Stuff

Begin blogger's barf:
 (After writing this monster of a blog, I realized you might not have time or attention span to read the whole thing. You might consider skipping down to the really big bold text "READ THIS" if you feel that this is the case.)



I love school right now. Seriously. Love it. I wish that I could forego sleep, forego food, and just, think. Just read. Just absorb. Yet, simultaneously, with these classes that am I enjoying and by which I am feeling so incredibly fulfilled, my brain spins and feels overloaded. I'm addicted. Though it is painful, all I can do is want more. 


Not everyone loves (their) education. Duh. Not everyone chooses to or gets the opportunity to study something they love. We could say this fact sucks. That, rather, everyone ought to study uniquely what interests them the most. We could. Or we could acknowledge that our American lifestyles require someone to be passionate about driving a stinky truck around and taking care of my trash for me once a week. 


Let's get real. 


Not everyone gets an "education" by our narrow definition. Not everyone goes to college, nor should everyone. Our paradoxical paradigms attempt to bring meaning to a system that perpetuates meaningless. Allow me to explain...


The current education system in the United States was roughly born out of the Industrial Revolution, to set individuals into templates for work in a factory-driven world in which they could assist in economic progress: making money and spending money. The current American system is decidedly post-industrialism, yet the education system remains reminiscent, in its purpose and structure, of the days of the roaring revolution. Two potentially conflicting paradigms of "the why" exist in this system: First, that the reason we must trudge on through this somewhat outdated education is to, eventually, make money so we can buy stuff (materialism!). Second, that the reason we must dance through this beautiful education is to pursue our dreams and passions. And these paradigms attempt to co-exist... GenMe preaches individualism yet it squeezes individuals through a homogenizing sieve, skinning their individualism of their bodies. Society praises those that follow their passions yet thrives because of the low wage laborers who have no choice but to do the silent bidding of those more "well off"than them. America preaches this dream that amounts to stuff (the white picket fence, the two-care family, the rose colored life of perfection and convenience). Yet those that achieve "success" and are able to buy stuff find themselves no happier than when they had less stuff and had not yet achieved "success."


Then those that have stuff see that the world is full of people who do not have stuff. (What they do not see is that their morbid over-consumption daily perpetuates the suffering of those people who do not have stuff.) And they feel this compulsion to help them (perhaps because, deep down inside, they do realize that they are the sadistic perpetrators). Let's think now...how do people in America achieve success so they can get stuff? Oh! Education! SO...the people that do not have stuff must need education. 
So organizations like Central Asia Institute, Zindagi Trust, Invisible Children, the Haiti Christian Development Fund, Mercy International (and the list goes on) give the "compassionate" Americans who see the people who do not have stuff a way to help the people who do not have stuff get stuff. 


Then comes another thing that the people who have stuff did not realize...
Their discontent, their need for more stuff, their guilt towards the inequality in ownership of stuff, made them less happy, in many cases, than the people who do not have stuff.

(Simplicity...)

This education as prescribed (dumped, forced, strongly suggested) by the Americans for those have nots would, eventually, by design, if it truly accomplished its purpose, teach those without stuff to want stuff and to get stuff. This education would give them the ability to get stuff. This education would rudely disrupt their way of life. 
Yes, perhaps they did not have the white picket fence of the two cars, but they lives more simple lives. They did not worry about their Acura compared to their neighbor's Lexus. They lived happier before the American education barged into their lives and hegemonically taught them the ways of those that have stuff. 

But that's not even the end of it... (By the way, if you want to stop reading...I can't see you so you won't hurt my feelings if you do. I'm available for coffee anytime...almost. And we can just talk about all this crazy stuff in person if you like... 
And...blogger's barf continues)

But that's not even the end of it. 
Some of these who do not have stuff, though happier than those that do have stuff, clamor to have education! They want education. They are not blind to the difference between themselves and they that do have stuff. Of course they aren't! Are world is saturated with ads and media that sell stuff and the importance of having it. 

(Here it is...READ THIS)

They that have stuff, knowing deep inside that their every day consumer decisions create the suffering of those that do not have stuff, and not knowing how to fix this inequality without completely scrapping their consumerist way of life (which they thought the rather liked), invented a system of paradigm saturation (Coca-Colonization and ad campaigns) so that those that did not have stuff would want something (education in the key of the global north) to change their merry, yet perceivedly dreary, state of lacking stuff, so that they (those that have stuff) could console their guilt by bringing education to those that do not have stuff.

Put more simply (just ask me sometime and I'll draw a topic map for you!)...


The rich of the world created a system in which the poor would be desirous of a means by which to become rich. The rich created this image of education as the light, as the solution to inequality and suffering. Yet the rich did it only to appease their own conscience. 

(enter: criticism or affirmation)

-nate bozarth