Preservation of culture is key for lower crime
Preface: This was written for The Lumberjack newspaper and NorthernArizonaNews.com as a staff editorial. As such, it's written in such a way that it represents the opinion of the paper and not me as an individual. The included image was not published as part of this editorial.
Technological flotsam.
Never have our cultures been subjected to as many influences as they are today. Public schools have something to do with who people are, but they aren't everything. Families and friends play a fairly significant role, but not for everyone. The big cultural wave-maker for society has crept up on everyone, and its doing more harm than good.
In the '60s and '70s, over-the-air television began to take prevalence in middle-class American homes. In the '80s, television broadened its reach to areas outside of broadcast range with community access TV, now cable. In the '90s, the Internet was introduced, and speeds went from bauds to megabits. And, in the last decade, both TV and the Internet have started to merge together and find their way to our smartphones and tablets.
The last 50 years have seen an enormous spike in mass media consumption.
What else has seen an enormous spike in that time? Incarceration. In the late 1970s, 0.1 percent of the American population was incarcerated. Recently, over 0.5 percent was thrown behind bars, according to Bureau of Justice statistics.
Something had to have changed to cause this rise. The correlation between culture and crime seems to be significant, and mass media certainly affects culture.
Floods of information have been pouring through the Internet lately, and people with this new-found means of communication have caused traditional media outlets to rethink their programming to go with what's most popular and not necessarily what's most important.
Take a good look at the CNN homepage. Earlier this week, headline topics included temper-tantrum survival, iPad prices (still?), and questioning whether or not tattoos should be taboo in the workplace.
This begs the question: How much of this "news" and other information is really relevant to our everyday lives? And how much of this irrelevancy can our cultures handle?
The average American watches at least 4 hours of television per day, according to A.C. Nielsen Co. Factoring in 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours at work, and time spent online, how much time does the average American actually have to live?
The Lumberjack is certainly a form of mass media, and you, our readers, are beloved. Mass media isn't always inherently bad, but remember to take breaths while swimming in this ocean of info we all seem to be drowning in. Big, deep breaths.
America is known world-wide for being the country that has the highest rate of imprisonment. It's even gotten to the point where the government is outsourcing prison management to private companies because it can't handle the burden of nearly 2.5 million prisoners nationwide (as of 2006).
Many have been asking the question of why the incarceration rate has been climbing so rapidly, with quality of education an often cited reason for high crime rates. However, high knowledge doesn't equal high character, despite statistical improvements in education.
Student to teacher ratios have fallen from 17.4 students per teacher in the late '80s to 15.3 students per teacher, according to the American Legislative Exchange Council.
The ALEC also shows that there has been an increase in per-pupil expenditures over the last 30 years: $4,924 in '81-'82 to $9,389 in '06-'07. (Note that these are national figures and don't immediately reflect Arizona's educational budget cuts.)
Higher quality education leads to higher crime rates? Insane.
It really all comes down to deciding what information, be it from school or a screen, is important to us as individuals. Should children grow up with The Wiggles, then Miley Cyrus, then Pregnant 16-Year-Olds, then Glenn Beck? Or should their parents and family be their source of model behavior?
When one allows their reality to be crammed with information, stretched and tugged with opinions, then left hung out to dry momentarily only to be thrown back into the mix, their culture, and sometimes individuality, get buried.
And when one loses their culture and identity, their virtues and moral code can degrade along with them.
It hasn't been proven that overconsumption of media increases crime rates. But if more individuals improve their self-identity, their culture and therefore their virtues by moderating intake of media, it would lead to a generally happier population, one that doesn't have as many criminal compulsions.
Let's try to spend less time clouding our minds with barrages of information and refocus our on individuality, culture, and community. Return to local reality and teach culture and mutual respect over punishment, fear and media-encouraged isolation, for the sake of our societal sanity.
Pro-tip: If you want some real news from CNN, click on "International Edition" in the upper left. Or check out Al Jazeera English.
Reminiscing: Middle School Book Drive (2002)
Prior to high school, I was a bona-fide overachiever. This included a duty as president of my middle school's National Junior Honor Society. During my 8th grade year, we ran a book drive for the elementary school nearest ours, one I believe was deemed an "at-risk" school under the No Child Left Behind Act. Our initial goal of collecting 1,000 children's books was shattered with a final count somewhere around 4,500 books. Here is the news report highlighting the event, which aired around December 15, 2002. (Warning: My elocution and sweater-belt are completely terrible.)
When Everything Falls Apart
There's hardly anything like the emotion of a girl who just heard her father is dead.
Vance White's eyes. Somewhat related. (One of the few photos I have access to since my computer is out of service.)
What should we hold dear? Some things? Everything? Nothing? Most people won't live to see the age of 100. Material possessions come and go for a myriad of reasons. And the Earth? Check back in 5 billion years.
Moments like the one this girl experienced, and I witnessed, re-shock us into remembering that everything is temporary. One lesser tragedy that hit closer to home was the crashing of my laptop's hard drive. That shook me into realizing that pretty much my whole life, almost every hobby and job I take on, is dependent on that computer. Life is now less convenient, more difficult, and overall slower while it's awaiting repair.
I called my 84 year old grandma to say hi after that girl lost her dad. I also started thinking about what other dependencies people have in life, and how they can positively and negatively affect our day-to-day experiences. Family is the first one that came to mind. They are traditionally the foundation for people's entire lives, providing an upbringing, culture, and community for children as they grow. Another would be friends, which provide support structures and experiences. Then there's acquaintances, co-workers, etc. People live for social relationships, so, for the most part, having relationships to people is a positive.
The despair that we feel when we lose someone close is there because we're virtually losing a part of ourselves when they go away.
My computer is something that has become a part of me because of what I do. (Though, I'd never agree to have a machine *physically* become a part of me.) That girl's father was a part of her, probably a major one at that. Is there any way to protect against losing the people, things, and other nouns that make up the bulk of your livelihood? (After all, people can't be backed up to disk.)
The answer is probably: Be yourself. I accept that my friends have had a hand in making me who I am over the years and that my parents have had a tremendous impact on things like my work ethic and general persistence. But the main part of who I am hasn't been defined by outside influences. It's been crafted and honed by me. Original content, if you will. Without investing time in developing a unique persona, you will fall back on depending too much on other people for who you are as an individual.
So, take time to develop who you are before fate catches up to you. Everyone, and everything, will eventually disappear from your life. Sometimes they'll be replaced, for better or worse; sometimes they won't. The best way to prevent losing a a part of your life is dedicating less of your life to people and things outside of the being you make yourself.