50/50 Nonsense

The family is in trouble.  Divorce and single parenthood are proliferating.  Much of this owes to the rubbish that has been disseminated by radical feminists.  In the name of equality, they have done their best to poison the relationships between husbands and wives.

One of the worst pieces of nonsense they spout is that intimate unions should be 50/50.  Everything that spouses do must therefore be exactly equal.  This goes for their jobs outside the home, as well as the tasks they perform within it.

Thus, the man should diaper the baby as often as his wife.  He should also wash the dishes as frequently as she does and cook just as many meals.  Anything less than complete uniformity is regarded as exploitation.  It is considered evidence that men are irredeemably selfish and why liberated women must resist becoming domestic slaves.

In any event, with Christmas coming, the emphasis on family harmony is on the rise.  Romanticized love fills the airwaves and makes many people feel that they should be more starry-eyed than they are.  Because they know that they don’t live up to the idealized role models, they assume they are doing things wrong.

But guess what, it is the idealized equality that is wrong.  Within our separate households, the goal ought not be cookie-cutter equality.  The real objective must be fairness, rather than androgyny.

Nowadays, with both men and women well educated, and with most wives holding down demanding jobs, the traditional domestic division of labor is largely obsolete.  The notion that he is the sole breadwinner and she the single homemaker is belied by on-the-ground arrangements.

 Today, most spouses must come to a private agreement about how they will divide up household responsibilities.  They don’t necessarily do things the way their parents did—or, for that matter, the way their friends do.  Instead, they find a solution that is unique to them and their circumstances.

People may not advertise these private arrangements, but they develop out of their personal inclinations and opportunities.  First off, because men and women differ, their choices often reflect their genders.  Women, for instance, are generally more comfortable interacting with babies than men.

Men, on the other hand, are commonly more mechanically inclined.  They like tinkering with automobile engines.  But that does not mean there cannot be a role reversal.  Indeed such turnarounds have become commonplace.  Many a husband now cooks dinner, while his wife deals with the smoke alarms.

Other factors also influence the choices couples make.   Their work schedules, for example, might make it sensible for him to do the grocery shopping, while she picks up the laundry.  Or if one becomes handicapped, this might dictate a modification in their assignments.

In short, contemporary couples negotiate their domestic roles.  They make idiosyncratic deals about who will do what.  Moreover, to repeat, in doing so what counts is fairness, not equality.  People, whatever their gender, do not enjoy being used.  As result, they demand parity, not uniformity.

As a sociologist, I often bring up the subject of the domestic division of labor in informal conversations.  The mostly middle class people with whom I converse are then happy to rattle off their unique understandings.  And so I am told about how he likes to do the ironing, while she is in charge of the washing machine.  Or that she mows the lawn, while he does the vacuuming.

Furthermore, I do not hear many recriminations.  People seldom accuse a spouse of being completely insensitive.  Instead, they chuckle about a way of dividing tasks they assumed were exclusive to them.  They may even feel a bit self-conscious at being “different.”

As it happens, in my home I do more of the cooking than my wife.  I also do most of the vegetable chopping because knives make her uncomfortable.  Yet she does all of the baking—because she is good at it and fond of it.  By the way, I am glad of this.  Her oatmeal cookies are to die for.

 

The point of these observations is that modern families differ from the traditional models, but that does not signify they are broken.  Nor do husbands and wives have to become androgynous clones in order to be happy.  Nowadays we have the freedom to do what works.  Shouldn’t we enjoy this?

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Online Loneliness

Have you ever been in a room filled with young people engrossed in their electronic devices?  Have you noticed how oblivious they are of one another as they play their computer games or send messages to absent friends?  This fact of modern life has, however, had dire consequences.

The Internet is, in many ways, a boon.  But it has also been a curse.  One of its worst side effects has been the coarsening, and degradation, of interpersonal communications.  Many of us are familiar with how mean tweets can be.  We have also witnessed the shallowness of FaceBook.

What we may not have realized is how seriously the electronic media eroded interpersonal skills.  Millions of computer addicts use their machines as a buffer against the world.  Because they can control what they see and hear, they are able to exclude unwanted contacts.

As a result, they never acquire the ability to deal with unpleasant messages.  Nor do they become skilled in coping with strong emotions.  For that matter, most are inexperienced in reading the subtle cues on the faces of the folks with whom they might have direct interactions.

This leaves many of the young unprepared to deal with the give and take of their subsequent occupations.  They have difficulty evaluating personal character or standing up to vigorous competition.  This is one of the reasons large numbers of college students cannot endure what they find offensive.

