"The Good Life"

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(...) Most of the information used by journalists in depicting  Generation
X in this way comes from polling data and marketing research, especially
by Yankelovich Partners and the Roper Organization. For example,
in a 1996 poll, Yankelovich Partners found that 64% of young
people aged 18 to 24 agreed that “material things, like what I drive and
the house I live in, are really important to me” (Hornblower, 1997,
p. 65). About one half believed that they would be better off financially
than their parents. Nearly all—96%—agreed, “I am very sure
that someday I will get to where I want to be in life” (p. 62). In a 1992
poll, the Roper Organization found 18- to 29-year-olds to have higher
material aspirations than 18- to 29-year-olds polled by the organization
in 1978 (Roper Organization, 1993). Fifty-nine percent aspired to 

have a lot of money (compared with 50% in 1978), 42% aspired to
have a second car (28% in 1978), and 41% aspired to have a vacation
home (25% in 1978). Sixty-nine percent included a job that pays a lot
more than average as part of their definition of “the good life” (58% in
1978). However, an equal percentage included an interesting job as
part of their definition. Many of the poll results on the views of emerging
adults concern economic issues, partly because these are believed
to be issues that are especially salient to young people as they enter
the workforce, but also because the objective of pollsters such as
Yankelovich Partners and the Roper Organization is to inform their
corporate clients about the economic characteristics of their potential
customers.


HIGH HOPES IN A GRIM WORLD
Emerging Adults’Views of Their
Futures and “Generation X”
JEFFREY JENSEN ARNETT
University of Maryland
 

Published in 2000. Study conducted between 1994-1995… what has changed since then? In the terms of “good life” and “future”, I mean. The whole spectrum of, more or less, connected notions suggests that probably we won’t be able to avoid the question of current understanding of success, which is personally harmful for me, but what can I do?
And why it is so disturbing? It’s actually pretty simple… I feel that I’m being forced into sort of an association pattern – phenomenon which creates in my mind a vision of attractive people in suits, driving shiny cars, talking through iPhones, waving their golden credit cards in the supermarkets etc. when I hear word “success”. This is my automatic first connotation, which I cannot control. I can always correct myself after, but in what position exactly does it put me?! Being against this influences, trying to think rationally and critically I am still associating success with profitable business, attractiveness and money, in a way as an unconditioned mind reflex. How powerful is that? Swiss banks, Louises Vittons and Rolexes do not exactly help…


Luckily, thanks to my Greek friend from school, I discovered this guy! For now on my personal “King of Banality” (in a good way, not in the Paulo Coelho way):
 


In this short lecture, Mister Botton is proposing a pep talk regarding a term of success as a personal success. Moreover, he underlines a potential of individual successes which, in his opinion, are being unfairly standardized into one common vision of success. When you don’t fit in, you’re a LOSER. Why? Because we live in a world in which each one of us is responsible for his future. We are alone in our struggle and we have only two options - to win or to lose.
That reminds me the adorable movie “Little Miss Sunshine”. Especially the Father character (Richard), who was specializing in inspirational speeches basing on simple division, is coming to my mind right now:

Richard: There's two kinds of people in this world, there's winners and there's losers. Okay, you know what the difference is? Winners don't give up.

… and of course during the movie he’s forced to redefine his theory and he finishes with the simple conclusion à la Mister Botton -  we are not afraid of losing, as much as we are afraid of judgment. Media and consumption culture are those powers that keep the ongoing creation of the one and only idea of success, and they are guarding the leading position over our weak self-esteems. Living consciously and above those influences enables us to choose our own path towards our own personal success.
So simple, so true, but so difficult to accomplish. I’ve shown this lecture to my friends and my brother. Everyone agreed that it’s nothing reviling and nothing that we weren’t aware of. However, everyone also agreed that it’s not so easy to apply this attitude during everyday activities. Envy, fear of negative judgments, stereotype of success are powerful weapon against real needs and desires of post-industrial human being. How can we get rid of them and start to think independently when even in Kenya some idiots organized a social campaign promoting success by hanging posters presenting a simple mathematical(ish) equation:

