Tag: sociology

Can We All just Get Along?

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Years ago, I took my five year old son to a playgroup. It was our first time at this particular group, meeting at the hilltop home of the founding member, and we were over an hour late. All the regular members of the group were already there, the moms gathered on the back porch watching their toddlers play in the sand strip that ran along the side of the house.

There were only two kids my son’s age there—the founding member’s son and the girl from next door. The boy and girl, friends since birth, were playing house in a plastic playhouse with pink French windows and a blue shingle roof. After observing them a moment from behind me, my son joined the kids in the playhouse. Five minutes later he and the other boy were in the yard sparring with sticks, then pretending the sticks were guns and shooting at the little girl.

My heart went out to her as she tried in vain to encourage her neighbor to come back into the playhouse and continue their game. And I did intervene several times, reminding my son how it felt to be left out and insisting that he find a game that included her, until finally they all agreed to play with the train set inside and went in.

I stayed out on the porch and had a somewhat stilted conversation with the other moms amid them chiding their children for eating sand, or throwing it, or both. A few minutes passed and the little girl came out of the house crying. The boys were making fun of her for being a girl, taunting her for liking dolls and playing house, claiming that girls and boys couldn’t ever be friends since ‘boys were cool and girls drool,’ so she wasn’t allowed to play with them anymore.

My son’s introduction to the new playgroup wasn’t going well, and I went into the house to confront him. He was happily hiding with the other boy in a tent-like structure they’d built on the living room floor. I called both boys to come out and face me. After my son vehemently insisted that the other boy had said the little girl couldn’t play, I told them both to sit down, hoping to enlighten them.

I again reminded both of them how it feels to be left out. Then I explained that in the grown up world girls and boys play together all the time.

‘In fact, my very best friend is your dad,’ I told my son and his new friend, and the little girl standing beside me. ‘He’s my favorite playmate. We can always find something to do together that both of us like. He’s my BFF for life!’ And since he was a boy and I was a girl, the boys were obviously wrong thinking that girls and boys couldn’t be friends. The two of them sat there thinking about what I’d just said, asked, “Really?” followed by “Wow,” and they finally invited the little girl back in and included her in their game. She got to be Princess Leia.

Listening from the back porch to my exchange with the kids, the women confronted me the moment I took my place on the concrete steps outside. They all wanted to know if I’d lied to the children about my relationship with my husband. Did I really possess the friendship I touted? Was he my first choice to play with, talk to, expose my innermost self to? I insisted he was. My husband was my closest friend, or at the very least it’s what we strove for. Wasn’t marriage about sharing yourselves inside and out?

Their answer turned out to be universally ‘NO.’ Out of the eleven women there, not one said their spouses were among their top three friends. All felt that, especially as they got older, they were drawing away from their husbands and moving towards other women for emotional support. They considered their girl friends their closest friends, those they shared their most intimate thoughts and feelings. All agreed that only women fully understood women, or wanted to, making it natural, normal, even healthy that they gravitated to like kind. Then they used our kid’s interaction earlier as an example of how males and females “naturally segregate” to back up their position.

Nature verses nurture is an ongoing debate over how much stereotypical behavior in boys and girls is genetically instilled or environmentally gleaned. Unarguably, gender has genetic differences in our physicality and our brain function. Boys and girls generally play together without reserve until around the first grade. The sexes begin to separate between 5 and 7 yrs old, around the same time we develop the brain power to assimilate within our environment, and begin to copy behavior of those around us. Eleven out of twelve moms at that playgroup chose to congregate almost exclusively with their own sex, modeling division between men and women to their kids.

Regardless that so many women today think most men are idiots, their utility is not limited to their earning capacity—making 20% more than a woman does—or their reproductive organs. Men are generally more linear, quantitative than qualitative, objectifying than identifying, competitive vs cooperative. While their brute strength is no longer required to bring down the mastodon [since we can all buy better steaks on Amazon], men offer lessons in living a more fulfilling life by being a bit more self-focused instead of solely maternal.

