Goodnight.

The culture of medicine almost seems to be an oxymoron the first time you hear it. Medicine is thought to be a purely physical area of study and practice that is based on universal biological principles. But the practice of medicine can actually be considered to have a large psychological component. People tend to forget that the practitioners of medicine are people, too. People who are susceptible to opinion, bias, and different views (even though all those qualities sound pretty much the same). The way a doctor practices medicine, what he advises his patients, and what his training entailed is culturally-based. You see an interesting interaction of medicine and culture right here in Nova Scotia. Many doctors in the region are immigrants who often grew up in vastly different cultures from own and may have received their medical training here in Canada or in their home countries. For example, my mother has a had more psychiatrists over the years than you can shake a stick at, yet she only ever really got along with one of them, who was a true Maritimer who understands the people of the region and what their needs and concerns are. One of her more recent psychiatrists was from Germany, and she had the quite stern, no non-sense attitude that is often ascribed to the Germanic people, along with the obvious accent and poor people skills. Sometimes I stop and wonder why people with the personalities of a cactus and no people skills ever get involved in psychology, where making a connection and good rapport with your patients is as important as the treatment itself. Continuing in the discussion, I remember a story my mother once told me about my grandfather. In his (relative) youth, my grandfather was the kind of person who knew what he wanted and had no problem telling anyone off if he figured he was right. So my grandfather was having chest pains many years ago and went to his family doctor to talk about. His doctor was an African immigrant who said during his office visit that where he comes from, you don't complain about something as trivial as some small pains and that my grandfather was going to be fine and that he should go home. Well, my grandfather  being the mouthpiece he was at that age, said to him that he didn't come to listen to his BS diagnosis, listen to stupid stories, or cared what he had to say. He knew something was wrong and he wanted a referral to a real doctor, as in a heart specialist. So he got it, took a trip to Halifax and met with the cardiologist. The doctor told him that he had a rupture in his aorta and that if he was any later getting in to see him, he probably would have died. So he got immediate surgery then was one his way. My grandfather was a wise man.

It's stories like this that make me think about the clashes of culture in medicine. Everyone is certainly entitled to their own opinion, but if you ask me, if you're going to work within the realm of a certain culture, you need to adapt and change how you conduct yourself to match the values of that culture. Of course, with that African doctor, I think it might have been a combination of being blinded by culture and perhaps a bit of incompetence. Nova Scotia isn't exactly well known for its excellent medical care, given my family's experiences within the system *coughmisdiagnosesandmedicalmalpracticecough*.

On the other hand, I think it's important to consider what other cultures find important as well, as long as it makes sense. That African doctor's cultural values, not so much. But it's all relative and subject to how you look at it, I guess. I like the idea that France has with their medical care. As opposed to North American medicine, French medicine puts an emphasis on the body as terrain and that balance is important. Long rests and days at the spa are prescribed more often then actual medicine. Constant bathing is also discouraged. It may seem gross to a lot of people, but I think it makes sense. Dirt and germs are part of our terrain and are seen as beneficial. Even though many bacteria and viruses make us sick, it's rarely ever the case that it's really debilitating. They are beneficial in that they allow our bodies to build up immunity and train them to protect themselves better. We are one with our germs, in a way. I think I can attest to that. I only shower once every two or three days and I never go to the doctor when I get a cold, flu, or whatever. I even avoid going to the doctor when I probably should, like when I got a slight inner ear infection a number of weeks back. But I hardly ever get sick. Everyone I know goes to the doctor for pretty much anything and they all get sick from time to time during regular and cold and flu seasons. But not me. The worst I ever really get is a bit of phlegm and a slightly sore throat, and that typically only lasts a day. In my third year of university, I shared an apartment with three people who all developed whatever that nasty flu was that went around campus, swine flu I think. Three sick people with me all confined to close quarters, one of which was sort of quarantined in the apartment for a while. I never got sick. I went happily on my way doing my thing while everyone else suffered! I'm always bragging about my kick-ass immune system, and the only thing that makes sense to me as to why it is great is that I've built up a great defense system by not really partaking in North American medicinal culture. I don't drown myself in pills or antibiotics, never get flu shots (though I'm constantly told by the school, news, and family to get one every year), and so on. My diet isn't exactly full of body-enhancing nutrients, it's mostly just junk food, yet my immune system is great. I'm also pretty laid back most of the time, so my body can always focus on its internal upkeep. It seems a French style of personal care is working for me.

