Over time, we adopt numerous roles. One of the most dominant is that of consumer.
As we mature we learn both the written and unwritten rules of purchasing goods and services, including the rules of the game surrounding fairness, competition, and expectations.
Meanwhile, in this day and age most people, living in advanced industrialized democracies, who have a functioning credit card and internet connection, can purchase just about anything on-line.
That’s because many of the items that we needed or wanted to buy at retail stores are now available for sale on-line, and they can be shipped to almost anywhere Fed Ex or UPS drivers can get to, sometimes on the same day.
This situation has both advantages and disadvantages.
On the plus side we have accessibility and convenience. No longer do we need to travel to a store, and possibly deal with fellow consumers, pesky sales people, and long lines at the checkout counters. Websites that amalgamate different products allow us to sort by price, etc.
The immediacy of these kinds of transactions is seductive. We have developed very high expectations from vendors and shippers and the people and organizations who provide these kinds of goods and services.
In a complimentary fashion, unless you are buying a bookcase from IKEA, no actual labor is really demanded of you, and thus most economic transactions that we participate in, we purchase the product or the service, sit back, relax, and enjoy the benefit it provides.
For example, we subscribe to Netflix. We look at its offerings and because they are abundant, scroll through the movies and series until we find one that interests us.
Alternatively if we want to buy a sofa on line, we chose the preferred manufacturer, size, the pattern, and the delivery date. And some weeks later it arrives, and we use it.
Then again there are other types of purchases where you buy it, but in order to receive the benefit it requires you to work.
There are only two kinds of commodities that I know of that fit under this category: gym memberships and higher education.
With a gym membership, regardless if it is a high end establishment like Equinox or a cheaper variety like Planet Fitness, you pay your monthly or yearly membership fees, but you need to visit the premises and do the work to receive the benefit.
With higher education, you apply, are hopefully accepted, and regardless if it’s a prestigious ivy league university, or a low ranked educational institution, if you don’t go to class, hand in your assignments, or sit for the tests, you will not pass your classes and eventually graduate.
The problem arises when we expect gyms and educational institutions to behave like other traditional economic transactions.
That’s because when you pay for a gym membership or higher education, you are paying for access to resources. However, just showing up is not sufficient. No one will do the work for you. Hoping to get fit without going to the gym or passing classes without doing the required work will not give you the benefit.
(Indeed sometimes the work you do is insufficient: you don’t push yourself enough with your exercise routine, or you fail your algebra test, but this is a different story. And this does not take into consideration unscrupulous educational institutions like diploma mills that will give you a degree without attending)
Unfortunately the truism about gyms and educational institutions is often lost on many people who treat gym memberships and higher education as a hobby or as ending simply after enrollment.
Getting fit and earning (not buying or obtaining) a diploma, or degree requires hard work and diligence. If it was simply a matter of purchasing one, then everyone with means would participate in this activity.
Photo Credit
Photographer: Nenad Stojkovic
Title of photograph: Man doing deadlift exercise in gym closeup.
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/51171739483_99dcf65e0a_o-scaled.jpg17092560Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2021-08-27 12:14:202022-10-02 12:26:03What do gym memberships and higher education have in common?
During the summer, many Americans trundle off with friends, family (and dog), or both to visit, spend time or relax at popular East Coast beach towns. If you participate in or witness this annual ritual you may eventually notice that there is a significant amount of homogeneity, predictability, redundancy and eventual monotony in the towns, restaurants, houses, and people who vacation there. In fact, from the Jersey Shore down to the Florida Keys, from Ocean City, MD, Kitty Hawk, NC or Pawleys Island, SC most beach towns look pretty much the same.
How so? The towns have small alcohol, grocery, pharmacy, and book stores and supermarkets like Food Lion, Piggly Wiggly and Publix. Other stores sell beach related items like balls, boogie boards, swim suits, sunglasses, towels, etc. They may also stock t-shirts, baseball hats, or even boxes of salt water toffee with the name of the town emblazoned on them (all manufactured somewhere else). And then there are the “cute” little gift stores that sell all sorts of chachkas.