Most of humanity’s existence, men have taken the top tier—been the king of the castle, the final word in the household—because they could. Physical prowess won the battle of the sexes until recently. With the advent of technology, the reign of men is coming to an end.

Surrounding ourselves with like kind—women defaulting to women for a safe harbor—will not level the playing field or bridge the divide between the sexes. Women must learn to step up, stand our ground, not acquiesce to a man’s request simply because he made one. Men must step down from their throne atop the social order, even if they feel no ground, and embrace women’s emotional intelligence, our capacity for caring—for our children, and for them. No longer the sole bread-winner, men must offer more of what women do each other, become more maternal—beyond self—and more emotionally aware and available because with everything given something is owed, regardless of gender.

Our greatest hurtle to the union of humanity is not racial, religious, socioeconomic, cultural or political. The biggest chasm between us is our gender. Before men and women can actualize ourselves as equals, we must see ourselves as one people—the human race—each with our own gifts for the other.

Born Racist

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Every human being on the planet is BORN a racist…

We are ALL racists. Every human being on the planet is BORN a racist.

‘NO!’ you’re screaming at me. ‘BULLSHIT, you whacked-out bitch. I am not a racist!’

Racism is taught, not inherent to our nature is the common wisdom. And while it’s true racism, hate, fear can be taught by parents, community, schools, religious leaders, and conservative media, we are all born, to varying degrees, racists.

Mammals, the genome to which Humans belong, are born with an innate FEAR of THE OTHER — anything outside what is familiar to us. And this fear manifests as RACISM, and SEXISM, and NATIONALISM.

“FEAR of THE OTHER” should be the universal definition of racism. And humans manifest our fear in a variety of ways. Some, their fear is so overwhelming, their ignorance so great, it aligns with HATE, and they are violent against THE OTHER.

But sometimes, when our fear is acknowledged, and then examined, it motivates us to learn about THE OTHER. Only then, do we discover that regardless of color, or even gender, we are not so different. We all FEEL the same feelings.

‘BULLSHIT,’ you calling me out again. ‘You don’t know how it FEELS to be Black.’

You’re right. I’m White. But I know what it FEELS like to be dissed. I grew up overweight in chic L.A. I was the butt of fat jokes through elementary and middle school. I never got asked out on a date until I dropped the weight in my senior year of high school. And while I am now in “good shape,” I will go to my grave feeling fat. I will never fit in to the world where thin is the only way to be “in.” And I know what it FEELS like living forever on the outside wishing to be in.

So what if you were fat, you say. You lost the weight. Skinny or fat, I can’t stop being Asian, or gay.

And I am a woman. I know what it FEELS like being judged as lesser than because I am not a man. I know how it FEELS to be making two-thirds the salary of the guy next to me doing the exact same job. My first job out of college as an art director for a major jewelry manufacturer, the CEO of the company came into my first big meeting and grabbed my breast instead of my outstretched hand. He squeezed my tit like it was an orange and said, “Nice!” I know how it FEELS to be objectified for my body alone.

Being disrespected makes me FEEL valueless, ashamed, awkward, angry, mystified, enraged, scared, small, sad. And all these negative feelings manifest inside each of us when we are dissed. The fact is, Black, White, Fat or not, we’ve all experienced each of these feelings independently, or simultaneously, regardless if we are consciously aware of them. Each of us may react to our feelings differently, but most all of us are intimate with feeling dissed.

Most of us are also intimate with feeling happy, engaged [in a pleasing activity], safe, content in moments. Our reasons for feeling these things may vary, though not as much as you think. The love of a parent, guardian or friend; the comfort of a safe home; full bellies from tasty food makes most of us FEEL good. The intensity of our feelings varies wildly from person to person. Some enjoy positive feelings far more often than others born with internal angst, or into external misfortune. But the feelings of HAPPY and SAD, GOOD and BAD, PROUD and ASHAMED, EMPOWERED and DISSED are common to all of us.

Being alive means FEELING. The enormous, complex range of feelings we get to experience, both body and mind, is exclusively Human. The capacity of our brain power is what separates us from every other living creature on this planet. And while we all have different experiences, feeling the same things provides a natural bridge to unite us, a window for empathy, even camaraderie through our shared feelings.

