Inhumane Human, or Animalistic Animal

Out in the Serengeti and Ngorogoro Crater I often found myself thinking about how horrible animals are. Take lions, for example. Only one male per pride, often because the more dominant male either killed the other (who might have been his brother), or kicked him out to wander on his own and fend for himself. Or the buffalo. We saw one old male buffalo wandering off from a herd all by himself. “Why is he alone?” we asked our driver. “He probably got kicked out,” was the response we received.


All I could think to myself was, “This is absolutely awful! Kicking family members out so that one can be in charge. Getting rid of each other when one gets old.” And then came the realization: humans are just as atrocious in their behavior toward each other.

Wildebeests kill each other over territory. Humans kill each other to gain access to land. And the old buffalo who was kicked out of his herd? We do that, too. What do we do with the elderly in our society? We throw them into homes to die so we don’t have to deal with them. We don’t visit them to seek their years of wisdom because, to our society, we don’t value them anymore, or we see them as “demented,” or we say that they are “too old to understand.” Who is too old to understand triumph, failure, or love? And I am not blindly accusing society; I am part of this society too, and I know the prejudices that lay deep within me no matter what I do to make them go away.

So, we, with our ethics and morals and society and laws, are just as animalistic (hence inhumane) as “those wild animals” who shun and kill each other. But we, we do it in the name of religion, freedom, expansion, democracy, and those developments are in no way animalistic.

(Tone:  Tounge in cheek)

Mediocrity Kills America

In one of my undergraduate sociology courses we were asked to develop a contemporary sociological theory. Our group came up with the brilliant idea of “Societal ADD.” Every day images flash before us, everything comes to us in quick messages that are generally easy to comprehend (on the surface level only), and we don’t seem to have to work hard to achieve very much. Those good ol’ days of writing to a pen pal and apprehensively awaiting their response is over. We can make friends quite easily and quickly on networking site such as Facebook and MySpace, and we can let the whole world know what we’re thinking in one to two sentences on Twitter. There is very little work in the accomplishment of completing the task one set out to do. Alas, as my students would say, “So what Miss?”

They’re right. So what? So what that we are frustrated that things are not immediately easy to understand. So what that we do not know everything ninth or tenth or even third grade has to offer before we walk in the door and our teacher even begins to open his or her mouth. So what if we are just practicing a skill and we don’t give it our best effort. So what if we don’t put our best foot forward. So what.

So what does this mean for the future we are preparing for tomorrow? How will they become problem solvers and critical thinkers? How will they even begin to develop a plan for cleaning up the messes we are leaving behind?

The lack of pride that many, and I’m not just venting about students, take in their work today simply appalls me. One of my colleagues mentioned that our students lack “work ethic.” I think that perhaps they do. They don’t see how hard their parents work to put food on the table. I even feel confident enough to say that they don’t understand what it means for their parents to buy them the latest generation of their iPod or cell phone, that perhaps it put their parents into some debt, or they had to work overtime in order for their child to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

I assigned my yearbook students to write their first article about the yearbook staff to practice what it is like to write copy. The writing samples I received were horrible; I couldn’t even finish reading all of them. It was as though my PowerPoint presentation was in vain. After reviewing the finer points of writing copy and reading two outstanding samples, I put the kids into writing groups lead by their editors-in-chief and their business manager. Afterward, the editors came to me to let me know they agreed wholeheartedly with my assessment of the horrible copy. And it took me a long time to calm down about how infuriatingly bad their copy was! Upon reflection I realize that it was the lack of effort that went into their writing. “What ever happened to putting your best foot forward,” I wondered to myself. And herein lies the connection to the epidemic of Societal ADD: if it takes effort to do it well, you might as well do it quickly to produce a piece of mediocrity.

And although I admit I’m frustrated (and seething), I am not one to give up without a fight. I do not believe in mediocrity. Mediocrity is not good for America. I will push and push every day to eliminate mediocrity and restore pride and the work ethic. I, America, will not be seduced by Societal ADD. With effort and ethic together we can murder mediocrity.