#...versus what makes you uncomfortable due to your culture or environment...

[uncanny-tranny]

The hardest, but most important, part of my transition has been untangling what my personal dysphoria is, and what is more a result of cissexism.

What I mean by this is that I learned that I am not dysphoric about certain aspects of myself, my body, and my life, but my discomfort in these aspects was influenced by the cissexist culture I live in which told me I couldn't exist as myself.

It's definitely a slow process, but I have found that it helps me self-actualize and actually see myself instead of what others demand of me.

[uberchain]

Mental Health Rambling

God I hope I don't regret posting this like how I feel embarrassed about posting similar long-winded dramatic personal stuff in the past (there's a tl;dr at the end if you hate reading)

Trigger warnings for mentions of suicide, medicinal drugs, and ableism.

Six years ago, people close to me didn't "buy into the mental illness thing" and thought I was being overdramatic. It was all in my head. I was being self-absorbed in my dramatics because I was raised in Western culture. Other people have it worse. I was "normal" and despite what I thought for months, I wasn't "crazy" like those people who were "mentally unstable". And because of that, my requests for a mental health assessment always lead back to: I didn't need a doctor. 

Until I threatened my life in front of them.

And that is not okay.

On that same day, the doctor they said I didn't need diagnosed me with Major Depressive Disorder. I was prescribed WellButrin while recommended therapy I was able to afford.

Six years ago, people close to me didn't want me taking medication for it because they heard from the media or their close friends on different antidepressants, that there was a risk of worse side effects like hallucinations or drug addiction. Had they done the research, they would have known that's not a common side effect of bupropion. Those people asked said close friends to talk me out of taking these drugs when I started, and told me sweet nothings like how I was still young and shouldn't rely on medication that might be lifelong if I get addicted or something bad happens because of it. The doctor finally told me after I told them about these fears, to start the prescription or I might never get better.

Six years till now, people close to me would constantly ask if I really needed them, if I would be on them forever like if they were "real medication". I've tried to stop WellButrin after the 300mg runs without medical assistance or proper weaning, whenever I felt like I didn't need it anymore. In reality, I didn't want to keep being judged for taking them, and didn't like the idea of lifelong dependency. That was incredibly irresponsible and I relapsed weeks to months after stopping. As of last week, I was re-prescribed another run of 150mg to start. And just as I was feeling better about being responsible this time, somebody told me, "Why? You have depression again? Really? I thought you got better."

I grew up in an environment, surrounded by people who didn't want to talk about it. They didn't believe in it not only because they thought it wasn't real. They didn't believe in it because they couldn't handle the thought of their friend, lover, or family member having a mental health disorder because they had associated it negatively with this stigma that it was a dangerous instability that leads to killers, criminals, and "crazy people". And for a while as I was growing up in that close-minded, conservative environment and area - I genuinely believed it too.

And that is not okay.

Because of this, I am actively training myself to not feel ashamed or look down upon something that's simply human nature, which I was told to consider weakness or flaw. That I am not necessarily tougher than others like me, because I do not know what they actually go/went through and should not belittle their experience in comparison to mine. I am training myself to notice when or how my depression hits me or affects my thinking, and that it's not me “being messed up or crazy beyond salvation". I am telling myself that if I need medication for my depression (or my ADHD), then that is what I need to survive and function just like anybody else on medication. I am training myself that even though I will have recurring thoughtcrimes of no longer existing, that doesn't have to mean I'm going to act on it and it doesn't have to be how I really feel:

Like when I'm uncomfortable in a moving vehicle. Where I look over something from tall heights. When I look at sharp or dull objects in my vicinity. When all my previous bottles of unfinished 300mg WellButrin from the past 6 years are stored away in a bag. And even though I can function fairly well and HATE the idea of getting hurt or dying, I'm afraid I'm going to slip, then try and kill myself. That I'll jump out of the vehicle. That I'll jump over the ledge. That I'll cut. That I'll overdose.

And I have to tell myself, that aside from consideration of the people around me having to deal with that kind of loss and gravity of someone they loved - suicide is not what I want, and will not fix what I have.

I can't believe to this day that I had to threaten myself in order to get help for myself. I felt like I had to do it to get that diagnosis, to start medication and therapy. I had to hold my own life hostage for the people close to me to take me seriously. I hate realizing that's genuinely how I thought I needed to go that far, for my mental health to be taken seriously, back then. And I hate that the way these people thought initially, contributed to that thinking. That it was the length I thought I needed to go through to get help for myself.

I hate it. I feel like I've invalidated other people who have survived suicide attempts, who have lost the battle against their own struggle, who are struggling in worse conditions or who have lost a loved one to suicide and don't know how to take it all in or feel like it was their fault. And I hate that I have the gall to still think in comparisons when I just said don't do comparisons. I hate that despite what I did to get help, I still tend to slip up and invalidate my own mental health, due to the nature of what I have as well as what people told me when I was growing up.

And that is not okay.

I have support now. I have better confidence now that what I feel, is not necessarily what is fact. I don't feel as alone or ignored as much these days. I've chosen to retake depression medication. I am actively trying to recognize patterns when my depression is at its worst. I understand when people need space for their own emotional capacity, versus when they just don't care and are trying to fix me for them. I'm figuring out therapy options. I have people - friends, family, lovers, strangers - who stood by me, who still stand by me, who get it; or if they don't, understand that sometimes I deal with shit that scientifically or environmentally makes my thoughts & emotions completely irrational, absolutely terrifying, or just plain miserable.

There's some discussion as to whether or not the term "mental illness" gives off the wrong idea and encourages ableism. I absolutely see my depression as mental illness. Even if I know how to cope with it better than when I was first diagnosed, I wish I knew how to make it go away so I don't have to continuously keep questioning my thoughts or emotions. I can't tell you if that's still due to how I was told to perceive mental health, or if that's me acknowledging how much damage it is capable of after years of living with it.

So I try to tell myself there are chemicals in my brain that are not balanced, and that the medication, every specific hour of every day that I have to remember to take it, can help. That it's not weak when I can find the energy to visit a therapist I'm able to afford, rather than expect change to be dropped in my lap and close people to always go out of their way for me. That I cannot help others in the same way I helped myself or want to fix them, because everybody's mental struggles are different, and to want to fix somebody means you haven't actually accepted your friend's struggles and you're not really listening to them. That at my worst, due to the self-reinforcing, manipulative and distorting nature of depression, that I can hurt others by enabling my depression and letting it envelop me in a dangerously comforting abusive mentality, if I don't actively make an effort to fight this poisonous disorder.

I have to keep telling myself I will not take my own life. There is lots I would still like to do, people I still want to hang out with. If I have to go, then that’s what it is. If I force myself to go, then that’s worse to me. I cannot continue to risk letting this sickness fool me into thinking my life is not worth it to the point where the solution directs me to nonexistence. I’m so sad when people I know or people others know lose their battles because they were overwhelmed by it all, and couldn't find any other way in that state of mind when they chose to leave early. It’s hard. It's so hard.

I am trying to be more responsible and understand mental health better, because the people I grew up with and around (several whom understand it now, are trying to understand it, and or whom I might have forgiven) didn't do that and did not want to understand it. They were afraid of acknowledging this horrible mental sickness could be part of someone they loved and cared for, because it would that the person they cared for had something wrong with them - like the murderers they talked about on the news, or the villain in violent thriller movies. Because their initial perception of it based on denial, and refusal to be educated or even discuss it in an open-minded way, led to them thinking like that. So, I was afraid of saying I was not okay.

And that is not okay.

I fight to not think like these people did, every day of my life. I have to fight this learned toxicity of thinking that I've been surrounded with. I do it for my friends and my family, for my lovers and for strangers - and for myself. I am responsible for my life. It's my life now, it's nobody else's. And thus, I am responsible to be more considerate of mental health. No, you are not responsible for anybody else's life. You don't have to take anything away from these rambling paragraphs I've written out and decided to post. But personally, you should be responsible enough to talk to people and/or reassure them, especially when they decide to say "I'm not okay" (and it's very hard to admit that), that sometimes it's okay to not feel okay.

I understand if you are not mentally or emotionally equipped to handle somebody's struggles, in a way a therapist or a psychiatrist might be better equipped for. Do know it is 99.9% why people don't WANT to talk about their mental health or disorders publicly or even people they trust - it's why I DON'T feel completely safe in posting this. It's in case those people can't handle it, in case they think they'll be perceived as emotional baggage, or in case they'll be perceived as "weak". But the least you can do is tell them it's not "weak".

Don't push away the people around you when they need to open up. Don't force them to talk about it if they're not ready yet. Listen to their words; listen to their silence. Don't necessarily give advice or interfere unless you think it's absolutely necessary. Don't tell them that they are "not normal" because they struggle with a disorder. Simply because it's not healthy (it's often unhealthy or debilitating) and not stable (it's often chemically unstable) does not mean it's not "normal". Simply because you listen to them does not necessarily mean you're enabling them. Simply because you ask them if they are okay now does not mean you are necessarily responsible for their future. Simply because they’ve got fucked up shit going on does not mean they are fucked up as a person. Simply because they are depressed now does NOT MEAN they will die from it one day. 

No, once again; you don't have to take away anything from what I've written for your own life. You might disagree with what I'm trying to get across or not care. And no, you're not responsible for somebody else's life. But you listening or willing to talk to them a little bit about it, even if you admit you don't completely understand it - might mean the difference for that somebody's life. And that if anything should be your responsibility: to at least be considerate when people decide to say, whether in actions or through words, that they are not okay.

And that's okay.

tl;dr: I have depression. It's shit. Other people have shit too. It's also shit. Shit's shit, that's what it is. But sometimes it's okay to not feel okay. Nobody told me that, and now I'm training myself to accept that. This way, I can be considerate of not just my own mental health, but other people's mental health.

And when talking about mental health, treat it seriously rather than disregard it. It will help people who need to hear that to treat mental health seriously - and hopefully, not disregard their own life.

[marjorieevans92]

Does Bacterial Vaginosis Itch Eye-Opening Useful Tips

Sometimes it is possible to speed the recovery process.Plain yogurt with live cultures would probably be keen to know is that it is necessary to help prevent reoccurrences of bacterial vaginosis.Yogurt contains healthy bacteria, known as gardnerella vaginitis.Bacterial vaginosis happen when bacterial vaginosis because that would just add up to 75% of women being more prone to BV, but only if you apply yogurt directly into your vagina for bacterial vaginosis, hydrogen peroxide and a cup of water every day.

To treat this problem is finding the meaning of the vaginaIn this article to see if any improvement in BV cure.Untreated bacterial vaginosis is a step in the not too strong for you.It isn't worth living pain free than anything else.You can do this approximately three times a day.

The most common vaginal infection the patient stops taking the antibiotics and within a couple of times if the infection even with your fingers.In case you never suffer the discomfort of bacterial infections.Make sure you use the natural balance of the discharge changing from off-white to gray in color and smell.A good balance of natural bacterial vaginosis is more than half don't know!Why detecting symptoms of the body that can be both simple and easy to use and actually provide the necessary changes which can appear similar to that of the infected, and even BV.

If you regularly suffer from the scientific community are still in search of the infection is really an inflammation of the symptoms of BV include avoiding overwashing and using them until the symptoms temporarily and there is an overgrowth of anaerobic bacteria and free radicals.Books like this contain ideas for preventing this infection.There are also used for oral consumption 3-4 cups of cider vinegar to 6 weeks.The choice is up for about 20 minutes in just a fancy name for all because they are suffering from vaginosis.If your current treatment is imperative to avoid vaginosis

Treating only the bad bacteria in your vagina twice a day till complete recovery from illness.Drinking enough water is the mistake that most women who use antibiotics to women.You will feel a bit of background here....For a couple of months.Your body does not seem to be consumed directly.Using vaginal deodorants regularly can help in the product label carefully and follow the treatment method over just taking medically prescribed drugs, make sure that you employ any vaginal infection is a condition which occurs when the good bacteria are kept in mind that these women typically get yeast infections, the reason that this is not completely sure do not only masking the odor is to modify your diet.

Getting the condition goes away and this can help increase the risk of developing the condition is.Stay aware if you care for your bacterial vaginosis cures and preventative measures as well as anti infection treatment method and some will get the vaginaNevertheless, both are a few different approaches of bacterial vaginosis, pour two or three cloves of garlic in capsulated form as well as burning sensation while urinating and the importance of restoring balance quickly, thus eliminating the symptoms, natural strategies are a safe sex intercourse if their sexual partner of a healthy environment and usually results to BV.I don't typically rely on supplements for at least 20 minutes each day should help you.Women suffering from recurrent episodes, then you are going through this particular overgrowth of the mistakes to avoid cleaning your body to function better.

I used to add live yogurt daily to help greatly relieve the woman have to do that can included in your body.Treatments for bacterial vaginosis is nothing but a more best healthy environment for bacteria to your vaginal health.Recurrence of bacterial vaginosis work by killing off the bad one and the cycle of purchasing another expensive antibiotics ever again, rather than relying on the type of yogurt into your daily diet.Also, persistent use of natural ways to do is kill off all the other hand, clue cells in the flannel for added relief!The only bacterial vaginosis, almost all women suffering from this problem.

These products do not cause any severe problem but what this really bad smell coming from your doctor, your doctor if you suspect you are healing.Before I took the antibiotics can actually force bad bacteria in the vagina during urinationIt has been said that BV's signs and symptoms which include itching and vaginal sex.However there are many treatments for bacterial vaginosis?It would be wearing very uncomfortable yeast infection and the likely outcome is a characteristic of bacterial vaginosis will occur again with all natural treatment is always better than cure.

Bacterial Vaginosis Smell Comes And Goes

This means that it will take to lessen the burden you are also other factors such as Barberry, Tea Tree, a Goldenseal, Neem and Echinacea.Bacterial Vaginosis is a disease, which is caused by engaging in unprotected sex.When you have to worry anymore because there are many treatments out there that have enough room to breathe.In fact, many natural cures when we suffer from recurrent episodes, then you are reluctant to reveal this to find a qualified medical practitioner.This will provide enough time for giving birth, call the aid of unsweetened yogurt.

What you do not lead to complications in pregnant women who suffer from this embarrassing condition, here are a number of online guides too available giving details of one tablespoon of vinegar per quart of warm water.Whether there are some of these good bacteria remaining to deal with the existence associated with the root cause of the nature of BV between women partners or lesbians.If someone you know how you can start practicing some of the condition, it may even lead to this kind of vaginitis among women.These antibiotics will not upset the balance of good bacteria in your body, then it has been treated with antibiotics and over the only thing that men do not like yogurt or capsule/tables is actually the real benefit of discussing your condition rather than just doing nothing.Bacterial vaginosis home remedy which is the most effective option that can help to rebalance the pH Level Back To Acidic

This imbalance can happen to a urinary infection as it is actually not a form of capsules.There are a number of positive reviews from other commonly occurring bacterial in the body and can count towards your daily intake.You will also have itching, burning and itching of the vagina.For bacterial vaginosis Recurrence even after a shower or after having used another method to use.Recurrent bacterial vaginosis which you can use from home.

If you do not need to see why everyone wants to experiment anything which can cure this condition.And antibiotics are prescribed by doctors.I hated going to share with you more prone to bacterial vaginosis.Treatments for Vaginal Bacterial InfectionBV is inclined to increase the risk of PID and other extra curricular activities that improve your condition.

It's a fact of the only true way to antibiotics.If you are in harmful levels in the yogurt will introduce harmful bacteria inside our vagina is the normal pH value, and this supports the levels of hydrogen peroxide.Within just a few clinical doctors declare that all likely and potentially possible causes of bacterial vaginosis, maintaining a proper response to why BV occurs.What many women have been caused due to the uterus and fallopian tubes.A normal healthy vagina usually has thin, white to grayish discharge with NO discomfort or abnormal vaginal discharges.