We are all born racists. You, me, all humans are born with an innate fear of THE OTHER. Once again, we are standing on the precipice of change, Racism and Sexism the topics de jour. Perhaps this time, we will get off the politically correct train, admit we are all racists and choose to fight our innate fear of THE OTHER. We’ll acknowledge the benefits of integration and globalization as an opportunity to learn from the best of each other. We’ll not only believe in, but practice equal rights.

Stand up, or take a knee, but SPEAK OUT against hate, and educate the ignorant that there really are no substantive differences between us — not color, not culture, not gender or age, not religious or sexual preference, because all human beings FEEL the same things.

How do U FEEL right now?

On Being Human

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

Talked to an old friend yesterday. We hadn’t spoken for almost a decade. No particular reason. Life took over and we lost touch. The last time we spoke, 10 yrs back, he told me his wife had quit her job as a restaurant manager and was very happy to be home, fixing up their house, shopping, cooking, doing things she never had time to do when working.

Ten years later, she is still not working. The house is now fixed up. There are no children, and she has no other responsibilities. When I asked my friend what his wife does with her days, he told me she enjoys working out, watching TV, and she plays a lot of Candy Crush.

My mother-in-law lost her husband of 53 yrs a few years back, a year after they closed the small business they had together from the beginning of their marriage. With no business to maintain, no kids to care for, and only sparse time with grown grandchildren, I assumed she’d find her niche in volunteering, perhaps invest time into her community, teach literacy at her local library, or maybe the hospice her husband spent most of his last days.

I don’t like sick people, she told me upon inquiry. And she has no interest in teaching, anyone, anything, she insisted, clearly annoyed at my suggestions. I’ve worked my whole life. It’s my turn to do what I want.

What does she do all day? Plays Solitaire, watches TV, or goes to plays and the movies with friends and family, when they’re available, which isn’t often. Most elderly folks she knows are helping their kids with the grandkids, or volunteering — giving back for a lifetime of privilege.

On the phone with my old friend, I intimated his wife has too much to contribute to kill time playing Candy Crush. But my friend disagreed. His wife enjoys her days now, no longer under constant pressure to perform. She’s allowed to relax after working most of her life, he told me. 

She’s 53 yrs old, I countered. She’s been relaxing for almost a decade now. So? He was perturbed by my observation. They don’t need her income. He makes enough to support them both, so no harm, right?

Wrong.

We are ALL born owing humanity for the life we have. My mother sacrificed a career to raise three kids and provide us with a warm, clean household. My father worked hard to support our family financially, keep food on the table and secure a home in a safe neighborhood with good schools.

I’ve heard parents called ‘breeders,’ by people who claim to never want kids. The absurdity of their derogatory comment is they couldn’t voice it without being alive, having been bred by their parents before them.

Without those who worked hard before us, there would be no humanity at all. My mother-in-law, my friend’s wife, you, or I wouldn’t exist without the hard work of those before us. From the lightbulb to the internet, we stand on the shoulders of those who have contributed to the life we now live.

Our system that seemingly runs itself — doesn’t. We actually have to work at making it work. And playing Solitaire or Candy Crush all day does nothing for society. With everything given something is owed. Every day we are alive we owe each other and those who will precede us. We are obligated to gift, nurture, and protect life forward, and make sure our children have a planet to live on similar to the one gifted to us.

We are ALL responsible to make the world better. Contributing to a worthy cause we believe in, or inventing solutions to make our lives more productive, or managing a restaurant or small business, we all must continually contribute to humanity for the human race to survive, and thrive.

6M Yrs of Human Evolution

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

or Review of The Hunger Games series…

ONE WISH. Right now. What would it be? Mom asked me and my sister on our drive home from school when I was 10. She often came up with non sequiturs to kill the silence following our monosyllabic responses when she asked about our day.

To get those new knee-high black leather boots, my sister said, and she paused for our mom’s response but got none. Which I know you won’t let me, she snapped.

What about you, Dolly? What would you wish for, Mom asked, looking at me in the rear view mirror.