Image of One guy in a suit + Image of One shiny car + Image of One Big Wallet full of money = SUCCESS *


I mean for god’s sake! Assuming that the receivers group was actually able to understand the written word (it’s not a sarcasm!) there are still quite huge obstacles on the Kenyan road to success don’t you think?
[* this interesting information I received from one of CCC fellow students. We had a long discussion concerning this disturbing fact, and who would have known that I’m going to use this argument afterwards…]
 





Back to the original notion of the good life - movie experiment. I am pretty amazing in films and TV series knowledge, but still a lot work a head, so I’ve decided to trust Google this time. Results:


There are “quadrillion” of movies with “life” in the title.


Several movies titled “Good life”, in many different languages.
All of them are dramas.


Interesting…


Right! There’s also one British sitcom about a couple, who quits their jobs and starts to lead their life in a village, raising chickens and growing vegetables. Cliché !

To make my point - please watch this trailer of Canadian movie from 2008. Actually, it is about people in their 20s. About us, more or less. Movie is called “When life was good”, so I’m asking myself where are those smiley faces in the trailer? I don’t feel a need to add more comments on that.  (Well, ok I have one – can we, as a faculty, order this movie to our archives. Maybe it’s pointless but I honestly doubt it.)


To conclude this small part of my reflections concerning the notion of good life I would like present two answers I’ve just obtained from my friends asked “what is your first association with the concept of the good life?”. First of all, I have to emphasis the fact that I’ve written to several, more or less, close friends of mine, representing completely different backgrounds and approaches towards life in general. Till today I received only 2 answers, both from young male graduates, pretty successful in their professional lives – suits, fair money, complete independency from family, fluent in 2 or more foreign languages, experienced in working and studying abroad, way more than 250 friends on Facebook. Personal happiness? Problematic…


1.       Good life = advertising campaign slogan for a new brand of yogurt light
2.        First Thought: Good Life as an advertising slogan. I’m looking at a lady on a body shop poster. She’s beautiful but you know.. ecologically beautiful. Red hair, slightly tanned skin. Many MANY freckles! She’s wearing make-up but in a completely natural way. She wants to say that GOOD LIFE cacao face cream made her so happy.

Second Thought: Good life as a French middle class from la treinte glorieuse 1950-1980 period. A couple. Both in really trendy cloths. Their house is full of serial home appliances. It’s their first work-free Saturday, so they drive on the newly build highways, they eat in inexpensive restaurants and they don’t have any idea what Value Added Tax means.


Third Thought: Advertising slogan again, closely related to original products from British grocery chain Sainsbury’s  - “taste the difference".

Don’t get me wrong. I’m pretty convinced I understood the irony, but still my dear beloved “association patterns”…
 
 
 

On Morality

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I've decided to narrow down things a little and discuss some issues more deeply. Maybe that's the way? Chaos always accompanies me so excuse my jumping from one topic to another. Being in the middle of segregating various concepts I think it's a good opportunity to connect more valid ones to my primary idea. So please welcome warmly my first primitive philosophical achievement ! 




A discussion was brought up yesterday between my friend and me. Hard stuff. Morality issues. As I’m finding myself more and more confused about my morals, other’s morals, general notion even, I’ve got as always curious. It seems that my closest friends are afraid of my judgments! They believe that my understanding of good and bad is very categorical, inflexible, narrow-minded even. I won’t defend myself. I won’t avoid a problem either. I’ll start digging instead, cause it is simply unfair that they made me feel like fucking Spanish Inquisition. And how exactly should I react on the argument that “we are what we are and I don’t feel bad at all about what I’m doing, cause I know that others do it too.” So… following this thought, if a bunch of our common friends agree that there’s nothing wrong in shitting on a street, we would automatically do it cause for now on it is acceptable and even well-seen? Bizzare…

Finally, I’ve been warned ! “Stop imposing your morality on others!” Does it mean that there’s more than only one morality, in general sense I mean? I always thought that there’s one common morality for certain society, created by ages of tradition, culture, religion, philosophy and collective conscience. However, in my naïve understanding, each person has his own sense of morality which could more or less resemble the BIG one, or could be a bit, a little, very or totally different and wrong (I’m simplifying on purpose, cause philosophical arguments look better on Wikipedia). If there are more moralities, and everything bases on personal judgment influenced by problematic rationalization and similar cases of behavior in our closest environment, does morality even exists? 