North America tries to drive home the idea that germs are bad and must be eliminated, with antibiotics being prescribed like candy at the Bulk Barn. The thing about that is that taking copious amounts of antibiotics causes bacteria to build up an immunity themselves and those super robust bacteria that are leftover reproduce and wreck your body. Germs aren't bad, they help us even if it doesn't seem like it. I wish most people would just sit and think about that for a while. I mean, doctors are supposed to be super smart themselves! It takes a special kind of person with immense cognitive abilities to get through medical school, so you'd think most would be enlightened enough to explore different applications medicine. Then again, they could be funded by big pharma, which is a story for another day. There's just a lot to it, I guess.

Anyway, I guess that's it for tonight. This blog is due tomorrow, so I hope I talked enough across a broad enough spectrum of ideas.

Templeton "Faceman" Peck

Motivation and culture interact with one another in pretty interesting ways. One of these interactions I'm thinking of at the moment is self-improvement. Sure, most (motivated) people want to be the best they can possibly be, but the reasons behind why differ from culture to culture. In our Western culture, the concept of self-improvement is largely motivated by the principle of promotion orientation. That is, we focus on striving toward positive outcomes and advancement. Success is what we find important and that idea is usually drilled into our heads from a very young age. Even today at the age of 24, whenever I talk to my parents about something important like an upcoming exam for a difficult course or an intimidating job interview, they still tell me to do the best I can because they know I can do well and go far; they want to see me succeed in the world. So because of that, I have a promotion orientation, as do my parents, and their parents, and so on. This is true for most people in the West. Whenever I think about promotion orientation, the idea of a corporate bigwig inevitably comes to mind. I suppose this can be seen as an extreme example of promotion orientation. I keep thinking of the average white collar employee who starts working for some random company at one of those menial entry level positions, who, because of his over-the-top motivation to succeed in the corporate world, manages to claw his way up through the ranks of the company to an executive position. To get there, he sells out his fellow employees, betrays those at his level and above, and God knows what else. Eventually, he may even become CEO, sitting atop his Ivory Tower with his millions of dollars buying and selling smaller companies, accruing even more wealth.

It's kind of funny because it seems like the exact opposite of someone with a prevention orientation. That orientation is characterized by a focus of avoiding negative consequences, avoiding future failure, and improving one's weaknesses with the overall goal of maintaining social harmony and esteem with others. As you may have guess, prevention orientation is mostly seen in Eastern cultures. Now, I'm not very knowledgeable of Eastern business practices, but I imagine that the scenario of clawing one's way to the top doesn't really exist in those cultures. I can just imagine the reaction of those around if one were to attempt that. I imagine a firing would be in order. As far as I know, while CEOs in North America change fairly often businesses evolve consistently, while CEOs in Japan tend to be more static and are often family members of those who founded the company. I believe that children of corporate executives and business owners are often raised to follow in their father's footsteps and to take his place once he retires or passes on. Family-owned businesses are kind of a big deal in Japan while they are dwindling ever so quickly in North America. Corporate buy-outs likely happen in Japan as well, but we don't really hear too much about it. Likely not as great as here in North America. Nintendo was a family-owned company from its founding in 1889 until 2002, and that was only because Hiroshi Yamauchi, the company's previous president, had no immediate family to take over once he retired, so Satoru Iwata was chosen to head the company, due to his great leadership skills and track record of top-notch work.

