Society (part 2)
Thanks for reading the first part, for those of you who did.
Aethereal, I'll try to keep doing posts that provoke thoughts ! And, adoreadore, it might be a weird place, yea, but well, why not, after all !
I was going to talk about society formatting, and why I call it such.
Your first contact with society would be school. School is preparing you to your future life, giving you the basics to grow up, and helps you do so. But that's a harsh environment, where not fitting makes you an outcast quite fast.
It's a melting pot, where different social classes mix, different ways of thinking, different backgrounds. The first real taste of society in all its diversity. You find leaders, followers, clans, and bullies / bullied ones. Just like in a bigger society, except it's smaller, and more intense, because childs are testing the limits.
A good example would be how everyone dresses up the same, has the same haircut, follows the trend set by the "leaders" of fashion. And for the most part, school will show what your future will be. Good in class, always first, appreciated by everyone -including teachers, but also schoolmates-, and you'll most probably have a successful life. Followers at school often stay followers after, too. There is few examples -that I know of- of bullied ending up being leaders, even if sometimes, roles do switch, bullies become ruled by their former bullied ones. Perfect revenge if you ask me.
But ya, I'm slowly ditching the topic, which was formatting. School indeed formats us in a mini-society, where you try your best to fit in the group, even if you have to follow someone for that, using their dresscode as yours, haircuts, talking, even getting the same habits, all you can to try & be as "cool" as him/her. And that's where it starts. You try to BECOME someone else, and give up part of yourself to do it.
The more I think about it, the more this school society process is also important in building yourself. It gives guidance, but goes too far, and became blinkers rather than a guide, due to our nature. I won't go as far as to say we're like chimps in attempting to mime others, but that's a good way of saying it. Just watch around when you're at school (or try & remember if you're out of school already). A group of people led by a smaller group, 1 to 3 most of the time, blindly following them to please them, even going as far as obeying orders that they wouldn't even consider doing, was it not for these leaders. Can't say you've never witnessed that, or maybe even taken part of it ?
If you've taken part of it, actually, I'd like your opinion. If you're still under that person's domination, or if it's in the past already, could you explain what made you do it ? Why did you follow that person, or why do you still ?
Out of this learning curve, there's one point that bothers me. What about the leftouts ? The ones not allowed in the "school society", the outcasts, that stay outcasts for like, a decade or more ? The only taste they get about this society is seeing other people's back.
What kind of learning is this, if they can't even make a friend, because anyone trying to get close to them is "betraying their little group" ?
Trying to get closer, but refusing to "be like everyone else", and be forbidden to join because of it ? Social links, friends, boyfriends/girlfriends,
all this being closed out ... Can one evolve in the right way ? Throw in a bit of jealousy if the outcast is actually good at school, making him liked by the teachers, but hated by schoolmates, making it even harder to fit in, other than constant promises of letting him in if he helps you with your homework, or does this or that and you'll consider letting him join ? The bullied will always long for joining the group, thus do all you ask. Does that make him a follower ? Kind of, I guess, but you're feeding him a little interaction that he's dying for, and with that, you get as close as a servant you can dream of. And when he's not needed anymore, or when he decides to stop being used, all the fake society link feeling disappears.
In all honesty. Bullies / bullied. We often hear of bullied going out of their mind, rejected by society, in a way.
Society also tends to find geeks / nerds cool now, as opposed as a few years ago where they had to be avoided like they were a plague.
What changed in people's mind ? Is it the society, in constant technological evolution, that requires skilled people to face the problems they now face with said technology ? Do you have a geek / nerd friend ? As in, really consider him a friend rather than an asset ? If so, how were you acting towards the "society-rejected" at school ? Did your opinion on outcasts evolve since then ?
Society does format us, starting early, at school, giving us a path to follow later on. But that formatting depends on whether you accept it, or refuse it. If you accept it, you are what society is willing to accept. If you refuse it, you might end up banned from said society, unless you're necessary to the society, which means little effort will be made to pretend you're part of it, despite all the mocking done about you when you're not here.
Geeks / nerds were often depicted as school outcasts that ended up as hackers, trying to harm the society. 10 years ago, would you have imagined seeing TV shows such as The I.T. Crowd, or The Big Bang Theory, depicting them as cool and funny people, living in their own world that is indeed weird, but you'd want to know more about ? Hell no. Society is evolving. Maybe trying to integrate the outcasts later on. But isn't that too late for it ? Isn't something broken in these people, that will take a lot of time and effort to fix ?
I'll try to write about that in the next post, unless you want me to go further onto something special ? Thanks for reading, and see you soon !
