Social norms and breaking free of our socialized mechanics

As I’ve concluded in a previous post, human beings are machines. I mainly focused on the fact that we are machines based on biological laws. We also follow the laws of society. Social norms and pressures mold us into predictable, controlled beings; machines.

Social norms are some of the most unbreakable laws in society. Many laws in place by the government or leaders within the society are broken with little thought or concern. Social laws are much different. There is a greater fear of stepping outside social boundaries then breaking federal laws. For example, the majority of Americans breaks the speed limit. This is a law that was put in place for the safety of those on the road yet very few people stay below the limit in place. Opposed to that, you will never see someone in America sit in the seat next to the only other person on an empty bus. We have strict rules about space in America. Although only three people (you, the person you sat next to and the bus driver) would know that you broke this rule, the anxiety and discomfort you feel would prevent you from doing it. Social norms are enforced from within yourself and externally as opposed to federal laws that are enforced only externally. Because the consequences are felt externally and internally, social norms are much harder to break. These norms become the mechanics that make us a machine: our socialized mechanics.

The name of this entry though is “breaking free of our socialized mechanics.” How can we break free of our mechanics that have so many consequences for breaking? The answer is social deviants. Those of use who are already, by definition of our identity, break the social norms. This was my experience this past weekend. It was a backwards world where everyone was already living outside the realm of regular mechanics. This weekend I attended a conference for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Queer leaders. Because all of us identified as Queer we automatically broke many of the social rules that the majority of America follows. We played with gender and sexuality: two of the most strict social laws of America. Gender is man and woman. Sexuality is heterosexual. We expanded and disbanded this theory. We took sacred concepts to most Americans and turned them on their head.

At this conference, it was common to break social laws. There were few rules not broken and even those were questioned and played with. The gender rules were obsolete. Few people at the conference identified as strictly male or female. Those who did identify as male or female, would not play into society’s definition of the two genders. Sexuality was even more fluid at the conference. There was a fraction of heterosexuals compared to LGBTQ identifying students. The entire spectrum was at this conference: Asexual to Bisexual to everything in between. This was a world completely different from mainstream America.

If people can break these social laws and act on their own, does this eliminate the machine theory? It does not. Although this was a conference where everyone seemed to break every rule in the book, it was more accurately a conference where everyone created new rules. The people at the conference broke gender and sexuality rules without remorse, but this conference still had its laws every person needed to follow. For example, making assumptions was taboo. There were so many identities that there was no way to assume an identity for anyone. Not only that, but new rules about communication were established. It was now perfectly ok to cross the boundary of the room. People were comfortable going to the front of the classroom and using their voice. I first felt as if this really was breaking out of our mechanics. I was wrong. By the end of the conference, the patterns of communication and interaction were obvious. It was just like any other place in America in the sense that it was predictable. I knew who was going to speak and when, what was going to be said and how and how the audience would react. We were stepping out of main stream mechanics to create our own machine; a machine none the less.

Yet again I come to the conclusion that humans are machines. We are predictable and trapped in our own mechanics. We have rules and boundaries that we can’t ignore. An important distinction though is the fact that we are not all the same machine. We all work differently and have our own sets of rules. After this conference, I’m wondering if there is any way to step out of our mechanics and live without out habits and rules.

Othering or Alterity

The "other" is a dark and scary term. It is a term that society thrives on and destroys with. I have felt it personally as well as any other minority or disadvantaged person has. It seems as though America cannot survive without an "other."

America has always, and will always have an "other." At the moment, the most prevalent other is the Queer Community. Before that it was the Black Community and before that it was Women. These are by no means the only "others" throughout time, but definitely the most controversial. In order to create an argument against equality, one must define that group as the "other" so as not to feel anything for that group. "Othering" therefore allows for emotional detachment. America or humanity in general, therefore thrives on creating "others" to instill a hierarchical society.