Much of the difference in orientation is due to the concept of "face", as in from the phrase "saving face". Translated directly from Chinese, face is the social value given by other people if you fulfill your social obligations and expectations. Here in the West, we generally don't care about what other think about us. Well, we do, but not in the same way those in the East do. I had pretty low self-esteem was I was a kid and teenage and I was really concerned about what other people thought of me. I hated confrontation because I had an almost obsessive fear of "rocking the boat" as well as a fear of rejection and making other people uncomfortable. Hell, I'm still kinda of bad for that. My parents always used to tell me to not concern myself with what other think thought of me and that the only one's opinion of me that mattered was my own. I imagine it would be the opposite if I were raised in Japan. I would probably be told that others opinions really do matter and that my focus should be on doing what I'm expected to and maintain social balance. Thinking about it now, did I really have low self-esteem and an aversion to confrontation? Or did I just have a prevention orientation? Considering the context of culture, I probably just had low self-esteem. I wasn't raised with intention of maintaining social harmony, I was just afraid of other people and consequences. Still, it's interesting to ponder.

Well, that's it for tonight!

Ethics and Such

The concept of morality and ethics is surprisingly variable depending on their cultural settings. They seem to be relatively simple concepts on the surface. Treat people the way you want to be treated and aim to help one another. Simple, right? Well I guess researchers have studied morality and ethics and broken them down in various ways throughout the past few decades. Moral ethics is a concept I'd like to weigh in on tonight.

Moral ethics is broken down into 3 sub-ethics. Ethic of Autonomy, which aims to protect justice and individual rights, Ethic of Community, which focuses on an individual's interpersonal obligation within the social order and where things like group betrayal or failure to fulfill their social obligations are taken very seriously, and Ethic of Divinity, which is sort of a religious take on ethics, concerned with the so-called natural order of things and one's obligation to live according to the standards mandated by a higher power, usually God. Personally, my orientation is rooted most deeply in the Ethic of Autonomy, which is to be expected considering I'm from a WEIRD (Western Educated Industrial Rich Democratic) society, which are characterized by high individualism. But unlike some of my previous posts may be implied, while I may be quite sympathetic and even theoretically preferential to the collectivist model most of the time, in this case I adamantly believe that the most effective of these three models is the Ethic of Autonomy. I am quite aware that all three are present universally in pretty much every culture there is, but the Ethic of Autonomy does appear to have the strongest influence of the three in the West and it has affected to me to a great deal. The way I look it at it is to ensure that you have a functioning, cohesive whole, you need to take care of and ensure the safety of all of its constituent components or individuals. I also believe that individual rights and freedoms are among the most basic and important parts of living as a human in a society. Ethic of Community is very important as well, but I think an Ethic of Autonomy is more important and required to being to properly focus on the group and the Ethic of Community. To me, the Ethic of Divinity makes very little sense. You act good because God commands it as such. Why not act good for the sake of being good, not because God tells you to or that you're afraid of his wrath? I guess that I'm against it because my views of ethics and morality are based on biology and evolution. I think that, as a species, we owe it to one another to behave civilly and help one another out for the end purpose of propagation of the species. Humans are social animals and we live in groups for support and protection. We need each other. So therefore, doesn't it only seem logical that we protect and support one another because it's the natural thing to do? Nature determined we need each other, so it only makes sense to act in line with what we evolved to do. Be good for the sake of being good, not because God said we should or that we'll go to Hell if we don't. I find that this view is related to the Ethic of Autonomy more strongly than the other two and that the Ethic of Autonomy will logically flow into the Ethic of Community.

And that's it for tonight!

IQ and Learning

This will probably be a shorter entry tonight, but we'll see how it goes.