Outside of town there may be a a trailer park or RV campsite, or a water park, golf, mini-golf or go-kart course, boat dealerships, or a big box store like Walmart or Sam’s club. Otherwise there are a smattering of establishments that rent or sell cars, bikes, jet skis, and fishing related items, and the like.
Most beach towns are also home to “local” restaurants, and drinking establishments. Don’t expect five star, nor authentic ethnic restaurants. The majority of places to eat, are your typical fast food chain establishments, that serve traditional items like hamburgers, subways, steaks, and pizza. Yes there is fish. Rarely is it fresh. It’s primarily deep fried served with a heap of fries on the side. These towns are relatively safe, with low levels of crime and nary a scintilla of graffiti or street art.
The houses, most of them sporting beach sounding names (incorporating types of birds, fish, planets, etc.), are usually designed and built for accommodating more than one family or a large swath of friends, with some erected on stilts, and with large decks that are great for entertaining, and with view of the beach or a dock that extends out to a sound or a bay. Others come with pools and palm trees, and large kitchens for group cooking activities. The furniture inside these abodes consists of large sofas, big beds, with pink and pastel color patterns. Otherwise there’s lots of wicker furniture.
What’s most noticeable, is that the majority of people who visit these towns are white, and most likely middle class and from the suburbs. Yes, occasionally African-American, Hispanic and Asian families will visit, but it is odd to see someone of these backgrounds outside of the service personnel. In short, there is little diversity.
So what? None of what I have described should sound surprising. After all the amenities that East Coast beach towns provide pump money into the local economy. For people looking for a relatively low stress vacation, beach towns may be perfect as they do a relatively good job catering to visitors’ culture and their consumption patterns. Thus the amenities that are available, the types of products that are sold, and the kinds of things that people do for fun in these locations are pretty much what tourists who visit these towns want and expect.
In many respects, however, the towns reproduce the suburbs but with sand, sun and ocean scenery. Most people who enjoy the beach vacations probably also like all-inclusive resort vacations, and cruises for the same reasons they like beach towns. Again, each of these vacation options fulfill a role in our capitalist society.
On the other hand, Why might the beach town vacation be problematic? If you go on vacation, shouldn’t you want a little adventure, to step outside your comfort zone? What about surprises, and taking risks? And I don’t mean the airlines losing your bags. If the beach vacation is your only time to take an extended break, then it might be appropriate to consider why it makes sense for you and other options at your disposal.
Photo title: East Coast Beach Town
Photo credit: Jeffrey Ian Ross
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/IMG_6812.jpg378640Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2021-08-19 16:26:322022-11-13 19:18:58Why do most East Coast beach towns in the United States seem the same?
Some individuals suggest that the origins of graffiti date back to the prolific work of the late 1960s “Old School” New York City subway graffiti writers. Others may interject by saying that one need only look at the political slogans of “wall painters,” that appeared during the numerous domestic and international conflicts of the 20th century. And then there are commentators who announce that clearly the relatively abundent graffiti that was done during ancient times in places like Pompei, Rome, or around Greece.
Frequently, however, I read or hear people say that we are all wrong, because the earliest type of graffiti is the cave painting. In fact, many of us who are knowledgeable about graffiti and street art have done this at some point in time.
Why is this wrong?
Although connecting the origins of graffiti to cave painting is both romantic and provocative, it’s a highly flawed assertion. Why?
First, we don’t have perfect knowledge about what occurred in those caves inhabited by our Paleolithic cousins. But even if we did, there is no reason to believe that the markings were done without the consent of the person who lived or worked there and not some sort of an intruder.
Second, some people may have mistakenly inferred that Banksy, the infamous British street artist, has suggested that the origins of graffiti was cave art. To clarify, he has done at least two works referencing prehistoric art. The first, in 2005, was when he (and perhaps his team) smuggled a fake rock art piece of a caveman pushing a shopping cart into the British museum. (This work remained on display for three days before it was discovered and removed). The second, in 2008, is a wall Banksy did that resembled the prehistoric cave paintings in Lascaux, France, but with a city worker who was pressure washing it away. Although these pieces make reference to a continuum, neither of them explicitly or implicitly suggest that they the cave art is or was graffiti.
