How to live a good life is one of the most talked about and important philosophical subjects in the world. Everyday, people are searching for the way to achieve this good life goal. In the place we live in today, we get our ideas from outside sources. That is why: the corporate culture distorts our society into thinking that consumerism is the way to live a good life.
One of the most important questions people think about is what makes a meaningful life and what people feel to be a good and meaningful life? This question can be thought of in a few ways but the two main ways are: what does culture say about what a good and meaningful life should be and what do people consider to be a good and meaningful life? People see that a good and meaningful life consists of having a good job, a stable family, having power, being smart, finding your true self, and being happy.
People feel that a good and meaningful life is one that involves being smart, having a good job, being powerful which goes along with having a lot of money, and love. This idea is related to culture, which essentially tells us that these things listed above are what makes to be a good and meaningful life. Almost everyone has these ideas about a good and meaningful life. It was almost as if it was plugged into our brains. But it is a natural desire to have these ideas about a meaningful life because these are all very good things that everyone wants so its an instinct to want this. No one will be wishing to be sad, for instance because that makes for a meaningless life where you only focus on one thing. It also seems that people do not want to cause other people to have a bad life-it is almost a natural instinct to help someone who is in need. But I believe that that was not the case during Black Friday incident where a Walmart employee was trampled to death and nobody stopped to help him. They kept making a mad dash into the store just to get flat screen TVs and other material items and they completely disregarded another persons desire to live. That really shows what people's priorities are in this world.
I do believe that having a family, love, money and a stable job, having fun, and getting a good education makes for a good and meaningful life. This is because all of these things get you places in life. I believe that without an education, for example, I would not get a good job, I could not be powerful, and I would not get money. These ideas about a good life go hand-in-hand. I noticed that not many people put down having fun as one of their ideas on a good and meaningful life but I put that down because I think that you need to be able to be yourself and let loose at times. It just makes life more entertaining and fun which is important to me. This idea also goes along with love because you want to be able to have fun with someone you love.
I think that it is very hard to have a good and meaningful life. It does not just come to someone in the blink of an eye. People need to wait for it and be patient. People need to wait and work very hard in their job to become very powerful and make money and hopefully, they get the "dream job". It is the same thing to find your "one true love". There are some people who try very hard for this good and meaningful life and they sadly never get it. Some people wait their whole life for it. Speaking personally, I always try to live a good and meaningful life. I do this by trying to get a good education in order to prepare for college and jobs. I also try to have fun in life so that is one of my sources of entertainment besides technology.
Corporate culture is culture influenced by pop culture such as the media, TV, internet, magazines/books, and advertisements. Commodified culture is taking things that are not necessarily things you can sell but they are then turned into products you can sell and putting it in corporate culture. For example: people a long time ago when cars were first made that you should always look both left and right before you cross the street, and now that is commodified culture because it is put into ads and TV shows to show you this message. Corporate culture's message about a good life is ideas such as being happy, smart, finding your true self, and being unique among many more, but corporate culture also focuses a lot on asthetic aspects such as looking good and feeling good. But by culture telling us to be unique, we are not really being unique because we are following cultures' expectations of us. Everywhere you look, there is an advertisement for a new beauty product or a gym to help you look and feel better.
In class, we discussed and watched some movies that show different messages that corporate culture gives us about how to live a good and meaningful life. In Superbad, for instance, the message for living a good and meaningful life is to meet hot girls, get drunk, get stoned, have sex, have fun, and be very close with your buddies. This can be translated into a not very educational lifestyle where no one is really smart because fun is the only thing they do. In contrast, the movie Music of the Heart shows that in order to have a good and meaningful life, one must help others less fortunate than them, be selfless, and be smart. In the movie, the main character portrayed by Meryl Streep plays a Caucasian school teacher who teaches at a predominatly African-American school which is not good, and she teaches them how to behave and become good members in society.