So I've spent a little bit of time thinking about the Flynn Effect in relation to Incremental vs. Entity theories of learning. The Flynn Effect is basically summed up as the observed phenomenon of the increase in IQ scores over time. An average or even gifted IQ score a century ago would, in today's standards, classify as mental retardation while conversely, a score indicating mental retardation today would classify as average or gifted a century ago. It's interesting to think about this in relation to the aforementioned theories of learning. The incremental theory of learning states that certain aspects of our minds or brains, such as intelligence, are malleable and be bolstered and improved with practice. On the other side of the fence, the entity theory of learning states that such qualities are largely innate and fixed, unaffected by practice. That particular sounds ludicrous, doesn't it? I mean, if intelligence was fixed, then what is the whole point of education? One of the main goals of post-secondary education is to gain advanced knowledge and to hone your executive processing abilities. Furthermore, contemporary learning theory tells us that the process of learning actually changes the structure of your brain by creating new neural connections and networks and strengthening those connections while trimming or eliminating unused connections. So the entity theory seems to be complete nonsense. But when you look at what research tells us, the majority of individuals from individualistic/Western cultures seem to operate under the assumptions of the entity theory. When people from these cultures fail a task, they're likely to chalk it up to lack of ability and their motivation to do well decreases. But people from Eastern or collectivist cultures show the opposite thought patterns. They, for the most part, subscribe to the incremental theory of learning. If people from these cultures fail a task, they're likely to react in a manner that would suggest that they simply need to try harder or study more or what have you in order to improve their performance. Even when they succeed, they don't gloat about it like us in the West do. But what does have to do with IQ test scores throughout history? The IQ test was originally a Western construct. In fact, the majority of IQ measurements would appear to be heavily biased towards a Western demographic and it's only been within recent years that a multicultural approach has been utilized in IQ test implementation. Taking the Flynn Effect into consideration, you might come to the conclusion that intelligence as whole, at least in Western standards, has vastly increased in the last century. But this conclusion would appear to contradict the entity theory of fixed intelligence that most people in the West subscribe to. It's contradictory when you think about. Then only explanation I can think about is that topics related to intelligence and learning are really under known by a small demographic existing within the larger Western culture. Most people aren't aware of the research and theories underlying the learning process, and this ignorance may be perpetuating the otherwise debunked entity theory of learning. It would seem that incremental learning really is correct, giving further credence to my previous rant where I outlined that collectivistic thinking just makes more sense than individualistic thinking. That's my theory, anyway. I'm probably wrong, but I think it's worth considering anyway.

Well, there you go. That's my post for tonight!

[insert title here]

There have been a few things I've been thinking about lately, so I figured I'd sort of let loose my brain and see what I can come up with!

Cultural evolution and globalization are funny things, aren't they? Because of the massive influence that Western-based globalization has on the rest of the world (as the West practically runs the world), many previously "uncontaminated" cultures are evolving with ideas put forth by other countries and cultures. Multinational corporations, advertising, products, television, immigration, and probably a few other things I'm forgetting to mention exchanged between countries all of the world are slowly creating this one gigantic melting pot of multiculturalism, and previously separate cultures and fusing and combining into new cultures. Whether it be Gagnam Style from South Korea becoming a craze in the US, Italian cuisine being enjoyed in Australia, or McDonald's setting up shop in almost every country in the world, we're all affecting one another constantly and separate cultures are becoming increasingly intertwined. Before you know it, these intertwinings will be inseparable from one another. Messages and memes are spread throughout the world via the internet on a daily basis, and even the meaning of the word "meme" has seen evolution in recent years. I remember back in 2008 when I was just starting to become familiar with internet culture from lurking on 4chan, Encyclopedia Dramatica, and Know Your Meme (which catalogues memes). Back then, a meme, as far as the internet was concerned, was relatively unknown by general public or internet and served as familiar catchphrases, images, or identifiers of one's membership of certain cultural pockets of the internet. They started from something ridiculous posted on a message board, humours pictures that become popular, or even rather inconspicuous things that would otherwise not be notable enough to become a meme if its context wasn't notable. During the heyday of meme production on 4chan, so many memes were created on GET threads that someone said that if their post ended in some number which escapes me now, then Milhouse from The Simpsons would become a meme. This was seen as ludicrous by the community, and everyone started spouting off that "Milhouse is not a meme". This became so repeated that "Milhouse is not a meme" became a meme. I remember one particular post that went something like "'Milhouse' is not a meme. 'Milhouse is not a meme' is a meme". Back in those days, a meme was defined as an in-joke used by very particular communities on the internet that can also be used to identify one's group membership even when outside the usual website or message board. The phrase "I herd u liek Mudkipz", originally posted either in a Pokemon thread or Pokemon website, came to be the de facto phrase used by members of the group Anonymous to identify one another when outside of their usual websites like 4chan and Reddit. Nowadays, the whole concept of the image macro meme has become so widespread that even companies post random image macros with photos of animals and accompanying text on their Facebook pages. And they call them memes! In just a few short years, the definition and presentation of the meme has changed so drastically. It kind of ticks me off, to be honest. To me, a meme is still defined by it's pre-pop culture parameters and should only be used as an in-joke and identifying message. Which brings me to my next point.