Third, in order to judge or perhaps legitimate the existence of an action, behavior, or even a body of work, some people and organizations feel compelled to go to great lengths find historical anchors, no matter how flimsy the evidence. We see this with political campaigns, in the web sites of academic institutions, and with large corporations. This may also be the case with graffiti and street art.
Fourth, one of the most important reasons why some people believe that cave paintings are graffiti, is a failure to understand different definitions of graffiti, of which there are many. Although numerous definitions abound, in general graffiti is a type of vandalism that involves the willful and unwarranted act of marking a surface (e.g., wall, post, etc.). And when we examine the prehistoric cave paintings regardless of location, we should quickly realize that the markings are not graffiti.
Solutions
There are a handful of important strategies to combat this sort of thinking. It’s absolutely necessary when one attempts to develop a graffiti and street art literacy, to consult reliable sources. This includes, respected experts and peer review research. An expert is not necessarily a practitioner like a person who does a lot of tagging. The writer may know the best spots to get up (i.e., place their tags), but s/he may not be as well informed as the next guy. And just because someone has lived experience, it does not mean they have deep knowledge about a subject.
Peer review research is the gold standard in scholarly circles. It’s cumbersome and imperfect, but it is better threshold from which to judge the veracity of statements than lots of information that is readily available on the world wide web. More specifically, as of this writing there are two journals that specialize in publishing scholarship on graffiti and street art, Nuart Journal and Urban Creativity, both on-line. But these publications are not the only places to look for peer reviewed research on graffiti and street art. Many of the art, urban studies, and social science journals have occasional articles about graffiti and street art. Also there are an increasing number of peer reviewed books that are published that examine graffiti.
Thus it is time to stop blaming the caveman and do some homework when tracing back the origins of graffiti.
Photo Credit: Chris Beckett
Banksy, Council worker cleaning up the cave paintings – The Cans Festival, Waterloo, London
https://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/2465093025_4a6c9c8ff8_o.jpg608851Jeffrey Ian Rosshttps://jeffreyianross.com/wp-content/uploads/jeffrey-ian-ross-logo-04.pngJeffrey Ian Ross2021-08-12 05:31:272021-08-12 05:31:27Stop giving the Neanderthals so much credit. Why prehistoric cave painting is not graffiti
What do gym memberships and higher education have in common?
/by Jeffrey Ian RossOver time, we adopt numerous roles. One of the most dominant is that of consumer.
As we mature we learn both the written and unwritten rules of purchasing goods and services, including the rules of the game surrounding fairness, competition, and expectations.
Meanwhile, in this day and age most people, living in advanced industrialized democracies, who have a functioning credit card and internet connection, can purchase just about anything on-line.
That’s because many of the items that we needed or wanted to buy at retail stores are now available for sale on-line, and they can be shipped to almost anywhere Fed Ex or UPS drivers can get to, sometimes on the same day.
This situation has both advantages and disadvantages.
On the plus side we have accessibility and convenience. No longer do we need to travel to a store, and possibly deal with fellow consumers, pesky sales people, and long lines at the checkout counters. Websites that amalgamate different products allow us to sort by price, etc.
The immediacy of these kinds of transactions is seductive. We have developed very high expectations from vendors and shippers and the people and organizations who provide these kinds of goods and services.
In a complimentary fashion, unless you are buying a bookcase from IKEA, no actual labor is really demanded of you, and thus most economic transactions that we participate in, we purchase the product or the service, sit back, relax, and enjoy the benefit it provides.
For example, we subscribe to Netflix. We look at its offerings and because they are abundant, scroll through the movies and series until we find one that interests us.
Alternatively if we want to buy a sofa on line, we chose the preferred manufacturer, size, the pattern, and the delivery date. And some weeks later it arrives, and we use it.
Then again there are other types of purchases where you buy it, but in order to receive the benefit it requires you to work.
There are only two kinds of commodities that I know of that fit under this category: gym memberships and higher education.
With a gym membership, regardless if it is a high end establishment like Equinox or a cheaper variety like Planet Fitness, you pay your monthly or yearly membership fees, but you need to visit the premises and do the work to receive the benefit.