On the other side, is the identity in which one defines him/herself as the "other?" These are identities that can be considered anti-identities; identities defined by what one is not. An example is Atheism. This is an identity that means: "disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings." In other words it means, "not-religious." So "othering" is not solely from an outside perspective. They, themselves have the feeling of alterity.

Now is the question of technology. We "other" technology and machines as something different than ourselves because they are controlled and stuck in a rhythm without escape. We are different correct? Let us think about it for a moment. As I've stated in a previous post about reality, we like to "escape" reality. What I also talked about was the fact that everything is reality. There is no escaping it. Doesn't this also mean there is no escaping the rhythm of our lives? Are we not controlled by social constructs and a hierarchy? We have been programmed socially to think and act certain ways. The fact that we create "others" prove this. We don't like rogue machines. Everyone must follow the rules and the laws of our mechanics. We create the "other" in order to maintain routines and control. This makes us machines. Even escaping the social aspect, we cannot escape our biological aspects. We must breathe, eat, sleep and go to the bathroom. We are as vulnerable as machines. Unplug a machine and it turns off. Go a while without breathing and you die. Although machines can be plugged back in, so I guess we're weak machines.

Snowball Poetry....

I
Am
Set
Then,
After
A class
That had
Annoyed a
Large part
Of the class
Using my loud
Voice again is
Heaven after my
Personal hell. my
Anxiety is a large
Problem when i can't
Escape or i feel like
There is no escape. its
Painful and awkward. i'm
not very introspective.
In fact i rarely think out
What i want to say before it
Comes out of my mouth. that is
Why today's class was not a fun
Or entertaining experience. i
Would rather we didn't do it more
Than just this one time because i
Do not know how well i could handle
Being in an awful situation like it
Again. although if i could speak i bet
The situation would be different. i am
Sure i would have been more open to it if
I had not participated in Day of Silence.
This was why today's mute class was an
Experience that was helpful and helped me
To remember why Day of Silence is a need now.
It reminded me of the frustrations i faced in
The closet and that there are so many people in
The closet or silenced because of hate. the need
Is still present for allies and the fight is here.

Cut-up

"Interested in free trade aryou. You never were anything but a hard-no reason to colonize all the rest of them. I'm one dollar an hour, adolescent boys in single mother households. Ho you're going to stop waiting for me to bring delinquency and drug/alcohol use in single mother."

A cut-up is taking written work and changing, cutting, adapting, moving and/or replacing pieces within it. The cut-up above is from many different texts put together. From reading it one can interpret a lot. Without knowing its a cut-up it may seem like the narration of a deranged drug addict. A cut-up is supposedly a way to make something new out of the old. A way to make your own story out of another's. Is this really what it is? Is anything not a cut-up?

Is taking the text of another author and cutting it into parts and putting it back together changing what that author wrote and making it new? The answer is yes. The words are down on paper but the moment that paper is cut and destroyed the words are released from their confines and allowed to go where they please. The art of writing is putting words in a specific order that creates a picture, emotion or event. The specific order is what makes it literature or text. Once this order is destroyed or disrupted the literature or text is new. By cutting a page, one can control the words and the pictures. Is it different from creating your own story from a blank page?

Everything we say, do and write is a cut-up. We take words that we were taught, actions that we've seen and write in ways we were told to. A cut-up is dependent on the person cutting. If the person decides to cut it down to words or letters to have total control, as oppose to paragraphs or sections, it is synonymous to creating a new story. Is it possible to create something completely new? I believe it is very hard but possible. The problem is that a truly "new" piece of work must be for the artist him/herself because new does not sit well with others. Look at the book The Ticket that Exploded. The entire text is written without punctuation and with very little sense. It is confusing and hard to understand. This is because it is new. This is also why we are amused by cut-ups.

Although cut-ups may not be exactly "original" seeing as all our actions are technically cut-ups of our life experience, they are amusing to us. This is because we did not create the original structure or text. We like chaos and lack of structure because we are not use to it. A cut-up is both original and lacking originality.

