CLAUD

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Deviant and Abject

Maybe it's a combination of yesterday's spaghetti, conversation, readings and friends, that gave me an AHA! spark.

It really does take one to know one, and speaking to people, it's plain that while levels of understanding of the common phenomenon is different, we are essentially trying to make sense of 'stuff'.

What is this 'stuff' are we talking about?

So this section may seem abit egoistic but bear with me yeah?

As you might have already known, I was accepted into Imperial College London to do Geology. Twice. However, lack of funds and family's circumstances, I am unable to pursue my dream. However, what was this dream in the first place? Many people doubted my real motive for going to do Geology. Did I do Geology because it was Imperial College, or did I go to Imperial because of Geology?

The answer is neither. I knew that Geology was a lucrative job (Senior Geologists in oil refinery is paid 10,000 a month. USD) and I wanted to teach at a tertiary level. So putting two and two together, I thought that Imperial was the right avenue for making my family better so that my parents can 'enjoy life'.

So while in NUS, I decided that since I can't go, then I'd want to know why. I tried everything - writing to obscure Foundations (including Lee Foundation), using all the connections I have, being shameless etc. Yet, I still can't obtain the funds. It was only when my JC principle put in word in the Lee Foundation, could I actually be awarded with a tuition grant that covers half the fees. Even so, it wasn't enough and my family cannot afford it.

Was it my fault? Did I not try hard enough?

So SC2224 came along and from my tutor (who's also a TA for SC3209) mentioned something about life chances. That we are born with unequal life chances. During those tutorials, I wonder if these academics actually understand what it feels like to have first-hand experience of knowing how unequal those life chances are.

Therefore, what is the point of saying all these?

Firstly, on a personal scale - I felt at peace because I now realise that there is a community of people who are looking into this, that sometimes what we want in life is not within our hands and while we act on our own free will, we also do so within the boundaries of social structures (for the geeky, this is a similar concept to Practice Theory by Ortner).

In layman, it feels that people care about the inequity of the experiences of people lives who want to better themselves. I also understand that my layman's understanding then of 'improving my family's life' is really to cross social strata and move up the social ladder.

To what end?

Perhaps it's most direct that we all want the privileges that come with a big fat wallet and the respect that accompanies the sound of the name of your job title. If you even have a job at all.

Therefore, knowing now that there are a bunch of scholars engaged in heated discussions (or what the polite society calls Discourse) over social differences, deviant behaviour and anthropological cultural understanding - it makes me feel like my voice has been taken into accounted for.

Today, I no longer blame myself for not being able get a full scholarship to Imperial. Of course, it's in the what others say, hands of Fate or God. SC2224 might say it's really up where and when you're born and what family you were born into.

It's not so different from what I was told when I was young - that I should be thankful that I was born into THIS family, where I can live in comfortable excess. What of others?

So another thought came to me. As I was a lay person, it was pretty interesting to see my intellectual 'maturity' and 'change' over 2 short years and how I've been 'opened' to see society under a different light.

Yet, I consider myself an abject - deviance is only defined by what is normal, and who defines such are those in power. Interestingly so, we don't hear the academic community calling themselves 'deviant' - although their 'practices' are often not 'normal' and certainly not accessible to the masses.

In this regard, we can see one of two things - that assuming that the powerful define what is deviant, and since the academic community clearly is not defined as one, then they must hold immense power.

The second part it is 'set' apart from the rest and while abjects often have negative connotation, it can be possible that 'positive difference' are not labelled precisely because it is assumed to be - positive.

Then again, being a Professor is a profession and it is, after all a means to a living. So labelling oneself as 'weird' is not exactly the best move to ensure one's bowl of rice from breaking.

Researches put themselves outside the picture to study what's going on - the position assumed is one being seperate. I personally think that it's hard to seperate the individual from the social and how we study becomes increasingly difficult when the object of study is like us.

Einstein said that Geography was too difficult for him to study, that's why he chose Physics. That might make a lot of people laugh. However, if you think about it, it's really not that untrue. If "we can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them" (Einstein) - and since problems of society are created by people, then studying society is going to have a fundamental problem isn't it? Because unless we are Martians, we are going to think on the level by which creates the 'problem' in the first place.

It's a complex after-thought which might make some people's head hurt. If yours hasn't already gone into a full-fledged migraine.

Taking methodology modules is always difficult for me because I have these doubts - which no one seems to be able to solve them yet. While we turn to statistics, qualitative studies and other means of understanding the things around us - I feel we might forget the fact that if we are so simple to understand, then our brains would be so simple, that we won't be able to understand it.

To sum it up using Yongquan's words "Aiyah...Soci (and Geog) is like that one, 讲不完的" (can't finish discussing)...

Maybe that's why the disciplines have been around for a couple of hundred years...since there's no end, i don't need to worry about becoming jobless after my PHD right?

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I was thinking about the food chain today. If we take humans out, the food chain doesn't collapse. However, while we're here, we are destroying the food chain.

Homo Sapiens eat everything and are on top of the food chain. Yet, we are no species's natural enemy. So maybe it isn't surprising that we kill each other, commit suicide, choose to live near earthquakes, do stupid stunts and die, exploit each other BUT can only bear 1 child at a time,

If you know Earth's processes, then you understand that Earth is one giant system of perfect and efficient equilibrium. Maybe intelligence and creativity, is the part of maintaining this balance so that while we grow to 6 billion in 2010, we die off at the rate that the equilibrium is not upset immediately.

Since, no one can kill us, we 'volunteer' to kill ourselves off to maintain that system.

Ever killed someone? Maybe it's not you - maybe it's Nature. Literally.

23:24