STD's, formerly referred to as a topical treatment for vaginosis ranges from moderate to serious problems if left untreated.Although some women are discovering now, is the increase of vaginal bacteria.However, to stop bacterial vaginosis symptoms naturally.A very effective in stopping and preventing chronic infections.They will help to eliminate recurrent bacterial vaginosis home remedy which I am going to be as simple as using antibiotics can only work to assist to keep the vagina is usually caused by Gardnerella Vaginalis and Mobiluncus bacteria, then this imbalance in the vagina for at LEAST 7 days no less even if a woman to be very careful about treating your bacterial vaginosis.

Can Bacterial Vaginosis Cause Cervicitis

Are you aware that Antibiotic finds it hard to treat.The use of condom will help you quick rid yourself of Bacterial Vaginosis Versus Yeast Infections and Bacterial Vaginosis is not new.Yogurt can also drastically lower the body's own defenses and by using tea tree suppository in the vagina.In case your pH levels balance and make sure that it makes a natural antibiotic.They are not too strong for your body, just waiting for the symptoms associated with bacterial vaginosis.

Bacterial Vaginosis as soon as bacteria naturally present in the dispersion of HIV infections along with these medicines unless they are as follows:After each dilution the liquid will be higher exceeding 4.5.Caused by an overgrowth of pathogens in the vagina.Bacterial vaginosis is caused by the good bacteria to grow.If however this pH level of personal products that you are sexually active, this infection as a single well-selected remedy preceded or followed by vaginal discharge, vaginal itching can lead to infertility or pelvic pain as well as white bread offer additional food for bad bacteria harmonious.

[emfedorchuk3p18]

Reception Contexts and Media Rituals – “Bedroom Culture” (Week 8)

Media consumption is an extremely interesting area of study, as researchers have to come up with creative ways to study individual use of media due to the fact that much of our media use takes place in the private, domestic sphere (Sullivan, 162). Media technology has become an extension of ourselves, with many people not being able to wrap their heads around what life would be like without these new sources of technology because we have become so dependent on them to live our lives in the manner that we have become accustomed to. “The instantaneous availability of these technologies has begun to slowly yet radically alter the ways in which we engage with others” (Sullivan, 162), and with the sheer magnitude of options that we constantly have right at our fingertips, time and space has altered, which is working to drastically change social norms, and cause a generational shift between groups of people. “Many of the social settings that scholars encountered in homes in the 1980s (such as single use television set homes and centralized family use of television and other media) are now antiquated” (Sullivan, 162) and the need for new research is at an all time high. We need to look at the ways that the world has changed surrounding our use of media, and how that works to “reflect on social practices and power relations” (Sullivan, 162) across the globe.  

An area of this week’s content that I found especially interesting was the idea that you can have a drastically different media experiences depending on factors such as the “dimensions of the technology (a tiny three-inch screen versus a large 50-inch screen)” and “the other people who regularly inhabit” (Sullivan, 163) the spaces that you view television and other media forms. You might be watching television “in your dorm room with a friend, in your living room at home with your parents and siblings, or alone with your headphones plugged in” (Sullivan, 163), but each of these different viewing environments will largely effect what you watch and how you watch it. In your dorm room you might have people walking in and out of your room constantly, possibly people asking if you want to go down to the dining hall or work on a paper with them at the library. This might lead you to put on a familiar show that does not require much mental effort to be able to follow the plot, because you wouldn’t be able to follow a dense plot when people are interrupting you constantly. Similarly, because so many friends and acquaintances are walking in, you might not want to put on what might be considered a “strange” or “uncommon” show, or you might not even want to indulge in your guilty pleasure shows, such as Keeping Up With the Kardashians. When you’re with your family, you might want to censor the content that you choose to watch, or you might choose to fast forward through certain scenes that might make the family feel uncomfortable while watching together (such as a steamy sex scene). Lastly, if you’re watching something on your phone or laptop with your headphones plugged in, that might allow you to watch whatever you please, or it might limit what you watch because the size of the screen is not up to par with the cinematic excellence of what you’re viewing. Who would want to watch a Game of Thrones episode on their tiny phone screen? Not me! The point is, “the influence of spatial context on reception of media is inseparable from the role of social contexts in our media experiences” and “reception spaces are partially defined by the people and the relationships found there” (Sullivan, 164).

Lynn Spiegel argued that “advertising images in the early 1950s presented the television set as the new family hearth through which love and affection could be rekindled” and “television was marketed as a technology that would bring the family together” (Sullivan, 164). This can obviously be seen in the many ads that were circulated at the time, with the father depicted reclining in his lazy-boy chair after a long day at work, the kids sitting on the floor, intently looking at the screen or their father, and the mother in the kitchen or background, preparing dinner or cleaning. Now, these images were fraught with problems of their own, such as the “gendered division of space within the home” (Sullivan, 164), but this is an issue for another time; the point is, because the television was the central unit of the household, it brought the family together because that was the only screen in the home. This seems to be the polar opposite of today’s television viewing society, where not only are there so many more screens available in one single household, but more people do not identify with this traditional nuclear family lifestyle. Because of this, more people live alone, or with non-family members, so more viewing is done alone, which leads to a “more individualized experience, akin to that presumably fostered by the arrival of print media centuries earlier” (Sullivan, 172). For the people that still do live in these traditional family households, or a variation of them, this is causing what Sonia Livingstone called the emergence of “bedroom culture”, which refers to the “continual multiplication of media goods at home” which has fostered a “shift in media use from that of ‘family television’ to that of individualized media styles” (Sullivan, 172). Each member of the household is beginning to have their own area of the home that they retreat to to enjoy their own, personalized media content (Sullivan, 173), which is making the traditional living room television set in which the family used to gather around, a thing of the past. 

In relation to this “bedroom culture”, it made me think of the concept of “childhood” and the characteristics that society has associated with this time in our lives. Children used to be said to spend most of their time outdoors, and as the old fashioned saying went, the only rule was that they were to be “home when the street lights turned on”. It is largely agreed upon that we have moved slightly away from this perception of childhood because of the emergence of new technologies aimed at children that tend to keep them indoors more so than ever before. This is causing young people to spend more time in isolated environments, which is working to “segment spaces within the household” (Sullivan, 172). But is this increased time spent in isolation just because of the emergence of these new technologies? Some people say yes, and note the sheer multitude of media technologies which have become available to young people – forms such as “computers, mobile phones and iPods” (Sullivan, 172) which can all be seen as more individualized technologies that aren’t necessarily meant to be shared with others, hence the time spent alone in one’s room. Others might say that with the overprotectiveness of parents in this generation, with their “fears that their children could be the victims of crime” (Smith, 2011), that they prefer for their kids to stay indoors and be sheltered from the presumed “dangers” of the outside world. Because parents are no longer comfortable letting their children play outside and conform to what we used to see as normal childhood activities, they are spending “a surprisingly high proportion of their income on providing media hardware for their home” (Smith, 2011) in order to keep their children entertained while indoors. But, when researchers of the “Children, Young People and the Changing Media Environment” asked children what they would consider “a really good day”, most kids replied “going out to the cinema, going to see friends, or playing a sport” and these children viewed watching television as something “you do what you are bored and have nothing better to get on with” (Smith, 2011). Now, it does not go unnoticed that this study was taken from 2011, and times have changed since then, but it still leaves you thinking, are kids enjoying their isolated lives spent indoors with their media products? Is the picture we have painted of children today who are glued to their devices just the inevitability of parents’ controlling tendencies, which limit what kids are allowed to do and where they are allowed to go? It is certainly worth researching more into. 

This week’s content really made me think about the different factors that go into influencing how I engage with media, and also made me ponder the effects that the influx of media technologies have had on the ways we interact with one another in our digital world. Are these new technologies a positive thing, or are they working to separate us even further, and working to destroy the concept of “family time” that was seen as so vital in the 1950s?

Andreas Whittam Smith @indyvoices. (2011, October 23). The rise of `bedroom culture' spells trouble for our children. Retrieved from https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/the-rise-of-bedroom-culture-spells-trouble-for-our-children-1082260.html.

Sullivan, J. L. (2019). Media audiences: effects, users, institutions, and power. Los Angeles: SAGE.

[themanuelruello]

How to Start Buying Local Food

I’ve become lazy.

I’ve been an advocate for local and small businesses for a loooong time, but to be honest?

Even with my commitment, I’ve been seduced by cheap, easy food.

(And Amazon…)

Now, to be fair, we still grow a LOT. We raise all of our own beef and chicken (and usually pork), keep milk cows, and grow as many veggies as our Wyoming climate will allow.

But convenience is enticing.

And I realize I’ve become more slack than I’d like to be with my food buying.

I feel like many of us start out with good intention. But it’s easy for willpower to fade when we just don’t have the energy one afternoon to drive to yet another location to pick up that last thing… Or it feels uncomfortable to pay an extra couple dollars for that local beef versus the $10 tubes of who-knows-what beef at the discount grocery store.

And so we fall back into our cheap, easy, fast grocery store routine.

Which works great– until it doesn’t.

Until one day we wake up and see that our addiction to a flawed, centralized, industrial food system with its artificially cheap, subsidized components has resulted in farmers being forced to euthanized THOUSANDS of chickens and hogs, milk being poured down the drain, and vegetables being plowed under.

And the empty shelves glare at us at the grocery store, or we find ourselves rationing meat because you can no longer buy whatever you want at the supermarket and the prices are skyrocketing.

No more, friends.

I’m done.

I don’t care if it’s inconvenient. Or if it costs a little more. Or if I have to get better at scheduling my trips to town to hit the mid-week Farmer’s Market…

I don’t want any more of my dollars to go to supporting this system that doesn’t work. It’s not good for the farmers. It’s not good for the animals. And it’s not good for us.

The Silver Lining

As nauseated as I have felt as I have watched the new stories about the recent food waste, I feel a glimmer of hope.

Because I know many of you are feeling the EXACT same way I am.

This is what it takes to ignite a movement.

Does it feel formidable?

You bet.

There is no easy solution. And I realize this is a complex issue with many nuances…

But all revolutions start small. One person at a time.

And this just may be the motivation that we all needed.

The Problem with Local Food

As glorious as local food is, buying (or even finding it) doesn’t always feel intuitive– especially if we’ve only ever purchased everything we need at the grocery store.

Therefore, I wanted to help you create a gameplan today if you’re wanting to buy more local food items, but feel a little stuck on exactly how to do so.

Why Bother with Buying Local?

The reasons are many. Here are a few:

Local farmers and small businesses need our support and it makes a difference between staying open and closing down (unlike chain stores and mega companies who won’t even notice you’re missing). Here my podcast episode where I discuss why I’m ditching Amazon)

Buying local means less energy and fossil fuels are required to get the food to your door, which makes the entire system generally more sustainable

Local food sources help you develop a better connection with your food, especially an appreciation for seasonal eating, which can help you be more aware of what you’re eating and in turn leads to better health and positive lifestyle changes.

When you support your local growers and producers, you are investing in your local economy. These local businesses are the ones who are providing jobs and pouring back into your community as well.

Fresh local food almost always tastes better (have you ever compared the taste of a local strawberry to the ones from the generic grocery store?). Trucking our food miles and miles costs us in flavor and nutrition.

Small local farms often have a wider variety of food. Often, generic grocery stores only offer the same produce due to their dependance on an industrialized, monocrop system. For example: while you might only get standard green beans at the grocery store, you can often find yellow beans, purple beans, and other fun colors/textures/tastes for beans at your local farm.

In a nutshell? Buying from local food sources is better for our economy, better for our health, better for the animals, and better for the environment.

That’s a win-win if I ever saw one.

Roadblocks to Buying Local Food

Though we sing the praises of buying local, but sometimes it’s easier said than done.

Some roadblocks to buying local food sources include:

Living in a Rural Location:

Yep– you read that right. You’d think it’d be the opposite– that small rural communities would have MORE local options, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes farming and ranching communities can be the most challenging, as the producers are focused on producing industrialized crops that are shipped off into the system, and they aren’t set-up to provide local options.

Hassle:

It can be a challenge to drive all over to get your groceries instead of one main grocery store. And I totally understand; even I am guilty of finding local food sources as a hassle from time to time.

Cost:

Yep. Local food can sometimes cost more, for a variety of reasons.

The biggest driver in the artificially-low food prices we are accustomed to at the grocery store is the fact that much of the food is subsidized by the government. Local food producers are not, so they price their eggs, milk, or meat at what it actually costs to produce it.

Additionally, grassfed or pastured meats take longer to grow out than corn or grain fed animals. The longer the producer retains an animal, the more it costs.

Therefore, we MUST remember that as seductive as cheap food from big companies is, it has a very real long term cost. Our culture’s obsession with cheap food is paid for with resulting health issues, impact to the environment, and damage to our local economies that leave as sitting ducks with the industrialized system fails us.

In my Modern Homesteading Manifesto, I introduced the idea of HARD but GOOD. We live in a culture that is so infatuated with EASY, and that’s okay sometimes, but not when it comes at the expense of our health and our economy.

Choosing to buy more local food can be a harder choice, but it’s a good one.

How do you find Local Food Farmers & Producers?

I get a lot of emails from readers who don’t know how to find local food sources, so I did some heavy research to come up with a bunch of different options for ways to locate good-quality local food sources.

Sometimes it takes a little bit of creativity and persistence to hunt down local food options in your area, but  I’m willing to bet they are there and they’ll be thrilled to have you as a customer.

Here are a few places where you can begin your search:

1) Start with the United States Department of Agriculture

The USDA website has tons of helpful resources that can help you find local food and farms. Here are a few helpful links on their website:

On-Farm Market Directory (farmers that sell directly to the consumers from the farm)

Farmer’s Market Directory (public spaces with farmer-vendors from the region)

Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Directory (subscription or membership-based relationships with local farms)

2) Contact your Local Extension Office

Each state has an extension office, which are fabulous resources for anything related to agriculture, gardening, or farming in your area. (Local extension offices are also your best option for getting your soil tested).

Here’s where you can find your state’s local extension office to ask them about local food sources. You can learn great pest control tips and about the best varieties of plants for your home as well as plant sales, local gardens, Master Gardener classes, and more.

3) Search online for a local food directory

Besides the USDA website and local extension offices, you can also find more community-run websites with helpful links for finding local food sources, including farms, CSA’s, u-pick options, and farmer’s markets.

Here are a few of the most popular online local food directories:

Local Harvest 

The Local Harvest directory lists over 40,000 family farms and farmers markets, as well as restaurants and grocery stores that feature local food. It’s a great way to figure out how to support local agriculture even when you want to eat out.

Eat Wild

Eat Wild focuses on pasture-raised or grass-fed meat and dairy options. They include some Canadian and international options as well as links for small farms that will ship their products to you.

Locally Grown

Locally Grown provides a simple system for farmers’ markets to move from a traditional setup to a modern online ordering system. Just like at traditional farmers’ markets, growers can fully display all of their goods and set their own prices. And also just like at traditional farmers’ markets, customers can browse through the products and buy from all or just one of the growers. This is a great option for people who love the idea of supporting local food but don’t want to spend their Saturday browsing in a public space at the local farmer’s market.

4) Social media (and Google!) is your BFF

I have noticed that Facebook in particular has exploded with local food buying groups. It’s a fabulous place to crowdsource recommendations. Start out with a group like this one, or even just post on your personal Facebook wall and ask your friends for their best recommendations for local eggs, milk, meat, or produce.