Let’s see …




“People resemble their times more than they resemble their parents”

Oh yeah ?!  Shallow, completely  superficial ancient saying. There’s nothing so simple any more after Freud ! I can agree on fifty-fifty, and no more no more ! (irony included)  
 
…While the Builders’ Generation are most influenced by authority figures and Boomers

make decisions based on data and facts, post-modern youth are more likely to make a

decision based on the influence of their own peers. Our research has further confirmed

that the biggest factor determining the choice a teenager will make is the experiences of

their core group of 3 to 8 friends. Rather than making independent decisions based on

core values, they live in a culture encouraging them to embrace community values, and to

reach consensus.

Understanding Generation Y

Mark McCrindle




Ho ho ho! Why I’m not surprised? But without a proper definitions we won't go far ! 


Morality (from the Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behavior") has three principal meanings.

In its first, descriptive usage, morality means a code of conduct or belief concerning matters of what is moral or immoral (these words are commonly misplaced with right or wrong which are words of logic not morality). In its descriptive use, morals are arbitrarily and subjectively created by society, philosophy, religion, and/or individual conscience

In its second, normative and universal sense, morality refers to an ideal code of belief and conduct which would be preferred by the sane "moral" person, under specified conditions. In this "definitive" sense, claims are made such as "Killing is immoral." While descriptive morality would not necessarily disagree that killing is immoral, it would prefer to say, "Many believe that killing is immoral." – moral skepticism

In its third usage, 'morality' is synonymous with ethics. Ethics seeks to address questions such as how a moral outcome can be achieved in a specific situation (applied ethics), how moral values should be determined (normative ethics), what morals people actually abide by (descriptive ethics), what the fundamental nature of ethics or morality is, including whether it has any objective justification (meta-ethics), and how moral capacity or moral agency develops and what its nature is (moral psychology).
Morality
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 



 According to this brief explanation I wasn't so wrong after all. I wasn't right either. Morals are arbitrarily created by societies and by all the influential forces, institutions, ideas characteristic for them. One point for me! On the other hand, we have this individualistic approach which is, more or less directly, a result of one’s beliefs and specific milieu conditions. Aha! Second point for me for such an outstanding observation! On the third hand (for the continuation’s of this thought sake, let’s assume that we have 3 hands), there’s ethics, so super meta-approach which simply cannot be applied into the reality, cause it is strictly combined with academic, completely irrelevant for living, crap. We have this exception here called applied ethics, but we won’t go this road this time(joke included)...

Now please check out this short movie:  

So there it is. Genetic explanation which in a way lowers the meaning of religion and conscious. Seams realistic to me, but still how should we treat the notion of morality? The notion of Moral Systems seams a lot more convincing. Moral systems created by societies, basing on altruistic genes telling us what’s wrong and what’s right for our community. So much easier to understand, unless of course we don’t mention today individualism, which’s started to be strongly cultivated in Western realities lately. If we dig deeper into this idea, we could come out with the conclusion that above uncontrollable biological factors each person needs A REASON to behave morally. It could be a strong sense of common moral system, but it could be also everything else, like for example a strong need of acceptance in chosen environment. In this case morals become a result of personal criteria, which of course are infected by general moral system, but in the same time this system is being changed continuously by individual experiences.

Our background, religion, traditions, family etc., in opposition to current circumstances (media, globalization, term of success etc.) could cause, and probably are causing severe moral crisis among so-called “millennial generation”. At least those factors don’t stay neutral.   



Let’s sum it up and make a point!  

