Shakespeare=good. Unabomber=bad. We are also supposed to conclude that actual thought gets sacrificed on the altar of pedantic conformity when we are graded on our writing. This is an interesting proposition.
My experience in public school during the 80s suggests it is accurate. Teachers were not going around complaining about having to "teach to the test" in those days, but our essay writing was still taught to us in a very controlled manner. Each paragraph had to begin with a topic sentence. There was no use burying it behind an introductory sentence or a transition phrase to connect it with a previous paragraph. That sort of thing was only allowed by the use of stock phrases like "for example" and "in conclusion," two items the S. A. T. test graders supposedly look for and that I well remember being forced to drop into the essay at the relevant points. It was these phrases, not the content of the essay, that were supposed to help the reader find his place within the structure of the essay. Paragraphs had their well-defined hierarchy, and did not socialize with other paragraphs. They all contained five sentences: one for the topic, always precisely three for supporting examples (you would lose points if you added a fourth), and one "clincher" sentence to keep any unresolved issues from bleeding over into the next paragraph.
You'll note that the present essay would be a complete failure under this scheme. The paragraphs are different sizes. I have generously assumed that the reader can follow the arc of my essay by the nature of its contents without it being necessary to point out the functions of each portion with a label. I rely on the length of sentences and paragraphs as a "rhythmic" device as well as other underlying formal elements to establish an uninterrupted flow, something not permissible in a system were you are constantly tidying up your thoughts so that they do not take too long to express, and so that they do not improperly collide with other thoughts. I have dared to put the content first and attempted to find a form to suit, rather than pouring whatever saccharine contents are in easy range into the almighty formal mold.
It seemed to me then that much of my own difficulty in school was due to a conflict of personalities. Some people see the broad view. Some see the details. Teachers tend to be well-organized and to plan in terms of daily lessons and attention to methods and steps. School is designed to reward persons of a similar nature. Once a unit has been taught, a short quiz will be given and in most cases the contents can be safely forgotten. Sometimes the end-of-year exam may be dispensed with completely, or made to cover only the second semester, or, if your daily grades were sufficient, you might receive an automatic A without having to take it at all. Under this scheme it is not necessary to remember what you've learned for later retrieval, nor is it necessary to analyze or be able to think about or discuss those facts you were required to memorize--short term. To me this defeats the larger purpose of education. Now that my school days are behind me my learning is only as valid as what I still remember, or by my knowledge of where to find the information, should I need it again, or by the properties of a mind stretched and molded by having to think and reason. And while I am slowly gaining appreciation for meticulous planning and a close attention to detail, I still have trouble with the proposition that it is primarily these characteristics that identify the best students and gives them the best chance when they have to confront life head-on. Life rewards those who can adapt, and being able to adapt means being able to think.
This was another skill not often promoted by my teachers, and, while I still retain a punching-bag attitude to the folks who came up with some of those silly S. A. T. questions, I wonder how much of the strangeness of those tests was a result of the test-makers trying to make us reason when our teachers were busy shoveling "facts" down our throats and trying desperately to keeping us quiet. What must be at the back of this controversy is this great fear teachers have: you can't easily prepare a student for a test that requires thinking and reasoning. You can teach directly to a test over certain facts, but applied learning is an uncertain proposition. You don't know what knowledge is going to be needed. Worse, you don't know how the test-makers were thinking when they made up the test. How do they want you to think?
Sooner or later we abandon that exercise in uncertainty for well-worn channels of the mind. We trade in complex understanding for caricatures. The folks at the back of the "down with standardized testing" movement know this and they did a good job making us think what they wanted us to think. What they wanted us to realize was that educators grade essays like everything else. They expect it to follow a formula. They want it to conform to a simple, easily digestible plan. They don't want it to throw them any curves. It is not meant to stimulate thought on their part; it is meant to pacify it.
It is a shame that the one portion of the test that could allow for creativity and thought becomes instead another way to squelch it. It is also too bad that, in order to point this out to us, educators had to bend the truth a little and go in search of rhetoric rather than argument. But then, as the mistranslated Machiavelli is supposed to have said, "the ends justify the means." Now how about writing a 500-word essay on that statement!
michael@pianonoise.com