No Contest?

Without a shadow of a doubt, Bauerlein is absolutely correct in his assessment that  we spend our time unlike those of the past.  Less and less time is being spent on productive activity and more and more is being spent towards leisure. We watch more tv than ever. We socially network like the end of the world is tomorrow and the only way to stop it is by posting as many things on Facebook as possible. We find better ways to distract ourselves everyday.  This is not a debatable topic. You win this round Bauerline. Congrats. You just concluded the obvious. So we're the dumbest generation right? Sure we are... if you share the same definition of "dumbest" that I do.
After getting the dictionary run around, I came to the root of dumb, which is "not sensible or intelligent". Intelligence- the ability to learn and understand. So Mark Bauerlein is stating that our generation is least capable of learning and understanding. While most will take hostility towards this assessment, I simply just see a man with a narrow minded view.  Yes we are more self-indulgent than we've ever been. But I'll bet my life savings that this is a trend that has been exponentially growing at the same rate that the rest of human traits are. Point being, Bauerline short sighted point of view of intelligence has him in the wrong. Our generation has evolved like every other generation has. While for the most part we don't indulge in the the history of our people or the current nature of our countries politics, both of which are certainly important, we've learned to trade those studies for advanced technology and innovation. The fact that I can make as good of an argument as I am in half as much time as I would have 30 years ago, due to technology, is living proof that we are smarter than we've ever been.
I respect that Bauerline wants to play devil's advocate to those who say that our generation isn't lazy. He's probably right. What he is trying to do is anger our generation, so that some day we buck the evolutionary trend that I believe we're in. Its a similar message to Culture Jam in that he's identifying that the power to change the world is in our hands, yet we throw it away everytime we self-indulge. Its a powerful message. I wish he was able to convince me that if enough of us became Culture Jammers that we could lead a revolution. But Bauerline should know better than all of us that history repeats itself. The same mistakes humans made 100 years ago will still reign true tomorrow. Its our nature, and there's no need trying to argue against it.

The Hype Machine

Pages 18-21 talk about "Hype", as in advertisements. Lasn describes advertisements as "the most prevalent and toxic of mental pollutants". The clip we watched in Super Size Me showed how much money food corporations spent in advertising in one year compared to organic food corporations. In today's day and age, happiness is "derived" through attainment of the all mighty dollar, yet we see extremely wealthy Americans everyday commit ludicrous crimes, while much of middle class go through life with nothing more than a blemish on their criminal record. We also see the rich come out to the public with some of the worst mental issues that some of us have encountered. Do the rich encounter just as many problems in their "paradise" as the middle class does? Or do the sayings "money is the root of all evil" and "more money, more problems" ring true today? Is the middle class better off without all of the money? I personally believe that money is just a hinderance to one's personal achievement, nothing more than the materials it pays for. Yes you can say that we need money to live. Everyone has bills to pay. But do I really need 365 million dollars to pay my bills? Does anyone who makes more than a million dollars per year need that much money to pay their bills? Is anyone with that much money truly proud of their life? Few are for sure, having honestly earned their money through business that isnt harmful to the planet. The rest? Well, they probably think they are, but aren't.

Tyler Musselman: The Man, The Myth, The Hyperbole

As an accounting major and economics minor at Shippensburg University, it's not hard to figure that my life could use a little more excitement than I'll get studying those two topics everyday. While I personally find each my major and minor interesting, I also have passions for all types of sports, music, and culinary arts. And when I say all types, I mean almost all types. I follow and play everything from football to table tennis, listen to everything from classic rock to electronic/ drum & bass music, and enjoy the taste of everything from asparagus to venison. Of course there are a few things I dont certainly have a palette for from each, but I am certainly open to trying new things everyday. To be honest, I am taking this class to fill a gen ed but I chose literature over the others because I know for a fact that my reading skills can use some improvement and I found no other class better to hone them than literature. The last book I read was Meltdown by Thomas Woods. It's a more left wing look at the reasons behind our current financial crisis. As I said earlier, I don't read a whole lot of books, though I can admit that I should as there is a wealth of knowledge within. Literature was never something that appeal to me growing up, so I read minimally and still continue to selectively read about topics in my field of study. I feel that literature is art in written form, whether it be through novel, poem, etc. Art was never a strong aspect of my character, so it makes sense that I'm not much of a reader of literature. So until I blog again, good night and good luck.