Has Anything Ever Really Changed?

So, one of the things I often think about is the idea of social change. I've had to think a lot about the big classical theorists lately: Marx, Durkheim, and Weber. Within each of these sits a theory of how society changes, how best to study, where we're going, and if we're totally screwed. In the long and the short of things, only Marx thinks that we're not fucked.

The thing with Marx is, that he was a hell of a guy. I'm in no way shape or form a Marxist, but he had himself a good set of useful ideas with regard to where we're going; only, he didn't talk about how we'd get there.

For Marx, the idea of where we're going is mostly based in the mode and method of labor. Our labor, our ability to create, is something that separates from animals. Our ability to picture something in our minds and inevitably create that thing is an amazing thought. From the first time this was done, we've constantly tried to make the next version better, the next version faster, or, these days, cheaper. 

Marx talked a lot about a revolution. Where the workers would suddenly overthrow the owners and we all ended up in some sort of strange world. From the cold war, we figure this world is withough money. But really, in the long and the short, a shift in production will unlock the worker from their cage and create the social conditions necessary for Marx's communism to take place. 

So many theories have been put forth about the conditions in which this will occur. Further, most people look at the failed Soviet State to show the absolution within communism for failure. Human Nature is greed, they say, we cannot exist without money. 

But when you get down to it, something, somewhere, will change. This change, like all change, will cascade into a series of changes. Those will result in a paradigm shift. All of this, like all of sociology, social theory, and trend following, is a difficult thing to grasp.

To me, Marx's social change, the mode to communism, hasn't occured yet. The need for capitalism, for capitalists, to flourish is still very strong and probably will be for some time. For Marx, Marx believed we were a perfectable being. Humanity can become perfect. It's this hope that keeps me going. I believe that this social change will come when all of humanity can just take a step back from the furious technological change that exists, blinders off, and instead focus on the inequality the system that produced this amazing technology will produce.

I mean, let's face it, probably the single most important times in our country's history were, 1776, the emancipation proclimation, and the 1965 Equal Rights Act. In 200 years, we see a series of slow social change leading to ever so slight social change. Behind that, we see an amazing array of technological change. These changes lead to a different type of world, a more complicated world. This open door will only lead to something new. When that comes, will that start all of this?

I only hope that I am alive so I can find out.

Video Game Trends II

So, from last time (I skipped a few days as I got a little lazy), we have:

Trends have gone on for a while, complicated is most times better
So, we have this thing, this trend, with games that are increasingly deeper. Moreso, games have become increasingly more complex. I think that, with the Wii that game companies started to notice this, but it hasn't really caught on quite yet. It's an odd thing to watch. 

I've been trying to think of a time when all of this happened. My want is to hinge this on Final Fantasy 7 but I think that it was sooner than that. I want to say that it was, however, somewhere between Donkey Kong Country and the eventual beginning of the N64. 

Why am I harping on Nintendo? Well, it seems that, like it or not, that Nintendo has controlled the way with which games are themed for a very long time. With exception of some of the Sony franchises, FPS's, RTS's and the myriad of soapbox games that are out there, almost all of the game types we have come from Nintendo. Now, I could say that they really come from Atari, but these were the rudimentary building blocks that were eventually used to create these things. Eveyrthing comes from somewhere, afterall.

Trend of getting away from gameplay and concentrating on graphics

I think that Donkey Kong Country was one of the first very pretty games to come out. Clay Fighter was another (which is funny, considering). After this, as we went to CD and tried to emulate the then thriving FMV type game through rendered 3d graphics, we, as gamers, were somehow hoisted into this realm of increasingly realistic games. The amount of violence has gone up as well. It's gone up so much, in fact, that the more sensitive of society has taken it upon themselves to create a system of rating, and have even demanded, with success, that certain games be modified to fit their moral beliefs.

I think an addendum to this is that games have sort of meandered about and we are seeing a sort of realization that gaming, in general, plays a huge part in the education and socialization of children. I'd say that, within the next 5 or so years, we'll see an increasingly determined populace of gamer parents demand more educationally 'fun' games for their children. 

Video Game Trends (Part I)

Introduction:

As a younger person, I was given an Intellevision. My parents loved that damn thing and I didn't much know how to play given that my Dad was always playing Astrosmash. It was fun to see us crowded around the TV playing a game. It was different from the Hi-ho Cheerio that I was used to. Or, Cootie. As I grew, my parents, reluctant to let their child into the world, constantly gave me games to play, of all types. 

Why Video Games are Different:

A Board Game is a unique experience. Do you want to play Monopoly with Sorry Pieces? Sure! Go Ahead. Would you like to play Trvial Pursuit without the actual game portion? Sure! Hell, you could go all out and take Apples to Apples and use your cards to best answer Trivial Pursuit. Video Games, however, are a bit different.