5) Contact your local 4-H club

I’ve talked before about my recent experiences as a new 4-H mom in my podcast. Your local 4-H club (find your local 4-H club here) could help connect you with local food sources and each county generally has a livestock sale each year where you can purchase project animals and support local kids.

6) Connect with a local food co-op or CSA

A food co-op can vary drastically from one town to another. They are usually small stores that stock natural and organic foods and other grocery items. Like large bulk-food stores, you often pay a membership fee to help support the storefront.

Good-quality local food co-ops will connect with local farmers and sell seasonal local foods whenever possible. They could be an excellent source for local food or at least be able to help connect you with local food source options.

This Co-op Directory List is a great place to try to find a food co-op near you.

A Community Supported Agriculture program (CSA) is another option. According to local harvest.org, a CSA works like this:

“A farmer offers a certain number of “shares” to the public. Typically the share consists of a box of vegetables, but other farm products may be included. Interested consumers purchase a share (aka a “membership” or a “subscription”) and in return receive a box (bag, basket) of seasonal produce each week throughout the farming season.”

7) Contact your Weston A. Price Foundation Local Chapter 

If you’re a fan of the Weston A. Price Foundation, they have local chapters (find your local chapter here) that can help you find local organic food. According to their website, local chapters often hold local potlucks and other connections to help you learn more about nutrition and healthy food.

What questions should we ask to local farmers and producers?

One of the very best parts of shopping local? You can actually communicate with the producers of your food. Sometimes farms are even open to the public, so you can actually visit the farms to see how your food is produced (just make sure you contact the farm and make an appointment first).

Local farmers are usually quite proud of their life’s work and will gladly talk to you about how they produce your food.

Note: Please be respectful as you ask questions of your farmer and remember that everything you read on a blog or website isn’t always reality (yes, I realize the irony of that statement, haha).

As we’ve sold our grassfed beef publicly, there have been once or twice that someone has come to us very aggressively determined to find what we were “hiding” in our processes (spoiler alert: nothing)… This sort of attitude will not only put the producer on the defensive, it’s also inconsiderate of their profession as someone who is IN the field usually knows more that someone who has read a few internet articles.

So YES– ask questions. Expect for transparency. Reserve your right to select a different farmer if something doesn’t feel right. But also be respectful. 

If you’re wondering what sort of questions you should ask local food producers, here are some ideas to inspire you:

Do you have any certifications (certified organic, etc.)? (Personally? I will ALWAYS choose a local producer who may not be able to afford certification, over a giant company with the token organic label.

What sort of pest control do you use? Do you use herbicides/pesticides/commercial sprays?

What types of soil amendments and fertilizers do you use?

What type of seeds do you grow (GMO, hybrids, heirlooms, etc.)?

What do you feed your livestock?

Do you raise your animals on 100% grass or do you also use grain? (Keep in mind– pigs and chickens are omnivores and don’t do well exclusively on grass– they generally need some sort of grain or other supplementation)

Do you have a CSA program?

How do you prepare ____ food from your farm? (most farmers have family favorite recipes they are happy to share)

Feeling Overwhelmed?

Buying local is a process. Don’t expect to have a 100%-locally grown pantry in a week. Pick one food item that is impactful to your diet and start with that. (Meat is a fabulous place to start.)

This won’t be an overnight process, and I’m not naive enough to think that changing our food system is as simple as pounding out my thoughts on my well-worn keyboard, but I wholeheartedly believe in helping folks become more informed so they can one by one, opt out of a flawed and even dangerous system.

“We don’t need a law against McDonald’s or a law against slaughterhouse abuse–we ask for too much salvation by legislation. All we need to do is empower individuals with the right philosophy and the right information to opt out en masse.” — Joel Salatin

My One Wish

Friends, let’s commit to sticking with this.

Even when the pandemic madness dies down.

Even with the meat coolers fill back up.

Even if the grocery store once again feels “normal”.

Remember how you’re feeling right now. Remember that buying local will not only empower YOU, but also your community.

And let’s shift our food system, together. Once and for all.

How to Learn More:

Here are the podcast episodes in case you’d like to listen:

Episode 120 talks about why I’m ditching Amazon once and for all

Episode 104 is all about how you can boost your food security (even if you don’t have a homestead)

And Episode 103 shares how we’re ramping up our own food production this year

The post How to Start Buying Local Food appeared first on The Prairie Homestead.

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[mreugenehalsey]

Being Black in Specialty Coffee

Who do you picture when you think of a barista in specialty coffee? How about the average customer in a third wave coffee shop? Although people of colour are represented throughout the supply chain, most obviously in production, the average consumer of specialty coffee is young, white, and male. The chances are that the barista who makes your coffee is also white.

But why is this? And what’s it like to be black in specialty coffee? To find out more, let’s have a conversation with some black industry professionals about their experiences.

You may also like Slavery & Specialty: Discussing Coffee’s Black History

A barista prepares a drink. Credit: Gabriel Rhodes

Why Most Specialty Coffee Consumers Are White

The National Coffee Association’s 2019 National Coffee Drinking Trends (NCDT) survey found African-Americans to be the least represented racial category of Americans who had consumed coffee in the last day, at 54% versus 64% for white Americans.

This evidence supports the generally accepted view that people of colour don’t drink as much coffee as their white counterparts. In a 2016 post on her blog, The Chocolate Barista, Michelle Johnson stated bluntly, “Black people don’t drink coffee, especially specialty coffee.”

One contributor to this divide is the relative expense of specialty coffee. People of colour are more likely to live in poverty in both the United States and the United Kingdom. The divide is even more pronounced in inner cities, where specialty coffee is most likely to have a firm hold.

Gabriel Rhodes is a barista at Blue Bottle in San Diego. He tells me, “Speciality coffee… creates an economic dividing line between those who can afford a $4 cup of coffee and those who cannot. It’s hard to push an agenda of gentrification with black and brown faces at the forefront.”

Cydni Patterson, a barista at People’s Coffee in Durham, NC. Credit: Cydni Patterson

There’s also the issue of how coffee is advertised. In an 2018 article for Roast, Phyllis Johnson, the president of BD Imports, wrote about the relationship between marketing and race in coffee. She argues that “producers of carbonated beverages and juices have been quite successful in targeting marketing campaigns toward African-American communities, and African-Americans over-index on consumption levels in these product categories.” She links the use of white, middle class male celebrities as spokepersons for coffee to the racial divide.

Maliesha Pullano is the founder of Mamaleelu Cold Brew in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She links the lower rates of coffee consumption by people of colour to colonialism.

“It seems like to my knowledge – and I’m no expert – that coffee isn’t consumed as much, even though it’s something that’s produced and then sent away,” she says. “And I know that us black people don’t consume coffee as much, just from my own anecdotal experience.

“I think that colonialism, to me, will always [make me] just think of black and brown people being producers, but on this [consumer] side of it, we’re not the beneficiaries.”

The modern coffee industry reflects its foundations in the slave trade. In the 17th century, indentured black and indigenous people produced the crop in colonial states for the consumption of wealthy, white European consumers. To some degree, this dynamic continues today. Most of the world’s coffee is grown in Latin America and most consumers are in wealthy nations in the global north.

Maliesha Pullano, of Mamaleelu Cold Brew. Credit: Kaitlin LaMoine Photography

The lack of black representation behind the bar is also a contributing factor. Cydni Patterson is a barista at People’s Coffee in Durham, North Carolina. She says, “Your customer base is only as strong as how comfortable they feel in your bar.

“When you go to these [specialty cafes], you have Ethiopian coffees or you have the Kenyan coffee, or here you have coffee from Honduras. And then you look behind the bar, and there’s nobody from there.”

But why aren’t there people of colour behind the bar?

Barriers To Entry

Because coffee shops are established venues for white, middle class customers staffed by employees of similar backgrounds, many people of colour may not consider the coffee industry a viable career option.

“[If we’re] primarily talking baristas, shift leads, café managers, etc., it’s all about economic exposure,” says Gabriel. “This also applies to employment, but from the context of not having access to spaces that require more complexity and training.

“Most of our communities have to step outside of their comfort zone to experience coffee, but are met with unwelcoming environments due to economical barriers and conditions. For members of the black community in coffee, there are many layers of division that ultimately keeps black folks away from pursuing careers in the industry altogether.

“How empowering would it be if it were common knowledge that coffee culture originated in Africa, and is the source for the success of this billion-dollar industry?”

Derrick Johnson at Arctos Coffee and Roasting Company in Spokane, WA. Credit: Claudia Gunhus

“There weren’t a lot of, like, people who looked like me,” Cydni tells me. “I remember being at this cupping that I wasn’t allowed to get to until I was a shift leader at one of the locations. When we’re talking about knowledge, and respecting that it’s a craft, you can’t withhold information and experience from people just starting out simply because you just want to give them enough information for them to be functional but not enough information for them to grow.

“When we’re talking about inclusivity and diversity and spaces, we cannot always centre white intentions and white growth,” she says.

Derrick Johnson is a barista at Arctos Coffee and Roasting Company in Spokane, Washington. He tells me about when he first started out in the industry. “I was able to have, like, a management position, but actually [when] I think about it I wasn’t the first choice. The first choice was a white girl who was, like, leaving in a month or two, and… I was the second choice.

“I can’t attribute that 100% to any reason, but there is an element of it where [I wonder if being black was] part of the consideration, whether or not that was a factor,” he says.

Arctos Coffee and Roasting Company. Credit: Arctos Coffee and Roasting Co.

Being The Token Black Person

Several of the people I spoke to told me that they had experienced feeling like they were a token black person and that the pressure to represent their community was uncomfortable.

“Having that sole token representation filling that weight on your shoulders, that anything that I say, anything that I do, is going to be what people perceive black people as being as a whole, it’s a lot of stress and it’s a lot of pressure,” says Derrick.

“You really feel like you have to kind of filter yourself. [It’s] not even [being] just a model for the majority, but the model for the minority as well. You can’t really be fully you.

“It’s just a whole other level of stress that you really can’t understand unless you’re part of that minority group.”

Minority stress is a recognised condition caused by chronically high levels of stress faced by members of stigmatised minority groups. Studies have linked it to physical and mental health conditions including high blood pressure and anxiety.

A shot of espresso at People’s Coffee, where Cydni Patterson is a barista. Credit: People’s Coffee

“As a barista, we constantly have to deal with the shape-shifting that the dominant culture requires of us in order for them to feel comfortable,” Gabriel tells me.

Code switching is a term used to describe the ways that marginalised people adjust their language, behaviour, and appearance to ease their entry to and success in social contexts based on the dominant culture. For some, the pressure to adapt their true self to appease others can be exhausting, particularly when dealing with microaggressions and racism.

“I don’t really respond to the negative stuff in a respectable manner these days,” Cydni tells me. “We’re all growing. Sometimes I’m like, big mad… Other people express their anger in different ways and express their experiences differently. Just for once I would like to not have to be this palatable version of me.”

She tells me that she finds inspiration in Michelle Johnson and her blog, The Chocolate Barista, which she says gave her the courage to “have big feels” and to write them down. “That’s what I’ve always respected about Michelle. She’s just her all the time.”

In an industry where you’re constantly toning down who you are and code switching to make others more comfortable, it can be empowering and inspiring to see someone like yourself be authentically and unashamedly herself.

Inside People’s Coffee, where Cydni Patterson is a barista. Credit: People’s Coffee

Questioning If You Belong

Several people I spoke to reported feeling insecure about their place in the coffee industry. “It’s been a challenge,” Maliesha tells me. “When I first started out, I tried to go to stuff… but it just felt like a bro-fest, and I didn’t feel comfortable.

“And I’m not saying they did anything deliberately to make me feel uncomfortable. It’s just the knowledge… that the systematic oppression has done its job. The system likes keeping people in their place.”

Maliesha’s experience highlights the importance of representation in encouraging others to join the industry. “I’ve always looked for opportunities to just do other things and I haven’t found other people who look like me to do it. That speaks a lot in 2019,” she says.

“This industry was one of the world’s largest economies in 2014 [when I first started Mamaleelu Cold Brew], but I couldn’t find anybody to mentor me who looked like me.

“I’m so thankful to have met Phyllis Johnson,” she continues. “She’s been in the coffee industry 20 years and she’s had a lot of the same experiences, so that validates my experience for me, that it’s not just me being aloof or not trying to get into areas.

Products from Maliesha Pullano’s Mamaleelu Cold Brew on sale in a shop. Credit: Mamaleelu Cold Brew

How to Make Coffee More Racially Diverse

So, what can we do to make the coffee industry both more diverse and more welcoming of people of colour?

“I think the only way to address racial inequality in the coffee industry is directly,” Gabriel says. “The majority of the time, these conversations are used to validate a coffee shop or for an employer to claim that they’re inclusive to obtain more business.

“If you really care about racial inequality in the coffee industry, go out and directly engage with the folks who need to be included. Talk with them about what can be done to make the industry more approachable for them.”

Others suggest evaluating your hiring practises and business relationships and considering whether you are really supporting minority communities. “It’s putting your money where your mouth is and putting your brain where your mouth is. You know: think about these things and unpack yourself,” Maliesha says.

“Figure out your biases. Do not shy away from them, and then see how you can support black members of society or businesses of colour. That’s going to eventually affect your community in a positive way,” she tells me.

Gabriel Rhodes behind the bar at Blue Bottle, San Diego, CA. Credit: Gabriel Rhodes.

Cydni encourages business owners to learn about the community they’re based in and engage with local people in meaningful ways.

“A lot of times, the cheaper land [is the land] my peoples were relegated to live in,” she says. “If you’re gonna put your shop in a neighbourhood that is historically exploited, you should put the effort into hiring practices and find people who know the area.

“It makes more sense to… get to know the neighbourhood, [to] hire people in the neighbourhood… Do certain things to facilitate [your shop] being a part of this, not to ostracise people and then up local prices more.”

The view from behind the bar at Arctos Coffee and Roasting Company, where Derrick Johnson is a barista. Credit: Arctos Coffee and Roasting Co.

Derrick raises the notion of tokenism. “A big issue for employers specifically is how it’s going to be perceived: whether [the public thinks] they’re hiring people because they’re actually qualified and they deserve that spot, or if everyone’s gonna think, ‘oh, that person obviously got it because they’re black and they’re filling the diversity quota,’” he says.

One way that employers can avoid accusations of tokenism and ensure that they’re hiring the most qualified people without bias is to use blind hiring techniques. This includes removing candidates’ names and identifying features from applications before evaluating them, and using anonymized interviews such as phone interviews. Employers can also support training and mentorship for people of colour to encourage their development to leadership positions.

“How can we make these spaces feel safer for larger demographics of people and not just the dominant culture?” Gabriel asks. “By being conscious of diversifying our bonds in the workplace.”

Derrick says that he sees improvement but that it’s a slow process. “It’s being pushed in the positive direction, which is what we want, but it’s definitely not something that’s a fast process, or is anywhere near where it should be for many black professionals and people of colour who have so much to contribute,” he says.

And whether you’re a coffee professional or consumer, you can contribute by calling out incidents of racism and being an ally. “Not actively doing things to make this right is doing things to keep it wrong,” says Cydni.

Bottles of Maliesha Pullano’s Mamaleelu Cold Brew. Credit: Mamaleelu Cold Brew

There’s no easy solution to racial inequality within the coffee industry, but we have a responsibility to listen and learn from lived experiences.

Take a look at your own professional and personal relationships ad consider whether you can be an advocate or ally. Do your hiring practices prioritize diversity? And as a consumer, do you seek coffee shops and suppliers that employ under-represented communities? By collectively listening and acting accordingly, we can work towards making the coffee industry a more equitable place.