World peace. I gave her my canonical answer when anyone asked what I’d wish for. I wanted it more than anything else, growing up watching my mom cry fixed on the TV News looking for her son, a front line Marine in the jungles of Vietnam at the height of the war.

What a stupid answer, my sister proclaimed. Never happen. Why don’t you ever wish for something you could actually get?

I slumped, but crossed my arms over my chest and countered, Peace is possible. Anything is possible.

Not world peace, she assured me. She was parroting our father.

Nothing ever changes, was Dad’s canonical refrain. Humans are aggressive, territorial, warring beings. We will always be combative, competitive, violent— a product of our foundation, forever encoded in our DNA.

Not true, I’d argue through the years. We’ve advanced from apes, developed complex languages, laws to protect and care for each other. We’ve risen from hunter/gatherers to farmers that now feed billions, created technology that allows us to communicate globally—

And we’ve invented better ways of killing each other, was always Papa’s rejoinder.

But we can learn how not to, I’d add with less vigor, sensing he was right, at least in that we’d invented a way of killing every living thing on our planet decades before I was born.

–

Fast forward 20+ years— a generation drop. Went to see Dances With Wolves at the Piedmont Theater with some friends. An epic film, made for the big screen, about an Army Lieutenant’s experience with Native Americans in the Dakota/Wyoming territories in the mid 1800s. Opening scene: U.S. civil war, blood, gore and all. Two scenes in, Army Captain blows his brains out. Couple scenes later, wagon driver pierced threw the chest with an arrow. Scene after scene showed violence. Americans killing Americans; Americans killing Indians; Indians killing Americans; Indians killing Indians with warring tribes. Ten minutes before the film ended I’d had enough. I ran from the theater, outside to the curb and threw up in the gutter.

My father is right. My father is right, was screaming in my head. We were engaged in the Gulf War back then, yet another stupid skirmish over territorial control, like dogs peeing to mark their spot. We’re better than this, a part of me pleaded. No. We’re not, I heard my dad say.

A beater BMW full of young guys watched me as they slowed almost to a stop alongside me on the curb. The driver stuck his tongue out and waggled it at me. A guy in the back seat behind the driver was catcalling me, making whistling noises like he was calling his pet. Piedmont is a wealthy suburb of Oakland, but it isn’t immune to assaults or drive-bys. Fear and disgust suddenly had me retching in the gutter again and the BMW took off.

My father is right. Nothing ever changes. We’re still barbarians, taking what we can, killing each other over nothing everywhere. My father is right.

I was blowing the blind date my girlfriend and her new husband set me up with that evening, silently staring down at the sidewalk while he paced me as the four of us walked to the Rockridge Cafe near the theater. I couldn’t stop tears from welling as we all sat down for a late dinner, excused myself and hid in the bathroom to get it together, but stood in the rather small, dim space and cried. Within moments my friend knocked to come in.

What is going on, she demanded, less concerned than annoyed. My ‘date’ was a friend of her husbands, and I suppose I was shaming them.

I apologized, willed myself to stop crying, but almost every time I blinked tears fell anyway. It’s just…I hesitated. Then I tried to explain to her I’d spent a lifetime denying my father’s ideology, and it turns out he may be right about humanity. We are a doomed race, with the emotional maturity of monkeys and the technology to annihilate our planet.

What difference does it make what we are or aren’t, my friend snapped. There’s no way to know what’ll happen in the future, so why worry about it? And if you’re a little less sad sack, even if you don’t like Mike (the date), you’ll find a guy like I have if you lighten up. You’ll start a family, move to some safe enclave with people like us and you’ll be so busy raising your kids and living the life you won’t feel a need to save the world anymore.

I stopped crying then, wiped my eyes on my sleeve and looked at her. She sounded like my pollyanna mother. You don’t get it. What’s the point of having kids if not to move us toward a more creative, compassionate, kinder, equitable future? Seriously, do you really want our kids, or theirs, or their kids kids to wade through the mire of the crap we do today? The sexism? The systemic racism and inequity it perpetuates? The violence we tolerate. Still!

