This is an even better way to create fairness in schools. I disagree with the author, though, that this will lead to less dissent. I think our feelings on race make us less able to criticize race-based policies. Income based policies would face a lot more complaint. After all, think how acceptable it is to use the term “white trash” in our society. Here’s the article:

http://www.slate.com/id/2169443/fr/rss/

I do like the idea though.

So, Coker has got me thinking about societal pressure a lot lately. He’s been talking a lot about the difficulty of not judging other people. Which is nearly impossible, and we all know that. But it got me thinking about the question of why we judge. And I’ve been wondering if perhaps this is our pack behavior. This is our way of passing down important knowledge that is not easily ascertained by cause and effect. Like “have sex and you’ll get pregnant” is pretty simple to teach kids. It’s much harder to get them to understand how much their life might suck if they have a kid at 12. How they might not get to finish high school. How much fun they might miss out in college, etc. Thus we build in societal judging of young mothers. It’s worked decently well for millions of years. And it’s fascinating to me, because we’re obviously in a period where it’s less accepted to judge people. Or at least we think that’s true. In reality we’re just better at segmenting ourselves into populates that just judge fat people, or welfare moms, or soccer moms. Whatever, our little tribe is not. But we encounter so many other tribes in our day to day lives that we get to the point where we pretend we’re not judging anyone. Except in reality we are. Oh we are…

Obviously there are great reasons to buck the trends. The struggle for civil rights is a great reason to buck conventional wisdom. But at least with race now we live under the opposite polarity. We judge people who have the slightest tendencies to do or say things that are degrading to a particular race. So we haven’t gotten rid of that particular taboo. We’ve just moved the mass consensus to the other side. I’m not sure you can actually get rid of this tribal judging. I just think you can move it around on the value map.

It’s interesting to see how people fit into these trends. Some people seem to be the tastemakers in this respect. Setting the bar for those in their tribe. And sometimes various people in the tribe can be the tastemakers on different subjects. Perhaps someone who is a strong foodie in the tribe decides which wines and cheese are good. And the rest of the tribe follows. Because they don’t know as much about wine and cheese. And suddenly you have an entire tribe that judges people who drink St. Genevieve. But is that a bad thing? It’s more a fascinating thing. And when the St. Genevieve drinkers come up against this tribe, perhaps they have a reason that St. Genevieve is a good wine. Perhaps they are thrifty and feel that it’s a waste of money to spend that much money on wine. Their tribe judges people who spend excessively on food. Who’s right? Who cares? These are both valid points, and their judging helps to mold their tribes.

I think one of the unfortunate fallouts of this is that some people can’t take the criticism. This is a clash of cultures man! You can’t just say, I’m pissed off by this or that makes me angry. You’ve got to confront the idea. No one in life is going to have the same life experiences and there’s no way they’re going to understand how your experiences shape your opinion unless you tell them. And then confront your own. Which one is more valid for you? And are you perhaps angry because you see the validity of the other side, but it’s not what you want in your life? Might you need some personal growth and rejection of past dogmas? Unfortunately, with certain people and certain settings we don’t feel free to debate. Work is a great example of this for me. So there becomes less and less to talk about. Because if you can’t talk about your values, what are you really talking about? TV, I guess.

The downside to tribal life is that while we can get meaning and security from keeping a set of values, we also can stagnate and become “old fashioned”. Becoming “old fashioned” I don’t believe is a function of believing in certain things that are no longer hip. It is a function of settling in, and no longer accepting new ideas. Of settling in as one of the tribe with no input on direction.

We no longer have vast country sized tribes. You don’t see Nazi Germany’s or 1950’s US anymore. We’re fragmented. Our migration patterns, and communications patterns allow us to find a very small, personalized tribe. And to reform our tribe as we see fit. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Am I the only one thinking about it (and feeling that perhaps it is postive for our society as a whole)?

It was a cool night. I walked out into the garage. I hefted the bag of dirty diapers and put them inside the back of the fence. I threw the last of our scrap wood into the trash can, and left the lid off, awaiting the bag Julie was filling with cat excrement. I picked up the recycling and walked down to the curb, placing it next to the trash can. I looked up the drive way. There stood our trash can, awaiting Punky pooh. I looked back at the trash can at the curb. I opened the lid to confirm. It wasn’t out trash. I walked back up and brought Julie out. She looked at the trash can at the curb. Looked back to the trash can silhouetted at the edge of our garage. Illuminated like a modern day religious icon. She sat stunned. I sat stunned. After a bit of discussion, we noticed that our neighbors didn’t have their garbage can out. We pushed the can over to their side of the street, pushed down our cart, and closed the garage. Who knows if that was their garbage can, or if it is the rolling dutchman, moved from house to house, old trash looking for a home to reside in front of so that it can be picked up, stopping, but never for long. Rolling ever onward. Its owner forever searching amidst rows and rows of identical receptacles. Cursing that they did not right down their can’s serial number. Oh yes, your can has a serial number. Look and see.

There’s a grasshopper in the hallway, for a start.

Fly On The Windscreen

I can see this becoming a music blog.

I think this is what happens when one of the “Quiet Riots” Barack Obama refers to becomes not so quiet. I just don’t know how we fix our communities. Barack should really come up with a different name for this trend though. I don’t think anyone finds the term “Quiet Riot” frightening. Except perhaps parent’s concerned about their girlz rockin’ their boyz. I joke, but I really don’t have a clue. And I’m not hearing ideas from politicians on how to make this better.

On a more cheerful note, we should totally start trying to do this. Julie and I have been rocking two cloth bags recently. It’s pretty cool. Trying to get the baggers to not wrap everything in plastic and then put it in the cloth bags is still a bit of a trial, but I’m sure it’ll get better. I really don’t need my plastic encased meat wrapped in another layer of plastic. Thanks.

Speaking of cloth bags, I was bagging groceries last night, holding Stella. Normally when I start bagging groceries a bagger mysteriously just pops up out of nowhere. I have a feeling HEB has a policy that it’s bad news if a manager sees you just standing around while a customer is bagging. Anyway. I’m bagging one handed. Holding Stella. Which I was sure would cause not one, but perhaps seven baggers to pop out of the woodwork. Those seven dwarves would take my place so I could resume my busy schedule of asking Stella to locate her tummy or playing her tummy tuba, leg trombone, and arm trumpet. Except no one showed up. Which I suppose isn’t that much of a loss. Even one handed I can bag faster than most of their employees.

I’m way behind on my 30/60/90 project. I keep forgetting to charge my laptop.

This post is really random. Fantastic.

Stella and I went bathing suit shopping with Julie last night. Going clothing shopping has become one of my favorite things. Stella and I have so much fun while Julie tries stuff on. Last night Stella was checking herself out in the mirrored clothing stands. Wandering around the store. Pushing her stroller around. Checking out prices. Pushing her stroller from a chair. Trying to figure out why her stroller wouldn’t push anymore once she set the brakes. She was busy. She ended up pushing the stroller from the dressing rooms all the way over to the cashier line. Then out into the mall proper. We didn’t need to go to the mall proper, but that’s not a big deal. It was a lot of fun.

And a lady waiting for the dressing rooms said Stella was really smart for figuring out how the brakes on her stroller worked. I’m sure she is smart, but I think it’s mostly just “push the buttons” syndrome. Stella definitely got to push da’ buttons.