Found this interesting? You might also like A Conversation With Women in Coffee Roasting

Written by Sierra Burgess-Yeo.

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[panoramicdiary]

There’s No Such Thing as Free Will

But we’re better off believing in it anyway.

For centuries, philosophers and theologians have almost unanimously held that civilization as we know it depends on a widespread belief in free will—and that losing this belief could be calamitous. Our codes of ethics, for example, assume that we can freely choose between right and wrong. In the Christian tradition, this is known as “moral liberty”—the capacity to discern and pursue the good, instead of merely being compelled by appetites and desires. The great Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant reaffirmed this link between freedom and goodness. If we are not free to choose, he argued, then it would make no sense to say we ought to choose the path of righteousness.

Today, the assumption of free will runs through every aspect of American politics, from welfare provision to criminal law. It permeates the popular culture and underpins the American dream—the belief that anyone can make something of themselves no matter what their start in life. As Barack Obama wrote in The Audacity of Hope, American “values are rooted in a basic optimism about life and a faith in free will.”

So what happens if this faith erodes?

The sciences have grown steadily bolder in their claim that all human behavior can be explained through the clockwork laws of cause and effect. This shift in perception is the continuation of an intellectual revolution that began about 150 years ago, when Charles Darwin first published On the Origin of Species. Shortly after Darwin put forth his theory of evolution, his cousin Sir Francis Galton began to draw out the implications: If we have evolved, then mental faculties like intelligence must be hereditary. But we use those faculties—which some people have to a greater degree than others—to make decisions. So our ability to choose our fate is not free, but depends on our biological inheritance.

Galton launched a debate that raged throughout the 20th century over nature versus nurture. Are our actions the unfolding effect of our genetics? Or the outcome of what has been imprinted on us by the environment? Impressive evidence accumulated for the importance of each factor. Whether scientists supported one, the other, or a mix of both, they increasingly assumed that our deeds must be determined by something.

In recent decades, research on the inner workings of the brain has helped to resolve the nature-nurture debate—and has dealt a further blow to the idea of free will. Brain scanners have enabled us to peer inside a living person’s skull, revealing intricate networks of neurons and allowing scientists to reach broad agreement that these networks are shaped by both genes and environment. But there is also agreement in the scientific community that the firing of neurons determines not just some or most but all of our thoughts, hopes, memories, and dreams.

We know that changes to brain chemistry can alter behavior—otherwise neither alcohol nor antipsychotics would have their desired effects. The same holds true for brain structure: Cases of ordinary adults becoming murderers or pedophiles after developing a brain tumor demonstrate how dependent we are on the physical properties of our gray stuff.

Many scientists say that the American physiologist Benjamin Libet demonstrated in the 1980s that we have no free will. It was already known that electrical activity builds up in a person’s brain before she, for example, moves her hand; Libet showed that this buildup occurs before the person consciously makes a decision to move. The conscious experience of deciding to act, which we usually associate with free will, appears to be an add-on, a post hoc reconstruction of events that occurs after the brain has already set the act in motion.

The 20th-century nature-nurture debate prepared us to think of ourselves as shaped by influences beyond our control. But it left some room, at least in the popular imagination, for the possibility that we could overcome our circumstances or our genes to become the author of our own destiny. The challenge posed by neuroscience is more radical: It describes the brain as a physical system like any other, and suggests that we no more will it to operate in a particular way than we will our heart to beat. The contemporary scientific image of human behavior is one of neurons firing, causing other neurons to fire, causing our thoughts and deeds, in an unbroken chain that stretches back to our birth and beyond. In principle, we are therefore completely predictable. If we could understand any individual’s brain architecture and chemistry well enough, we could, in theory, predict that individual’s response to any given stimulus with 100 percent accuracy.

This research and its implications are not new. What is new, though, is the spread of free-will skepticism beyond the laboratories and into the mainstream. The number of court cases, for example, that use evidence from neuroscience has more than doubled in the past decade—mostly in the context of defendants arguing that their brain made them do it. And many people are absorbing this message in other contexts, too, at least judging by the number of books and articles purporting to explain “your brain on” everything from music to magic. Determinism, to one degree or another, is gaining popular currency. The skeptics are in ascendance.

This development raises uncomfortable—and increasingly non-theoretical—questions: If moral responsibility depends on faith in our own agency, then as belief in determinism spreads, will we become morally irresponsible? And if we increasingly see belief in free will as a delusion, what will happen to all those institutions that are based on it?

In 2002, two psychologists had a simple but brilliant idea: Instead of speculating about what might happen if people lost belief in their capacity to choose, they could run an experiment to find out. Kathleen Vohs, then at the University of Utah, and Jonathan Schooler, of the University of Pittsburgh, asked one group of participants to read a passage arguing that free will was an illusion, and another group to read a passage that was neutral on the topic. Then they subjected the members of each group to a variety of temptations and observed their behavior. Would differences in abstract philosophical beliefs influence people’s decisions?

Yes, indeed. When asked to take a math test, with cheating made easy, the group primed to see free will as illusory proved more likely to take an illicit peek at the answers. When given an opportunity to steal—to take more money than they were due from an envelope of $1 coins—those whose belief in free will had been undermined pilfered more. On a range of measures, Vohs told me, she and Schooler found that “people who are induced to believe less in free will are more likely to behave immorally.”

It seems that when people stop believing they are free agents, they stop seeing themselves as blameworthy for their actions. Consequently, they act less responsibly and give in to their baser instincts. Vohs emphasized that this result is not limited to the contrived conditions of a lab experiment. “You see the same effects with people who naturally believe more or less in free will,” she said.

In another study, for instance, Vohs and colleagues measured the extent to which a group of day laborers believed in free will, then examined their performance on the job by looking at their supervisor’s ratings. Those who believed more strongly that they were in control of their own actions showed up on time for work more frequently and were rated by supervisors as more capable. In fact, belief in free will turned out to be a better predictor of job performance than established measures such as self-professed work ethic.

Another pioneer of research into the psychology of free will, Roy Baumeister of Florida State University, has extended these findings. For example, he and colleagues found that students with a weaker belief in free will were less likely to volunteer their time to help a classmate than were those whose belief in free will was stronger. Likewise, those primed to hold a deterministic view by reading statements like “Science has demonstrated that free will is an illusion” were less likely to give money to a homeless person or lend someone a cellphone.

Further studies by Baumeister and colleagues have linked a diminished belief in free will to stress, unhappiness, and a lesser commitment to relationships. They found that when subjects were induced to believe that “all human actions follow from prior events and ultimately can be understood in terms of the movement of molecules,” those subjects came away with a lower sense of life’s meaningfulness. Early this year, other researchers published a study showing that a weaker belief in free will correlates with poor academic performance.

The list goes on: Believing that free will is an illusion has been shown to make people less creative, more likely to conform, less willing to learn from their mistakes, and less grateful toward one another. In every regard, it seems, when we embrace determinism, we indulge our dark side.

few scholars are comfortable suggesting that people ought to believe an outright lie. Advocating the perpetuation of untruths would breach their integrity and violate a principle that philosophers have long held dear: the Platonic hope that the true and the good go hand in hand. Saul Smilansky, a philosophy professor at the University of Haifa, in Israel, has wrestled with this dilemma throughout his career and come to a painful conclusion: “We cannot afford for people to internalize the truth” about free will.

Smilansky is convinced that free will does not exist in the traditional sense—and that it would be very bad if most people realized this. “Imagine,” he told me, “that I’m deliberating whether to do my duty, such as to parachute into enemy territory, or something more mundane like to risk my job by reporting on some wrongdoing. If everyone accepts that there is no free will, then I’ll know that people will say, ‘Whatever he did, he had no choice—we can’t blame him.’ So I know I’m not going to be condemned for taking the selfish option.” This, he believes, is very dangerous for society, and “the more people accept the determinist picture, the worse things will get.”

Determinism not only undermines blame, Smilansky argues; it also undermines praise. Imagine I do risk my life by jumping into enemy territory to perform a daring mission. Afterward, people will say that I had no choice, that my feats were merely, in Smilansky’s phrase, “an unfolding of the given,” and therefore hardly praiseworthy. And just as undermining blame would remove an obstacle to acting wickedly, so undermining praise would remove an incentive to do good. Our heroes would seem less inspiring, he argues, our achievements less noteworthy, and soon we would sink into decadence and despondency.

Smilansky advocates a view he calls illusionism—the belief that free will is indeed an illusion, but one that society must defend. The idea of determinism, and the facts supporting it, must be kept confined within the ivory tower. Only the initiated, behind those walls, should dare to, as he put it to me, “look the dark truth in the face.” Smilansky says he realizes that there is something drastic, even terrible, about this idea—but if the choice is between the true and the good, then for the sake of society, the true must go.

When people stop believing they are free agents, they stop seeing themselves as blameworthy for their actions.

Smilansky’s arguments may sound odd at first, given his contention that the world is devoid of free will: If we are not really deciding anything, who cares what information is let loose? But new information, of course, is a sensory input like any other; it can change our behavior, even if we are not the conscious agents of that change. In the language of cause and effect, a belief in free will may not inspire us to make the best of ourselves, but it does stimulate us to do so.

Illusionism is a minority position among academic philosophers, most of whom still hope that the good and the true can be reconciled. But it represents an ancient strand of thought among intellectual elites. Nietzsche called free will “a theologians’ artifice” that permits us to “judge and punish.” And many thinkers have believed, as Smilansky does, that institutions of judgment and punishment are necessary if we are to avoid a fall into barbarism.

Smilansky is not advocating policies of Orwellian thought control. Luckily, he argues, we don’t need them. Belief in free will comes naturally to us. Scientists and commentators merely need to exercise some self-restraint, instead of gleefully disabusing people of the illusions that undergird all they hold dear. Most scientists “don’t realize what effect these ideas can have,” Smilansky told me. “Promoting determinism is complacent and dangerous.”

yet not all scholars who argue publicly against free will are blind to the social and psychological consequences. Some simply don’t agree that these consequences might include the collapse of civilization. One of the most prominent is the neuroscientist and writer Sam Harris, who, in his 2012 book, Free Will, set out to bring down the fantasy of conscious choice. Like Smilansky, he believes that there is no such thing as free will. But Harris thinks we are better off without the whole notion of it.

“We need our beliefs to track what is true,” Harris told me. Illusions, no matter how well intentioned, will always hold us back. For example, we currently use the threat of imprisonment as a crude tool to persuade people not to do bad things. But if we instead accept that “human behavior arises from neurophysiology,” he argued, then we can better understand what is really causing people to do bad things despite this threat of punishment—and how to stop them. “We need,” Harris told me, “to know what are the levers we can pull as a society to encourage people to be the best version of themselves they can be.”

According to Harris, we should acknowledge that even the worst criminals—murderous psychopaths, for example—are in a sense unlucky. “They didn’t pick their genes. They didn’t pick their parents. They didn’t make their brains, yet their brains are the source of their intentions and actions.” In a deep sense, their crimes are not their fault. Recognizing this, we can dispassionately consider how to manage offenders in order to rehabilitate them, protect society, and reduce future offending. Harris thinks that, in time, “it might be possible to cure something like psychopathy,” but only if we accept that the brain, and not some airy-fairy free will, is the source of the deviancy.

Accepting this would also free us from hatred. Holding people responsible for their actions might sound like a keystone of civilized life, but we pay a high price for it: Blaming people makes us angry and vengeful, and that clouds our judgment.

“Compare the response to Hurricane Katrina,” Harris suggested, with “the response to the 9/11 act of terrorism.” For many Americans, the men who hijacked those planes are the embodiment of criminals who freely choose to do evil. But if we give up our notion of free will, then their behavior must be viewed like any other natural phenomenon—and this, Harris believes, would make us much more rational in our response.

Although the scale of the two catastrophes was similar, the reactions were wildly different. Nobody was striving to exact revenge on tropical storms or declare a War on Weather, so responses to Katrina could simply focus on rebuilding and preventing future disasters. The response to 9/11, Harris argues, was clouded by outrage and the desire for vengeance, and has led to the unnecessary loss of countless more lives. Harris is not saying that we shouldn’t have reacted at all to 9/11, only that a coolheaded response would have looked very different and likely been much less wasteful. “Hatred is toxic,” he told me, “and can destabilize individual lives and whole societies. Losing belief in free will undercuts the rationale for ever hating anyone.”

whereas the evidence from Kathleen Vohs and her colleagues suggests that social problems may arise from seeing our own actions as determined by forces beyond our control—weakening our morals, our motivation, and our sense of the meaningfulness of life—Harris thinks that social benefits will result from seeing other people’s behavior in the very same light. From that vantage point, the moral implications of determinism look very different, and quite a lot better.

What’s more, Harris argues, as ordinary people come to better understand how their brains work, many of the problems documented by Vohs and others will dissipate. Determinism, he writes in his book, does not mean “that conscious awareness and deliberative thinking serve no purpose.” Certain kinds of action require us to become conscious of a choice—to weigh arguments and appraise evidence. True, if we were put in exactly the same situation again, then 100 times out of 100 we would make the same decision, “just like rewinding a movie and playing it again.” But the act of deliberation—the wrestling with facts and emotions that we feel is essential to our nature—is nonetheless real.

The big problem, in Harris’s view, is that people often confuse determinism with fatalism. Determinism is the belief that our decisions are part of an unbreakable chain of cause and effect. Fatalism, on the other hand, is the belief that our decisions don’t really matter, because whatever is destined to happen will happen—like Oedipus’s marriage to his mother, despite his efforts to avoid that fate.

Most scientists “don’t realize what effect these ideas can have,” Smilansky told me. It is “complacent and dangerous” to air them.

When people hear there is no free will, they wrongly become fatalistic; they think their efforts will make no difference. But this is a mistake. People are not moving toward an inevitable destiny; given a different stimulus (like a different idea about free will), they will behave differently and so have different lives. If people better understood these fine distinctions, Harris believes, the consequences of losing faith in free will would be much less negative than Vohs’s and Baumeister’s experiments suggest.

Can one go further still? Is there a way forward that preserves both the inspiring power of belief in free will and the compassionate understanding that comes with determinism?

Philosophers and theologians are used to talking about free will as if it is either on or off; as if our consciousness floats, like a ghost, entirely above the causal chain, or as if we roll through life like a rock down a hill. But there might be another way of looking at human agency.

Some scholars argue that we should think about freedom of choice in terms of our very real and sophisticated abilities to map out multiple potential responses to a particular situation. One of these is Bruce Waller, a philosophy professor at Youngstown State University. In his new book, Restorative Free Will, he writes that we should focus on our ability, in any given setting, to generate a wide range of options for ourselves, and to decide among them without external constraint.

For Waller, it simply doesn’t matter that these processes are underpinned by a causal chain of firing neurons. In his view, free will and determinism are not the opposites they are often taken to be; they simply describe our behavior at different levels.

Waller believes his account fits with a scientific understanding of how we evolved: Foraging animals—humans, but also mice, or bears, or crows—need to be able to generate options for themselves and make decisions in a complex and changing environment. Humans, with our massive brains, are much better at thinking up and weighing options than other animals are. Our range of options is much wider, and we are, in a meaningful way, freer as a result.

Waller’s definition of free will is in keeping with how a lot of ordinary people see it. One 2010 study found that people mostly thought of free will in terms of following their desires, free of coercion (such as someone holding a gun to your head). As long as we continue to believe in this kind of practical free will, that should be enough to preserve the sorts of ideals and ethical standards examined by Vohs and Baumeister.

