A Letter to Myself

As soon as I hear the word “culture”, some of the things that immediately pop into mind include football, fast food, Hollywood, Victoria’s Secret, the fourth of July, and diversity. However, at the beginning of the quarter, I was at loss of what to say when I was asked to define the word “culture”. While we are immersed in culture every day of our lives and everywhere we go, it is not something most of us give a second thought about or explicitly and deeply think about. Over the course of the quarter, though, I learned not only how to define and describe culture, but to critically think about how culture influences us, defines us, and affects us in the long-term as well. I was able to achieve a thorough understanding on this subject matter through various reading and writing assignments and, through these assignments, I was able to gain and develop valuable sentence level, paragraph level, and essay level skills. As a result, I grew to be a more confident reader and writer.

Culture is a pretty abstract and difficult concept to define, one that has induced much debate amongst even anthropologists themselves. After reading various articles and spending the last ten weeks thinking critically about this topic, I have come to conclude that culture is a set of socially acquired thoughts, behaviors, rituals, values, morals, language, and etc. that are transmitted from one generation to the next. Culture gives each social group its distinctive characteristics and customs and, therefore, provides each individual with his or her own identity. Therefore, culture is a distinguishing factor. At the same time, it is important to note that culture is not constant. It can change based on what is currently “in”. This gives us popular culture, which is characterized as something that is mainstream, contemporary, and transitory in nature. Popular culture is often fueled by mass media outlets like the television, radio, and newspaper and, due to its omnipresence and powerful influences, it can essentially be seen as a learning tool that helps shape and define who we are. Nowadays, technology has become so prevalent that it is hard to find an individual who does not interact with technology at least once a day. In fact, the average American watches at least 4 hours of TV each day and, within those 4 hours, we are exposed to a myriad of advertisements—and that does not even include the ads we are bombarded with when we take the public transport, go to the ATM, drive on the freeway, or browse through the shopping malls. Because these corporate-controlled ads are so pervasive and manipulative in a sense that it targets our hidden desires and needs, it ultimately impacts and even dictates our individual purchasing decisions and lifestyle choices. Being a strong media activist, in Culture Jam, Kalle Lasn warns us to take notice of the debilitating consequences that we are currently facing or may face in the future if we continue to feed those corporations the power and wealth to control and manipulate our lifestyle choices. I learned that some of these dangers include a loss of individuality, a lack of connection with the human spirit and natural world, and the increasing incidences of psychological disorders.

With the advances of technology, there currently exist many technological devices or American artifacts that are representative of this slump that we have fallen into. These more notable artifacts of the American culture include the iPhone, iPod, and MacBook. These items are all products manufactured, advertised, and sold by the Apple Company. With the successes of its products, owning an “Apple product” has become a trend and everyone wants in on these new, popular products. Targeting our need for affiliation and need to belong, this has promoted conformity and taken away individuals’ independence and uniqueness. We have become clones who seek the same things and purchase the same things. In addition, because these devices are highly mobile and accessible, we can essentially take them wherever we go whenever we want. However, these gadgets are functionally produced for personal, individualized usage and therefore promote isolation or a lack of interaction with other people in the public arena. With the advance of technology, people have become too consumed with their own worlds. This is extremely problematic because the world is an interactive place and human beings are social animals whose thoughts and behaviors are primarily shaped through social learning and imitation.

As I reflect on all that I have learned and summarized from the essays and major projects we were assigned throughout the quarter, I realize how interrelated all of our reading and writing assignments have been. All of our essays have something to do with one another. While I analyzed an American artifact for in-class essay #1 An American Artifact: The MacBook, I defined a particular popular subculture in our out-of-class essay #1 Discipline as the Essence of the Ballet Subculture. Every culture or subculture has, at some point, produced an artifact that they value or worship. Playing a huge role in these cultures’ lives, artifacts help define who they are and help us distinguish them from other cultures. For in-class essay #2 How Technology Has Isolated and Distracted the Society, I discussed how technology has negatively impacted our culture. While the general population is aware of the idealistic possibilities of new technologies, they tend to ignore or do not focus on what good these technologies can undo at the same time. This is related to the previous two essays in that cultures, like that of the American society, can be defined by the technological era. Technology has been predominantly beneficial for its society by allowing doctors to find cures for what used to be known as “fatal” diseases. It has also allowed people to communicate with each other within seconds, to travel across the country, and to buy almost anything without ever leaving the comforts of their homes. However, with the convenience and efficiency of technology, people have become consumed with their own private worlds. When many of us wander outside to the park, café, school campus, or amusement park, it is not uncommon to see people aimlessly walking by with their heads down, furiously texting away. Technology, in a sense, has taken over and defined the American culture. In out-of-class essay #2 Exceeding limits with the Nissan GTR, I analyzed a car ad by delving into the thoughts of the advertisers. I observed how advertisers are able to appeal to its consumers through very specific tactics. I learned that by appealing to the people’s underlying desires and motives, advertisements are more likely to attract attention, affect communication, and encourage consumption. This benefits corporations because it reinforces their wealth and power, which they use to manipulate consumers into buying their products. For out-of-class #3 The Emergence of a Cloned, Detached, and Problematic Society, I responded to Lasn’s thoughts on the American culture. I had to rely on my own personal knowledge about the American culture, as well as outside research, in order to relate and respond to Lasn’s own critique. Through Lasn’s Culture Jam, I have learned not to just take things as they are (become puppets of the corporations), but to also form my own thoughts and decisions about what I want and need for myself. This final assignment ultimately integrated all of the materials and techniques I have learned over the course of the quarter.