The Invention of Morel

This book was the definition of psychological. I was confused. I'm not a stupid person, and I'm usually quick to understand. This was completely different. The Invention of Morel took me on a psychological adventure the likes of which I had never experienced. I'll explore a few of the things a thought as I read.

1. He's hallucinating. This was the easiest and quickest idea I had. He's seeing people and the buildings. He's dehydrated an having hallucinations. This was proved wrong by the fugitive himself proving this wrong.

2 Faustine was hallucinating. Once I ruled out the fugitive hallucinating, I immediately thought that maybe the fugitive was an elaborate hallucination by Faustine. An illusion that maybe she was trying to ignore. I thought this because of the fugitive's many attempts and failures to get Faustine's attention.

3. None of it existed. Another thought I had was that the fugitive was in jail. He was dreaming or hallucinating the entire island and scenario from his jail cell. I thought this was not very creative though.

Of course, I never predicted anything close to the truth. A machine that essentially captures events and objects within a certain frame of time. Smells, noise, objects and sights all captured and replayed. This is an extremely scary thought. Would our world be able to hand such a machine? Paranoia would run a muck. There would be no way to tell what was real and what was not. It would be too much to handle. This invention would be the destruction of society.

Would this mean that being filmed and reproduced by this machine is certain death physically? Would your whole self getting copied destroy your physical body? I don't think so. I believe that this physical deterioration is symbolic of the mental and emotional deterioration that would certainly happen. There is no way encountering a machine that breaks the laws of physics and reality would not have a major consequences. A physical reaction seems unlikely unless it is a result of the mental reaction.

Overall the story was awe inspiring. It was an experience like no other. I loved it.

Step out of reality....

Stepping out of reality is a ridiculous concept. What does it mean? What is the definition of reality? Let's explore this.

First it’s important to talk about the meaning of reality. Reality is everything that a person experiences and considers "real." The definition of "real" according to the dictionary is "of or relating to fixed, permanent, or immovable things (as lands or tenements); not artificial, fraudulent, or illusory; capable of being detected." These definitions can be condensed down into a simple definition: "predictable pattern." A predictable pattern is fixed, not illusory and is very capable of being detected. This is our reality. Nothing more than ants on a mission, we need our pattern and our predictability. So with this definition it is easy to escape reality. All we need is to mix things up.

A different argument is that reality has a more literal meaning. Reality, literally, is anything we experience, see, do, think, feel, smell, hear or taste. Everything we do is happening. It is real. There is no way to escape reality. Unless everything we do is interpreted differently by someone else. Maybe I am exceedingly happy but someone thinks I am sad. My reality is I am happy; theirs is that I am sad. Who is right? This brings us to a major conflict. Either what we see and experience and interpret is reality, or what someone else sees and experiences and interprets is reality. Broken down, this means our reality is either inescapable or nonexistent. What if everything we do is misinterpreted? That means our reality does not exist. Reality either is or is not.

The common meanings of "stepping out of reality" are going somewhere out of the ordinary for that person, drinking or doing drugs and watching a movie/reading/watching a play. By our first definition of reality, this makes sense. This is all a means of stepping out of the predictable pattern. This is all escaping reality in a very shallow manner. The truth is, it is impossible to escape reality.

Nanotechnology. The Possibility and Reality.

I do not doubt that soon we will have the technology to create mass nanotechs. The ability to design and distribute tiny machines that will be able to better our bodies or environment to ensure health and happiness is a major power. What I do doubt is the reality of it and the overall benefit from it.

I do not disagree that nanotechnology is hypothetically an amazing and wonderful invention. It may be able to save lives and cure cancer. The problem is that won't it just become another amazing item that is used to create hierarchy and power? A video we watched in class kept reiterating the word "cheap." It made it sound as though some day you can go to the store buy some nanotech pills and cure your cancer. This is nothing near what it would be. The moment it is invented it will be abused. The richest families in the world would be able to be immortal and have another advantage over the lower socioeconomic society. Nanotechnology could be one of the greatest advances in the history of the world or just another social step backward. If they are controlled at all like car/oil companies, we are all fucked.

