The Outsider's Place in Society

         So far in American Studies, we have looked at two similar but also very different characters. Both Timothy Treadwell and Chris Mcandless were outsiders, and lived outside the normal bounds of American Society. For Treadwell, this was because he couldn't fit in, and for McCandless, because he didn't want to fit in. During our discussion, the question of whether the outsider, despite appearing to be apart from the mainstream, has a role in American society. Does the outsider have a place in society? When I thought about that question, I noticed that the best way to gauge how outsiders are perceived is through movies. The outsider is a staple template for many characters,

          The most common outsider in movies is the awkward underdog who can't fit in, but eventually finds success, such as the main character of Forty Year Old Virgin. This sort of outsider is different from Treadwell or McCandless; the point of his story is to eventually become an insider and achieve happiness along the way. Treadwell and McCandless, by contrast, don't try to become insiders, but rather achieve happiness by focusing their lives around goals outside of the American norm. A closer analog to Treadwell and McCandless's character is the archetype of a protagonist of  westerns; the sheriff or the lone ranger who wanders, dealing justice to those he meets. Like Treadwell and McCandless, these characters live apart from normal society, and their goals in life are very distinct from those of insiders. Instead of trying to raise a family or have a productive career, a sheriff dedicates his life to justice, as Treadwell dedicated his life to Grizzly Bears and McCandless to his pursuit of his ideals.
          The portrayal of Western characters is highly positive. The characters, despite being total strangers, are treated as heroes. They live outside the conventional bounds of society, but they still have a large, valuable role in mainstream culture. A person doesn't necessarily have to conform to have a role in American Society.
          It is important to note, however, the many differences between western characters and Treadwell and McCandless. The roaming sheriff is not a hero because he is an outsider, but because people strongly agree with his mission. Protecting Grizzly Bears and searching for universal truth are not regarded nearly as highly as fighting crime and saving the innocent, so the principle behind popular opinion of western protagonists doesn't necessarily apply to Treadwell and McCandless. However, I believe that many people do sympathize with their goals, and admire their motivation and purpose. Those that criticize them do so because they disagree with their methods, not because they disagree with the goals. They are not automatically shunned because they are outsiders, and are even admired by some. Outsiders can "fit in," in a way, to the culture they live apart from.
Picture Credit: http://www.23hq.com/splandigo/photo/5426761

All News is Gossip?

       Last week in class we had a discussion about a chapter of the book Walden, by Henry David Thoreau. He expressed a variety of strong opinions, but one in particular stuck in my mind. Thoreau was very dismissive of news, saying that "I am sure that I never read anything memorable in a newspaper," and that "all news, as it is called, is gossip" (69). Thoreau is criticizing those who read the newspaper for entertainment, and the specific events he references as unimportant are fairly trivial. Thoreau criticizes those who may literally gossip about the latest murder, the latest fire or accident, and so forth. In that he has a valid point, that it isn't desirable to read the news in order to entertain oneself with mundane events. The problem is, murders, accidents, and everyday occurrences are not the only subjects of newspapers. Thoreau would have also read about the Mexican-American War, the Indian Removal act and the subsequent conflicts, half a dozen revolutions in Latin America, and numerous other large-scale events. According to Thoreau, however, those events aren't memorable. Thousands of American and Mexican deaths, the violent expulsion of many native groups, and nations throwing off their colonial rulers in favor of self determination, are nothing but gossip. He took an idea he had about a subset of news, and applied it to all news, and, consequentially, almost any significant political or social event. These events are hugely significant, however. Both the Mexican-American War and the conflicts with Native Americans resulted in huge territorial gains and societal shifts, shaping the nation that Thoreau belonged too and in which we live today. I don't think many people agree that those events are merely gossip. Thoreau's statement is an example of a generalization that, beyond it's original subject matter, is inaccurate. It can be tempting to draw broad conclusions from specific cases, but those conclusions are very often wrong when attempting to describe different circumstances.