Through these various reading and writing assignments, I believe that I have grown more confident as a critical thinker, reader, and writer. This does not necessarily mean that I have become great at performing these tasks, but I do feel more confident in conveying my thoughts now. In the past, I had always dreaded and avoided taking English classes because I was never confident in my reading, critical thinking, or writing skills. I had always been a slow reader. One of my biggest obstacles in the past was the conceptual understanding of the text. Because I could not fully understand what I was reading, I would continually read the sentences or paragraphs over and over again, until I could somewhat grasp the author’s basic idea. However, I have learned that it is always better to read through the text once, no matter how much I do or do not understand, before rereading it again more fully. Sometimes, it is important to take the top-bottom approach—to look at the big picture in order to understand its smaller components or details. Therefore, what I have found to be effective for me in the reading process is to follow some of the before, during, and after reading strategies I was exposed to through this course. It was helpful for me to skim through the text once, repeat the process a second time while simultaneously highlighting the important parts, and then summarize and analyze the text’s content. Not only did it help with my reading skills, but it also helped me with my writing. This allowed me to get started on my essays more easily and get into the flow of writing more easily since I had already thought about the text and responded to it beforehand. Similarly, I had always been a pretty slow writer. It typically takes a long time for me to organize my thoughts and integrate the information I want to deliver in an orderly and comprehensible fashion. In the past, I always had problems finishing my in-class essays on time. For the first in-class essay, this was the case. I remember that as the time started counting down, I became very nervous and my thoughts became scrambled, making it hard for me to stay focused on my task. For the subsequent essays, though, time became less of a factor. I realized my second in-class essay was relatively easy for me to finish because I had done a better preparation beforehand.

In regards to sentence, paragraph, and essay level writing, I discovered that I have some interesting writing habits. The “sentence focus” task in out-of-class #2 actually brought back some memories from high school. In the past, I would often try to make myself sound more “smart” or make my writing sound more “fancy” by getting wordy in my assignments. After going through undergrad and taking a couple college English courses at Davis, though, I realize that I have changed my style of writing to one that is more direct and straightforward. That doesn’t mean I don’t ever use passive verbs or different forms of the verb “to be” anymore, but I do use them to a lesser extent now. Even though we were told to avoid using these verbs, it was kind of hard not to use it at all. It’s not that it’s impossible to do. It’s just that, sometimes, the meaning or impact of the sentence just does not come across as strong or as good with the more direct and specific verbs. Of course, this is just my opinion. On the paragraph level, I made sure that each body paragraph I produced and included in my essays had its own role and purpose. I learned that in addition to proposing unique ideas related to the thesis, we also had to include a point for each idea. Therefore, during my writing process, I would ask myself “so what?” every time I typed out an idea. On the essay level, I realized that some problems I have involve sentence flow, essay function, and explanations. Through habit, I have a tendency to use quotes as the backbone of my essays. As a result, at times, my writing would become overfilled with quotes. This essentially leaves out the more important personal thoughts and explanations. Upon realization of this problem, I tried to pay more attention to it for my later essays. Lastly, while my essays initially lacked cohesion, I followed up by trying to produce a more focused piece of work. I did this by remaining focused on proving my thesis and answering the topic question, rather than straying away from the main idea and rambling away. As a result, I believe that my essays became much more cohesive near the end of the quarter. Although I used to dread taking English courses, I believe that I have somewhat gotten over it by now. In fact, once I get into the flow of writing, it becomes strangely fun and addicting. Overall, I feel that I have grown more confident as a writer.

Throughout this course, I was exposed to something I always took for granted—the American culture. I never really thought about what exactly popular culture is but I can say I have a pretty thorough understanding of what it is now. This course, including the reading and writing assignments, has taught me to become more aware of and to think critically about our culture. In addition to the topics covered in this course, I have also learned a lot about the writing process on the sentence, paragraph, and essay levels. I believe that a lot of the knowledge and skills I have learned in this class could easily be applied to other disciplines and subsequent English classes because these sentence, paragraph, and essay level skills can be used as a backbone for any research paper, speech, or even outline that I may have to produce in the future. The strategies taught in the course allow a person to write in a more focused, comprehensive, and orderly manner and this skill is important in any task that involves interpersonal communication.