Do Our Words Really Matter?

How many of the words we use get absorbed? Do our thoughts really matter?

This is something that I've been thinking about since sitting in one of my large lecture classes ago a couple weeks ago. I was a little tired and trying to pay attention when I lost the battle and started looking around the classroom. Half of the students were on their computers and the other half was sleeping. So it made me wonder, how much of what the professor is saying is remembered? If it’s not remembered, then technically it never existed.

This may seem random, but as a scientist and with my new exploration into words it made me think of an experiment. I want to set up a lecture. There will be 100 students in the classroom and the professor will do an hour long lecture that I will record. It will be like any other lecture. The students can take notes and the professor will speak and use a PowerPoint. The difference will be what happens after the lecture. The students will then be asked to rewrite the entire lecture verbatim. Every word they can remember. They may collaborate and discuss it. At the end, I will count all the words that the students correctly wrote down and how many words were lost forever except for the recording. I want to know how many words are lost.

I promise not all my posts will be focused solely on words. The world is so big and made up of the smallest of the small. There are thousands of things to explore and discuss.

Thinking Small in a World Focused on the Big

A very common phrase we hear today is "think about the big picture." I've always wondered why. I've also wondered how. How do we focus on the big picture and ignore the small?

The answer is to focus on the "big picture" through the small. We must sum up all the pieces. "The big picture" does not need to eliminate the small; it merely needs to be a connection of the small. It is similar to a teacher in a classroom. The teacher must focus on the "big picture" to educate the students. He/She must focus on the common themes within the classroom and how the students as a whole learn. This is where the tricky part comes in. If the teacher was to only focus on the "big picture," only 70% of the class would likely succeed. The teacher must adapt lesson plans to accommodate for students who learn differently, students who grew up in a different background. A teacher needs to earn a better grade than a C.

Grades. Another notion that focuses entirely on the big. Is my total self worth expressed by the letter B? Am I a mediocre, little above average person who knows enough information to get by? This letter decides my future. This tiny letter encompasses huge assumptions and unknowns. There is no way a future employer can tell if I'm a hard worker or a fast learner. The letter merely says I couldn't get top marks. It doesn't say how or why, but the majority of society seems to think it does. I am not a B. I am an extremely hard work, very motivated and always striving to learn more. This B was because all of these attributes apply to the things I believe in. I do not apply them to a class that I never wanted to take or a professor that never learned how to teach. I am witty, experienced, lovable, caring, passionate, deep, wounded, rounded, dysfunctional, anxious and a listener. Breaking this down further though, do these words sum up what I mean or who I am? Words are powerful, but can they truly express what we want them to? Do we simply believe they do without reflecting on how others interpret these words? This is my exploration for the quarter. The small. Words. Letters. Smaller?

First Post and First Reflection of a First Day

Words....todays Nanotexts class definitely made me start thinking about words.

Words are more powerful than many people give them credit for. Thinking about it, nothing has meaning, can be expressed or even thought about without words. This of course isn't the first time I have thought about this. As a social justice advocate especially for the Queer community, words are essential.

The fight for rights is a process. Within the Queer community and the Ally community I continuously hear people say things like "I don't want to be labeled" or "why do we need to declare who we are?" I have realized that it is all about words. In order to fight for something, to fight for rights in this case, we must declare who it is that is fighting for rights. So the process must start with a problem, proceed to a declaration of identity, then hopefully an elimination of the need for an identity. In an ideal world, everyone could just be. There would be no need to declare what makes you different. There would be no need because everyone would be truly equal and able to live as they please.

This was a reflection after one day. I am quite excited to continue thinking and exploring words and the world of the small. The exploration of the minute being major.