Aethereal, I'll try to keep doing posts that provoke thoughts ! And, adoreadore, it might be a weird place, yea, but well, why not, after all !
I was going to talk about society formatting, and why I call it such.
Your first contact with society would be school. School is preparing you to your future life, giving you the basics to grow up, and helps you do so. But that's a harsh environment, where not fitting makes you an outcast quite fast.
It's a melting pot, where different social classes mix, different ways of thinking, different backgrounds. The first real taste of society in all its diversity. You find leaders, followers, clans, and bullies / bullied ones. Just like in a bigger society, except it's smaller, and more intense, because childs are testing the limits.
A good example would be how everyone dresses up the same, has the same haircut, follows the trend set by the "leaders" of fashion. And for the most part, school will show what your future will be. Good in class, always first, appreciated by everyone -including teachers, but also schoolmates-, and you'll most probably have a successful life. Followers at school often stay followers after, too. There is few examples -that I know of- of bullied ending up being leaders, even if sometimes, roles do switch, bullies become ruled by their former bullied ones. Perfect revenge if you ask me.
But ya, I'm slowly ditching the topic, which was formatting. School indeed formats us in a mini-society, where you try your best to fit in the group, even if you have to follow someone for that, using their dresscode as yours, haircuts, talking, even getting the same habits, all you can to try & be as "cool" as him/her. And that's where it starts. You try to BECOME someone else, and give up part of yourself to do it.
The more I think about it, the more this school society process is also important in building yourself. It gives guidance, but goes too far, and became blinkers rather than a guide, due to our nature. I won't go as far as to say we're like chimps in attempting to mime others, but that's a good way of saying it. Just watch around when you're at school (or try & remember if you're out of school already). A group of people led by a smaller group, 1 to 3 most of the time, blindly following them to please them, even going as far as obeying orders that they wouldn't even consider doing, was it not for these leaders. Can't say you've never witnessed that, or maybe even taken part of it ?
If you've taken part of it, actually, I'd like your opinion. If you're still under that person's domination, or if it's in the past already, could you explain what made you do it ? Why did you follow that person, or why do you still ?
Out of this learning curve, there's one point that bothers me. What about the leftouts ? The ones not allowed in the "school society", the outcasts, that stay outcasts for like, a decade or more ? The only taste they get about this society is seeing other people's back.
What kind of learning is this, if they can't even make a friend, because anyone trying to get close to them is "betraying their little group" ?
Trying to get closer, but refusing to "be like everyone else", and be forbidden to join because of it ? Social links, friends, boyfriends/girlfriends,
all this being closed out ... Can one evolve in the right way ? Throw in a bit of jealousy if the outcast is actually good at school, making him liked by the teachers, but hated by schoolmates, making it even harder to fit in, other than constant promises of letting him in if he helps you with your homework, or does this or that and you'll consider letting him join ? The bullied will always long for joining the group, thus do all you ask. Does that make him a follower ? Kind of, I guess, but you're feeding him a little interaction that he's dying for, and with that, you get as close as a servant you can dream of. And when he's not needed anymore, or when he decides to stop being used, all the fake society link feeling disappears.
In all honesty. Bullies / bullied. We often hear of bullied going out of their mind, rejected by society, in a way.
Society also tends to find geeks / nerds cool now, as opposed as a few years ago where they had to be avoided like they were a plague.
What changed in people's mind ? Is it the society, in constant technological evolution, that requires skilled people to face the problems they now face with said technology ? Do you have a geek / nerd friend ? As in, really consider him a friend rather than an asset ? If so, how were you acting towards the "society-rejected" at school ? Did your opinion on outcasts evolve since then ?
Society does format us, starting early, at school, giving us a path to follow later on. But that formatting depends on whether you accept it, or refuse it. If you accept it, you are what society is willing to accept. If you refuse it, you might end up banned from said society, unless you're necessary to the society, which means little effort will be made to pretend you're part of it, despite all the mocking done about you when you're not here.
Geeks / nerds were often depicted as school outcasts that ended up as hackers, trying to harm the society. 10 years ago, would you have imagined seeing TV shows such as The I.T. Crowd, or The Big Bang Theory, depicting them as cool and funny people, living in their own world that is indeed weird, but you'd want to know more about ? Hell no. Society is evolving. Maybe trying to integrate the outcasts later on. But isn't that too late for it ? Isn't something broken in these people, that will take a lot of time and effort to fix ?
I'll try to write about that in the next post, unless you want me to go further onto something special ? Thanks for reading, and see you soon !
[ 11:05 ] [ April 22, 2010 ] [ 2 Comments ] [ Link ]