With higher education, you apply, are hopefully accepted, and regardless if it’s a prestigious ivy league university, or a low ranked educational institution, if you don’t go to class, hand in your assignments, or sit for the tests, you will not pass your classes and eventually graduate.
The problem arises when we expect gyms and educational institutions to behave like other traditional economic transactions.
That’s because when you pay for a gym membership or higher education, you are paying for access to resources. However, just showing up is not sufficient. No one will do the work for you. Hoping to get fit without going to the gym or passing classes without doing the required work will not give you the benefit.
(Indeed sometimes the work you do is insufficient: you don’t push yourself enough with your exercise routine, or you fail your algebra test, but this is a different story. And this does not take into consideration unscrupulous educational institutions like diploma mills that will give you a degree without attending)
Unfortunately the truism about gyms and educational institutions is often lost on many people who treat gym memberships and higher education as a hobby or as ending simply after enrollment.
Getting fit and earning (not buying or obtaining) a diploma, or degree requires hard work and diligence. If it was simply a matter of purchasing one, then everyone with means would participate in this activity.
Photo Credit
Photographer: Nenad Stojkovic
Title of photograph: Man doing deadlift exercise in gym closeup.
Why do most East Coast beach towns in the United States seem the same?
/by Jeffrey Ian RossDuring the summer, many Americans trundle off with friends, family (and dog), or both to visit, spend time or relax at popular East Coast beach towns. If you participate in or witness this annual ritual you may eventually notice that there is a significant amount of homogeneity, predictability, redundancy and eventual monotony in the towns, restaurants, houses, and people who vacation there. In fact, from the Jersey Shore down to the Florida Keys, from Ocean City, MD, Kitty Hawk, NC or Pawleys Island, SC most beach towns look pretty much the same.
How so? The towns have small alcohol, grocery, pharmacy, and book stores and supermarkets like Food Lion, Piggly Wiggly and Publix. Other stores sell beach related items like balls, boogie boards, swim suits, sunglasses, towels, etc. They may also stock t-shirts, baseball hats, or even boxes of salt water toffee with the name of the town emblazoned on them (all manufactured somewhere else). And then there are the “cute” little gift stores that sell all sorts of chachkas.
Outside of town there may be a a trailer park or RV campsite, or a water park, golf, mini-golf or go-kart course, boat dealerships, or a big box store like Walmart or Sam’s club. Otherwise there are a smattering of establishments that rent or sell cars, bikes, jet skis, and fishing related items, and the like.
Most beach towns are also home to “local” restaurants, and drinking establishments. Don’t expect five star, nor authentic ethnic restaurants. The majority of places to eat, are your typical fast food chain establishments, that serve traditional items like hamburgers, subways, steaks, and pizza. Yes there is fish. Rarely is it fresh. It’s primarily deep fried served with a heap of fries on the side. These towns are relatively safe, with low levels of crime and nary a scintilla of graffiti or street art.
The houses, most of them sporting beach sounding names (incorporating types of birds, fish, planets, etc.), are usually designed and built for accommodating more than one family or a large swath of friends, with some erected on stilts, and with large decks that are great for entertaining, and with view of the beach or a dock that extends out to a sound or a bay. Others come with pools and palm trees, and large kitchens for group cooking activities. The furniture inside these abodes consists of large sofas, big beds, with pink and pastel color patterns. Otherwise there’s lots of wicker furniture.
What’s most noticeable, is that the majority of people who visit these towns are white, and most likely middle class and from the suburbs. Yes, occasionally African-American, Hispanic and Asian families will visit, but it is odd to see someone of these backgrounds outside of the service personnel. In short, there is little diversity.
So what? None of what I have described should sound surprising. After all the amenities that East Coast beach towns provide pump money into the local economy. For people looking for a relatively low stress vacation, beach towns may be perfect as they do a relatively good job catering to visitors’ culture and their consumption patterns. Thus the amenities that are available, the types of products that are sold, and the kinds of things that people do for fun in these locations are pretty much what tourists who visit these towns want and expect.