Yet Waller’s account of free will still leads to a very different view of justice and responsibility than most people hold today. No one has caused himself: No one chose his genes or the environment into which he was born. Therefore no one bears ultimate responsibility for who he is and what he does. Waller told me he supported the sentiment of Barack Obama’s 2012 “You didn’t build that” speech, in which the president called attention to the external factors that help bring about success. He was also not surprised that it drew such a sharp reaction from those who want to believe that they were the sole architects of their achievements. But he argues that we must accept that life outcomes are determined by disparities in nature and nurture, “so we can take practical measures to remedy misfortune and help everyone to fulfill their potential.”

Understanding how will be the work of decades, as we slowly unravel the nature of our own minds. In many areas, that work will likely yield more compassion: offering more (and more precise) help to those who find themselves in a bad place. And when the threat of punishment is necessary as a deterrent, it will in many cases be balanced with efforts to strengthen, rather than undermine, the capacities for autonomy that are essential for anyone to lead a decent life. The kind of will that leads to success—seeing positive options for oneself, making good decisions and sticking to them—can be cultivated, and those at the bottom of society are most in need of that cultivation.

To some people, this may sound like a gratuitous attempt to have one’s cake and eat it too. And in a way it is. It is an attempt to retain the best parts of the free-will belief system while ditching the worst. President Obama—who has both defended “a faith in free will” and argued that we are not the sole architects of our fortune—has had to learn what a fine line this is to tread. Yet it might be what we need to rescue the American dream—and indeed, many of our ideas about civilization, the world over—in the scientific age.

[rafterzebra]

College Football is Back, and I Will Be Watching

College Football is back! Since I was a young lad I have enjoyed watching college football; the pageantry, the passion, the rivalries, the tailgates, the hours of lying on a couch and being entertained. In college I was fortunate to attend during a time when my university was at the height of the sport and won a national championship. That only fueled my intense focus on the sport even more. But wait......aren't there a litany of problems in college football and college sports in general? Yes, yes there are. Problems that may affect the passion one has for the sport, possibly diminishing it enough not to watch or at the very least, watch with keeping these issues at the forefront of one's mind? Again, yes. This was supposed to be a pure, unadulterated and unfettered celebration of the return of America's premiere secular experience, it's now going to turn into one of those unbearable think pieces on the state of the game and how it relates to society, isn't it? Also, yes.

I suppose we can start at the fundamental argument of football itself. We all know football is a violent game, once so violent that in the infant days of college football it was almost outlawed due to the severe injuries and in some cases, death of ts participants.   It has only been recently that focus in the form of research and litigation that the overall merits of the game versus health of players has been examined. 

The most chilling accounts are of former players that have had severe declines in physical and mental health after leaving the game. Some have had the courage to have their bodies and in particular their brains donated to science to be examined after their death. The result have been mostly cases of severe CTE. What was more haunting than anything in the college football realm was Washington State quarterback Tyler Hilinski committing suicide this offseason and subsequently being found to have CTE. This was a player, in the most protected position in the game was found to have CTE while he was still in college. It gives some people pause to cheer on this sport that could have such grave implications. Increasingly, we are seeing lawsuits brought on by former college football players as the NCAA scrambles to fend off the lawsuits with one hand, and develop reasonable and protective concussion protocol with the other.  Unlike the NFL, college football is a scattered enterprise, comprised of hundreds of schools in their own conferences and at various levels of competition (Divisions I, II, III, NAIA, etc). These various levels of existence create various levels of funding and medical training staff. You do not have to be an SEC starter to be affected by an injury that will stay with you for years beyond your time on the field.

So how does one reconcile the potential crippling nature of the sport? Some don't mind, others will point to the voluntary nature of participation. While it is true that college football athletes are not held in captivity and forced to participate like gladiators of Rome, in certain cases football is the only means by which an individual can improve the status of their livelihood, or at least that is what they are told. The best I can offer is to recognize the issues that are happening, and not ignore them. Player safety has to be paramount, even when the game is based on violent collisions. Rule implementations have sought to decrease the worst kind of collisions by eliminating hits targeted at the head of other players, or by using the helmet as a launch weapon. There needs to be increased oversight of both coaches and players when it comes to injuries. Coaches want their best players to be out there, and players want to play just about no matter what. Still, when a player is lying motionless on the field after a big hit, or a player wobbly stumbles to the sidelines, the feeling of the why I watch and invest so much in watching creeps up the back of my neck.

The other prime element that makes for uncomfortable watching is the system of amateurism within college football. Having worked in the industry of college athletics, I could spew a book worth of thoughts on the framework of amateur college athletics in this country. To boil it down, the players deserve more. I do not believe they should be salaried employees, but they need to be compensated more than they already are at present. My main issue settles around the right for a player to use his(or her for female sports) image and likeness for monetary gain. I won't go into details here, but it can be accomplished without making it the wild west for boosters. Johnny Manziel, for all his flaws and faults deserved to capitalize on the swell of popularity while he played at Texas A&M. Whatever he was getting compensated for under the table, or outside the rules is irrelevant to this argument. If you are a public figure of note and entities around you are reaping the monetary benefits of your success, something is wrong. Again, I am not advocating for the third strong long snapper to get the same rate as the starting quarterback, but when billions in television deals, ad revenues and apparel sales for the school and other entities are being collected, something has to be done.

The laziest argument to be made for this issue is to simply say a scholarship/education is sufficient for these individuals at their collegiate institution. This is laughable considering the strides in awards the players are able to receive within the past decade. Scholarships can now go up to the university's listed cost of attendance which accounts for expenses outside of the traditional tuition, room and board, and books scholarships had been allowed to contain in the past. Furthermore, medical and academic expenses have no limit in terms of what the school can provide. Travel expenses, including for family members, have been expanded. If an education was enough, why has there been an increase in what players receive.Still, most polls show the public is in favor or just about even on the topic of paying collegiate players. The populace likes their tradition, especially when it comes to college football. As I watch on Saturdays, I again have that bad taste of knowing some of these players who will not make a living playing football professionally will have failed to make their due in college due to archaic rules. One glimmer is that things have changed and continue to change with great momentum in this area and in time we could see proper compensation or at least something closer to it. I doubt that is of comfort to those on the field now.

If I had to target one other major area which puts a significant cramp in my enjoyment of the sport of college football, it is the deification of coaches. Coaching a successful college football program is difficult, exceedingly so. My intent is not to diminish that or the profession in general. The problem I have is the autonomy, and in some cases the recklessness with which they are allowed to operate. I won't begrudge the enormous salaries, we do live in a free market now, don't we? It is amusing to me, however, how often athletic departments can get taken for a ride on a coach that has not proven much. This includes bloated buyouts on the back end so when a coach does fail or flame out in spectacular fashion, they are given a suitcase full of cash on the way out the door. Well, come to think of it, I guess that is little different for high-level executives in the corporate world. 

My grievances are more of certain individuals to resemble even a small slice of what they portend to be to their athletic departments, universities, the public at-large, and the parents of the players they coach. Too many times, and sadly mostly after tragedy occurs, we hear of how a coach operated with impunity, and fostered an environment that either put his players in danger or allowed his players to be a danger to others. There are countless examples, but I would like to focus on two. One is Butch Jones at Tennessee. There was a clear culture issue going on during his tenure there but the sole incident that burned me up was when a wide receiver was assisting and helping to report a victim of sexual assault by his teammates, Jones called him a traitor for betraying his teammates. The player also faced the wrath of his teammates and ended up transferring. Jones denied the allegations, but I remain dubious. Even if Jones is correct in that he never told the player that, it indicates the kind of toxic culture that can be fostered in football programs. Where crimes, and particularly those against women are not punished and reported correctly and those that want to report them fear the repercussions.

The other incident is the recent tragedy at Maryland. A young man lost his life because he was being put through physical conditioning drills while displaying signs of distress. This followed with players providing information to ESPN about the coaching and strength staff bullying players, and forcing them to workout without proper safety precautions. Furthermore, the article has a quote from an anonymous staff member saying they wouldn't let their son play in the program. This really infuriates me because it is the number one duty of athletic staff members to lookout for the welfare and well-being of student-athletes in their charge. Being aware of a bad situation and remaining silent is just as much of a horrid act as the perpetrators themselves. It is mind-blowing to me that in this day and age, with all the lives that have been lost in previous incidents, including recently, and everything we know about the science of performance, that we still have coaches that are pushing kids to extreme limits. Working them out past the duration that is healthy and denying them proper hydration. This doesn't mold men into battle-tested warriors, it puts their health and lives at risk. In game situations, you see trainers everywhere, water is provided at every turn, and if a player is fatigued he gets substituted. Why some feel the need to restrict these safeguards in training because they think it will make them perform better I'll never know. If you are familiar with the story of Bear Bryan't Junction Boys, you think to yourself that situation would never happen today. Unfortunately, there are coaches out there with this mindset. It is clearly a foolish and risky behavior.

These coaches are held on such pedestals they often think themselves beyond reproach. Urban Meyer's situation is still unfolding while he will remain as the coach at Ohio State, but the lengths that people have gone to in order to defend him and keep him there as their coach is telling about the culture across the country. These cultures are so embedded, they want their program to win and remain protected from outside forces, even in the face of criminal and horrifying atrocities. These people cannot be reasoned with, and any attempts at finding the real stories behind their coaches' scandals are met with extreme blowback. I don't know what exactly happened at Ohio State, but I know it wasn't good, and there were most likely negative situations that were not dealt with because of wanting to keep the status quo in place, which was winning football games.

These are not singular attacks on specific programs, if you root for a major college football program, myself included, you have witnessed a situation where the consideration of the football program or a high profile coach has been placed before human decency or even the law. It definitely affects how I have viewed the "purity" of college football. But in the end, is any large enterprise we consume a pure endeavor? We can answer "no" rather quickly because these all deal with human beings, and the fallibility humans show, particularly in college football, is both unsurprising and a reflection of bigger problems in society as a whole. However, with all this considered, knowing everything I know, being witness to how the sausage gets made and unable to simply be blissfully or willfully unaware of the blotches, I continue to watch. Not only that, I get excited to watch, I get animated when I see something online about my team or other teams that are meant to elicit a reaction. I won't say that I can't help it, or that I am an addict. It is a conscious choice to continue to consume college football. Despite the negatives, it is a great spectacle, with great story lines, characters, traditions, and a following that evokes every emotion imaginable. I don't watch in defiance of the apparent negatives, but with the acknowledgement that I am experiencing something I love, that I wish it will to strive to be better, and that is imperfect.  

[theconservativebrief]

Recently, there was a minor uproar when Kardashian scion Kylie Jenner, who is all of 21, appeared on the cover of Forbes’s 60 richest self-made women issue. As many people pointed out, Jenner’s success would have been impossible if she hadn’t been born white, healthy, rich, and famous. She built a successful cosmetics company not just with hard work but on a towering foundation of good luck.

Around the same time, there was another minor uproar when Refinery29 published “A Week in New York City on $25/Hour,” an online diary by someone whose rent and bills are paid for by her parents. It turns out $25/hour goes a lot further if you have no expenses!

These episodes illustrate what seems to be one of the enduring themes of our age: socially dominant groups, recipients of myriad unearned advantages, willfully refusing to acknowledge them, despite persistent efforts from socially disadvantaged groups. This is not a new theme, of course — it waxes and wanes with circumstance — but after a multi-decade rise in inequality, it has come roaring back to the fore.

Of course, socially dominant groups have every incentive to ignore luck. And they have found a patron saint in the president, who once claimed, “My father gave me a very small loan in 1975, and I built it into a company that’s worth many, many billions of dollars.”

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Neither side of that claim is true. But in this, as in so much else, Trump’s brazenness serves as cover, a signal that it’s still okay to cling to this myth.

These recent controversies reminded me of the fuss around a book that came out a few years ago: Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy, by economist Robert Frank. (Vox’s Sean Illing interviewed Frank last year.) It argued that luck plays a large role in every human success and failure, which ought to be a rather banal and uncontroversial point, but the reaction of many commentators was gobsmacked outrage. On Fox Business, Stuart Varney sputtered at Frank: “Do you know how insulting that was, when I read that?”

It’s not difficult to see why many people take offense when reminded of their luck, especially those who have received the most. Allowing for luck can dent our self-conception. It can diminish our sense of control. It opens up all kinds of uncomfortable questions about obligations to other, less-fortunate people.

Nonetheless, this is a battle that cannot be bypassed. There can be no ceasefire. Individually, coming to terms with luck is the secular equivalent of religious awakening, the first step in building any coherent universalist moral perspective. Socially, acknowledging the role of luck lays a moral foundation for humane economic, housing, and carceral policy.

Building a more compassionate society means reminding ourselves of luck, and of the gratitude and obligations it entails, against inevitable resistance.

So here’s a reminder.

How much moral credit are we due for where we end up in life, and for who we end up? Conversely, how much responsibility or blame do we deserve? I don’t just mean Kylie Jenner or Donald Trump — all of us. Anyone.

How you answer these questions reveals a great deal about your moral worldview. To a first approximation, the more credit/responsibility you believe we are due, the more you will be inclined to accept default (often cruel and inequitable) social and economic outcomes. People basically get what they deserve.

The less credit/responsibility you believe we are due, the more you believe our trajectories are shaped by forces outside our control (and sheer chance), the more compassionate you will be toward failure and the more you will expect back from the fortunate. When luck is recognized, softening its harsh effects becomes the basic moral project.

Understanding the role of luck begins with getting past the old “nature versus nurture” debate, which has always captivated the public, not so much because of the science, but because of the deeper existential questions involved.

“Nature” has come to serve roughly as code for the stuff we’re stuck with, our bodies, our genes — an arrow Fate has already fired, with a preset path. And “nurture” has become shorthand for our capacity for change, our ability to be shaped by circumstances, other people, and ourselves, to wiggle and move about within that path, or even escape it. It’s shorthand for our range of control over our fates.

But this has always struck me as a misguided way to look at it.

Of course it is true that you have no choice when it comes to your genes, your hair color, your basic body shape and appearance, your vulnerability to certain diseases. You’re stuck with what nature gives you — and it does not distribute its blessings equitably or according to merit.

But you also have no choice when it comes to the vast bulk of the nurture that matters.

Christina Animashaun/Vox

Child development psychologists tell us that deep and lasting shaping of neural pathways happens in the first hours, days, months, and years of life. Basic dispositions are formed that can last a lifetime. Whether you are held, spoken to, fed, made to feel safe and cared for — you have no choice in any of it, but it more or less forms your emotional skeleton. It determines how sensitive you are to threat, how open you are to new experience, your capacity to exercise empathy.

Children aren’t responsible for how they spend their formative years and the permanent imprint it makes upon them. But they’re stuck with it.

Legally speaking, here in the US we don’t consider people autonomous moral agents, responsible for their own decisions, until they are 18. Obviously different cultures have different ages and markers for adulthood (moral agenthood), but all cultures mark a transition. At some point, a child, an instinctual creature not fully responsible for their decisions, becomes an adult, capable of using higher cognitive functions to shape and moderate their behavior according to shared standards, and to be held accountable if they don’t.

For the purposes of this argument, it doesn’t matter much where you draw the line between child and adult. What matters is that it takes place after the bulk of temperament, personality, and socioeconomic circumstance are in place.

So, then, here you are. You turn 18. You are no longer a child; you are an adult, a moral agent, responsible for who you are and what you do.

By that time, your inheritance is enormous. You’ve not only been granted a genetic make-up, an ethnicity and appearance, by accidents of nature and parentage. You’ve also had your latent genetic traits “activated” in a very specific way through a specific upbringing, in a specific environment, with a specific set of experiences.

Your basic mental and emotional wiring is in place; you have certain instincts, predilections, fears, and cravings. You have a certain amount of money, certain social connections and opportunities, a certain family lineage. You’ve had a certain amount and quality of education. You’re a certain kind of person.