My probably very childish perspective for the moment:



 
Remember my mapping task? What’s above is my original, general graph layered with today ideas concerning morality. As we can see I’m distinguishing notion of morality as a complete abstraction, in the same time emphasizing a sense of morality (one's interpretation of morality). Directions of influences are rather random, but they need to be taken under the consideration. Codes of conduct as a result of “socially respected morality” are also an important factor. By social contract I don’t mean an agreement by the governed on a set of rules by which they are governed, but rather an unwritten agreement in certain community concerning socially accepted and wanted behaviors.

 Does it make any sense?  

Best Regards

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Ok, so I'm back as I've promised. I'm back and honestly...  not really satisfied with the latest episode. Maybe it's my imagination, but Doctor House is losing more and more of his charisma and sense of humor lately. I hope he'll get better, poor sick bastard. 


And now returning to my stuff...

Yesterday I came up with a super crazy idea. Why should I bother with chaotic and thoughtless research for artistic, professional and personal references if I reach the real living source of my inspiration in the first place. I know it is mostly unlikely to get a proper response and  I know that it was probably a waste of my precious time, but today after huge one-person brain storm ( imagine that !) I finally wrote a letter to Douglas Coupland himself...  


... right, I wrote to his publisher, but there's always a chance that he'll get it somehow, so don't You dare laughing at me ! 

I'm not sure if it's completely fair that I'm posting it here, but I'm doing it for two main reasons.

1. I'm sure that Mr. Coupland wouldn't mind if he knew (in my opinion he should be at least flattered, but You know...shhhh I didn't say that !)

2. In this letter I'm trying to define very briefly my general goals. Maybe this material will raise some questions, doubts, comments ? Please talk to me ! There's no need to understand everything. Even most distant association will be an important input to my work.


Here we go then : 


Dear Mr Coupland,




I don’t even know how to begin this letter properly, so firstly let me apologize for my future language mistakes. There is no doubt that I am a great admirer of your work but I do not want to create a fan-letter, whatsoever. Maybe I should at least admit that your books and your attitude towards contemporary cultural changes inspire me and keep me motivated as a emerging researcher, but mostly as a young and completely confused person? Maybe I should write more? Maybe… but instead I would try to be as quick and as concrete as possible, because there is always a slight chance that You would actually get this letter, so in that case I do not want to bore you to death. What a waste would it be ! 
Couple of years ago I was in a middle of my studies when it first hit me. This one though, the one idea, question both exciting and terrifying as hell in the same time - “Eventually I’m gonna finish those studies and then what?” I did everything to avoid this moment. I even spend half a year in France on students exchange program, in the same year I should’ve finish my Master Thesis. During my French experiences as well as during several hitch-hiking adventures in Western Europe I met many young people presenting similar state of confusion and real fear, just like me. However, instead of trying to figure out things for their own, they were actually jumping from one fake identity to another, and they didn’t seem to enjoy it so much after all. It was a really bizarre observation. Even my closest friends started to change thoughtlessly, like some mental shape-shifters – “Look at me! I’m a young manager”, “ Maybe you are, but I’m batter then You cause I’m a social worker right now. Globalization sucks !!!”, “You both suck ! I’m a new member of Generation Y. Cool! Now I can start to pose demands to my boss”… and so on, and so on. There’s of course more, but as I’ve said at the beginning, I don’t want to bore anybody. The fact is that those experiences, together with my own “what-I-want-from-life-confusion” made me wonder about a position of today Generation and even about the topicality of this notion in XXI century realities. So, basically I started to dig deeper and deeper into this subject and that’s how I found You and Your incredibly honest and sincerely funny works. That was especially important for me, because your vision of the post-industrial world and post-industrial lost-in-translation-people happens to be very similar to mine. Evidently mine is much more naïve and much more subjective, so I’ve decided to write to You and ask for Your opinion. We’re living in the very special times when one insignificant person can actually somehow contact with its so-called “idol” (or maybe “a distant role model persona” is a better name), of course if this “idol” is still alive and lucky for both of Us You are alive. How cool is that?