The meme has sort of "globalized" in the past few years, and I can totally understand the whole tribalism counter to globalization, being a desire to return to traditional ways. In this case, the "traditional ways" are the  mid to late '00s, when the internet meme was much more conservative and personally meaningful. I can't even stand looking at memes today. So many meme websites have been cropping up lately, trying to cash in on the meme and humous image bandwagon. Websites that use the words "lol", "fun", "gag" and the like are everyone and it sort of sickens me. Rageface and Trollface used to be cool and genuinely funny. Now I just can't stand them. When I start thinking about this tribalism counter, it makes me wonder what the proper way for cultural evolution really is and whether a desire to return to traditional values even makes any sense. Human cultural evolution is characterized by the Ratchet Effect, in which people learn ideas from other people and use that baseline and build upon, thereby causing changes in the original idea. The idea evolves into something more sophisticated and refined. But if that is the essence of cultural evolution, then why do so many people desire to return to traditional ideas? That's not building on anything, it's just rehashing past ideas and moving backward in time, not forward. Maybe it's because people are intimidated by change and want to go back to what they're used to. But if that were how we truly are, why does culture evolve at all? Why wouldn't we just choose to stay at the same level forever? Even given this desire to stay with the familiar, our curiosity is what leads us to learn new things an create new ideas that allow our cultures and societies to evolve. It's almost contradictory in a sense. And obviously just staying at the same intellectual and cultural forever doesn't work. Just look at the Dark Ages in Europe. Yeah, that went over well.

Anyway, that's my rant for the night. I'll be back soon with some more brain droppings. Peace out, y'all!

East meets West. Like Rice Krispies.

The age-old comparison of individualistic Western culture and collectivist Eastern culture is something that I have been interested in for years and find myself thinking about a lot of the time. Ever since I was in my early teens, the whole collectivist paradigm seemed so interesting to me because of how different it was from my own culture. I guess a lot of that interest was sparked when I started watching anime, which is full of depictions and exaggerations of Japanese culture and tropes. The fact that most of the video games I play are produced in Japan and contain references to Japanese culture probably contributed to that too. But I suppose that fascination would be with Japanese culture rather than collectivist culture. In any case, it's interesting to look at how it differs from our own individualistic culture. On the surface, collectivist culture appears to be vastly superior than individualist culture when considering the contribution to the human species as a whole. I mean, for the good of the collective society rather than the individual makes sense when you consider that humans are a social species that depend on one another and the group for survival. Emphasize the group and we're bound to be happy and feel safe, right? But I can't help but think differently when I really try to analyze it, probably because of the biases Western culture imposed on me. Ironic, considering I tend to think of myself as outside of mainstream culture. I guess I'm outside mainstream Western culture, but still within some of the Western subcultures.