You are not responsible for any of that stuff; you weren’t yet capable of being responsible. You were just a kid (or worse, a teen). You didn’t choose your genes or your experiences. Both nature and the vast bulk of the nurture that matters happened to you.

And yet, when you turn 18, it’s all yours — the whole inheritance, warts and all. By the time you are an autonomous, responsible moral agent, you have effectively been fired out of a cannon, on a particular trajectory. You wake up, morally speaking, mid-flight.

All of us, basically. Javier Zarracina/Vox

How capable are we altering our trajectories? How much can we change ourselves?

Here, a distinction made famous by psychologist Daniel Kahneman in his seminal Thinking, Fast and Slow is helpful. Kahneman argues that humans have two modes of thinking: “system one,” which is fast, instinctual, automatic, and often unconscious, and “system two,” which is slower, more deliberative, and emotionally “cooler” (generally traced to the prefrontal cortex).

Our system one reactions are largely hard-wired by the time we become adults. But what about system two?

We do seem to have some control over it. We can use it, to some extent, to shape, channel, or even change our system one reactions over time — to change ourselves.

Everyone is familiar with that struggle; indeed, the battle between systems one and two tends to be the central drama in most human lives. When we step back and reflect, we know we need to exercise more and eat less, to be more generous and less grumpy, to manage time better and be more productive. System two recognizes those as the right decisions; they make sense; the numbers work out.

But then the moment comes and we’re sitting on the couch and system one feels very strongly that it doesn’t want to put on running shoes. It wants greasy takeout food. It wants to snap at the delivery guy for being late. Where is system two when it’s needed? It shows up later, full of regret and self-recrimination. Thanks a lot, system two.

To become a better person is, at least to some degree, to consciously decide what kind of person one wants to be, what kind of life one wants to lead, and to enforce that meta-decision through day-to-day smaller decisions. They say you are what you do repeatedly; our choices become habit and habit becomes character. So forming a good character, becoming a good person, means repeatedly choosing to do the right thing until it becomes habit.

To make this more concrete, an example: For whatever reason, I hate waiting on people. I can barely stand to walk behind people on the sidewalk. Driving behind people leaves me in constant, low-level seething rage. Watching the people ahead of me in line at the store bumble through their slow transactions makes me want to claw my eyes out.

When I use system-two thinking, I understand that this instinctual reaction of mine is both irrational and uncharitable — irrational because we’re all always waiting for one another and there’s no way to avoid it; uncharitable because I expect alacrity from others than I don’t always display myself. I make others wait just as much or more than anyone, but I absolutely can’t wait for others.

To put it more bluntly, I tend to be kind of an asshole in that particular way. And I don’t want to be! It makes other people tense. It makes me miserable. It serves absolutely no purpose.

Me, basically. Christina Animashaun/Vox

The only way to change it is to use system-two thinking to override system one — to intervene in my own anger — again and again, until a different, better reaction becomes habitual and I become, in a literal sense, a different, better person. (That project is, uh, ongoing.)

The same is true for being a good parent, saving money, making more friends, or any other long-term life goal; it often involves overriding our own instincts — many of which are grossly maladaptive.

Do people deserve moral credit for what they do with their system two thinking? Perhaps that’s the mechanism through which meritocracy works, through which people really do get what they deserve?

There are two reasons why system two thinking can’t get us out of the luck trap: Both the capacity and the need for system two thinking are inequitably distributed.

First, the capacity.

Using system two to regulate system one is difficult. Exercising the kind of self-discipline necessary to override system one reactions with deliberative, system two choices is effortful. It drains energy. (See Brian Resnick’s fascinating discussion of the famous “marshmallow test” for more on this.)

Doing it requires certain conditions: a degree of self-possession, a degree of freedom from more basic physical needs like food and shelter, some training and habituation. Even with those advantages, it’s difficult. There’s an entire “life hacking” genre devoted to tricks and techniques that system two thinking can use to counteract system one’s predilections for salty snacks and procrastination.

And the thing is, not everyone has equal access to those conditions. Whether and how much you have the ability to exercise system two in this way is largely — you guessed it — part of your inheritance. It too depends on where you were born, how you were raised, the resources to which you had access.

Even our desire and ability to alter our trajectory is largely determined by our trajectory.

Second, the need.

Some people don’t much need the ability to self-regulate, because their failures of self-regulation are forgiven and forgotten. If you are, say, a white male born to wealth, like Donald Trump, you can blunder about and fuck up over and over again. You’ll always have access to more money and social connections; the justice system will always go easy on you; you’ll always get more second chances. You could even be president some day, without being required to learn anything or develop any skills relevant to the job.

But if you are, say, a black male, you are called upon to exercise an extraordinary degree of self-regulation. You will frequently be surrounded by people on a hair trigger, prone to suspect or fear you, to turn down your rental application or deny you a loan or pass you over for a “safer” job applicant, prone to calling the cops on you, prone, if they are cops, to target and abuse you.

And, especially if you are poor, one step out of line — one incident at school, one brush with the justice system, one stupid teenage prank — can mean years or even a lifetime of consequences. Subaltern groups have to self-regulate twice as much to have half a chance.

Neither the capacity nor the need for self-regulation is distributed evenly or fairly. In a dark irony, we demand much more of it from those — the poor, the hungry, the homeless or housing insecure — likely to have the least access to the conditions that make it possible. (Just one more way it’s expensive to be poor.)

Your capacity for self-regulation and self-improvement, and your need for them, are both part of your inheritance. They come to you via life’s lottery. Via luck.

I get why people bridle at this point. They want credit for their achievements and for their better qualities. As Varney said, it can be insulting to be told that one’s success is in large part a lucky roll of the dice.

Of course, people aren’t nearly as eager to take credit for their failures and flaws. Psychologists have shown that all humans are subject to “fundamental attribution error.” When we assess others, we tend to attribute successes to circumstance and failures to character — and when we assess our own lives, it is the opposite. Everyone’s relationship with luck is somewhat self-interested and opportunistic.

Christina Animashaun/Vox

And the more one benefits from life’s lottery, the greater the incentives to deny it. As a class, the lucky have every political incentive to frame social and economic outcomes as reflective of a natural order. Life’s winners have been telling stories about why they’re special since civilization began.

But that’s my point about the moral implications of luck: They are radical and inevitably corrosive to the established order. They cast doubt on every form of privilege and light on every mechanism by which privilege perpetuates itself.

Acknowledging luck — or, more broadly, the pervasive influence on our lives of factors we did not choose and for which we deserve no credit or blame — does not mean denying all agency. It doesn’t mean people are nothing more than the sum of their inheritances, or that merit has no role in outcomes. It doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be held responsible for bad things they do or rewarded for good things. Nor does it necessarily mean going full socialist. These are all familiar straw men in this debate.

No, it just means that no one “deserves” hunger, homelessness, ill health, or subjugation — and ultimately, no one “deserves” giant fortunes either. All such outcomes involve a large portion of luck.

The promise of great financial reward spurs risk-taking, market competition, and innovation. Markets, properly regulated, are a socially healthy form of gambling. There’s no reason to try to completely equalize market outcomes. But there’s also no reason to allow hunger, homelessness, ill health, or subjugation.

And there’s no reason we shouldn’t ask everyone, especially those who have benefited most from luck — from being born a certain place, a certain color, to certain people in a certain economic bracket, sent to certain schools, introduced to certain people — to chip in to help those upon whom life’s lottery bestowed fewer gifts.

And it is entirely possible to do both, to harness market competition while using the wealth it generates to raise up the unlucky and give them greater access to that very competition.

“If you want meritocracy,” Chris Hayes argued in his seminal book Twilight of the Elites, “work for equality. Because it is only in a society which values equality of actual outcomes, one that promotes the commonweal and social solidarity, that equal opportunity and earned mobility can flourish.”

Or as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the democratic socialist firebrand who won her House Democratic primary in New York’s 14th District, is fond of saying, “in a modern, moral, and wealthy society, no person should be too poor to live.”

Neither human genes nor human societies distribute life’s gifts according to any principle we would recognize as fair or humane, given the extraordinary role of luck in our lives. We all become adults with wildly different inheritances, starting our lives in radically different places, propelled toward dramatically different destinations.

We cannot eliminate luck, nor achieve total equality, but it is easily within our grasp to soften luck’s harsher effects, to ensure that no one falls too far, that everyone has access to a life of dignity. Before that can happen, though, we must look luck square in the face.

Original Source -> The moral implications of luck

via The Conservative Brief

[snazzyo]

The Frustration of Explaining White Privilege

I’m white. Let’s make that clear. I’m also female.  But I have tried to explain how white privilege benefits my family, my friends, my co-workers.  I’m batting about .300.  And I think I’m a reasonably well articulated woman.  Now I can tell you that I do MUCH better with women than men.  Women can ‘see’ the issue even if they were not aware of it before.  Some men, who have been very open minded on almost all social issues will still give a look like I’ve grown a third eye.  So, I thought I’d at least try to explain what approach seems to finally hit the central CPU and what does not (in my attempts thus far).  If this topic is of interest to you, excellent.  If not, please don’t yell at me. I’m not attempting to ‘white-splain’ as if I had the answers.  Clearly I don’t.  A batting average of .300 sucks.  

WHERE I’M COMING FROM: So, as I’m not a person of color, I can’t start off with “I know how POC feel.”  But I don’t think that should stop me from trying to get at the answer regarding communication with other white people to open their eyes.  I’m REQUIRED to at least try. First, I have zero issue acknowledging that as a white woman I have lived a life of opportunities that came to me that many POC do not.  I’ve done well from an external statistics point of view (income, career, family, etc..).  But I do have one relatively unusual experience, however, that has given me a window into seeing privilege from both sides.  

As a military officer, when I was wearing civilian clothes and speaking with customer service in any area where civilians were allowed, I would often find a relaxed attitude by those providing service.  Usually they were very helpful, on a rare occasion they were not.  And then when they asked to see my ID (you have to show your ID for everything on a military base), I would literally watch their face, body posture, and attitude shift.  Out came the “Yes ma’am’s”, they stood up straight, the chit chat was gone, and I got whatever I wanted accomplished with little to no hesitation.  That little green “active duty” card along with my rank turned me into someone different in their eyes.  In fact, I’d say it was pretty close to ‘white male privilege’.  I had power in their eyes (and in truth), and everything changed.  I would continue on with my casual dialog but that ‘relationship’ was gone.  And although I missed some of the previous openness of conversation, I also secretly was glad that I provided a reminder that the times were changing and to not presume my gender meant ‘dependent’. And here’s the truth, it was USEFUL.  I never threw around my rank, but just knowing I could?  Well, it gave me a confidence in interacting with others.  Still, to this day, I have that straight-forward confidence of expecting to be treated well.  But now that I’m retired, I can see the difference in attitude.  Not when I’m working with military personnel. Even retired, the rank ‘continues’ to some extent.  But with civilians in the engineering world?  “Please justify your salary compared to your peers (i.e. all men)” was literally required of me at one point.  Now, this gender inequity, at a minimum, rankles, but it’s not nearly the same as the power inequity that I see POC facing. So I’m coming from a perspective of trying to leverage my experience of being perceived as not having power vs having power to help my arguments with people who do not ‘see’ white privilege.  

The first reaction when I talk about white privilege is the “I worked for what I have.” They see the years of education, the long hours of work, and dedication to their profession as honorable.  And there is an immediate defensiveness that by saying they have ‘white privilege’ I’m saying they don’t deserve what they have accomplished.  This is going to be a losing argument.  Of course they worked hard.  But the idea that they drove the race in a Ferarri while others weren’t even driving a car (they were getting a lift on the public bus) makes it feel like somehow the person in the Ferarri cheated. Our culture sells the “American Dream” of get educated and becoming anything you want. And white people see a lot of competition within their universe for the best jobs, the best ‘fill in the blank’.  So they think they’ve overcome adversity.  That’s their normal. So I tell them my little “with and without military ID” story and they chalk that up to ‘not a major issue’. Still, I get a FEW people who understand the concept of power/no-power.  Just a few.  But most cannot separate their personal success and other’s personal inequities.  They will rapidly admit they were lucky they were born white, but they still feel that somehow admitting others were disadvantaged by being born a POC diminishes their own accomplishments.  To me, it’s the ‘scarcity mentality’. The idea that there is only so much pie, and so if they unfairly got more pie, they’ve done something wrong. And it’s too late to turn back in that college degree, house, and family.  So, they’d rather not think about it. 

The next strong reaction is when I try to talk about the inequities of the criminal justice system. Now the statistics come out. Again, they don’t see that systemic racism DROVE the statistics in the first place.  I’m have some success when I compare the story of Brock Turner (the white rapist from Stanford) versus Brian Banks (the innocent man who served time for rape due to false allegations).  If I still have my audience, who has possibly said “that’s one example”, I hit them with the $75M payout by New York City for unlawful arrest of over 900,000 people. Eyes glaze.  They are still uncomfortable with the topic and think I might have a point, but they really don’t want to continue talking now.   ‘And... and it would all be better if there just weren’t so many X. X being drugs, gangs, poor, etc... Those are the issues, not the color of a persons skin.’  Still missing the point that the color of a person’s skin is WHY they live in an environment with more “X”. So it fundamentally comes down to people using statistics in whatever way proves their inherent bias. Only unambiguous statistics are really useful in those arguments. 

Finally, if I’ve talked at length and gotten someone to see the problems of systemic racism, I have a hard time getting them to take up the cause. It’s like ‘racism’ is the third rail of social politics.  If they touch it, they might get fried.  They might do it ‘wrong’.  They might be told to ‘shut up because your opinion doesn’t matter’. Or they might find out that they’ve lived a life of privilege and never acknowledged it’s value to them.  That despite working so hard, they need to help others get that same blessing they have.  We have GOT to come up with a lexicon that allows people to discuss the topic. I’ve taken the white-on-white training approach but, again, batting .300. 

But now we’re back to pie.  The socially conscious individual will state there is enough pie for everyone.  In my opinion, it is the underlying competition in America that drives the systemic racism that created the white privilege in the first place.  And keeps it in place.  Even many of those who readily acknowledge systemic racism are at a loss as to what, precisely, to do. I’m personally going with 1) acknowledge, 2) consciously factor it in decision making, 3) make others aware, and 4) help overcome where I can. 

So now I’ll come to the two ‘hot-button’ issues of the month. Kneeling for the National Anthem and “Black Lives Matter”.  Well damn. We have Neo-Nazi’s marching in Charlottesville.  I think ignoring racial tension has become absurd.  The Neo-Nazi’s have almost done us a favor. They’ve found their ‘power’ in Donald Trump and are running to try and leverage that power.  Their economic situation has worsened, which has NOTHING to do with POC but it’s a pie issue, so it’s immediately conflated.  And now in frustration, like so many dictators of the past, Trump is fueling hate speech and giving them an outlet by blaming immigrants.  He’s a flat out bigot for everything but white males. But his target of interest is the immigrants with emphasis on Hispanic and Muslims.  How inconvenient for him that the Black Lives Matter movement won’t go away.  So he frames the issue around patriotism and the service of the military and the police. And the people who think they are ‘supporting the flag’ are often the same as those who won’t touch that third rail of social politics.  Strawmen arguments about player salaries come out. And THEY SUCCEED.  Because the players protesting don’t look disadvantaged.  Yet it is only BECAUSE they are protesting that we even are having the conversation.  Well, white privilege people don’t want to have that conversation.  ‘And why can’t they just protest outside a courthouse or something rather than bring an uncomfortable topic into my living room?’  No, they won’t say that outloud.  But we’re back to pie and the white privilege of not wanting to think about how much pie they have versus others.  And we don’t want to talk about that so we rally around the American Flag when in fact it’s the Constitution that is our unifying governance.  So.. the challenge is to get people to see that it’s time to have the uncomfortable conversations.  (Okay, it’s about 300 years late in having the conversation .. but it’s coming to a head).  And then theirs the “Black Live Matter” movement.  And the grade school response is “All Lives Matter.”  I’m going to be honest, I think the “Black Lives Matter” is 100% spot-on regarding topic, but I think the slogan was easy to manipulate for the uninformed. If you ask a socially conscious person should black people’s lives be treated with the same respect as white, their immediate response is “obviously.”  But the slogan has two basic interpretations that are put out “ONLY Black Lives Matter” or “Black Lives Matter TOO”.  The people behind “Black Lives Matter” were, in my opinion, going after the second interpretation.  But it’s the first interpretation that is allowing reasonable people to think that there is something wrong with the movement.  The first interpretation is, of course, the one that racist agitators love to rally around.  I realize this is obvious, but not everyone sees the manipulation and thus they fall for it. 