Indeed, it is why a college education is not worth what it once was.  Unhappily, college administrators are conspiring to convert a bad situation into an unprecedented disaster.  They are eagerly expanding their online offerings, irrespective of the consequences.

You’ve seen it on TV.  You’ve been told a thousand times about how convenient distance learning is.  The impression you are given is that this modality is superior to the old-fashioned classroom.  Nonetheless, this is a grave error.

First, a caveat.  I do not teach online.  But I do teach at a university (KSU) that boasts of many online offerings.  I also teach in a department that offers a fully online degree.  I have even helped edit a journal issue dedicated to exploring the realities of online programs.

What is more, I frequently quiz my students about their online experiences.  The better ones almost uniformly assert that these are an inferior form of learning.  They tell me that what they absorbed was cursory and that cheating is rampant.

What they typically neglect to say is that college is about more than books and examinations.  It also entails interacting with other students.  In fact, the informal contacts that begin in class or arise from extracurricular activities are often more influential than the dealings with their professors.

This was certainly the case when I was an undergraduate.  My friends and I routinely discussed the ideas to which we were exposed.  Actually “discussed” is the wrong word.  Oftentimes we argued, and in the process made novel ways of thinking our own.

Even Plato wrote about the way the young tussle over philosophies; much as puppies do over a bone.  Are we now intent upon depriving learners of this opportunity by confining them to the solitude of their home screens?   Is their world to be restricted to a computer display in the name of efficiency or modernity?

To be honest, online designers are aware of this pitfall.  They therefore attempt to compensate in a variety of ways.  One is to make graphics more stimulating.  Another is to encourage instructors to create videos that emulate the classroom.

But the most important substitute for interpersonal connections are the chat room or electronic discussion board.  These are often made mandatory in the expectation that they will stimulate student thought.

Too bad this is a vain hope.  The stilted, and coerced, nature of these exchanges is no replacement for the real thing.  In their artificiality, they cannot reproduce the spontaneity of face-to-face conversations.  They thus cannot inspire the momentary flashes of insight that develop out of emotionally laden contacts.

Internet learning is improving.  It may even be useful in teaching math and accounting.  But when the humanities and social sciences are stripped of their human component, they cease preparing the young for social realities.  This sort of enforced loneliness only creates isolated clones.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Self-Righteousness

A couple of weeks ago, when I attended the annual meeting of the Georgia Sociological Association, I ran into a familiar challenge.  It was discouraging, but not overwhelming.  Don’t get me wrong; I love the organization and most of its members.  Nevertheless my colleagues left-leaning attitudes can be discomfiting.

Let me explain.  This year I came in a bit late to a workshop on applied sociology.  Those in the room were already discussing the best ways to bring social activism into the classroom.  For them, this meant figuring out how to promote social justice.

Perhaps I should have kept my mouth shut, but this is not my style.  All too often, I am a provocateur.  And so I raised my hand and suggested that many liberals tend to be self-righteous.  In doing so, it was as if I had thrown a bomb into their midst.

All of a sudden everyone rose to his or her feet to tell me I was wrong.  The decibel level rose to unseemly heights for an academic gathering, as I was vigorously instructed about the error of my ways. 

My response was that the vociferousness of their reaction proved my point.  Had they not felt threatened by the potential truth of my words, they would not have been as emotionally aroused.

Of course, no one heard what I said.  They were too busy making certain that I was not allowed to continue my remarks.  In other words, self-righteous people do not want to be confronted with their self-righteousness.  Just check-out the mainstream press.

In sociology, the left-leaning consensus is so all-encompassing that people regularly expect their opinions to be reinforced.  So frequently is this the case that they regard dissent as evidence of a mental shortcoming.

Mind you, most of us think we are right.  We do not welcome criticism because we are sure it is undeserved.  Whether we are liberal or conservative, we would not believe what we do if we did not assume it was correct.

Nevertheless, there are degrees of certitude.  Some people are far more rigid in their viewpoints than others.  As it happens, many liberals and progressives are today especially inflexible in their perspectives.  They seldom brook principled disagreement.

To hear some leftists tell it, they are never wrong.  Whenever one of their programs fails to live up to the advance billing, they blame it on the opposition.  Whether this pertains to the economy, foreign affairs, or Obamacare, it is conservatives who obviously prevented success.

As far as these progressives are concerned, every social problem is created by privileged oppression.  Some elite group has selfishly harmed the poor, minorities or women.  The proper corrective is therefore to counteract these bad guys.  Often this entails purging of them from the community.