Along with movies, music videos and songs show a lot about what culture believes to be a good and meaningful life. In Kanye West's song "Good Life," he states that in order to live a meaningful life, one needs to be famous, have a lot of beautiful women, be powerful, and have a lot of money. One way he describes being rich is by dropping names of expensive things for example: "I pop the hood, Ferrari". One lyric in the song says: "I'ma get on this TV mama." It shows that he is gonna become famous and be on the TV and live an amazing, luxurious life. In the music video, he is surrounded by pretty women, which shows when you are powerful, you can have all this money and all these women. All the messages from this song are connected to one another. A similar message of a good life is shown in Lil' Mama's song "Lip Gloss." The song describes that to have a good and meaningful life, you have to be popular, have all the boys on you and have girls jealous of you and you get that by having the perfect lip gloss. Lil' Mama says that "my lip gloss is popping/I'm standing at my locker/and all the boys keep stopping." She goes on to say that what people know about her is that she has fabulous lip gloss. Just like in the "Good Life" song, she also name drops lip gloss brands such as Mac and Loreal. The music video for this song also adds to this idea because at the beginning, she is insecure about going to a new school and her mom tells her that if she puts on lip gloss, she will be the envy of everybody and she will become popular. When she gets into school, she walks down the hall and no one can stop staring at her and even the teacher is liking her lip gloss. In contrast, The Beatles song "All You Need Is Love" shows a very different message for living a good and meaningful life. The songs' basic message is that all anybody should have is love and love basically is the fundamental for the world. They are also saying that the world really would not be good without love. One of the lyrics are "All you need is love...love is all you need." They go on to say that in love, "there's nothing you can do that can't be done." This means that love is everywhere and that you will be able to get love in some way or another. In the music video for this song, it shows The Beatles sitting around singing the song and a bunch of people are there so it is probably a party, which most likely represents unification with people and love.
On the opposite side of these arguments, there are marginal messages which are messages that are not considered to be that acceptable in society. For example, dropping out of school is a big marginal message in our culture. In the movie, Pump up the Volume, there are many marginal messages shown but the movie portrays those marginal messages to be the "correct" thing to do and anything else is bad. For instance, the dominant corporate culture tells us to lisen to authority and the marginal corporate message is that it is bad to go against the system whereas in this movie, itis bad to listen to authority and it is good to do your own thing and rebel against them. In the beginning of the movie, themain character, Mark, says about America: "Eat your cereal with a fork, do your homework in the dark." This is a marginal message because in this world, it is frowned upon and not accepted if you do these things. He asks: "Do you ever get the feeling that everything in America is completely fucked up?" He goes on to say that in America, "poor stay poor, rich get rich. Everywhere I look, everything is sold out." This is saying how the American society functions and this is not the patriotic approach to how America really is and this is different. Stated simply, Mark is saying that living a good life means having your own thoughts and being different while a bad life is becoming brainwashed by what the corporate culture is telling us and going along with it. This is also shown in the media in 2008 where people are telling you to "fight against the Man." The movie Foxfire also shows rebelling against "the Man" but in this movie they are rebelling against a teacher who tried to rape a female student. In both these films, the adults are the bad guys.
The next type of message are the folk messages. Those are the messages that are learned from parents and the things they taught you about how to live a good and meaningful life. As a personal example, my parents taught me that to have a good and meaningful life, I have to do very well in school, go to a good college, care a lot about family and friends, work hard then have fun, don't be a follower, and when I'm older, start a family. These messages stick with you for the rest of your life and you will most likely pass them down to future generations. I do think that folk messages derive from the dominant corporate culture messages because our parents probably do believe these things are what makes a good life, but their parents probably got the idea from corporate culture.
We also learned about how food can make for a good and meaningful life. Obviously, we can't live without food and I learned that it is important to know what food we eat and if we care what ingridients we put into our body. Considering that America is the fattest country, I think that most people wouldn't care what goes into their body and that is why many people are overweight from eating fast food a lot. I would think that because you only have 1 life, people would think it is important to know what goes into their food but that is not the case. According to Omnivores Dilemma, Michael Pollan argues that everything we eat comes from corn. For example, high fructose corn syrup which is in all junk food.