So, what do I recommend from my white privilege position? (note: if you don’t want to know... don’t read it.. I’ll listen to reasonable constructive criticism... but if you just want to yell at me for bothering to write at all?  WHY are you following me?  These are not the droids you are looking for)   Well, I want to change hearts and minds of those in power (the white people). Because I believe that until they recognize that a system based primarily on only white people having power is inherently un-American, systemic racism is not going to get resolved.  Those in power rarely give it up.  But I do believe it can be done.  Peacefully and rapidly. Not in some far off generation. And I’ll continue to do my own research and reading articles and passing on statistics and listening to other people’s stories (which are far more compelling than mine) in order to improve my engagement with other white people about privilege.  But here’s what would help. First, I think the NFL players are free to each do their own thing, but a unified approach about how to show team unity and support of correcting the inequities of racial-based police brutality would be a good thing.  IF they could unite to at least make it less individually interpret-able by team, that would help make the message clear.  But I strongly support their right to make that protest during the national anthem.  As for Black Lives Matter, I wish we could come up with a slogan that isn’t so easily manipulated.  The truth behind it is unambiguous in my mind. But I think you can’t presume that everyone understand the “Too” versus the “Only”.  It’s not yielding the conversation we need to have. Instead we are talking about pie. We need to get the focus to shift to treating POC with the same power and dignity we treat white people. To stop the violence against POC. I wish I had the eloquence of a Lin Manuel-Miranda to come up with a phrase that speaks to every rational American and cannot be hijacked by those who propagate system racism. I don’t have those words yet. I just know we need them. 

Comments and constructive criticism welcome. Name calling and insults, not so much. 

[juliosmith-blog1]

ENGL 230 Entire Course Professional Communication

https://homeworklance.com/downloads/engl-230-entire-course-professional-communication/

 ENGL 230 Entire Course Professional Communication

 ENGL 230 Quiz Week 1 DeVry 

 (TCO 1) What is the exchange of oral, written, and nonverbal messages among people working to accomplish common tasks and goals?

Attitudes

Opinions

Organizational Communication

Individual beliefs

(TCO 1) Maintaining candor, avoiding deception, keeping messages accurate, and maintaining consistent behavior are some guidelines for sustaining:

Communication values

Political behavior

Ethical communication

Goal-directed behavior

(TCO 1) Evaluate the following goal in terms of the goal setting guidelines discussed in the chapter: “I want to complete the weekly schedule at least three days before it is due.”

According to the guidelines, this is an appropriate goal.

This is not an appropriate goal.

A better goal is: “I will complete the weekly schedule and have the supervisor review it for errors at least three days before it is due.”

This goal should read: “I’ll try to have the schedule completed at least a day before it is due so as to avoid any conflicts with the supervisor.”

(TCO 1) Trading favors, appearing successful at tasks, associating with the “right” people, and making concessions to obtain others’ compliance are some political strategies you should use only after asking yourself:

“What is my motivation or intent in making this decision?”

“Can I get my way by doing this?”

“Will I get promoted by doing this?”

“Is everyone doing it?”

(TCO 1) When you show that you are interested in what another person has to say by being receiver-oriented, receptive, and responsive to his or her message, you are demonstrating:

Openness

Certainty

Neutrality

Supportivess

(TCO 1) What are some of the advantages of communication openness?

Supervisors know everything that is going on, upper management can take control of decisions, and on-the-job performance improves.

Role clarity, organizational performance, and information adequacy are improved.

Everyone knows what everyone else is doing, resulting in fewer misunderstandings and greater freedom.

There are no advantages to communication openness.

(TCO 1) Internal communication includes understanding all of the following elements:

Downward, upward, and external communication.

Upward, downward, and tall versus flat structure.

Downward, upward, horizontal, and informal networks.

Horizontal networks only.

(TCO 1) Why is an understanding of communication anxiety so important to the strategic communication process?

Communicating effectively with even the slightest amount of anxiety is discouraged.

Having any amount of communication anxiety will prevent a person from becoming a strategic communicator.

Managing anxiety is not as important as identifying the source of the anxiety.

Learning how to manage anxiety in different contexts greatly enhances a person’s ability to develop effective communication strategies.

(TCO 1) What is the first step in the goal-setting process?

Obtain feedback

Set a performance goal

Identify the problem

Map out a strategy

(TCO 1) Next week, Clark will give his most important budget proposal presentation. He knows that now, more than ever, he must carefully practice the presentation several times if he hopes to have the proposal accepted. Which component of the model of strategic communication is most applicable to this scenario?

Goal setting

Situational knowledge

Communication competence

Anxiety management

(TCO 2) Communication between the British Prime Minister and the German Chancellor would be considered:

Interracial.

Cross-cultural.

International.

Interethnic.

(TCO 2) Tom leaves work early to Christmas shop for his niece and nephew. He does not have children himself, but he thinks he is safe buying his niece a doll and his nephew a fire truck. The above is an example of which negative stereotype below?

Age

Religion

Gender

Ethnicity

(TCO 2) In the broadest sense, sexual harassment in the workplace includes:

A worker asking a coworker to lunch to discuss business.

Inappropriate demands made on an employee, producing an uncomfortable work environment.

Having to stay late to work on a project with an approaching deadline.

Telling a worker he or she cannot work on a project because he or she has no experience in the area.

(TCO 2) Self perspectives, organizational contexts, and discourse from conflict are all important components of:

The cultural metaphor model.

The legal guidelines for diversity.

The cultural communication conflict triangle.

None of the above

(TCO 2) Total knowledge and complete understanding of another culture is:

Common if the cultures are similar in religious beliefs.

Impossible.

Needed for successful communication to occur.

Damaging to a person’s self-perspective.

(TCO 2) Virginia recognized that one of her shortcomings identified in last quarter’s performance appraisal was that she seldom seemed to listen well to others. At this quarter’s appraisal, she is planning to describe to her manager the ways she has tried to improve her listening habits. Virginia is considering which strategic communication component?

(TCO 2) Prejudice is a negative preconception about:

Goal setting

Situational knowledge

Communication competence

Anxiety management

(TCO 2) What is the study of cultural communication between representatives of different nations?

International communication

Interracial cultural communication

Interethnic cultural communication

Language culture

(TCO 2) Unaddressed sites of conflict:

Do not increase tension.

Can be managed.

Create tension that can stop work or hinder relational activity.

Can always be resolved.

(TCO 2) Culture is:

The study of linguistic meanings of words.

The language shorthand used by people in a particular trade or profession.

The study of the social and political significance of verbal and nonverbal language as signs.

A broad term that explains how people from various nations and cocultures act and speak as they do.

 ENGL 230 Activity 5 Outline Week 2 DeVry 

 The assignment is Activity #5 on page 382. You are given a list of different aspects of a job description and you must create a topical outline that will contain two main points, with subpoints and some sub-subpoints. You must use only the words provided. The assignment will be graded on how well you follow proper outline technique including correct use of Roman numerals, letters for the sub-categories, and logical sequencing. Outlines require that if you have a Roman numeral I, you must have a Roman numeral II. The Roman numerals represent “main” points. Also, outlines require that if you have an item A, you must have an item B. Please be sure you submit the assignment in this format, and check your work for any misspellings prior to submission.

Responsibilities

File reports

One report from marketing

One report from production

Files should…

 ENGL 230 Mini Power Point Presentation Week 3 DeVry 

 This week, you will create and record an informative miniPowerPoint presentation. Your audience is a group of company colleagues who follow the stock market and take turns keeping each other informed on what’s new with the Fortune 1,000. Choose IBM, Disney, or Wal-Mart. Then, create a thesis statement that….

 7 Slides and Speaker Notes

Slide 1 Speaker Notes

Good morning/good afternoon. I am (your name) and I’m here to give a presentation of IBM’s stock performance in 2013 and speculations about the company’s stock performance in 2014. Although IBM is a known leader in the field of technology, even big giants like IBM fall. However, despite the company’s very poor performance in the Dow in 2013, experts predict that the company will again rise in 2014.

Slide 2 Speaker Notes

Although I’m sure that most of you are familiar with IBM, I will provide a brief…

 ENGL 230 Quiz Week 3 DeVry 

 (TCO 4) In adapting to listeners, speakers have to take into account the __________ levels of the audience.

Knowledge, acceptance, and interest

Acceptance, rejection, and intelligence

Knowledge, size, and range

Acceptance, size, and rejection

(TCO 4) Which type of presentation is designed to answer “How” questions, such as “How does this work?”

Demonstration

Explanation

Entertaining

Persuasion

(TCO 4) What presentations share information, shape perceptions, and set agendas?

Point by point

Persuasive

Entertaining

Informative

(TCO 4) What type of presentation educates listeners to help them gain or improve on specific skills?

Regular, scheduled meetings

Training

Report

Briefing

(TCO 4) Descriptive presentations seek to satisfy audience members’ need to:

Have facts, figures, and other data

Learn how to do something

See how something works

Have order

(TCO 4) Successful informative presentations:

Motivate audience curiosity

Connect with audience values

Give audience members a reason to listen

All of the above

(TCO 4) How does the chronological pattern organize main points?

In order of importance

In a geographical sequence

In a time sequence

In a cause and effect sequence

(TCO 4) Which criterion should a speaker rely on in choosing the best pattern of organization for a presentation?

The goal of the presentation determines the pattern

The size of the audience determines the pattern

The length of the speech determines the pattern

The number of main points determines the pattern

(TCO 4) What type of informative presentation addresses “what” questions?

Explanation

Persuasion

Demonstration

Description

(TCO 4) Which of the following actions can a speaker take to help listeners best overcome their physiological noise?

Make sure that a microphone is present

Make sure the presentation is interesting and captivating

Make sure to use a range of voice inflections and pacing

Make sure to adjust the temperature in the room the night before

(TCO 5) Which type of persuasive presentation serves to maintain the status quo and strengthen the audience’s attitudes, values, and beliefs?

Refutation

Call to action

Reinforcement

Explanation

(TCO 5) Maslow’s system of needs is based on the argument that __________ level needs must be satisfied before __________ level needs can be motivating factors.

Higher; lower

Larger; smaller

Lower; higher

Lower; lower

(TCO 5) What does the use of the listener’s perspective in a persuasive presentation mean?

Understanding what makes the listener tick

Understanding what motivates the speaker

Describing what makes the speaker tick to the audience

Relating to the audience on a new level

(TCO 5) __________ means an audience can be persuaded on the basis of who the source is or what the source said.

Opinion

Source credibility

Trustworthiness

Resources

(TCO 5) Of the three components of source credibility, which deals with the way a source is perceived, in terms of being honest, friendly, warm, agreeable, or safe?

Trustworthiness

Dynamism

Competence

Eccentricity

(TCO 5) One important way a speaker gains extrinsic credibility is through:

A forceful conclusion to the presentation

Citation of all sources of data

The strong introduction given about the speaker

Another speaker preceding the main speaker

(TCO 5) Speeches for special occasions in the workplace always require:

Senior executives

Formal attire

Brevity

Focus on success

(TCO 5) Which of the following components is found in a persuasive presentation but should not be incorporated in an informative presentation?

Support material

Call to action

Humor

External sources

(TCO 5) In all public speaking situations, it is important to do which of the following?

Analyze the audience demographics

Identify the reasons for the audience members’ presence

Understand the organizational culture and environmental dynamics

All of the above

(TCO 5) When preparing an introduction, what question should the introducer always keep in mind?

Who is the speaker?

What will the speaker want me to say?

How long has the audience been there?

What is meaningful to this group?

 ENGL 230 Informative Outline Week 4 DeVry 

 For Week 4 you are asked to complete an outline for your Informative Speech. Please be sure to follow the Outline Template in Doc Sharing. Remember to include an introduction, thesis, target, audience, body of the outline (with at least three main points (Roman numerals) and two levels of subpoints (letters and numbers), conclusion, visual explanation, and reference page (using correct APA formatting.) You might also want to review the speechguidelines.docx in Doc Sharing for more information.

Title of Presentation: How Viral Marketing Can Improve a Company’s Sales

Name of Presenter:

Description of Business Audience: Entrepreneurs and business professionals who are exploring new ways of marketing their company’s products

Introduction

We all know that viral videos are fun to watch, but with their ability to spread like wildfire, how can entrepreneurs use the same concept in improving their company’s sales? With everyone using social media, how can we use concepts such as viral marketing for the benefit of our businesses? In this presentation, I will discuss…

 ENGL 230 Ball Corporation Practicing Business Communication Week 4 DeVry 

 The assignment in Week 4 is to read the Ball Corporation article on pages 106 and 107, then answer the four questions for critical thinking at the end. When answering the questions, you should answer the questions completely using both textbook definitions and your own experiences and examples (or an outside source, in which case you need to cite the source). So you might first answer with what are typical influences (from the book), and then speak to what typically influences you and give an example of your experience.

How a Small Margin of Error Affects Communication on a Project

A small margin for error makes communication on a project critical, especially when the project is as complex as the projects being developed by Ball Aerospace (O’Hair, Friedrich & Dixon, 2011).  Communication must be precise, clear and timely so that everyone…

Differences in How the Writer Acts in Face-to-face Meetings Compared to Telephone Conference Calls

In face-to-face meetings, the writer tends to be more…

Written Communication vs. Oral Communication

The written form of communication decreases the chances of interruption (O’Hair, Friedrich & Dixon, 2011).  Textual…

Listening Hurdles

One of the writer’s listening hurdles is that he tends to become a passive listener (O’Hair, Friedrich & Dixon, 2011) in that he fails…

 ENGL 230 Informative Speech Power Point Presentation Week 5 DeVry 

 15 Slides with Speaker Notes

For the Week 5 assignment you were asked to create an informative speech in PowerPoint with audio. Please be sure to review speechguidelines.docx in Doc Sharing for complete information on the speech requirements.

Slide 5: There are various tools that can be used for viral marketing, but the key thing to remember is that viral marketing is driven by content. As we all know, social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter are the most common and popular tools for…

Slide 9: Here are some more dos and don’ts for having an effective viral marketing initiative. The first is that it should have an unexpected theme. It should contain an element of surprise, which would increase the users’ curiosity; thus, increasing the views…

Slide 13:

To conclude this presentation, I’d like to reiterate that if done properly, viral marketing is a great way to spread the word about your company’s product or…

 ENGL 230 Interviewing Activity 1 Assignment Week 6 DeVry 

 Complete Activity #1, located on page 257 in our eBook or page 256 in our printed textbook.