Putting so much emphasis on the collective and putting so little on the individual has the potential to be fraught with problems. When you're told from an early age that your own achievements and even your problems don't really matter and that you need to concentrate your efforts entirely on the good of the collective, you're bound to start feeling pretty crappy about yourself, aren't you? Of course, approaching this debate from a Western mindset may cause my opinions to be completely invalid. How can I really know what people in other cultures are thinking and feeling? Maybe I only think that Eastern people would feel negatively about themselves because that's how I would feel if I were in their position... But I was raised using Western cultural practices and beliefs. If you were raised using the collectivist ideology, wouldn't you be unaware or dismissive of individual importance? The whole idea of culture is so subjective and variable that it's so difficult to properly discuss and debate. Even the basic human idea of empathy is clouded and put in a grey area. But I suppose every realm of human thought is technically grey area; we only prefer to think of things in black and white because it's easier to conceive and requires less effort to process. Which is why culture is so difficult to really talk about at the level it should be. Sort of a vicious circle, I guess.

However, I do know that Japan has relatively poor mental health care, as is the focal point of the documentary Seishin (which translates to "Mental" in English). That particular documentary is known for breaking a major social taboo in Japan by discussing mental health of the individual. As I previously mentioned, individual problems are labeled as unimportant in collectivist societies, apparently to the point of being taboo topic of discussion. Japan is also known for having a very high suicide rate, among the highest in the world. Is it then really so far-fetched to think that perhaps people in Eastern cultures are feeling bad about their individual selves, despite never having been raised using Western ideas of individualism and that each person is special and unique? Maybe the whole thing is like a bad mixture of individualistic and collectivist ideas. Japan has been increasingly exposed to Western culture ever since the Meiji Restoration in the mid 1800's, when the Tokugawa Shogunate was overthrown, the democratic Meiji government took over, and Japan opened its borders to the outside world once again. Perhaps what is going on is that while families are traditionally structured around a collectivist mindset, the distinct Western flavour within Japanese society has people wanting more for themselves. They know that individuals are treated "better" in Western cultures but are forced to ignore themselves in favour of the collective. But again, who are we to pick apart their culture when we were raised completely differently ourselves?

I'd like to think that I was raised with Western philosophies with a hint of collectivism in mind. By hint, I mean family-oriented. I was raised to believe that the most important thing in the world was family and that family should be there for each other no matter what. That's something you tend see less and less of these days. People move away from home, often far away, get jobs, start their own families, and rarely stay connected with those back where they came from. People shove their parents in retirement homes instead of caring for them themselves, siblings lose touch for years at a time, and so on. It almost makes me shutter with disgust. I make a point to spend lots of time with my family. When I'm at home, I spend nearly every evening in the living room with Mom and Dad and when I'm away from home, I cal them every night and talk for about 30 minutes to an hour, sometimes longer. There's nothing I don't tell them and they tell me that I can talk to them about anything. I talk to my brothers whenever I can and always ask my parents how they're doing. Even recently, I can remember Dad getting us all together and telling us that nothing is more important than family and that we need to be there for each other no matter what. My parents never had the most supportive families themselves, so I guess they're trying to make sure that never happens with us. So I guess it's an individualistic collectivism, in a sense. The best way to ensure the proper functioning of the group is to take care of the individual. And that's the opinion I have of collectivist culture. As biased as it sounds, it really appears to me to be the best way of running things. If all the individuals are happy, the society as a whole will be happy. Seems like common sense. But I suppose there's a reason why collectivist academic test scores are significantly higher than individualistic test scores. Maybe our focus on the individual doesn't pressure us enough to succeed and that we seem to be comparatively lazy. But hey, it's just a theory.

Unity of the psychics... psyche. Whatever.