Image Credit; http://www.fodey.com/generators/newspaper/snippet.asp

The Morality of Consumption, Part 2

A common example of consumption

       Any transaction has two effects on those involved; the benefits, and the costs. For our purposes, I will consider a use of wealth to be immoral if the costs, to the natural world and to society, outweigh the benefits, to the buyer, the seller, and to society; If the buyer is inflicting a net harm. I will ignore the cost to the buyer and the seller, because it is assumed that the benefit to both outweighs the cost, or the transaction wouldn't have occurred. The most obvious benefit of the purchase of an object is the increased happiness of the buyer. However, the purchase of an object also benefits the seller, who now has more wealth at his or her disposal. The seller could, with that wealth, buy another object, increasing his happiness and the wealth of the new seller, and so on. It has often been said that consumer spending is the main driver of the American economy; every time something is bought, it has a ripple effect of benefits to the society as a whole. Finally, the identity of the seller can have affect the benefit of the transaction. If the seller is impoverished or finacially lacking, the money he acquires from the transaction will be have a much greater positive impact than if the seller is Walmart, for instance.
       The production and sale of material objects comes at a cost as well. Every object created by humans comes at a cost to the natural world. The raw materials were taken from nature at some point, and their removal and transformation into a finished good invariably damages nature to some degree. Any pollution caused by the extraction and manufacturing process can have an negative effect on public health, a cost to society.
       The effects of consumption are complicated, and vary greatly depending on what the material good is. According to the guidelines I set out, whether or not consumption is moral depends on what is consumed. For instance, purchasing a reed mat from a local vendor when on a trip to South America would definitely be a moral form of consumption, since the cost to the environment is almost nil, and the benefit to the vendor, who most likely has a low income, is so great. A private jet, by comparison, has huge costs to the environment with small benefits to the purchaser. The jet was made using metal that had to be mined, and manufacturing required use of large quantities of electricity, which was probably generated by burning coal, which also had to be mined. Every step of the creation of the jet came at a cost to both the world, and to public health because of pollution. All these costs result in the benefit of being able to avoid flying commercially. Because the costs are so high, I would consider purchasing a private jet immoral.
       Of course, most day to day purchases fall somewhere between these two extremes. It would be impossible to answer the question definitively for every different object one could consume, but it seems to me that as long as an object is not needlessly extravagant or costly, and as long as the buyer does enjoy the object, in most cases the benefits will be greater than the costs.
       Some costs of consumption, however, can't be linked to individual purchases. For example, consumption that is greater than a person's income can severely harm the overall economy. The current economic problems were partially caused by people taking out mortgages that they couldn't afford to repay. When they defaulted en-masse, it caused great damage, and contributed to the broader financial crisis. The problem is, a single home owner who consumed beyond his means can't be blamed for the broader crisis. It was only when many people made the same mistakes that the true cost was revealed. For that reason, it would be difficult to account for that sort of cost on a purchase to purchase basis.
       Another way to answer the question would be to ask whether the money you spend could have a greater benefit if it was spent another way. Would it be moral, for instance, to buy a expensive car instead of a normal car, and donating the rest of the money to a local soup kitchen? One could argue that you are choosing not to feed the hungry, and are therefore responsible for their condition. Believing in this principle, however, raises difficult questions. Would it be immoral to buy any food other than rice, on the grounds that the extra money you spend on better food could better be spent on charity? The question of whether one should be held responsible for inaction, in this case failing to spend his or her money on the more needy, is too complicated to be adressed in this post.
       I hope my analysis of the question was convincing. I didn't intend for the post to be this long, but it just sort of kept growing. Please let me know if you think any section is redundant, so I can edit for readability.
      
Image Credit: http://www.ers.usda.gov/AmberWaves/September08/Features/ObesityCountries.htm
Obama Quote Source: http://newyork.ibtimes.com/articles/173238/20110702/obama-ending-tax-breaks-required-to-cut-deficit.htm
      

The Morality of Consumption

     While reading "Into the Wild," I found Chris's attitude toward money interesting. Chris "believed that wealth was shameful, corrupting, inherently evil" (115), and was embarrassed by his parents displays of it. The idea that spending money is somehow morally wrong has been around for quite a while. A dislike of  the display and possession of wealth is a central tenet of communist philosophy, and even president Obama hinted at that idea when he decried "tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, or for hedge fund managers and corporate jet owners, or for oil and gas companies." It does seem wrong, to some extent, that Americans to possess so much wealth and so many possessions while others in the world lack even the basics of life. So, is wealth really immoral?

      I believe the argument that wealth and money itself is inherently immoral is extremely weak. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, for instance, controls almost 34 billion dollars, but no one can argue that that wealth or the foundation is morally questionable. Rather, the strength of the case against the wealth of a person or entity depends on how it is used; the money may not be wrong, but using it for frivolous purposes may be. The most morally questionable use of wealth is also the most common use, at least at an individual level; to purchase material goods, i.e. consumption. Because the act of purchasing an iPod, for instance, has no direct benefits except the satisfaction of the buyer, and is not necessary for a comfortable existence, it is most vulnerable to questions about morality, at least compared to other uses for money. And so we finally arrive at the subject of the title of this post. Is the use of money to purchase material and luxury goods, also known as consumption, an inherently immoral act? (this post will be finished tomorrow, i'm still working on answering the question. in the mean time, if anyone wants to give an answer, i would appreciate the feedback.)