She just stared at me. Then, You really need to chill! Splash some water on your face then come out and have a glass of wine or two, or three, and something to eat and you’ll feel better. And be nice! She commanded before reaching for me and pulling me in for a hug then left the bathroom.

–

Fast forward 20+ years more— another generation drop. Just finished The Hunger Games series with my 13 year old son. Normally, I never see movies or read books that involve kids getting hurt anymore. As a parent, I can’t touch that terror. But my son insisted Suzanne Collins was the ‘best writer he’s ever read,’ a high endorsement for a kid who reads three or more books a month, and requested we read it together for our traditional nightly read. And as a fiction writer, I just had to see why my kid loved this series so much more than any before it.

The first book, The Hunger Games, was captivating at first read. Engaging. Fast. Edgy, but a smooth, entertaining ride. Knowing there were two more books in the series made it plausible the main character, Katness, went along with the games with only the vaguest of questions about the morality behind them. Alliances were formed for survival, not partnering for innovation or love. The novel focused on the games themselves, the dystopian society, exploitative, ugly, and violent in the extreme, but it didn’t occur to me until the end of the first book there were no real characters on the pages. Ultimately, most everyone was out for themselves.

The Hunger Games was sad, dark, deeply disturbing from opening line to closing sentence, a grotesque statement on our character— Ms. Collins’s self-proclaimed interpretation on the popularity of the reality show Survivor. My son promised me the series provided a happy ending.

We finished Mockingjay last week, the last book in the series. The novel was disjointed, too many quick cuts with no real depth scene after scene. Beyond exploitative, reading it was like watching CNN— a barrage of video clips of what’s happening, and only the briefest explanation (and generally singular POV) as to why. And though Katness and her band of tortured cronies eventually win the day, the author makes it very clear the new order is the same as the old one, equally ugly, most having learned nothing from their past persecution and perilous fight to overthrow ‘the Capitol.’

My father is right, according to Suzanne Collins.

Nothing ever really changes is not a happy ending. After finishing the full series, I realize the novels are more effect than substantive content, on par with reality TV, as the writer claimed was her model for the series.

Been feeling somewhat ripped off for wasting my time with her three novels, and a bit pissed off for the message that Ms. Collins is subtly selling to our children.

My husband and I are raising our kids with the belief that people are malleable. We can, will, and do change. In fact, the human race is in the process of change constantly, albeit slowly, and not just our physicality, but our minds— we are evolving beings. We encourage the notion we can reach our amazing potential for invention, empathy, connection, with enough collective intelligence to create and sustain flourishing societies through communication, cooperation, compassion, and compromise. We promote these concepts to empower our children with the mindset they are changeable, bad habits are breakable, contempt and anger minimized when we are respected, feel valued, loved. War, famine, disease, hate are all eventually resolvable if we allow our massively complex, creative brains a safe harbor to thrive.

Idealist, my father, and seemingly Suzanne Collins mock me. Better an idealist then the cynic resigned to impending doom, or the author who exploits our frailties from voyeurism to sadism for book sales and then lays our current character flaws in stone to our children.

We must believe fundamental change in our character and nature are possible for each of us to begin living our kinder, smarter, more creative and productive selves forward.

The Psychology of Marketing

by jcafesin, posted in Uncategorized

I teach my students at Berkeley and Stanford that the foundation of marketing is psychology. Marketing is manipulating people to do what we want, so to get people to do what we want, we have to understand how they think, what they feel, and why.

I also teach that the foundation of psychology, what motivates all of us to do whatever we do, is self-interest. I explain that even saints like Mother Teresa, who spent her life feeding the poor, caring for the sick, did so out of self-interest. Mother Teresa was not altruistic. There is no such thing as Altruism. It is a religious construct to motivate good deeds, to get people out of our own heads, even for a moment, to consider others.

Many students, especially believers of religion, have a problem with this lecture. And, no doubt, many reading this blog are bridling right now. “Of course Altruism is REAL. It’s what we strive for, our highest attainment— to give selflessly, because we are fundamentally caring, loving beings.”