Something I find myself thinking about every now and again is the concept of psychic unity. I took Anthropology 300: Anthropological Theory a couple of years ago as part of my Anthropology minor and one of the concepts we touched on was that of psychic unity. The theory of psychic unity basically states that  all human beings, past, present, and future, are all linked through the same cognitive capability. If you were to, say, travel back in time to, I dunno, 3000 BCE, abduct a newborn, bring it to our current time, and raise it the same you would any other child, he or she would have absolutely no trouble in adapting to and learning from our complex culture and would develop like anyone else from our time period. This is predicated on the belief that all human beings, since we first split off from Homo erectus hundreds of thousands of years ago, are physiologically and cognitively the same, whether they be the Homo sapiens of 100,000 BCE, 3000 BCE, 1500 CE, 2013 CE, or whatever other time period from the past or future you may so choose at random, just so long as they are Homo sapiens. Evolution is an excruciatingly slow and gradual process, taking place over hundreds of thousands to millions of years. But this idea gets me thinking about whether or not all humans from all time periods are really just the same. I mean, people, on average, are much taller today than they were hundreds or thousands of years ago. Is that a product of human evolution? If we're taller than our ancestors, who's to say we're not more intelligent than them as well? Then you bring up the notion that measuring intelligence is a culturally specific and extremely biased process. Intelligence really depends on how successful you are within your own cultural context, with the more "intelligent" of us generally performing better than others in activities or tasks that are deemed important within said culture. If you were move from Canada to Papua New Guinea, intelligence would mean something completely different. Sure, you could have a PhD in Theoretical Physics from McGill (or wherever you can get a degree in that in Canada), but I dare say you'd look quite the fool in a tribal society that values the ability to hunt, coordinate, and manage resources when you demonstrate your complete lack of outdoorsy skills.

Of course, even thinking about general human intelligence throughout history is exceedingly complicated and almost a fruitless endeavour. Each generation of humans builds upon the discoveries made the previous one. Culture, society, technology, it's all just a building process. How can we accurately infer the intelligence of past peoples and cultures when they are so vastly different from what we have now? Because they are further back in human history with important discoveries yet to have been made and built, are they any less intelligent? Have we "evolved" into an organism that greatly resembles yet is fundamentally different from past people? Maybe, maybe not. I suppose if society were to collapse due to a zombie apocalypse, we'd likely revert to our pre-industrial ways. In a way, pre-industrial societies would seem more "intelligent" at first in that scenario, as the the first generation of survivors would be unlikely to function well if left to their own devices without the aid of the technology and government that the gifted among us have devised. Drop a group of First Nations people from before the European conquest of North America into a zombie apocalypse and I'd be willing to bet that they would higher rates of survival than people from our time. At least once guns and ammunition run out. I wonder, though, if education will advance to a point where even specific areas such as agriculture and survivalist material will be known by the common person? ... Probably not, given that it's not deemed important to the common man and that all those things are taken care of by a select few who keep society running smoothly. We're moving further away from education for raw survival into education for society and culture; a type of socially-based education. Not having to worry about meeting your own survival needs but being able to engage in higher levels of thinking because all those needs are already met. Kinda like Maslow's hierarchy of needs in a way, I suppose. But are we changing our genes by simply engaging in higher cognition? If so, then we may conclude that perhaps we have evolved past the baseline of intelligence of our ancestors. It's just hard to tell; there are just too many variables to consider.

Well, that'll about do it for tonight. Next time on Culture Grumps: totally gonna discuss the culture of education, or whatever (I've been watching a lot of Game Grumps lately, so I felt compelled to make a reference. It's super good. Like, you should totally watch it right now. http://www.youtube.com/user/GameGrumps. JonTron and Egoraptor are boss).

Wat?

Here we go, post numero uno. Gonna be completely honest here: I have no idea what a blog really is or what it's purpose is supposed to be. All I'm certain of is that one is required as an assignment of sorts for my Cultural Psychology class and that I'm supposed to talk about my experiences and thoughts in relation to culture. Guess it's time to reopen the class syllabus and have a look-see.