In general, throughout this course, i learned about a lot of different ways as shown for how to live a good and meaningful life. There was a lot more but i think that these were the most important ones. I really enjoyed this class and i learned a lot from it. I think i took away a lot of good information on what it means to live a good and meaningful life.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Collapse Assignment 2
I think that one thing that will cause a collapse is peak oil. Peak oil is when the amount and price of oil starts to decline and getting oil is harder. In our society, money is obviously very important and one of the main sources of our money is oil so when both American oil and foreign oil starts to decrease, that is very bad for our economy. It also means cheap oil and other countries don't want cheap oil so that is also bad for us. Also, the production of oil drops because it takes too much money to do it and that is somewhat the beginning of the collapse. It is also very bad because we are already in an economic collapse so if more bad things start to happen economic wise, that is going to be the start of a bigger collapse
Collapse Assignment 1
One thing I noticed about Easter Island was that it was a way more self-sufficient form of society meaning that you had to farm to get your food and it had a lot of agriculture aspects to it whereas we obviously in a city where you can't farm or grow huge gardens like the Easter Islanders did. On page 10, the article also said that by the 1500s, many of the fresh, natural resources such as fish, birds, and plants to name a few began to decline and it was harder for the Islanders to get food. Then, the farmers had a harder time farming crops which was bad because it caused a chain effect of more people and animals dying because they had no food to eat and then the farmers couldn't make any money because they couldn't sell crops. This was the beginning of how Easter Island suffered from a collapse. This story of the Easter Islanders makes me think that sometime, we will suffer a collapse like this except it won't be farming or ancient techniques, it will probably be caused by an economic collapse or something having to do with global warming. I don't believe that it would be in the near future but it is bound to happen if we don't try to take immiediate action now.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Food Essay
The topic of ethics when it comes to food is huge. The main argument is that of meat: is it ethical to eat a living thing that was tortured and is it ok to eat meat of cattle that was living in horrible conditions?
In my opinion, I know that some cattle are treated very badly and that could at times effect how healthy the meat is, but in general, I do not care how the animal is treated because the food in the end tastes really good. At the same time, I do think it is mean that they are treated this way because they are living things and even though they can't express in words what they are feeling, we can imagine that they are in pain. But how the cattle is treated before it gets made into meat affects the end result of the meat because cattle that is treated very badly and is tortured gets more diseases than cattle who liven good conditions and if bad meat is eaten, people can get very sick from illnesses such as mad cow disease, e-coli, and salmonella.
This idea translates into where you can find this "bad" meat. Most of the bad or unhealthy meats get sent to Mcdonalds and other fast food chains where this lowest form of meat gets made into burgers, which is also shown in the "Cows with Guns" song. I believe that as long as we (the people) all know what is in the meat and how the cattle is raised, we should then make our decision on whether or not we should eat it. This means that the people in society should be told exactly what is in the meat by somebody such as an FDA administrator and then make our decision if we should at the meat or not. We should not be left in the dark about this situation.
In America especially which is the fattest country, many people eat meat and most Americans do not care about how the meat was produced and how it was treated which is why we have the highest rating of food-borne illnesses and deaths at around 5000 cases per year. One would think that because of this staggering number, society would be more careful about what is in their meat and food, but people still continue to eat fast food on a daily basis. On a personal level, I eat fast food but not often and I usually eat Mcdonalds. When I go there, I eat the chicken nuggets with fries. I do not get the burgers there because I don’t trust how they handle the beef. It is the lowest grade of beef and the things that are in the beef are most likely unmentionable products.
Some people don’t eat meat because they feel sorry for the cattle but some people take it to the extremes in protesting animal cruelty and the group is called PETA or the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals. They protest fast food chains that use meat, which was tortured in their cages and they try to get society to stop using animal-based products.
