Forming the Self and Collective Expression

1. Forming the Self and Collective Expression

2. Family and Place • We all learn valuable lessons from others and from life experiences, sometimes with pleasure and sometimes the hard way. Beginning at an early age, these lessons form us from the inside out. • We watch others for signs of how the sexes express themselves and relate to one another • We watch to see where someone our age fits into a family • We learn the roles of family members • We learn ‘how our family is’ relative to neighbors, friends, others in the community • We learn about the community and region we inhabit • We learn who are ‘people like us’ (ex: hard-working Italian-American Catholic Democrats who are good cooks and reliable friends)

3. Learning Values • Values are beliefs held by a person or social group in which there is an emotional investment • These are practical lessons with an underlying logic which is widely shared by your group • Often, how we look outside (the color of our skin, how thin/fat or young/old or beautiful/ugly we are) is what people use to make judgements about us.

4. Self-Worth • Tied to personal values and accomplishment in socially constructed roles • Also tied to approval---after all we are primates—so this is a dialectical relationship • People who love us tell us that superficial things don’t matter, it’s “what’s inside that counts,” but rejection and ridicule (and the fear of it) still brings frustration, rage, sadness, and depression to many people and profoundly modifies their behavior. • It is easy to be hard on ourselves, because no one can live up to both their own and others’ standards. • Today the particularly invidious role of the media (individuals, attitudes, values) in providing role models contributes greatly to assessments of self-worth

5. Stress • Has always been a part of human existence. • In today’s world, stress shows up in even more forms. • Disease, mental illness, and self-abusive behaviors are positively correlated with stress. The manner in which people react to stress varies culturally. • Stress Kills (overdosing on adrenalin--‘fight or flight’ chemical defense of the body--has direct physical effects–heart attacks, even death as in voodoo)

6. What do People do to Reduce Stress and Feel Better about Themselves? • Social responses: seeking out friends, volunteer work • Economic responses: buy something (“when the going gets tough, the tough go shopping”) • Chemical responses: physical activity, mind-altering substances (Reefer Madness, Hooked), eating, fasting • Spiritual responses: religion, other spiritual training (such as out-of-body experiences–the classroom example will be the Ghost Dance)

7. Our Consuming Society • In our consumer-oriented culture, we are easy prey to those who offer to make us thinner, younger, and more beautiful---to make us hip, cool, phat. • Addictive behavior: economic, social, sexual, whatever---compromises health and reinforces negative feelings about self. • Food is an important means by which we partake in society–we eat culture.

8. Food and Identity • One very important answer is food. • Ethnic groups define themselves on the basis of shared history and culture; cultural differences are most often marked by characteristic foods • How do the groups we belong to make us feel stronger and happier? • Communal consumption (family feasts, church suppers, executive lunches, funeral food, etc) • Solo consumption (comfort food, often food that affects our bodies in particular ways, such as chocolate or starch) An Italian Dinner in the 1940s

9. Food Defines us in National and International Terms • Food as Diplomat • Food as Keeper or Destroyer of values ex: French cuisine’s position among the world’s cuisines; French cuisine vs. Middle Eastern cuisine in contemporary France; US McDonald’s • Food Fights and Food Wars exs: US/European Union standoff over genetically modified organisms (GMOs), globalization and fast food, freedom fries