JLO63O, 3/22

In class we talked about ideology and how it becomes ‘natural’ and without question. In class I saw a few people chewing gum. I didn’t even question it, then it reminded me of a story when Dr. Casey was talking about punishment in school when he was a kid. My parents never chew gum and I never thought too question why. My mom told me a story about when she was in grammar school she got in trouble for chewing gum and had to go up to the chalk board, and had to stick her gum on the board in the middle of a traced out circle and had to put her nose on it until she was sent back to her seat. There are a drew generational and ideological differences going on in this story. One, chewing gum is a punishable offense. Two, the degree and means of punishment is wildly different than it is today. And three, they had chalk boards, not a dry erase boards or powerpoints.
In the same way as we see the unacceptable and flawed ideologies of past generations, those same generations are frowning on ours. We talked about sub cultures and dress in class. Although we see subcultural Marylin Mansons as deviant, some of the things that we say and the way we dress are deviant to the past generations as well. The best example I can think of is theme parties. I view theme parties in the way I view Halloween – it’s an excuse to dress up as something else and it’s fun playing that different role. The traditional witch, for example, has transformed to a large pointy hat, long gown and black lipstick to a skin tight, thigh high dress and ruby red lipstick. It’s almost like you have to set the label ‘witch’ to let others know what you are. A generation ago this would have been completely avant-garde for a theme party, but in today’s day and age, it’s merely ideological.