Who's On First
You will probably want to go ahead and fetch yourself some popcorn and a beverage...we might be here awhile.
Hold on to your hats and glasses...(name that reference and I'll do a dance). I've got something to say.
Conservative = "favoring traditional views and values; tending to oppose change. Traditional or restrained in style...moderate. Cautious."
Liberal = "Not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others; broad-minded."
Politically speaking, we've come to associate these terms as conservative = Republican, liberal = Democrat.
But just as the Christianists (wonderful term coined by Andrew Sullivan) have perverted the meaning of secular so that it no longer commonly denotes "worldly rather than spiritual. Not specifically relating to religion or to a religious body," but more often is intended to connote "evil freedom haters who advocate requiring abortions, sex with goats, and eating only the fruit fallen naturally off of trees rather than viciously harvested," the words conservative and liberal do not mean what you think they mean. (Again, dance for anyone who correctly identifies the reference. Just doing my part for cultural literacy!)
Naturally, this leads me to the contemplation of text messaging.
In the last few months, I have heard a bunch of stories from parents about heart stopping text messaging bills racked up by their young adolescent children. And by heart stopping, just for the purpose of clarification, I mean thousands of text messages a month. You heard me. THOUSANDS. And for the record, the link above is but one example of many. I don't mean to single anyone out.
Unless you live in 1973 or under a rock in a garden in Outer Mongolia in 1973, you are well aware that conventional wisdom dictates vigilant monitoring and supervision of children and adolescents' technology and media exposure. Right? RIGHT??!!!! And yet...why is this so hard for us all to manage? I sat in a meeting yesterday wherein the forty billion text messages one student was sending/receiving were up for discussion, and the concluding consensus about "what to do" was, "Well...what can you do?" We bandied about different intervention possibilities - parent meetings, parent assemblies, community education. As a teacher, these seemed reasonable. And yet, absurd.
My kids are too young to have cell phones, although and in the interest of full disclosure, my six year old announced that he'd like one two days ago (I laughed for about fifteen minutes and then crawled into a dark corner of my bedroom closet and shook and wept for half an hour). Perhaps I'm being naive, but it does seem to me that one thing "you can do" is TAKE THE PHONE AWAY or, at minimum, impose consequences for kids who are abusing the privilege of access to immediate contact with any damn person he/she pleases at any time of day or night. How do you know what they're up to? Gee. I don't know. Look at the bill? Be a parent?! And seriously, anyone who has that kind of time to be working on their thumb calluses should probably be doing something else with that time. Like listening to their teachers who are trying desperately to explain why Shakespeare is important, or running around outside, or mowing the neighbor's lawn, or having actual face-to-face interactions with real, live humans. If you know me, or have read even six characters of anything I've written, it should be clear that by most definitions, I'm, ah..., sorta liberal. But everything is upside down and ass backwards. It seems to me that most of the "liberal" folks I know (and liberals are "folks" you know) are actually quite conservative in their views of things such as the aforementioned text messaging example.
It is, by the way, an example. It's meant to be a representative issue that illuminates the differences between so-called liberal and so-called conservative philosophies about individual's behavior and social responsibility and relationships. It's not like I'm going to devote my life to an anti-text messaging campaign. I'll do a lesson on rhetoric later. I'm busy now.
Television: I am horrified by the fact that ads for tv shows and movies that include images of guns, sex, and violence are aired during the hours my children might be watching tv. I am equally horrified by people who freak out when the Dixie Chicks criticize the government or someone goes batshit over Janet Jackson's nipple during the Superbowl. By the way, these days at my house we spend a lot of time playing a Wii game that involves flattening animated rabbits with toilet plunger weapons and I heart tv.
Technology: The example about kids and technology that resonates the most with me is this - what would you do if, at 10 pm on a Wednesday, a 45 year old man you have never seen before knocked on your front door, announced he'd just arrived from a state on the other side of the country, and asked if he could go on up to your daughter's room alone and talk to her privately? Tacit agreement to your child maintaining or visiting a social networking page online is the moral equivalent of saying, "Sure, go on up! Wanna borrow some porn and a bong?" to the stranger on your doorstep. Yet. Teenagers need independence and privacy and space to navigate their lives and relationships. How else will they develop judgment? I also think that government regulation of the media is scary.
Education: The state of public education in the United States is nothing short of desperate. School boards have hijacked the constitution in some parts of the country, the better-off and better-educated continue to be able to provide free, appropriate, and largely excellent educations for their children, while the poor and under-educated are mandated into the oblivion of, at best, mediocrity. I'm not sure what the Department of Education does or stands for. Good standards must be in place to ensure educational equity. Funds must be distributed more equally amongst the haves and have nots. I want to send my children to private school. I am sickened by people bitching about their school taxes. A well-educated populace is in everyone's best interest. Parents know what is best for their children. Everything I just said appears to contradict everything else.