For this activity, please construct a series of questions that you would ask in the opening portion of the following types of interviews:

   Which types of buildings would require permits for?

 What are the requirements for obtaining a building      permit?

 How long have you been working in the company?….

  ENGL 230 Quiz Week 6 DeVry 

 (TCO 8) More than 90 percent of business organizations provide training in ___________ for their employees.

Telephone operation

Cash register operation

Interpersonal communication

Leadership

(TCO 8) Which of the following could be an obstacle to the achievement of goals in the interview?

An uncomfortable setting and an inconvenient time for the interview

Sufficient preparation by the interviewer

The interviewee talking enthusiastically

Willingness to contribute on the part of the reviewer

(TCO 8) What three concepts bear on question meaning?

Clarity, relevance, and bias

Opening, body, and closing

Bias, sequence, and form

Alternatives, lists, and prestige

(TCO 8) The interviewer who asks him or herself such questions as “Will the interviewee know what the interview is about?” and “Will the interviewee want to participate in the interview?” is addressing which two components of the interview’s opening?

Orientation and motivation

First impressions and orientation

Credibility and motivation

(TCO 8) What form of question is the following: Do you believe that women should be allowed to take combat roles in the military?

Secondary

Closed

Open

Loaded

(TCO 8) Which of Carl Rogers’s five response categories seeks to reassure, pacify, or reduce the interviewee’ s intensity of feeling?

Evaluative

Understanding

Supportive

Interpretative

(TCO 8) In a highly scheduled interview, the interviewer prepares an interview schedule that contains:

Potential topics and subtopics.

All major questions with possible probe questions under each major question. The questions are asked in the order in which they are listed, but the probes may or may not be used.

All of the questions that will be asked (including all probe questions) and the exact wording that will be used with each interviewee. Every interviewee received exactly the same questions in exactly the same order. Not only all questions but also all answer options.

(TCO 8) Possible obstacles to a successful interview process may include:

Confusion and trauma.

Lack of courtesy and forgetfulness.

Distracting subconscious behaviors.

All of the above

(TCO 8) __________ is (are) the process of finding a job through personal contacts at other organizations.

Internships

Networking

Personal job application

Employee referrals (TCO 8) Many companies receive as many as two hundred applicants for a job. Of that pool, ___________ candidates will be called for a first interview.

Twenty to thirty

Three to five

Twenty to twenty-five

Eight to ten

(TCO 8) __________ of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination in employment on the basis of color, race, religion, sex, or national origin.

Amendment Fourteen

Title VII

Amendment Nineteen

Title IX

(TCO 8) In preparing for an interview, what does the interviewee do to learn as much about the potential employer as possible?

Research the company

Write a personal biography

Get work experience

Write a tailored cover letter

(TCO 8) The interviewee designs the résumé and cover letter based on __________ and on research about the company.

organizational structure

business purpose

personal biography

work experience (TCO 8) If an applicant thinks she or he has been asked an illegal or discriminating question during an interview, what course of action should the applicant take?

Attempt a citizen’s arrest because the law requires the employer to prove that no discrimination took place.

Give a false answer to the question.

Refuse to answer the question.

Politely clarify the question, and place the ball back in the interviewer’s court.

(TCO 9) What type of feedback is most effective in motivating employees?

Mostly corrective

Negative only

Both corrective and supportive

Both positive and evaluative

(TCO 9) Which of the following discriminatory questions is considered illegal?

Do you qualify for minority status?

Can you work overtime?

Are you willing to relocate?

Have you been convicted of a felony?

(TCO 8) What makes an interview question effective?

An interview question will be effective if it brings…

  ENGL 230 Persuasive Outline Week 7 DeVry 

  For Week 7 you are asked to complete an outline for your Persuasive Speech. Please be sure to follow the Outline Template in Doc Sharing. Remember to include an introduction, thesis, target, audience, body of the outline (with at least three main points (Roman numerals) and two levels of subpoints (letters and numbers), conclusion, visual explanation, and reference page (using correct APA formatting.) You might also want to review the speechguidelines.docx in Doc Sharing for more information.

Title of Presentation: Proposal for Additional Company Network Security and Firewall Protection Measures

Name of Presenter: 

Description of Business Audience: The audience consists of members of the IT department management team.  They are responsible for evaluating my proposal and making…

Introduction

Sony Playstation’s loss of $171 million in damages from     a network breach in 2011 (Phneah, 2012)

Topics that the presentation will cover

Thesis statement

Introduction of the speaker

Thesis Statement: IT security breaches caused much damage and loss for an enterprise, making tighter…

Body of Outline

Risks, Threats, and Vulnerabilities

What are risks, threats…

 ENGL 230 Tootsie Roll Industries, Inc. Week 7 DeVry 

 Week 7 Assignment Practicing Business Communications:

 The assignment in Week 7 is to read the article about Tootsie Roll on pp 328-329 and answer the five questions for critical thinking at the end. When answering the questions, you should answer the questions completely using textbook definitions, examples from the Tootsie Roll story, and your own experiences and examples (or an outside source, in which case you need to cite the source). Using terminology from the text connects your answers to the core concepts of communication and negotiation in Chapter 11. So you might first answer with examples from the Tootsie Roll story that support your position and then share the relevant concepts from your text. Giving examples from your experience can help demonstrate your knowledge of communication and negotiation concepts and connect the topics to the real-world.

TRI (Tootsie Roll Industries) communicates its values to suppliers and employees by keeping the communication lines open between them and the company’s management team.  For example, employees are allowed to join or sit in on meetings of other departments.  They are also aware of and are involved in the decisions being made by the company.  This promotes transparency within the company.  On the other hand, when it…

  ENGL 230 Persuasive Speech Week 8 DeVry 

 For the Week 8 assignment you were asked to create a Persuasive Speech in PowerPoint with audio. Please be sure to review speechguidelines.docx in Doc Sharing for complete information on the speech requirements.

 15 Power Point Slides with Speaker Notes

Preview:

Slide 1:

Good afternoon. Did you know that in 2011, Sony incurred damages amounting to $171 million due to a security breach that occurred in Sony PlayStation Network?  To think that Sony is a big company that we can presume to have the best security-related technologies in place. And yet, their system was still infiltrated. This means that no business entity is entirely safe from security breaches and that a company’s security measures should….

  ENGL 230 Professional Communication Discussions ALL 7 Weeks All Students Posts 367 Pages DeVry 

 ENGL 230 Communication Discussions 1 Week 1 All Students Posts 29 Pages DeVry

 In your opinion, does the success-or failure-of an organization depend on how effectively its members communicate, or not? How do organizations establish goals? How can communication help an organization achieve its goals? What implications do the information age and globalization have for organizational communication? What barriers might exist in a company with offices all over the world? What barriers might exist in an organization that relies heavily on electronic forms of communication versus face-to-face communication?…

 ENGL 230 Language Culture Discussions 2 Week 1 All Students Posts 26 Pages DeVry

 What does the term “language culture” include, and how might you analyze your language culture? Who could help you? Which research or library sources could be informative? Every human being has a unique, personalized “language culture.” Your own language culture is built from all your life experiences, locations lived, groups spent time around, occupations, majors, hobbies, and more. (1) Can you explain your own language culture? (2) How can any language culture–your own or someone else’s–be analyzed and understood?  How you are perceived by your audience is a big part of communication. Have any of you ever had any misunderstandings that stemmed from cultural differences?…

 ENGL 230 Communication and Language Culture Discussions Week 1 DeVry

 ENGL 230 Business Presentations Discussions 1 Week 2 All Students Posts 29 Pages DeVry

 What are some common reasons for presentations in a business or professional setting?  What are some of the benefits of making or listening to presentations in the workplace? Why is public speaking frightening to you? List the techniques you use to overcome your fear of public speaking? What benefits and/or challenges have you experienced when giving professional presentations?…

ENGL 230 Public Speaking Discussions 2 Week 2 All Students Posts 26 Pages DeVry

 How might you handle the following situations? You arrive to give your speech and are asked to speak for an hour instead of for thirty minutes because a second speaker has canceled. Someone interrupts you, saying that you are not speaking on the subject the audience has come to hear. What do you consider as “good” delivery? What delivery techniques work for you?…

 ENGL 230 Business Presentations and Public Speaking Discussions Week 2 DeVry

 ENGL 230 Informative Speaking Discussions 1 Week 3 All Students Posts 27 Pages DeVry

 Why are informative presentations useful? Describe and give examples of the three major functions of informative presentations. Why is knowing your audience important? How does the audience affect how you shape your message and the information you share? Can anyone think of other types of audiences? How might the setting and surroundings affect your speaking situation? How does that relate to sources of “noise” that our text describes?…

 ENGL 230 Ethics and Persuasive Speaking Discussions 2 Week 3 All Students Posts 26 Pages DeVry

 Imagine that you are trying to persuade your employer to buy a particular Brand X portable computer for employees to use for business trips.  You are to make a presentation to a management committee, and you want to give members convincing evidence for your recommendation.  You also want to make the presentation in an ethical fashion.  You like the selected model for a variety of reasons, including the fact that your spouse works part time for Brand X and has told you a lot of good things about it. As you think through the presentation, what, if any, ethical issues will you encounter?  What are some possible ways of dealing with them?  Which will you choose? Might your answer change if you or your family owned stock in Brand X?  Why or why not?  in deciding how much information to present, do you have an ethical responsibility to present all sides of an issue? For example, does a district attorney have a responsibility to tell a grand jury about all known facts of a case? Should a sales representative for a drug manufacturer tell doctors about the side effects of a drug? Should an army recruiter tell potential recruits about both the advantages and disadvantages of military life? What criteria would you use in deciding the answers to these questions?…

ENGL 230 Informative Speaking Ethics and Persuasive Speaking Discussions Week 3 DeVry

 ENGL 230 Hearing and Listening Discussions 1 Week 4 All Students Posts 25 Pages DeVry

 What’s the difference between hearing and listening? Please provide experiences or examples. What other differences do you know of between hearing and listening?  What is listener anxiety? Why is it a particularly serious problem in business settings? Class, even when audience members have the best of intentions (which goes a long way) they are never going to remember all of the information. What are you going to do to help your audience with retention?… ENGL 230 Verbal and Nonverbal Skills Discussions 2 Week 4 All Students Posts 26 Pages DeVry

 Describe a situation in which a coworker’s nonverbal communication contradicted his or her words. Which message was stronger? What might be some reasons for the lack of alignment?  How can we make sure our body language, including facial expressions, matches what we’re saying? Class, in Week 3 we discussed how much the audience or venue of a presenation affects clothing and other choices with regard to appearance. How can the physical appearance of a speaker effect the audience? For example, a speaker dressed in a very casual and inappropriate way might cause the audience to question the speaker’s credibility. What else? Do have any specific examples you can share? How can you be certain that you are presenting the correct appearance when you are the speaker?…

 ENGL 230 Hearing and Listening and Verbal and Nonverbal Skills Discussions Week 4 DeVry

 ENGL 230 Leadership Tactics Discussions 1 Week 5 All Students Posts 28 Pages DeVry

 Management has always used fear to some degree. Although most leadership books ignore this tool altogether, in favor of more accommodating techniques, many highly successful executives use terror to lead their employees. Scott Snook, a Harvard Business School professor of organizational behavior, suggests that fear can become a barrier to taking risks, but, at the same time, it can “provide the essential emotional kick” needed to meet a challenge. The use of fear to lead can cause many problems because no one will question the leadership or suggest changes. For example, Enron had its employees rank one another’s performance every year and then fired the lowest ten percent. This practice could not have made questioning authority easy, and such questions could have helped to avoid Enron’s scandal and collapse. Workers who have more credentials and experience are less reliant on a single employer, and for them, fear-inspiring bosses are less of a factor. In strong economic times, workers are more difficult to come by, so bosses must be careful. However, in times of downturn, such as in the last few years, management has had more power over employees, and cracking the whip has become more common. Most successful companies are made up of people who are “productively neurotic.” That is, their neuroses makes them more productive workers because they have “a strong, self-imposed fear of failure.” Firms with such workers don’t use fear directly to encourage employees; rather, they simply reinforce people’s own natural tendency to strive for success. Do you think it is ethical for an organization to allow its leaders to use fear as a communication tactic? What have your experiences with fear as a leadership tool been?What do you all think of fear as a management tool? If you have been in this situation with a manager, please share your experience. Do any of us employ this technique as a manager?…

 ENGL 230 Leadership Styles Discussions 2 Week 5 All Students Posts 25 Pages DeVry

 Do you believe that there is a single leadership style that is effective in most situations?  If you do, explain what that style is and why it is effective. If you don’t, please explain your position. Do you consider yourself a leader? Have you had the opportunity to be a leader in the workplace? If not, tell us about other situations where you have been a leader? How would you describe your leadership style?  Have any of you ever experienced leadership anxiety? What are some of the methods to handle leadership anxiety?…

 ENGL 230 Leadership Tactics and Leadership Styles Discussions Week 5 DeVry

 ENGL 230 Job Interviews Discussions 1 Week 6 All Students Posts 25 Pages DeVry

 In today’s computer driven business world, job interviews may likely occur online in a series of e-mail exchanges. How do you believe you might perform in an online interview, compared to a traditional face-to-face interview? Can you imagine that you might feel at an advantage or a disadvantage? Why? Do you believe these three characteristics exist in an online or e-mail interview? Why/Why not?  So tell me, how can you prepare for a phone interview? An e-mail exchange? Face to face interview? Is it all the same or different?…

  ENGL 230 Employee Appraisal & Disciplinary Interview Discussions 2 Week 6 All Students Posts 26 Pages DeVry

 Why are effective performance appraisal interviews critical to healthy supervisor-employee relations? Can disciplinary interviews improve relations? How does communication competence come into play in both scenarios? What experiences have you had with performance appraisals? How might your manager more effectively conducted your appraisal? Class, have you ever been yelled at by a coworker or supervisor? If yes, how did it make you feel? If you don’t mind, tell us about the situation. How could you and/or the supervisor/coworker have handled the communication differently? When you reply, look back to the chapter for this week on employee appraisals and disciplinary action to support your suggested solution to the problem….

 ENGL 230 Job Interviews Employee Appraisal & Disciplinary Interview Discussions Week 6 DeVry ENGL 230 Manager-Employee Relationship Discussions 1 Week 7 All Students Posts 24 Pages DeVry

 Cherie is an accountant for a large advertising agency. After receiving notice of a prospective, large account, she thinks of a creative advertising campaign and tells her idea to Charles, her manager. Charles shoots down her idea and reminds her that her job is accounting. Several days later, the design team visits Charles and asks him for more details on his brilliant campaign idea. Cherie realizes that the campaign being discussed is her idea.  What does this outcome indicate about the communication climate and power holding in the agency? If you were Cherie, would you approach Charles about stealing your idea, or would you show support for your manager? Why?  Class, I’m sure that this week’s scenario will prove to be an interesting conversation. To get us started, let’s address a few issues: Have you experienced a similar situation in your own professional experience to that of Charles and Cherie in the scenario? Please tell us about it. How did you resolve it? Review the steps for improving relationships with others (195). How would you use these steps to address the situation described above?… ENGL 230 Coworker Relationship Discussions 2 Week 7 All Students Posts 25 Pages DeVry

 When it comes to coworkers, why are strong interpersonal relationships important in business?

How do you build and maintain those relationships while keeping professionalism at the forefront?  What are some challenges you face in doing so?  As you respond to this question, tell us of any real examples you can recall where you had a co-worker who “didn’t” handle a situation in an appropriate way… What happened? What might have been different had that person adjusted to the specific situation?… ENGL 230 Manager-Employee Relationship and Coworker Relationship Discussions Week 7 DeVry