The concepts of consumerism and careerism are predominant in first world countries, and are increasing in countries with less “advanced” economies too, but why?
The definition of careerism or a careerist is “the characteristics associated with one who advances his career even at the expense of his pride and dignity.” Simply looking at this definition, many of us instantly assume ‘it has nothing to do with my career’.
Image source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1026998/Parents-told-attend-Maths-lessons-children-improve-primary-results.html
As a child we are brought up by our parents or carers, usually with a mixture of two learning methodologies, the first of which is a reward based learning system, where a child is rewarded for doing good and importantly, doing as they are told. The second is the opposite side of the same coin, a punishment based system, punished for disobeying and for doing bad. In general parents try to give children the best morals and ethics that they are able to comprehend for themselves.
Image source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/27/florida-education-model-reform
However that same parent then tells the child to do as they are told at school. The child goes to school and learns a very systematic, rigid and standardised education without much flexibility, creativity, play, freedom, and importantly, without parental guidance. Parents tend to assume that the governments education programmes have our children’s futures and interests at heart, usually the teachers also believe this.
When we reach 11/12 in the USA people are moved from Elementary school to Middle School, until 14/15 where people are moved to High School. Typically in the UK children go to Secondary School from 10/11/12 until 15/16, why change schools, and why between 10 and 12?
Some school uniforms also represent “smart” worker clothing. (Image from: http://www.theuniformshoponline.co.uk/secondary-school-uniforms.php)
Puberty, during this time of questioning, rebelling against our parents as authority figures to find our own path, we are given alternative answers by our new schools. A lot of these school changes are careerist ideologies, once we reach these ages we are taught that we need to get the grades to get a job because having a job is successful; the better the grades the better the career and pay, right?
In the USA this is pushed even farther as children must pass tests to even get to the next grade/school year, a very early way of learning a careerist promotion based system and also something that appears to be non-optional. Those who do not follow these rules are ridiculed as they are held back, just as people in society are ridiculed for having a low paid job or no job at all.
The poor or jobless considered by many of the rich, the media and the government to be worthless people of society that do not deserve, because they haven’t worked enough.. Even when these people volunteer to do charitable work they are perceived as some kind of hippie scum.
It’s important to note that government taxes and bank’s debt interest are two other ways of getting something without working for it.
Monopoly Money
All along our parents tried to teach us good morals and ethics; what is good and what is bad. Schooling takes over and teaches us that more obeying and work is good, and anything else is bad. By the time we leave school we have learned that working is good and money is a replacement of our parents reward based system.
There’s no longer a reward based system for doing good, now there is only a reward based system of working for currency by obeying. Numbers printed on paper or a computer screen. This is now where our morals are firmly based in society.
Continues to: Learned Social Classism, Is Working Even Ethical?
Share on bebo- Blog this!
- Bookmark on Delicious
- Share on dzone
- Share on fark
- Share on faves
- Share on FriendFeed
- Tip on Hyves
- Share on identica
- Share on linkagogo
- Share on Linkedin
- Share on mrwong
- Share via MySpace
- Share on netvibes
- Share on nuJIJ
- Share on Orkut
- Share on Posterous
- share via Reddit
- Share this on sphinn
- Share on technorati
- Tumblr it
- Share on vkontakte
- Share on xing
- Buzz it up
- Subscribe to the comments on this post
- Print for later
- Bookmark in Browser
sending...
It all begins from a very early age, earlier than we learn to walk and talk, nobody is born with hate, the first emotion that we seek is love, the warmth and love of a mother as we seek safety in this scary new world, the mother then shows the same initial love, it is natural, we get a glimpse of our natural and initial single emotion, however this is very short lived as we are brought into a world which has been tainted by the touch of greed, embodied by the figure of power under the guise of value.
Having gone through an English education system which from the age of 5, conditioned me on what is societally right and wrong, taking away from me the opportunity to do ‘wrong’ the opportunity to learn and grow from a mistake, when this fundamental learning is taken away then we are no longer learning, we are being told to follow instruction. We walk, talk and dress in uniform, being told for my very short and greatest learning period of the mind that if I do well in school, I will get a good career, good money, which will in turn bring materialistic wealth, a sense of value, ultimately ‘happiness’. I remember this one time at school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grow up, I wrote down happy, they told me I misunderstood the assignment, I told them they didn’t understand life (Lennon), because this ‘life’ has been crafted and conditioned for generations, why are we asking 5 year olds what they want to do for the next 60 years? I didn’t know what I wanted to do for the next 60 minutes. Answers will be generated to the tone of doctor, teacher, policeman, fireman, and footballer. So for the next 13-16 years we are going to go through an educational system which will help us to become an asset to society. Exams, which measure somebodies short term memory, are the tools used to assess and segregate the ‘smart’ from the ‘stupid’. I was always average or just above or below, I was never smart enough to become a doctor or a lawyer, or was I so made to believe because of my average exam results, therefore I was never nurtured to become more, so how could I believe I would ever achieve more than mediocrity, at 15 was I already destined to an average fate for my life? Only time will tell, an exam result or piece of paper showing my level of ‘intelligence’ however will not.
Many people, communities, countries do not get the opportunity for such an ‘education’ therefore before their life has even begun are they destined for failure? Is nepotism still rife? Why is there such inequality? Today I watched cars fill up, saw a Tesco or Asda at every corner almost, branded clothing/advertising at almost every corner, I see the privatisation of many public services, and I had been out barley 30 minutes. The economy is based on a capitalist free market model, a model the U.S and U.K were able to implement massively in the Reagan/Thatcher era. This model however caused much uproar, just read about the miners strikes during the 1980’s, however that was peaceful compared to the shock economic tactics employed in many countries before we were exposed to the free market model. Argentina was peaceful, before Chicago’s violent and deadly economic restructure, Iraq was taken apart and sold, with millions losing their homes and lives. £3 billion is spent on the military every 8 days, yet space exploration and world hunger, which with £3 billion could eradicate the later and help advance the former, are each being neglected for the expensive, unnatural and relentless pursuit of killing each other in the quest for money and power.
Schools, Libraries, youth centres, sports grounds and many other essential amenities for younger generations are being cut, across much of the U.S and U.K, yet consoles, games and T.V are becoming increasingly cheaper, more accessible and heavily promoted/advertised at every moment of our lives. Fast food is now cheaper and more readily available than fruit and the ‘education’ needed to advance has never been as expensive. The prospects look slim, however for those in key business positions or families have never been stronger and the power grows as we become increasingly dependent on materialistic goods in our lives (think Apple). How does such a society care for the plight of others when there are so many within itself? Half our lives will be spent learning how to live, the other half living it, whilst living in fear of terror, violence and monetary liquidation. Or a life of Jersey Shore, X Factor, Big Brother, Call of Duty, Fast Food and no aspirations available. When I think back to Shakespearian times, Egyptian times even Homosapien times I left with one underlying question. Have we ceased to evolve?
if we do pscyhoanalysis of human nature, simply any kids has only one motivation or emotiion, that we can assume as true…and that i called, Anxiety,
And it leads to every other emotion based on his ability and enviorment where he grows up.