Video Gaming is a form of entertainment through which millions, if not billions of people around the world take part. The interesting thing about Video Games as opposed to Board Gaming or Paper Gaming, the player has very little with which to deviate from the initial idea of what that game is. I can't take Mario and throw him into Grand Theft Auto unless Nintendo creates a game similar to it. I can't take Jumping Flash and place him in Q-Bert. I, the player, am trapped in a world of Intellectual Properties and System Design. 

System is a strange thing inside a video game. Essentially, the way a person felt that a video game was supposed to be and the way it is designed is the way you play it. There are no real house rules, there are no alternate ways to play, there is a path, and you take it. The tools within a game allow for a modicum of method with which to approach an issue, but in the end the player ultimately accomplishes the task. Gameplay ends up being the way we accomplish it.

The thing that has seemingly replaced the idea of playing a game in an alternate way is the strategy that works for successful players. It limits us further. We can't just go out and play a game the way we want, we have to find the best way, as most video games are competition, to compete. And, even those strategies typically end up being the strategies the designers had in mind. Or, it exists to tip the balance toward the person who found a way to skirt that whole gameplay paradigm. The player has little to no actual input into the way their game of choice is going to be designed in its sequel. That is, if it sells enough to warrant a sequel.

What say the player has:

The player has, really, one, maybe two, inputs into their agreement with the way a game is made and or the system that game exists on. One, sales. Games are popular and successful in the same way that most things get popular, clever characters, unique aspects, and clever marketing. The second seems to be trends in how game companies feel that gamers want games to be made. 

Outline for the next (will probably change):

Players do not have input in any other way than sales

Trends have gone on for a while, complicated is most times better

Trend of getting away from gameplay and concentrating on graphics

Trend of trying to combine game play and graphics

Where the wii fits in

What the PS3 and 360 do

Where is gaming going?

The Changing Classroom

Lately, I have been researching the changing face of the classroom. My job sort of forces me to go out and feel for new technology, technology that allows something new, something old in a new way, or something unique. What is the difference between new and unique? Well, unique isn't always new. The first foray I had into the realm I am currently interested in began with SmartBoard. This board can do a lot of things. It has a Power Point aspect, a conferencing aspect, and it triples as a white board. It is a unique tool, not only a new way to do old things, but it presents a unique way with which to interact. However, this way of interacting is one-sided. I can see what you're doing, I can talk to you, chat with you, but I can't really do anything else.

It has been a great time, learning this stuff. My job gets me a surprising amount of play time. It's fun. In any case, the idea of conferencing becomes a strange thing. At first, we had this ability to conference via telephone. We had to be in our houses or our offices but we could conference with people from just about anywhere. As time has gone on, we've seen that ability go to conferencing from anywhere. With my cell phone I could call from a hot tub, the beach, a bar, or my car. I could conference with anyone, just about anywhere for a moderate price.

Then, VOIP came along and we gained a new way to talk to each other. Arguably, it is a new way to do something we always have done, but it offers access to several great conferencing tools. Microsoft Office offers an interesting collaborating system. It's been around for a while but has been rather like a complicated email. As time has gone on, Google, always the innovator, combines the ability to chat, manipulate a written work, spread sheet, or even a presentation in real time. I can watch you type things, watch you move things around, I can ask you about it, and, further, I can talk to you. It is the closest you can get to being around a table together without leaving your house.

However, the latest round of products from Adobe, and other companies that do similar things, take this one step further. There has been a system of electronic collaboration in place for classrooms for quite some time. I can watch pre-recorded video and take tests in real time. My teacher doesn't have to be there, and I can go at my own pace. However, this doesn't really give us a classroom experience. I can remember taking a math course online when i re-began my school career and feeling mortified as I realized that I had a question but I had no way of being able to ask someone right then and there. I remember this feeling of dread as I went in to take a test from a person I couldn't judge as a person. As a student, I believe we judge our tests by the feeling our teachers give us. We're usually not far off once we are near graduation.

So, I have been feeling around for a way to close this gap, it interests me both professionally and personally. And, the adobe product Adobe Connect offers just that. You can raise your hand, meet in small groups, listen to a lecture in real time, watch the video of a professor in real time, and, further, the client side is free. It is an interesting attempt to close the gap of education, location, and socioeconomic factors. I could attend a college course, online, at a library, friend's house, or even from the beach and watch the body language of the professor, look at the students at the brick and mortar classroom, and even ask questions during class. And really, you don't lose a lot of the things that the internet often does.

I'm looking forward, working in the education realm as a technology expert, to figuring it out and helping to implement it. To think that a class could be attended in person as well as electronically is a fascinating idea. Attendence, missing because of an appointment elsewhere that cuts too soon to class, or even having to work (though, you still have to get online at the time of the class), could be avoided.

All in all, it is interesting to watch all of this collaboration happen. As the ubiquity of computing spreads to the lower parts of the socioeconomic ladder, I can only hope that the ubiquity of schooling past 12 grows with it.