I think that the PETA people take this too far because not everybody agrees on exactly how they think animals should be treated and/or eaten. I do think, though, that it is not right how animals are treated in some different farms or factories but meat is crucial in surviving because they provide different vitamins and proteins such as iron that us humans need to stay healthy when eaten in moderation. Some may argue that there are other ways to stay healthy without having to kill innocent cows and animals but these foods taste very good and I believe that cows were meant to be eaten which is why they are here. In old times, people used to kill cows all the time and eat them so we should still eat them now. In conclusion, We should be aware of how the cows and cattle are treated but I think that after we know this information, we should then see if we would still eat meat or not and I personally could care less about how the cows are treated because the end result tastes very good, doesn’t it?
In my opinion, I know that some cattle are treated very badly and that could at times effect how healthy the meat is, but in general, I do not care how the animal is treated because the food in the end tastes really good. At the same time, I do think it is mean that they are treated this way because they are living things and even though they can't express in words what they are feeling, we can imagine that they are in pain. But how the cattle is treated before it gets made into meat affects the end result of the meat because cattle that is treated very badly and is tortured gets more diseases than cattle who liven good conditions and if bad meat is eaten, people can get very sick from illnesses such as mad cow disease, e-coli, and salmonella.
This idea translates into where you can find this "bad" meat. Most of the bad or unhealthy meats get sent to Mcdonalds and other fast food chains where this lowest form of meat gets made into burgers, which is also shown in the "Cows with Guns" song. I believe that as long as we (the people) all know what is in the meat and how the cattle is raised, we should then make our decision on whether or not we should eat it. This means that the people in society should be told exactly what is in the meat by somebody such as an FDA administrator and then make our decision if we should at the meat or not. We should not be left in the dark about this situation.
In America especially which is the fattest country, many people eat meat and most Americans do not care about how the meat was produced and how it was treated which is why we have the highest rating of food-borne illnesses and deaths at around 5000 cases per year. One would think that because of this staggering number, society would be more careful about what is in their meat and food, but people still continue to eat fast food on a daily basis. On a personal level, I eat fast food but not often and I usually eat Mcdonalds. When I go there, I eat the chicken nuggets with fries. I do not get the burgers there because I don’t trust how they handle the beef. It is the lowest grade of beef and the things that are in the beef are most likely unmentionable products.
Some people don’t eat meat because they feel sorry for the cattle but some people take it to the extremes in protesting animal cruelty and the group is called PETA or the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals. They protest fast food chains that use meat, which was tortured in their cages and they try to get society to stop using animal-based products.
I think that the PETA people take this too far because not everybody agrees on exactly how they think animals should be treated and/or eaten. I do think, though, that it is not right how animals are treated in some different farms or factories but meat is crucial in surviving because they provide different vitamins and proteins such as iron that us humans need to stay healthy when eaten in moderation. Some may argue that there are other ways to stay healthy without having to kill innocent cows and animals but these foods taste very good and I believe that cows were meant to be eaten which is why they are here. In old times, people used to kill cows all the time and eat them so we should still eat them now. In conclusion, We should be aware of how the cows and cattle are treated but I think that after we know this information, we should then see if we would still eat meat or not and I personally could care less about how the cows are treated because the end result tastes very good, doesn’t it?
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Food Journal # 8
I read: The Seven Deadly Myths of Industrial Agriculture. This article said that industrial food, contrary to most people's beliefs, is actually very expensive when you include the health, environmental, and social costs to the supermarket price of the food. The article is also saying that the price of food and how it is made is actually way more expensive than how the food is priced in supermarkets. This is because the food and crops undergo a lot of "technology" and pesticides to get the produce to grow faster. Most people and consumers are not aware of this.
Industrial foods and farming ruins our environment because of all the water, soil, and air being used up as well as the pesticides being sprayed on the crops. Since 1960, we have lost half of our topsoil. Also, the food travels at least 1,300 miles from the field to our supermarkets and that is also fossil fuel being emmited into the air which helps cause pollution which then goes back into our crops, food, and lungs.
