Theories of Mixture

I found the Cosmic Race to be a bit offensive in the way it categorizes people by their color and stresses the mixture as something intrinsically important. Mostly it just seemed out of touch with what is real and off base with it's presupposition that eliminating the concept of race is a way towards equality. I especially found it confusing that it referred to Atlantis which I thought was widely recognized as a myth in the academic world. I don't think that race as a general concept is worth talking about at this point in human civilization. In certain contexts it can be an interesting topic but I don't see what can be gained by dwelling on it as a general topic. People, especially in an international city like Vancouver, have diverse backgrounds and heritage but it doesn't necessarily have any implications on how they live their life on a day to day basis. I liked Peter Wade's article about mestizaje because it had interesting things to say about music and culture and how they mix in relation to different influences. Instead of focusing on the racial mixture as just a result of racially diverse relations it talked about the historical mixture of food and music. What is interesting about our differences is how it affects our lives on a day to day basis. I don't really consider my background because I'm white but when I eat some Slovak cuisine at my Grandmas or I go back to Minnesota and notice the Nordic influence on the region it's interesting. It doesn't have that much to do with my race as much as the transference of culture. I liked that he talked about music because it's transference transcends race completely. You can find musical styles like reggae or the blues in all corners of the world and each has a different style and direction which it took to get there.

Folk Culture

I enjoyed some of the folklore readings. In the legend of the singing tablet Utuquel is the chewer of the moon a creative muse of sorts. The singing tablets story seemed to represent the idea of collective consciousness for me. It was striking how the wedding rings and family jewels of the natives were taken by the Spanish for a bell in the Legend of the Silent Bell. The Pongo's Dream is a fairly disturbing story about the value of human life. It centers around two characters, the dominating rich lord and the submissive poor slave. The serf is described as meek and feeble. The lord is cruel not only because he keeps slaves but his humiliation of the weakest serf who serves him. The story shadows the feudal domination which took place in the Andes. The serfs description of his dream can definitely be seen as an uprising of the the working class. I thought it was imaginative how the dream was twisted into a joke with a punch line which seems to allude to the idea that we all must pay for our actions. How popular are these legends in Latin America? Are they really an important aspect of the culture?

Faces of Popular Culture

While this reading covers a large body of information I don't think any article could represent the cultural identity or face of a region with so many backgrounds. I thought it was interesting how it focused on the middle ground between the traditional culture and the modern world of media. The connections between rural and urban culture are important because they represent people with different lives working together to sustain an identity for the entire region. These connections can be seen in art, music and religion as well as everyday life. I'm impressed by the way the radio was used to bring people together from very different backgrounds to create a hybrid of culture which could make it easier for everyone understand each other. The People's Radio is an effort to recover the voice of people, history, tradition, and religion to communicate the hopes and problems of the people. It seems symbolic that the culture and hopes of people in rural areas are transmitted over airwaves so their voices are heard by everyone. These people would not have an opportunity to represent themselves without the opportunity of independent radio as a medium. In the western world opportunities of expression are taken for granted but giving people who haven't been absorbed by modern culture a voice is unique.

The people

I find discussions of the people to be very interesting. Across the globe there are wealthy ruling classes which have some level of control over the masses and there is the rest of the people who are subjected to the decisions of the ruling class. The people are, as Peron says, the working class. The same working class who's jobs are threatened as a result of bad decisions which led to the world's recession. Peron describes oligarchies as the cowards who lie for money and essentially sell the happiness of their people. She describes the people who have the power to change lives as being indifferent saying "There is nothing we can do." Peron also condemns the ideology of capitalist imperialism which forces the people into slavery as it proclaims itself as the defender of freedom. According to this ideology capitalism and the decisions made by the ruling class result in diminished choices for the working class. As the world's economy is struggling there are even fewer opportunities to work out of poverty. Peron's language is often extreme but this is merely a reaction to the lack of options "the people" are given. When there isn't room for anything else it should be expected that the masses will turn to an extreme rhetoric of us vs. them. When the opposing class controls the military and police as the instrument of their will it is expected that the masses would follow extreme leaders. Peron doesn't advocate the murder of the oligarch class but merely their conversion to "the people,... of our class." When everyone lives off their own work and not someone elses everone will understand the common struggle. Then no one will want to become an exploiter of others. I liked when Peron talks about hunger as the weapon of imperialism. Scarcity is the means of dividing people across the globe. The working class is forced to compete for low paying jobs instead of the forces which exploit them. Scarcity is seen as a necessity for the capitalist system but this is yet to be determined.

Culture

I think that Mackenzie's description of culture as ordinary makes sense in the context of why people come together and pay attention to each other. Human beings need each other, for survival as well as self-awareness and expression. Mackenzie believes that societies are made by finding common meanings and directions. I interpret common meanings as common feelings. Hope, fear, happiness, and loneliness are things which we all experience. I especially like his analysis of education as ordinary and the emphasis of removing restrictions like money. It's an interesting idea that societies can move beyond the limitation of a maximum fraction of people cable of profiting by a higher education. It accompanies Mackenzies interpretation of an expanding culture which makes room for what he calls "bad" culture. Lower forms of art like television are a given as it is easier to distribute it and there is more leisure time to receive it. It does not necessarily destroy older less commercialized mediums of expression. I don't believe it necessarily separates classes either. What it does is causes the audience to be interpreted as an unknown mass, the unknown. Higher culture has an intended audience which fits the niche of a socioeconomic class like museums or theaters. I believe that if education were less restricted the barriers which seperate different mediums of expression would be seen by a greater audience of individuals as opposed to an unknown mass.

First blog

Hello internet, how's it going? My name is Andrew Matasovsky and this is my first blog. I'll give you a quick synopsis of my life story so you know where I'm coming from. I was born in 1988 to a construction worker and a freelance writer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I grew up in Minnesota and I traveled to some places. I've been to seven other countries and I lived on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for a while. Now I live in Vancouver and go to the University of British Columbia. Music is my favorite passion, but I also enjoy art and any kind of comedy. The year 2009 has just begun and it feels like a good year, possibly the best time around the sun.