Not so much. We are fundamentally self-serving.

And this is NOT a judgment call. This is a fact of human nature. What can be judged is what we DO with this fact of our nature.

I teach self-interest religiously with every Marketing lecture I give. As Mother Teresa spread the word of Christ around the world with every sick child she fed, she was fulfilling her function as a nun. And her brain rewarded her efforts with Dopamine, Serotonin, Oxytocin— ‘happiness’ hormones that made her feel good. In the face of that kind of poverty, I’d be crying daily. I don’t do what she did because it would not make me feel good in any way. I’d be profoundly sad, every day, knowing Christ will never save these children. People are going to have to do that.

We ALL act in self-interest. We scoff at Chevron fracking as the height of corruption, yet we blithely ignore our roles in global warming by driving SUVs we don’t need, or leaving lights or electronics on all the time because we’re too distracted to turn them off. Or we drive while on our cellphones, and cause over 1.5 MILLION accidents annually, and KILL, murder, 9 or more people A DAY so we can check our Instagram or Tiktok feeds.

I teach Marketing, not Morality, I tell students who balk at my contention our motivation, without exception, is self-interest. It is important to tell them this fact about us, this truth, giving them the ability to produce effective advertising down the line when they begin marketing their startups. To get people to buy into your product, service or message, you must understand their psychology— what they think they need or want, and why, then offer them solutions to their issues and desires.

Bernie Madoff did it to a lot of greedy people. He fulfilled their desire to get rich quick without effort when he convinced them to invest with him. Purdue Pharma fulfilled the desire of people in temporary and chronic pain, while simultaneously fulfilling the greed of medical professionals with kick-back payments that turned doctors into drug pushers.

Humans are self-interested beings. What we do with this fact is what matters, NOT that we ARE.

On the other end of the spectrum, Toyota fulfilled the desire of people interested in preserving our planet when they invented the Prius. And Tesla and other car makers have done the same with their all electric vehicles. Toyota and Tesla produce the cars they do to make money. And while serving themselves, they are moving closer to serving the greater good, by producing cars that have low emissions. Even better than electric cars, is solar and wind to power them, since over 60% of our electricity still comes from burning coal and other fossil fuels, which continues to do immeasurable damage to our planet.

Martin Andrew Green is an Australian professor at the University of New South Wales who’s dedicated his career to developing solar cells. Mr. Green’s self-interest is scratching a mental itch. He’s curious about light energy, and in learning how to manipulate it, his brain rewards him, makes him feel powerful, smart, valuable, serving his emotional needs.

Self-interest is NOT a curse. It is simply a state of being… human, in our case, but self-interest seemingly dictates the behavior of everything else that lives on Earth. Survival of the fittest is how species last over millennium. Not survival of the kindest, whatever ‘kind’ means. With every mouthful of food, every article of clothing, every vaccination Mother Teresa provided the sick and poor, she also fed them Christianity. She was not kind in spreading gospel that Jesus saves their souls. Instead of teaching the value and necessity of socially responsible behavior, which would have served the greater good, preaching rewards in the afterlife does not serve the living or their future.

There is no need to fear the fact that human behavior is driven by self-interest. Regardless of the religious allegory that Altruism is not only real, but mandatory for society to function, self-interest does NOT need to manifest as narcissism. Green, or Toyota, or the parents who work to provide for their kids, or helping a friend in need, most of us contribute to supporting our society or there would be no human race at all. We have no great physical strength or stealth prowess. Building communities, exchanging ideas and skill sets, being here for each other is all we have to sustain us.

We all have the capacity to be giving, generous, thoughtful beings. Our motivation is irrelevant. It is our ACTIONS that determine our morality, whether we are contributing to creating a society that thrives, or participating it our own demise.

Self-interest is encoded in our DNA, and is not a threat to humanity, but a valuable characteristic, a useful asset. We just need to lengthen our time horizon beyond our own lifetime, broaden our self-absorbed view. We must learn that acting ‘altruistically’ means recognizing our impact on each other and this planet, and that accounting for the needs of others as well as our own IS in all of our self-interest.