In many respects, however, the towns reproduce the suburbs but with sand, sun and ocean scenery. Most people who enjoy the beach vacations probably also like all-inclusive resort vacations, and cruises for the same reasons they like beach towns. Again, each of these vacation options fulfill a role in our capitalist society.
On the other hand, Why might the beach town vacation be problematic? If you go on vacation, shouldn’t you want a little adventure, to step outside your comfort zone? What about surprises, and taking risks? And I don’t mean the airlines losing your bags. If the beach vacation is your only time to take an extended break, then it might be appropriate to consider why it makes sense for you and other options at your disposal.
Photo title: East Coast Beach Town
Photo credit: Jeffrey Ian Ross
Stop giving the Neanderthals so much credit. Why prehistoric cave painting is not graffiti
/by Jeffrey Ian RossSome individuals suggest that the origins of graffiti date back to the prolific work of the late 1960s “Old School” New York City subway graffiti writers. Others may interject by saying that one need only look at the political slogans of “wall painters,” that appeared during the numerous domestic and international conflicts of the 20th century. And then there are commentators who announce that clearly the relatively abundent graffiti that was done during ancient times in places like Pompei, Rome, or around Greece.
Frequently, however, I read or hear people say that we are all wrong, because the earliest type of graffiti is the cave painting. In fact, many of us who are knowledgeable about graffiti and street art have done this at some point in time.
Why is this wrong?
Although connecting the origins of graffiti to cave painting is both romantic and provocative, it’s a highly flawed assertion. Why?
First, we don’t have perfect knowledge about what occurred in those caves inhabited by our Paleolithic cousins. But even if we did, there is no reason to believe that the markings were done without the consent of the person who lived or worked there and not some sort of an intruder.
Second, some people may have mistakenly inferred that Banksy, the infamous British street artist, has suggested that the origins of graffiti was cave art. To clarify, he has done at least two works referencing prehistoric art. The first, in 2005, was when he (and perhaps his team) smuggled a fake rock art piece of a caveman pushing a shopping cart into the British museum. (This work remained on display for three days before it was discovered and removed). The second, in 2008, is a wall Banksy did that resembled the prehistoric cave paintings in Lascaux, France, but with a city worker who was pressure washing it away. Although these pieces make reference to a continuum, neither of them explicitly or implicitly suggest that they the cave art is or was graffiti.
Third, in order to judge or perhaps legitimate the existence of an action, behavior, or even a body of work, some people and organizations feel compelled to go to great lengths find historical anchors, no matter how flimsy the evidence. We see this with political campaigns, in the web sites of academic institutions, and with large corporations. This may also be the case with graffiti and street art.
Fourth, one of the most important reasons why some people believe that cave paintings are graffiti, is a failure to understand different definitions of graffiti, of which there are many. Although numerous definitions abound, in general graffiti is a type of vandalism that involves the willful and unwarranted act of marking a surface (e.g., wall, post, etc.). And when we examine the prehistoric cave paintings regardless of location, we should quickly realize that the markings are not graffiti.
Solutions
There are a handful of important strategies to combat this sort of thinking. It’s absolutely necessary when one attempts to develop a graffiti and street art literacy, to consult reliable sources. This includes, respected experts and peer review research. An expert is not necessarily a practitioner like a person who does a lot of tagging. The writer may know the best spots to get up (i.e., place their tags), but s/he may not be as well informed as the next guy. And just because someone has lived experience, it does not mean they have deep knowledge about a subject.
Peer review research is the gold standard in scholarly circles. It’s cumbersome and imperfect, but it is better threshold from which to judge the veracity of statements than lots of information that is readily available on the world wide web. More specifically, as of this writing there are two journals that specialize in publishing scholarship on graffiti and street art, Nuart Journal and Urban Creativity, both on-line. But these publications are not the only places to look for peer reviewed research on graffiti and street art. Many of the art, urban studies, and social science journals have occasional articles about graffiti and street art. Also there are an increasing number of peer reviewed books that are published that examine graffiti.
Thus it is time to stop blaming the caveman and do some homework when tracing back the origins of graffiti.
Photo Credit: Chris Beckett
Banksy, Council worker cleaning up the cave paintings – The Cans Festival, Waterloo, London