Week 6 Wed
The thing that struck me as we were talking about ‘Information Economy’ was the point about the shift to consumptive pattern. We see it all around us, people identify themselves by the T.V. they watch, the coffee they drink, the jeans they wear, the computer they use, etc. In a time when individual creativity is so easy to express via the Internet, open mics, etc. why is it that we care less about what we produce and more about what we consume? Is creativity less valued, regardless of what we proclaim, or is it that we are more lazy and less creative than we were in the past? Has the corruption of mass media finally caught up with us, or in the midst of this ‘Idividualization’ are we still so desperate to belong that we reach out to those things that are common to all in order to define our identity?
Response to Brett on Barker ch 10
I agree with a lot of what Brett stated in his post, but I couldn’t get away from the last comment, “This does not cause me to believe there necessarily has to be a difference in gender roles.” I know that this is a politically correct and socially “appropriate” position, but as much as I’d like to toe the line, I can’t. I think that God did create men and women with fundamental physical, emotional, and psychological differences. Regardless of the cultural influences that come to bear on these differences, at the core there are largely predictable differences that make division of labor beneficial for both sexes and for society as a whole. Isn’t it a good thing that women are better at certain things than men? Doesn’t that reveal a divine order that shouldn’t be ignored or devalued for the sake of “correctness”? Feel free to call me a sexist, but I think it is one of God’s greatest blessings to humanity that he made men and women different, each better suited for different tasks. Aren’t we fools for not embracing the strength that comes from these divisions of labor? If it wasn’t for the artificial values that we place on the different roles, would we truly care about the divisions?
