Giving Thanks

With Thanksgiving being this week, I feel obligated to blog about it. While many people focus on the food and football aspects of Thanksgiving, they're not the most important part. The term thanksgiving tells us that we should be giving thanks. To who? That is for you to decide. Make Thanksgiving a day where you tell someone what they've meant to you (family member, friend, mentor, lover, etc.). Tell them why you're thankful to have them in your life and the difference they've made to you. Take something positive that happened to you and pay it forward. Create positivity and true thanksgiving on this holiday!

College to Reality

"What are some behaviors that take place in college that may be considered a disorder or 'abnormal' behavior after college?" I remember the abnormal psych discussion oh so well. We talked about binge drinking and hook up culture.
Recently, after talking to some professionals where we discussed how these behaviors may seem commonplace in college, but are frowned upon (or just not the norm) in the "real world," it got me to thinking more about moral behaviors such as these and our generation. Going to a college that is 61% female, it is generally viewed that we are a "hook up" college. Men think they can get away with murder and still meet a girl at a party to take home that night because they are in high demand. Talking to some alum about this topic, the girls joke about how entering the job field and "real world" they were shocked to see how many men there were out there and how people went on dates. What is it like going from college culture to reality?

Kid's TV

For a psychology class last year we viewed a film about Disney movies and stereotypes. Surprised that I had never really thought about the topic myself, I was intrigued to see what they had to say about one of my childhood pastimes. As the movie began, it talked about how the stereotypes in Disney films have helped create these false beliefs and further prejudices and ultimately make young girls feel like they would need a man to save them. At first, I was very skeptical; my Disney didn't do that. They were just fun movies that I used to sing along to. Then I kept watching.
Using some clips and explanations, I thought maybe this could be plausible. Maybe. The movie talked about how minorities are not really shown in dominate roles, but African American voices are used for crows, monkeys, hyenas etc. They claimed this just further perpetuated the idea that African Americans are part of a lower class and really just continued prejudices. This is something I had never considered before and as I tried to think of a Disney movie with an African American as the lead and I couldn't.
A big focus of the movie however was on how Disney movies are degrading to women. Really? To women? Most of us grew up watching this. They claimed that Disney movies always have the beautiful "damsel in distress" that needs a man to save from the bad person/situation and that when this happens she'll live happily ever after. Ok, this seemed plausible although there may be an exception or two to it.
Then they continued to say that Disney movies perpetuated violence towards women and acceptance of this by women themselves. What?! That just sounds crazy. Ok, they argued, let's take Beauty and the Beast for example. Ultimately it shows a verbally and emotionally abusive guy (remember what he did to Bell's father and all the yelling), who after a long time finally came around. Ok, maybe this movie does kind of have this message, but do people really get that from it? Then, they interviewed a few young girls and asked what they thought about the movie and relations between men and women. One young girl said that even though he was a jerk, mean, and abusive, if she just stayed around and loved him enough it would get better. That made me sick. Then other girls said things similar about waiting for the guy to come around and that he would get better and that Bell could change him.
Maybe this movie is a little too extreme, but what messages are kids really getting from Disney movies? I'm not saying that they will make all women put up with domestic violence or feel like they need a man to save them. However, what about the girl from the abusive home, does this just further cement in her mind what she already knows about relationships that she learned from mommy and daddy? Who's responsibility is it clean up kid's TV?

Lying is the Option?

For a senior seminar, we're studying the history of the radio and television. We have spent a lot of time reading and discussing Erik Barnouw's great work, "Tube of Plenty." We recently read about the increase of spy TV shows in the '60s, getting Americans prepared for the Vietnam war they knew little about, and continuing propaganda about the Cold War and communists. Barnouw talks about how basically through these new spy dramas it was shown that it was ok to lie, cheat, and steal because that's what the enemy was doing and we had to outsmart the enemy. It is well summed up in, "the official lie was enshrined. Justification for deception was provided by the vastness and monstrousness of schemes devised by enemy forces, which were 'arrayed as never seen before.'"
This is a great example of a way the that Americans were basically subliminally sent a message in the form of entertainment. In what other ways have we been groomed towards something without realizing it? Fed information that we soaked in and took at face value? Is lying justifiable if "the enemy" is also doing it? Is it ever justifiable? What kind of values could we be learning from TV and be completely unaware of? What could they be teaching children?

Blast from the past

I recently found an article on college morals from April 10, 1907. Chancellor James Roscoe Day of Syracuse University had addressed a church about some of the moral wrong doings of college students. He spoke about some young men that he had withdrawn from the university because they were frequenting local saloons and resorts. He felt that heads of universities should enforce morals, that they have an intellectual and moral responsibility to their students.
At public universities today, many people would probably think this case was absurd, but the fact is that this still happens at my private institutions today. Should college presidents be responsible in enforcing decisions about smoking and drinking on their campuses? Whose moral responsibility is it -- the students or the presidents?

Following the Rules

I know I've previously mentioned integrity and leading by example, but what happens when being an example doesn't matter because someone thinks the rules don't apply to them? I think everyone organization probably has this problem. There's the person who has clearly heard all the rules, but when found in violation of them, doesn't seem to think it's a problem because they've done it before and plan on continuing to do it.
How can you run an organization or company on certain rules, if you cannot get everyone to abide by them? Can you punish some but not all? Do you let the little rule breaks slide and hope that the more "important" bigger rules will be followed?