Thinking about culture and how we're shaped by it is something that I've been doing long before I ever enrolled in this class, though likely never to the extent that is expected of me here. Developmental psychology is my preferred area of study within the field and the effects that culture has on child development is always something that intrigued me but I never bothered actually going out and conducting my own independent research. Culture and child development are intimately connected, as culture dictates what kind of a person a child develops into. It sets their interests, relationships, likes and dislikes, and whatever else you can think of. I've always considered myself to be a little more outside of contemporary culture than most people. I'm constantly observing other people's behaviour, thinking about why they behave the way they do, and how most people I observe tend to follow a more or less "cookie cutter" set of behaviour while out and about. I often forget that I am by no means the only person who thinks this way; in fact, I imagine most people do the same thing I do. I guess the main difference between and the general public is that while they can seamlessly interacts in all sorts of ways with all sorts of people while maintaining their observational nature, I kind of "sit outside" in a way. I find it difficult interacting with most people and when I do, I tend to think about what I'm doing and saying while I'm doing or saying it, often to the point where my behaviour comes across as awkward. Interpersonal interaction has never been my strong suit; I have few friends, though that's by choice, and I enjoy spending time by myself or with those close to me rather than spending time with groups of people. I have kind of a social anxiety thing going on, but it's been like that for as long I can remember so whatever. If I plan on going out with people, it's almost like I have to psych myself into it and prepare my "people face". It takes a lot of effort, haha. I just prefer spending time alone, with my family, and with my girlfriend. I suppose I see myself as slightly counterculture, which ironically is a culture in and of itself. Though not too counterculture, like hipsters or skinheads or whatever. Just kind of an outsider from the otherwise "normal" population.

While I see myself as an outsider from the culture we see outside everyday on the streets, in the workplace, and on campus, I do consider myself to belong to a number of sub-cultures. First and foremost, I consider myself belonging to the gamer culture; that is, I play a lot of video games. Like a lot. As in I practically eat, drink, and breathe Nintendo. Most of my free time is spent gaming, listening to video game music, and reading about video games. But besides gaming, I also consider myself somewhat well-versed in internet culture. And no, I'm not talking about Facebook, Reddit, 9GAG, or any of those craptastic bastardizations of supposed "internet culture" focused solely on the overproduction and oversaturation of memes. I'm certainly not deep web, hacker material or anything like that. As you can probably guess at this point, I'm a frequenter of 4chan. Yeah, I don't give a crap about Rules 1 and 2 (as if anyone has actually mentioned those since 2008) or that this blog isn't exactly anonymous. It's not like no one's heard of 4chan, anyway. It's like site number 5000 on the Alexa rankings, or whatever. Contrary to what I've been saying to this point, people like me who consider themselves outsiders actually do exist in great numbers and they congregate on sites like 4chan and other *chan sites. It's kind of like being an outsider of one culture makes you a part of another. No matter where you do or what you do, you're always part of some culture. Unless you literally grew up under a rock or in the woods alone. Which isn't very likely, considering that whole humans need other humans for survival thing. Besides gamer and internet culture, I also think of myself as slightly belonging to the japanophile or "weeaboo" culture. Like many solemn and angsty teenagers, I found myself fascinated with and mesmerized  by Japanese animated television shows, or anime for anyone under the age of 40. Shows like Inuyasha, Gundam Wing, and Dragon Ball Z were my life. And that fascination lead to an obsession with all things Japan. Oh well, at least I learned some cool stuff about eastern culture. I'm still into anime (Cowboy Bebop and Rurouni Kenshin ftw), manga, and other Japanese stuff now, but not as nearly as much.

Anyway, it's getting sort of late and I guess I should peace out and sleep for a while. I spent a lot of time tonight talking just about me, which happens. Perhaps next time I'll actually start in on something culturally meaningful and thought-provoking. Maybe.