Whore To Culture
Life and self are irrevocably connected. One cannot become one’s self without the influence of life, and it also is true that life cannot exist without self. At the center of life is culture, culture that shapes who one is and is shaped by that one. Even if one rejects that culture, in doing so, they effectively reshape it. In this form, the interplay between the two seems flawless and uninhibited, a harmonious ebb-and-flow, a back and forth that seems as natural as the tides.
Sounds great for an overview, right? But under the microscope in modern society, one may begin to see that this is not nearly the case. Companies, such as Kodak, strongly convinced that film and film-based cameras still have a place in the modern world, are falling by the wayside, in a time where the culture-accepted norm is digital. The rejection of popular culture by a construct (be it a company, a philosophy, an establishment, or an idea) can lead to a gap of disparity that only further drives that culture and construct apart. Those unwilling to heed to the call of culture, or whore themselves to it, may be in need to find a new calling.
One thing in life I will never consider myself is a prolific reader, more of a casual observer. Some of my earliest memories of reading is back when I was around the age of 11, in the fifth grade, when the Scholastic Book Company would bring around their annual book bazaar, advertising and promoting reading to the masses of young readers. I remember always wanting to be the one who purchased the most books in class every time the opportunity arose, and when the books came, I was excited, not only that I had the most, but that I had new shiny books. After they were received, they earned their place in the “yet to read” pile, which still exists today, or stuffed underneath my bed. That was my love affair with books. Not only did I have them, but I had the most. Sure, one may have grabbed my attention for a few pages or so, but for the most part, a book was boring, it just sat there. I couldn’t transform it into anything nor did finishing it help me save the princess, like in a video game. There was no visible reward for me to finish it, and as time went on, it became harder for me to engage with any book. As Richard Rodriguez admits to his first impression of reading, “(There is) something about the way written words make me feel alone” (525). And to this day, I still feel the same, alone and lost. As I read through the text of anything, I am constantly bombarded by outside stimuli that distract my focus, either taking my train of thought to another place or demanding my attention elsewhere, a practice that not only hampers my ability to enjoy and understand the readings, but is a constant reminder that there is nothing but myself and the book in the room, a most unsettling situation. Not to insinuate that my condition is as severe, nor common, for others, but it seems to be becoming a pattern in society.
I came from a world just breaching the introduction of the internet and the appeal of the video game industry, a time where I would wake up in the morning to my parents watching the local news and go to bed with them watching the evening world news, all while the newspaper lay on the table. My reading was bulletin boards, television advertisements, cereal boxes, and high scores in video games. That was my introduction to the “arts”. I grew up in a time of cultural change, the information age. So in this new world, as the culture is undergoing a massive overhaul, one would expect constructs to be in constant flux and ready for change. But throughout my life, I have always felt a radical conflict with one construct I was constantly exposed to, that of my educators and the academic establishments they reside in, on the way in which one is suppose to speak and act in a studious setting and the real world. These two worlds had two very different ideas as to how the world works, and, as a young child, I had to choose a side. I choose the real world.
Where I found this disparity most is within the realm of reading and writing. “Why bother with reading and writing when the world is so obviously going to hell?” asks Richard E. Miller in his essay “The Dark Night of the Soul” (433). Miller is referring to all of the social and economical devastation in the world and its affects on culture when he writes this, but is it reasonable to ask if it’s the world that is really going to hell, or is it the landscape in which reading and writing used to occupy that is? Has culture created a new landscape that doesn’t align well with that of reading and writing? Look at any major 24-hour news network. News is given in small segments just long enough to keep one’s attention before moving onto the next story. Even internet news sources offer a similar tactic with headline bulletins, paragraph synopses, and video shorts. It would appear that the construct of the media is able to either conform or, arguably, influence the culture to what it seeks: information at the ready, summarized, and detailed. So why hasn’t the construct of education conformed to that of the culture. Admittedly, there are plenty of good reasons to keep parts of the system the way it is. There is much to admire in the past as there is the present, with little to no reason to throw it out. But the past is the past, and we need new ways of introducing the youth of today to that which helped us get to where we are in our relatively successful education structure. Sir Ken Robinson speaks to this in his discussion on “Changing Education Paradigms” stating: “The current system of education was designed, and conceived, and structured for a different age. It was conceived in the intellectual culture of the Enlightenment and in the economic circumstances of the Industrial Revolution.” In a system hundreds of years in the future, we can no longer allow ourselves to believe that a cultural revolution conceived so far in the past will still apply in all its entirety in a modern society.
Culture must ultimately be the call to arms, the spark that ignites the fuse. Culture can affect one in many ways; be it the interaction with one another, or what your political views are, or even how you take your coffee. Its influence is profound and widespread. So at what point does the construct that culture is interacting with, does the line between influenced and influencer begin to come clear, and in what respect? Does one inherently always conquer the other? Or is culture constantly the influenced? In some situations, I find that the bottleneck tends to come where the construct isn’t willing to allow culture to be the influencer.
The French Revolution was put forth and hatched by a culture that hungered for democracy and freedom, away from the oppression of a king that no longer sought the same ideals and values that the people did. The people, the culture, dictated how they would live their lives, not the construct of the monarchy. However, there have been successes by constructs conforming to culture. Without argument, Apple made culture conform to technology, worldwide, with gadgets such as the iPod and the iPhone, but I would argue they were able to do so by conforming to culture. But what had held Apple back is not the willingness of the culture to accept its products, but the demands of that culture for it to be more universal. Apple is a computer company first and foremost, but it excels in gadgets. Apple computers are still used throughout the world, but not nearly in the same respect that computers running Windows are. Apple conformed. In order for their company to be successful, they changed, by making complicated things simple for consumers to use. In this light, culture trumps all, and those unwilling to accept the influence of culture, might want to pull an Apple if they want to be successful and relevant, fast.
Our educational system in America has found itself at a crossroads: continue on with business as usual, sticking with a system that has worked for hundreds of years, or head down the long twisted path of revolution, a daunting and tumultuous road. But with society crying out for change, it can no longer stand idly by, pretending that the digital age has not affected how we eat, talk, and learn. Mistakes will be made and hardships, there will be many, but even if in the early going, some bond, some sparkle of promise can be shown, those in that system could be given the chance that some were not given - the chance of relating the two worlds of education and culture together. Because when it comes down to it, we are all whores to culture.

Works Cited
Miller, Richard E. “The Dark Night of the Soul.” Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers. 9th Ed. David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins. 2010. 420-442. Print.
Rodrihuez, Richard “The Achievement of Desore.” Ways of Reading: An Anthology for Writers. 9th Ed. David Bartholomae and Anthony Petrosky. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins. 2010. 515-532. Print.
Robinson, Sir Ken. “Changing Education Paradigms.” RSA Edge Lecture. October 2010