Stop Workin' so Hard

I want to abolish the idea of prioritizing work and financial gain over life experiences. Americans rarely take vacations and we work harder than most countries. However, we are also less happy and satisfied with our lives than other countries. Why? We just keep working so we can get ahead and we never stop to enjoy. So here's what I'm thinking.

Renaissance: This got the ball rolling with the power in possibilities. Men realized they could "change their stars" in a sense. The plague, exploration, humanism led to men creating and becoming!

Enlightenment: We learn to enjoy our liberty........Any ideas here?

Industrialization: This is actually where American's demanded a 5 day work week. But industrialization and new technology allowed for inventions and improvement. Suddenly, work could continue into the night with the invention of electricity and light bulbs. Not only that but people worked in the factory and went on to continue to work at home. Isms: Nationalism, imperialism, etc. drives the idea of us being better than others and that continued into our everyday lives. We need to be better than our neighbors.

20th Century/Age of Technology: Work now can come to the home with internet, email, and handheld devices. We can be working at any moment and we convince ourselves that a few more hours will lead to immense gain.


I plan on looking into the history of leisure and such but any ideas are great :)

Show me the money

My midterm call for change was on why we need to start paying certain college athletes. College athletics is a multi-million dollar industry. Universities that are part of a power 5 conferences make millions of dollars in t.v. revenue. Other sources of revenue includes tickets sales, jerseys and other merchandise. This is a sick and twisted business and something has to change. Here are some ways of how I think that some of principles that we've talked about connect with paying collegiate athletes.

• Conservatism- When college athletics was originally set up it was an opportunity for students to get some exercise and compete against other universities. Now, college athletics is so much more. It is now a billion dollar industry and a major source of entertainment for this country. Universities are making way too much money off these athletes and are unwilling to start paying athletes. They are stuck in their ways and a time for change seem unlikely. 

• Nationalism- It seems like since these athletes were kids they ad a sense of pride for a certain university. For example, Rudy was obsessed with Notre Dame football and the only way that he was going to be happy was if he got the chance to play for them. It's the same in our society. Parents, teachers and other opinion leaders brainwash these young kids into thinking that they will only be happy and successful if they play for certain universities. The pride factor plays a very important role in college athletics. 

• Utilitarianism- This is the current policy of the NCAA. The idea that not paying athletes is for the greater good of the game is simply a lie that the NCAA and the Universities are trying to convince everyone to believe. 

I am sure that there are more principles that I could tie into this topic and if you can think of any please leave a comment. I would love to hear your ideas. 

Oratory in the Age of Mass Communication

Although my students have been reading the text of speeches from the 20th century, being able to hear and sometimes see the speakers through recordings helps one to understand, and to a degree approximate, how those speeches felt and functioned in their day. So here are a few.

A compilation of speeches by Hitler (marred by a maudlin musical track, but capturing his oratorical style and the various settings in which he marshaled public opinion).

Winston Churchill's "Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat" speech (May 13, 1940):

Winston Churchill's "We Shall Fight on the Beaches..." speech (June 4, 1940) (The video is set to cue toward the end of the speech):

Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech (Aug 28, 1963)

History of Tolerance: Open-Minds and Open Doors

Tolerance has been a multifaceted concept since the Enlightenment. But, regardless of its many forms, tolerance has also always had a positive effect as America (and the world) transitioned through major historical periods:

• Industrialization: as Industrialization grew, tolerance was required on both sides (by industrial producers and by market consumers). Given, there are still some environmental issues with big manufacturers today, but imagine if big business manufacturers hadn't kept an open-mind about the effects of certain forms of production on the environment. Regulation Laws would never have been passed. Conversely, if consumers hadn't kept an open-mind about the material benefits of industrialized manufacturers, then we wouldn't have the technology or accessibility that we enjoy today. 
• Romanticism: this movement speaks for itself. Staying open-minded about how an individual can view themselves or any medium of artistic aesthetics is what made this clock tick. Respecting and appreciating the creative agencies of an individual (within the realms of the Constitution) is what drove the successful creation of cherished works of poetry, visual art, music, and prose literature.
• Nationalism: History tells an visceral story about the consequences of not having tolerance during the development of "Nationalism." WWI and WWII are the consequence of not keeping an open-mind to the rights and privileges of others (within the boundaries of a nation's legal and rational freedoms).       

Religiocentrism

In arguing against missionaries' strategy of attacking the faith and previous religious actions of investigators a couple of post-enlightenment themes come to mind--nationalism and ethnocentrism.

• Ethnocentrism (religiocentrism) - It would be wrong to relate the problem with ethnocentrism, since it does not really have anything to do with ethnicity, but it is associated with its relative--religiocentrism, which is defined as "conviction that a person's own religion is more important or superior to other religions." It is important to our religion that we believe that ours is the only true church on the earth, but we often take that a step too far and make it seem that we believe that other churches have no truth or no good in them.

I think this was a problem during the 19th and 20th centuries on a very much larger scale with ethnocentrism and nationalism. In supporting their own countries and become unified, and in believing that their country and ethnicity was the best, they would take it a step further often and believe that other countries and ethnicity were no good. The best example of this was the Jews in Germany. Because a few Germans were angry over a few things concerning the Jews (like blaming them for not giving enough funds for WWI and causing Germany to lose), they took it too far into believing that they were no good and should be eradicated. 

The Past is the Past

My call for change deals with the development of the internet. My position is that people who make the web and those who use it need to move with the times!

Industrialism pushed the world forward. Many were overrun by it and that was bad but today we overwhelmingly view it as a good thing because we've moved so far forward. Its the same thing with pushing the internet forward. Some will get left behind but we'll all be so grateful for it in the future. Case in point of not following this philosophy is a recent decision by Microsoft to stop support the now ancient operating system, Windows XP. But, some client companies of Microsoft complained and offered Microsoft a lot of money so they didn't stop support. That's too bad and I've not doubt they'll regret it later.

Nationalism isolated groups of people as they moved forward. It allowed them to take pride in their country and make some advances that wouldn't have been able to happen otherwise. Its the same with the internet - if too many people get involved in the development of this great technology we all get bogged down. Let there be different "nations" pursuing different paths to success and may the greatest win. Which leads me to my next connection...

Darwinism - May the greatest technologies survive and all the other ones die ignominious deaths. For those of you who are curious as what exactly ignominious means I found the definition: deserving or causing public disgrace or shame.

Those should tie in well.

Integration of Mathematics into Social Science

Industrialization:

Industrialization was the beginning of Social Sciences being explored scientifically.

It also was the beginning of public education.

Though the scientific method was being applied to social science there was little computation involved and people didn’t have a need for it.

Bayes' theorem, an idea which would revolutionize statistics... one day.

We developed mathematical theory in this time which was not feasible to be used in research due to computation limits.

Romanticism:

Individuals became a greater focus in society and there was an increase in sympathy to the insane or disadvantaged of society.

WW1:

There are a greater and greater number of educated Europeans and Americans who are applying mathematics and science to industry and arms, social scientists focus more on poverty levels in their own nations (nationalism).