I believe the time has come to introduce myself and to mention some more or less important  facts. My name is Agata. I’m Polish. I’m 25 years old. One year and a half ago I graduated from Psychology thanks to my Master Thesis, inspired also by the notion of Emerging Adulthood  (J.J.Arnett – American Psychologist – still alive and in a good shape apparently!) and by my “inner confusion” regarding generation as an idea, future, career and future  life in general. After graduation I’ve decided to try an independent and responsible living for a while. I even found myself a job and moved from my parent’s home to another city, but it was a big failure from the beginning. Working from 8 am till 4 pm every day, sending stupid formal e-mails and leading ridiculous conversation on a phone with some arrogant businessmen made me so miserable that I left my job after 5 months, only to find that I’m more depressed than ever before. I didn’t want to give up so fast though, so I’ve started different career - I became a journalist writing hypocritical how-to-be-a-great-manager-articles. It is really hard to consciously suffer like that, but it is even harder to quit it and change everything without any help and support. I’d probably stay like this till this day, gradually forgetting about my dreams, desires and maybe even values, but fortunately life is full of strange coincidences and apparent accidents. I always believed that everything happens for a reason, and it is crucial to realize when the right moment for key decision has come (I love banality… Among my friends I even earned this cute nick-name “The Queen of Banality” and I’m proud of it !). It also happens to me from time to time. Like, after years of silence I met my old friend, who lives in Geneva. He told me about this interesting interdisciplinary master program in the Genevian Art School called Critical Cross-Cultural Curatorial Cybermedia (whatever that means). All I needed was a project for semi-artistic, semi-professional research and a small dose of creativity for starters. CRUCIAL MOMENT! I could’ve stayed in Cracow and tried to get on the Jagiellonian University on PHD Program, but instead, in two weeks I made a proposal and send it to Switzerland. They’ve accepted me and here I am now – trying to figure out how to conduct my project and make the best of it. I’m convinced that there’s a simple truth in my ideas, and I’m even more convinced right now, after discovering your most recent book. Don’t get me wrong – I didn’t read it yet, I don’t even have it (Amazon costs are far away from my financial possibilities). However, several summaries of “Generation A” seem really close to my original project. Maybe I’m mistaken, but it seems that my “inspirational distant Canadian role-model persona” posses the same feeling about a big coming-back of storytelling, that I do! Probably I have to read your book first to make such strong statements, but what the hell... I don’t have anything to loose, but maybe a chance of getting your response. This is sad, but honestly I can live with that.

  
Ok. I believe this is it. My final question – in the attachment You’ll find this proposal I’ve written for CCC, and my CV (I really want to make myself as reliable as possible), and I’d really, deeply and truly appreciate any sort of feedback. I’d love to be in touch with You, but I understand that this is completely impossible. Well, girl can dream… 

I’m sending this message to Your presumable publisher, hoping that You’ll get it somehow. 
Take Care Mr. Coupland ! 
Agata

 Ah ! One more thing ! As You can see on your right side of the screen there's a new gadget called... I don't know how's it called, but I mean this questionnaire. If you already get the idea, maybe beyond answering You could actually come with more common shallow identities?  

   




How to do a map of how-do-we-operate?

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Believe me guys this is harder then I thought. 

Second task. Basically, make a mapping-thingy regarding your ideas, specific terms, notions, neologisms even... which are of course connected to the chosen subject of your (of my I mean) artistic research (sic!).


Seriously? 


My field of interest is so huge and full of different layers that it is simply impossible to make a really detail mapping of it, unless You have a space ... well I don't know...a space bigger than flipping' Lac Genevois only for your private use.  
I am well aware of the fact that sooner or later I will have to limit my project, but till then let me show You what a cute and completely general graph I've made.  I'm pretty sure that my project is still hardly visible for You... believe me as it is for me. However, I can promise You that in the next post (probably also published today) You will have a chance to understand more from all of this crap I'm making. Give me an hour or two, cause I really need to eat and watch the next episode of Dr House. 
We all have priorities !