“We are products of our environment.” During the last season of “The Bachelorette”, one of the contestants said this as a way of understanding why another contestant behaved the way they did, because their culture and the place they have come from have shaped them as they are and was different from theirs. We are all cultivated by way of society, media, race, class and gender. We get environmental and social cues to guide us to becoming the person that we are right now. When our environment changes we do too, because the cues we are getting are different, our friends and family influence these changes greatly. That is why our versions of cool will have certain differences and similarities because they come from these sources, some that we share, and some that we don’t. From the cues that we get from our cultural maps, we develop the roles we play and who we think we are.
Who we actually want to be comes from cues from our social environments, which is shaped by our status, gender, nationality, culture, and many other factors. We seek to live out the roles we have chosen from the ones available to us. From that we create our own hero’s journey and play the characters we’ve created through our actions (Foucault). How we choose to play out the scene that we’ve been given defines who we are as people. For example in this scene what would you do? Someone you know is being teased. Do we help, do we ignore it, or do we participate? Either way, we’ve made a decision, in that scene we are either the character that helped or the character that didn’t help. If we add enough scenes, the cumulative depicts who your character is.
Because of the way our cultural map is made, we are more open to certain kinds of messages than others. Certain things will be cool for us to do and certain things aren’t. Much of what we will do and how we’ll act is based on our past experiences, whose foundation is provided by our cultural maps and what is expected out of us. Certain group cultures will tend to have preferences or leanings because of how their environment was. For example, most people from the black culture will prefer hip hop or r&b. That is an effect of how media portrays their culture and closely links the two (Merchants of cool). That’s why in general; there is a preference for music like hip hop over music like country. The images that are more commonly seen and that we associate with more are the kinds of images that we will find cool. Things that don’t relate to us or the values we have from our cultural maps won’t be on our radars.
Roles
Point of view is relevant in how we are seen by people because each person acts from foreknowledge from their cultural maps. So, whether they think you’re cool is based on values held by their cultural map. That doesn’t mean they only think cool is something directly related to their culture, but cool is made from values or qualities seen in a positive way in their cultural map. That’s why there are different versions of cool for each subculture.
People act accordingly to what’s expected of them. It doesn’t mean they are condemned to that cultural map, it means they are more likely to follow the standard model of the cultural map, unless something happens that leads them to a detour and they find a different route. John Fanning was raised in a middle class family in a fairly conservative place, but he got a tattoo even though it wasn’t common in his cultural map. That’s because his cultural map didn’t make sense to him and he wanted to find a new one. When he joined his band, he felt as if he finally met people who were “real” and he could relate to them. His discontent with his current cultural map, led him to a new route and he discovered another one that made more sense to him even though it appears to be very different from his previous one. He wanted to find a place that he could belong and the previous place he was at wasn’t it (Fanning).
For the most part, I’m comfortable in my own role. I experiment at times to see how people will react if I deviate from it or tweak it, because I don’t want it to feel confining or limiting. That is so I know that just because this is how someone sees me as; it isn’t what I have to be. But it depends on my environment too because if I see that people don’t really care if I act a certain way then I feel more comfortable acting that way. I keep tweaking my role(s) because I don’t find stagnation cool. I think exploring and finding out what suits you as role is.
The existence of cultural maps also brings up the question of nature versus nurture, whether we choose to be who we are today or were it created by our circumstances. The cultural maps suggest that these events are all circumstantial and to an extent it is. Some of it is nature, the two are closely intermixed, because a child with Asperger’s will not take any social cues because of the way their brain works. But that child could also be treated if it is caught earlier in their life (Autism Society). Our preferences actually begin from our womb. “Sounds, smells and tastes are amongst the first environmental cues learnt, ahead of vision” (Beetle). If a pregnant woman chose to eat garlic or vanilla, then the baby will choose a similarly flavored milk over normal milk (Beetle). Despite this, we aren’t condemned to whatever circumstances we’ve primarily been given, there is choice and that choice comes when you realize that you do have one. Otherwise it creates the mentality that you can’t do anything when you can and that’s self-fulfilling in many ways. The child groomed to be a lawyer doesn’t always end up becoming one, they might be an artist or an architect if they find that they actually enjoy that more than the other (Jed). In the 60s it was all about rebellion and going against capitalism. What was cool changed after he went to school because when he was younger he was okay with being a lawyer but as he got older he realized it wasn’t what he wanted to do.
Yu Xi,
ReplyDeleteI really like your intro paragraph; I loved how you connected The Bachelorette to theories of cool. You definitely tied cool back to our current day society. I also really liked your thesis; it summed up your main idea, that there are several different types of cool, rather than one main definition. Another thing I liked is how you incorporated Mr. Fanning into your paper. It was definitely nice to see that someone connected his discussion with us to their paper.
As I was saying on Kate’s blog, I think that people try to fit into these “labels” or “boxes” because we always want to be something we are not. We look at other people, and think “hey I want to be like them, I like their style or their attitude”. We area always trying to improve ourselves, always trying to take what we are and changing it into something we are not. As you touched upon, we use our culture maps as a basis of our structure for being cool, but combine maps from several different people in order to create that fits us, that person we want to be rather than the person we are meant to be.
One thing I think you should include is some more comments from people interviewed on the street, because having different perspectives and ideas can show an opposing view to what you think. Also, talk about how corporations play into the lives and teenagers and their search to be cool.
Overall, I really enjoyed reading your paper and can’t wait to read the final draft.
-Rachel
Thesis (Sorry, its a bad one): Our versions of cool will be different or similar depending on the sources that we use as well as the cues from our cultural map that develop the roles we play and who we think we are.
ReplyDeleteYou talk a lot about your cultural maps and how it affect our movements in our lives. Our environmental and social cues also applied to our lives as our point of view in these two cues changes how we are. I like how you added your own experience as well as examples to support your thinking. All of us have preferences that our cultural map provides but we also provide our own by adding other cultural maps into our ideal self. However, with our cultural maps, how our environment goes, it all comes down to the choices that we make. No matter what happens, it is because we chose this or that; we try to take what is the best for us (in our environment or when socializing with people).
I like how your second to your last paragraph goes when you talk about "this is how someone sees me as; it isn't what I have to be". I think it is a strong connection to prove that you have control over yourself. We take in social and environmental cues, our cultural map and everything else, but it doesn't mean we have to follow what they say. You "tweak" your role(s) because you don't want to be "stagnation cool". Just like how we get old, we change how we live our lives as we see what happens to the world and we follow some of it. It is like how cool works because if we change, cool change. I guess Cool is not on any cultural maps, but it is what we think of cool that it can be in all the cultural maps and so we make choices in following it or not.
(Hope this is helpful):
In your section of Roles, at the second to the last paragraph, you said, "I think exploring and finding out what suits you as role is", is this a whole sentence already or do you have more to add? o-o
- On your last paragraph about nature versus nurture, I think you should expand that a bit more. I think it can split into two paragraphs and one for nature, one for nurture. I find that nurture is more to the connection to your thesis and nature is our choices in our lives. But aren't those two the same because we can't be who we really are since we don't know so both of them are influencing we live our lives and etc.
-What kind of messages are the cultural map giving us? Is it good/bad choice or is the messages giving to us depend on the environment or society that we are living in? Is our cultural maps born with the aspect of the environment and social cues or did we create in our minds?
Your paper is very strong in my view and so my suggestions and comments are kind of all over the place since you talk a lot about it. xD ~good work~ ^-^