There are fears associated with that. The loss of prestige, the possibility of cheating, the abuse of the loss of prestige as an idication of the lack of intelligence of the lower classes. There are so many other things, i'm sure, that haven't even been thought of. But, the interesting thing is that, while crime and that is destructive in some ways, we need that ingenuity to drive ourselves to better ways of educating both in person, and not.

Givens

Introduction
I've begun Graduate School. I had thought, for a while, I wouldn't be able to escape my middle class white boy upbringing but I have to say that I am happy to be able to focus myself in a way that I had not been able to see before. Thinking back to around 1998, my favorite phrase was, "If I am going to be writer, I need to write from a perspective that hasn't been thought of." A friend, who later became quite the mentor, set me right saying that all ideas come from somewhere. However, as i've grown older, i've learned that while these ideas do originate in a combination of several other ideas, it is the ability to take parts of those ideas that give us the ability to innovate and drive ourselves into new directions.

Now, i've learned that if one is to actually affect change in things, we must think small. The metaphor I find fascinating is that we must also think from inside the box and convince people to go outside of it. Everything we are angry about, we've been angry about for a long time. I think that the only way we can save ourselves, stop ourselves, is by taking our generational issues (the same issues that combine themselves for each new generation), and actually thinking about them. I think it was this poem from Larkin that made me think of that:

This be the verse - Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

So, it's depressing, this poem, but I think it's a pretty accurate portrayal of what has been going on since the goings on were old enough to be written down. While I do not share this depression, I do believe that this idea, this thing we constantly pass on, is the way in which we will finally get a hold of things and actually grow as people.

Social Theory
So I have been studying Sociology for a while. However, I still feel as though I do not have the necessary theoretical base with which to really begin writing. However, I believe that I am not a Symbolic Interactionist. However, I am also not a functionalist. All theory has its own way with which to make itself seem more appealing than another. I think it is important to note the ways in which each theory sells itself, and take them all. Each theory, like a puzzle piece, gets at something the other does not.

The unfortunate thing about Social Theory is that a lot of the older ones do not paint a pretty picture of what we are as a group, as a world society. It's true, we are messed up, in total. However, like Marx, I believe that once we learn to recognize our faults and our weaknesses, we can truly grow. In truth, I hold the view that a lot of so-called social change over the years has not really amounted to a lot. We see groups going to new places and settling down, new groups coming over, being alienated, and eventually being accepted by the dominant group. The true changes come in the form of the dominant country's dominant group accomplishing some world shattering thing. Each epoch, each era of existance is marked by a single change leading to a re-evaluation of old ways followed by a recategorization of all knowledge. In essence, this sounds like a big deal but amounts mostly to us reflecting on how things have been and figuring out how to keep those things going now that the new change is here.

At the background of all this, we see technological change. I believe that technology is driven by society. It wants to find better ways for people who are alive at the moment to do the things we've always done. However, during the enlightenment we see technological progress begin to replace, for some people, the end of all things. Our salvation no longer depended on whatever god or way we worshiped, but in the path that Science was heading toward; understanding the world became salvation.

It's a strange thing. And, as I am growing, these ideas of where, who, and what we are will change. More than anything, I believe that we can learn from anything. We can learn from people walking toward us on the street, we can learn from litter we see on the ground, we can learn from the epitomie of intellectual beauty and we can learn from the epitomie of ignorance. These things do not matter, to the sociologist, in any other way than new data for an analysis of their particular group.

I don't care if, personally, you find yourself feeling above and beyond the smallest of people, everyone and everything deserves the respect and admiration of everything that came before it. Basically, what I mean is that I believe objective study, while not necessarily possible in the current definition of it, can be redefined to simply mean that we are conscious of our own feelings and attitudes toward an object, and we can appreciate those feelings, and the object that created it.

Hopes and Wants for this Blog
One of the hardest parts of presenting a Sociological Theory is that of presenting a series of general ideas about general things. One of the first things that happens when you write, talk, or present these ideas is the response, "Well, i'm not like that." It's as though the general way of things somehow doesn't matter because one single person disagrees. But, in learning about social theory, we need a place with which to posit our ideas about it. It isn't so much that the single person isn't represented in a generalization, it's that exception which proves the constant that exists in this world, we are varied.

I want to write about what I learn, what I notice, and what I think about. I find that I can write on a continually more and more epic scale if I constantly write. So, write I shall. I endeavor to write 1000 words a day. If I do not meet that, so be it.

My interests sit in the realm of education and the influence technology has over it. If we were to introduce new tools and new ideas to a group of teachers, how would they change? How do the students change? As I start down this path, I am eager to see where it goes. My influences come from Manor New Tech High, the video games I played to escape the social world as a child unable to leave home, and the utterly fascinating world of technology I inhabit as a tech oriented worker at a university.

I look forward to writing more. Also, I am not so good with layout. I have left my artistic ability in that realm somewhere around age 12.