For health costs, many people get sick per year because of food-related illnesses. These sicknesses can be contributed to the pesticides, hormones, and other chemicals put into our food. Manure also put in food can contribute to this. Agriculture farming is the most accident prone career in this culture.
Industrial foods and farming ruins our environment because of all the water, soil, and air being used up as well as the pesticides being sprayed on the crops. Since 1960, we have lost half of our topsoil. Also, the food travels at least 1,300 miles from the field to our supermarkets and that is also fossil fuel being emmited into the air which helps cause pollution which then goes back into our crops, food, and lungs.
For health costs, many people get sick per year because of food-related illnesses. These sicknesses can be contributed to the pesticides, hormones, and other chemicals put into our food. Manure also put in food can contribute to this. Agriculture farming is the most accident prone career in this culture.
Food Journal # 7
Grilled Cheese:
- 1 slice of Kraft American cheese
- 2 pieces of whole grain or white bread from the bag
- 1/2 tomato sliced
- 2 pieces of turkey or regular bacon
- 1/4 spoon of butter
1. Take out a pan and turn the stove on to a medium flame.
2. Put the butter in the pan and stir it around the pan till melted. There should be a lot.
3. Put the 2 pieces of bread into the pan and leave it their for about 1 1/2 minutes.
4. When the bread looks a bit brown and crispy, put the slice of cheese on 1 piece of bread.http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Articles/2291637/grilledcheese-main_Full.jpg
5. Quickly, put the tomatoes on the cheese and tear little strips of bacon on top of that.
6. Flip the other side of bread onto the other side and press the spatula on top of the bread so everything melts and stays together.
7. Serve and cut in half.
This is how it should look:http://i.ehowgrilledcheese-main_Full.jpg
- 1 slice of Kraft American cheese
- 2 pieces of whole grain or white bread from the bag
- 1/2 tomato sliced
- 2 pieces of turkey or regular bacon
- 1/4 spoon of butter
1. Take out a pan and turn the stove on to a medium flame.
2. Put the butter in the pan and stir it around the pan till melted. There should be a lot.
3. Put the 2 pieces of bread into the pan and leave it their for about 1 1/2 minutes.
4. When the bread looks a bit brown and crispy, put the slice of cheese on 1 piece of bread.http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Articles/2291637/grilledcheese-main_Full.jpg
5. Quickly, put the tomatoes on the cheese and tear little strips of bacon on top of that.
6. Flip the other side of bread onto the other side and press the spatula on top of the bread so everything melts and stays together.
7. Serve and cut in half.
This is how it should look:http://i.ehowgrilledcheese-main_Full.jpg
Monday, May 25, 2009
Chapter 5 Omnivores Dilemma
In chapter 5 of The Omnivores Dilemma, Pollan investigates on how corn is processed. He said that even though we don't eat a lot of corn, we still ocnsume a lot of it in ways we don't expect: the meat that was once cattle was fed corn gets into our body, alcohol is made from corn, fossil fuel, things fried in corn oil, and much more. In addition, corn enzymes are broken down into carbs that starts a long chain of different organic compounds. Corn is also found in processed food in this way: glucose, fructose, maltodextrin, methanol to name a few. Plowing the corn takes a lot of energy in the tractor-about 10 calories of fossil fuel is burned by gathering a ton of corn which is a big amount. The processed food companies also trick us. For example, if the cost of soy or corn spikes, the company will switch to fat and call it natural substances so that is why many items say: "contains one or more of the following ingriedients: corn, soybean, or sunflower oil."Also, the more ingriedients a product has, the less healthy it is because it means that many unnatural and unhealthy items are used to re-create the final processed food. They mix ingriedients together to get the product to look appealing and to fool the consumers. That is why processed food companies are a bit hesistant to give out ingriedients in the product because then the people would know exactly what is in the food and stop buying it and also to prevent other companies from stealing their ideas.
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