Politics: I do not understand why signing statements are legal. I am bewildered as to why I pay so much in taxes, pay about $20,000 annually in day care, and have debt. I am pro rigid gun control. I am pro choice. I am anti death penalty. I am in favor of such rigid campaign finance reform that one thin dime couldn't slip through the cracks towards the special interests of anyone. I would like to send all of Congress marching over the Bridge to Nowhere never to return again. Religion and politics have absolutely no place being together anywhere except for in this sentence and towards the purpose of clarifying that the establishment clause means that you can believe whatever you want and I'll fight for your right to believe it as long as you don't insist on imposing it on me or anyone else. And especially not my children.
The Media: The New York Times is liberal? Fox News is not news. It's a bunch of opinionated blowhards (hey! Soulmates!) moralizing about their own hangups. And taking some pretty wild liberties (in fact, being quite LIBERAL with the truth and their interpretations of such). Not being conservative at all in their reportage.
So you see. I am conflicted and confused.
I'm done now. You may return to your regularly scheduled life.
*definitions of "liberal," "conservative," and "secular" from The American Heritage Dictionary of The English Language, 3rd Edition. Houghton-Mifflin Company. 1996.
SO easy to tell that we were in the cradle together. I agree with 100%, especially the part about my views being self-contradictory.
In other fun news, Quin turns 12 next week and we're getting him a cell phone. Gah!
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We differ on a few issues, but have very similar outlooks. The whole cell phone thing drives me nuts - as does the internet access. Hi. I met my husband on the internet. I adore the internet. My children will NOT have access to it without active supervision. How difficult is it to have the one online accessible computer be in a common room?
I hate our two party system. I hate that I never feel that my views are truly represented.
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I found you through Babs Peapod and it seems we have a lot in common. I am a teacher, I have two young children, but most amazing is that I too have used the word Schadenfreude in my blog. It's even the title of one of my posts.
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Not apropos to this post, but I put up some more detail about my Couch to 5K plan.
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Amen, amen, amen, amen and amen. Cell phones=teh evil. I'm sick of seeing teens text while driving, text at dinner with their families, get off the bus texting, etc,etc. Also:went to the aquarium today. The family in front of us were all enjoying watching the sharks. The teenager? Texting away, ignoring them all. PUT THE FREAKING THING AWAY!!!!!!
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ok,can I get an obsessed !! If the using of cell phones to text during class, it seems logical to me to give them a warning to abide by to not use it during class. If they persist the cell phone is taken away during the class. It is occurs again, it is taken away all day. And last but not least if they are caught again, they are not allowed to bring in a cell phone for a certain amount of time. Not complicated, is it? As for demonizing cell phones and texting I just don't get it. Teenagers for as long as I have known them,at times like the separateness that cell phones bring, that locked doors bring, that parents away for the weekend bring. Teenagers like privacy and to feel like they are getting over on the man, or this case the teachers or parents. This is not new people, it is just more technologically advanced teenage behavior.
Next,television is in the business of making money. Even shows that are appropriate for kids subliminally get them thinking about buying Reeses Puff Balls filled with Hershey's syrup, umm they're good. TV should be monitored just like video games and internet sites. If parents choose to do this monitoring more power to them, if not what is to be done? There are many parents that teach their kids to hate people because they are gay or black, we can't do very much about that except have a positive influence on the sphere around us and hope your son or daughter knows better to accept an invitation to their birthday party where they are going to go to the latest Martin Lawrence Movie and make bigoted comments throughout. TV is easy to deal with, turn it off or if you don't want to trust that your kids are smart enough to understand between what is right and wrong.
Technology- Did your parents know what you were doing at parties and when you met your boy friend at his empty house? There has to be some semblance of trust in a parent child relationship for it to work. You can help feel better about this trust using filters and checking frequently what sites they have been visiting. But if you think your child might be susceptible to a predator online, you should take every precaution.
Education- There are many public schools that are pathetic. Why is that? The antiquated funding system that is used to fund schools, puts education just above sanitation when it comes to this countries priorities. Sending children to private school simply leaves the problem for others to solve. Good public education is the bedrock of our country, it is going to take a major paradigm shift for schools that under perform to get better. There is no incentive to improve them because there are no advocates for the students in those locations. School taxes are a tough one for people to swallow. For so long teachers were looked upon as noble professionals that sacrificed their pay for the betterment of their students and their country. That isn't flying anymore and people are going to have to deal with the fact. More late................
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