Those, who are so convinced, are blind to the myriad complications of human endeavors.  They do not see the subtleties.  Be they proponents of social justice or religious fundamentalism, they cannot accept alternate explanations.

Oliver Crowell, when he was disputing with the Scottish Presbyterians, declared “I beseech thee, in the bowels of Christ, think you may be mistaken.”  Of course, his opponents came to no such conclusion.  The result was a war that left Scotland badly damaged.

Crowell, on the other hand, although he could be stiff-necked, was frequently prepared to modify his course as the circumstances demanded.  This made him effective on the battlefield and in Parliament.

Being ready to imagine that others have a valid point is essential to correcting our errors.  We don’t have to agree with these folks, but there is generally a reason they believe as they do.  Being prepared to recognize this often enables us to see where our own position might be strengthened.

Nowadays the extent of our collective confusions is such that our anxieties have stimulated a rash of moralistic posturing.  Many of us are not sure of the answers so we conceal our discomfort by pretending that we know everything anyone needs to know.  This is a dangerous form of self-delusion.

Strong people can accept their limitations.  They can live with their inability to understand or control events.  This furnishes them with the flexibility to roll with the punches.  Too bad political suppleness is currently in short supply.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Complete Georgia: Completely Mistaken

The pressure is less than it once was, but Georgia colleges and universities are still being asked to graduate students as quickly as possible.  One of the measures of success is the percentage of students who complete their degrees in four years.

This is a mistake.  Indeed it is a profound mistake.  Part of the impetus is to save money, yet another is apparently to improve the quality of education.  Unfortunately in the long run it does neither.

As is well known, there is a robust correlation between economic success and a college degree.  As a result, this credential is often regarded as magical.  It is thought to be especially useful to students who come from straitened circumstances.  This is to be their ticket to social mobility.

This, however, confuses a piece of paper with an appropriate education.  As I have been telling my students, the three most important things they should get from college are an ability to read, to write and to organize.  These will later enable them to be self-directed in the workplace.

Nonetheless, these abilities are not acquired merely by sitting in classrooms.  Unless students have the proper orientation, many do as little reading, writing, and organizing as they can.  Only with time, do some of the least prepared among them go through the necessary emotional transition.

Let me be blunt.  Students who are the first in their families to go to college are entering an unfamiliar world.  The values to which they are being exposed may be very different from the ones they experienced at home.  This, in part, requires an adjustment in deeply entrenched attitudes.

Few personal transformations are as difficult.  This one often requires a major reorganization in self-identity.  Huge shifts in dealing with others are also in store.  These are not just cognitive modifications.  For many, they involve emotional traumas.

If this is true, a rigid timetable is an impediment to change.  It forces students to work at a pace with which they may not be at ease.  The upshot is additional anxiety that can slow their personal growth.

Sometimes people imagine that the only thing happening on college campuses is a transfer of information from professors to students.  At least as important is the interaction between students.  Especially when they are from different backgrounds, these voluntarily exchanges can herald a crucial modification in their approach to life.

Why would we want to stop this from happening?  What is gained by artificially speeding up the learning process?  Will graduates be better equipped for life because they finished their schooling a semester or two earlier?

This world can be confusing.  There are so many moving parts, it is difficult to keep track.  Moreover, it is often impossible to predict when a critical insight will arrive.  Why then do we want to put our students in a straightjacket?  Shouldn’t they be allowed to decide when they are ready to move forward?

The irony is that it is the poor and minorities who are hurt most by undue haste.  As Sander and Taylor, the authors of the book Mismatch, discovered, when students feel uncomfortable they are least likely to live up to their potential.  They begin to doubt their abilities and withdraw from the fray.

Colleges are bad at fostering emotional development.  This was never their historical mandate.  But in a society encouraging social justice, growing up may be more important than learning calculus or becoming proficient in French.  It may be what the young need if they are to compete on an even footing.

Richard Nixon was much maligned when he recommended “benign neglect” in dealing with race relations.  Nonetheless, his point was that if we don’t know how to fix something, it might be better to stand back and permit those involved to figure out what needs to be done.

Maybe the same is true for our colleges.  Given that academics don’t always know how to facilitate learning for every student, perhaps they should stand back and permit many of their charges to do this for themselves.

The ancient Greeks warned of the dangers of personal hubris.  Perhaps there is also institutional hubris.  When colleges imagine that they are able to control more than they can, they accomplish less than they might.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University