Prison as Punishment or Rehabilitation?

Upon watching this video, you might think that humane prisons are a great idea. You may support having prison be a more livable place for convicts to spends decades long sentences. On the other hand, you might think, “What’s the point of making prisons nice? Jail time is a punishment, not a vacation.” You might wonder what would motivate people to stay out of prison if it’s not such a bad experience. These are a few of the many reactions you could have to prisons with less constriction on personal freedom. These are also the questions and concerns of the national discussion around the purpose of prisons, and how well they accomplish their mission. Experts on criminology debate whether prisons should be responsible for rehabilitating inmates or if they should act as deterrents for criminal behavior. Most prisons value punishment and rehabilitation, denying convicts personal freedoms in the name of justice, while providing programs that encourage personal growth and give inmates important skills for life outside the prison walls (Phelps, 2011). This seems to be a satisfying arrangement for the legal system as well as prison officials (especially since the legal system mostly worries about overcrowding).

However, prisons first and foremost serve as deterrents. They are meant to create restrictive environments to discourage entry, and thus criminal activity. The concept of jail time as being primarily punishment, and not prisoner rehabilitation, raises many questions about how effective it truly is in preventing further criminal activity from its convicts. There are several ways the deterrent model both succeeds and fails in this area.

The current prison system certainly succeeds in keeping criminals out of society, thanks to the legal system’s lengthening prison time and harsher sentencing on more minor crimes like drug offenses and youth violence. This system prevents future criminal activity not only through using prisons as deterrents but also by keeping inmates powerless and locked away from the rest of society. For this reason, sociologists like Michelle Phelps consider prisons to be “warehouses,” storing the “rejects of society” in a space that simultaneously takes away their ability to commit offenses again and houses them in a miserable environment as punishment for what they’ve done.

This was not always so. For centuries prior to the 1970’s, prisons were often institutions of rehabilitation; places where criminals could learn to change their ways and be better members of society (McShane, 2008). However, the 1970’s brought on a surge of scholarly texts and political figures criticizing the rehabilitation model, claiming it to be ineffective and a futile pursuit. Professor Francis Allen attributed this to a changed public mentality following historic events such as the bombing of Hiroshima, Watergate, and the Pentagon Papers. According to him, people had become hardened, and “had increasingly less concern for (and more fear of) felons, who were presented as racialized ‘super-predators’ unable to be reformed. In the infamous words of James Q. Wilson, ‘Wicked people exist. Nothing avails except to set them apart from innocent people’” (McShane, 2008). The public categorized felons as malicious “predators” who were beyond saving. The only solution would be to extract them from society and keep them away from innocent civilians. Thus, a shift from prison as an opportunity for reformation to prison as a means for hiding social rejects accompanied a shift in public mentality of prisoners. Once, prisoners were fellow members of society who had taken a wrong path in life. Now they are a breed of inhuman evil-doers.

Admittedly, this mentality is effective in keeping criminals in check through the legal system. However, it is not helpful in the long run. Once prisoners leave, their life chances are significantly reduced because of their label as ex-convicts. Their chances of finding housing and a jobs (essential components of reintegration) are incredibly difficult, as employers are significantly less likely to hire ex-convicts than other applicants (Pager, 2003) and housing regulations bar them from many housing options (Alexander, 2010). Furthermore, lack of concern over inmate reintegration into society both in and out of prison leaves ex-convicts without the skills or knowledge necessary to reintegrate. As a result, they will be more likely to return to criminal activity as means to make ends meet (Alexander, 2010).

Overall, the deterrent model of prison, where prison is a punishment to be avoided, neglects the rehabilitation model, where prison is an opportunity to reintegrate convicts back into society. Consequently, prisoners struggle to return to life outside the walls, and resort to more criminal behavior for their livelihood. For this reason, the deterrent model is ineffective. Furthermore, public mentality around convicts not only exacerbates their life chances outside of prison, it shapes their daily lives in prison as well by influencing the system which administers punishment and rehabilitation, and thus further impacts the inmates’ life chances.

Works Cited

McShane, Marilyn. “Prisons in America.” 2008. New York, LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC.

Phelps, Michelle. “Rehabilitation in the Punitive Era: The Gap Between Rhetoric and Reality in U.S. Prison Programs” 2011. Law & Society Review. Vol 41, No 1.

Pager, Devah. “The Mark of a Criminal Record.” 2003. American Journal of Sociology.

Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow. 2010. New York, The New Press.

Connecting Animal Welfare Concerns to Human Exploitation

Each of us has probably seen, and possibly even shared ourselves, videos showing how animals are treated in the livestock industry. While they stem from a concern about a ‘blind spot’ in the public imagination concerning the processes that bring animal products to our supermarkets, restaurants and kitchens, I can’t help but often notice an absence even in these videos. One fact of the industry that such media has succeeded in highlighting is the practice of chick culling: killing male chicks as they do not lay eggs or grow as large as females, making them unprofitable even for meat. Most videos on the playlist on this website show the gruesome ‘disassembly line’ that ends with chicks being crushed to death by machinery (typically a grinder). Here, the automation, and the machinery, is part of the horror. But practically none of the videos show any people working the disassembly line.

The majority of work in slaughterhouses does require significant human involvement - most animals there are not baby chicks and are large and volatile, meaning they need supervision and cannot be processed by machines. Even if the the focus of this media is animal cruelty, we cannot ignore who is inflicting it. It would be wrong to characterise slaughterhouse workers as people who sign up to inflict violence; these jobs are low-paying, and do not require much experience, and as such attract people who might not have the ability to negotiate more dignified, safer jobs. Animal rights activists might argue that to redirect our attention to the humans implicated in this industry only plays into the hierarchy that places the lives of humans above those of animals, and makes such treatment imaginable. However, the oppression of humans and animals is too interlinked to separate our examination of them.

Slaughterhouse workers may have a more violent job than normal, but unlike other jobs that also require violence (police, military), they are not afforded a special status to do so. In fact, their working conditions are abysmal. A report by public interest law project Nebraska Appleseed surveyed workers who said that their supervisors abused them; the disassembly line was continually sped up, leading to a high injury rate; these injuries received inadequate treatment or became justification for firing workers. If we care only about the welfare of animals in the livestock industry, we miss a large part of the picture - the welfare of people implicated in the industry, hardly by choice.

As long ago as 1904, Upton Sinclair’s book The Jungle exposed the appalling conditions of the meatpacking industry and highlighted that the industry hinged upon the exploitation of immigrants. But to his dismay, the public and policy reaction focused on the fact that the meat produced in these factories was often contaminated. Reforms in the livestock industry have been aimed at ensuring the meat is safe for consumers, which is perhaps an indication of where its priorities lie. As long as there is the incentive of profit, the owners of these factories will display little interest in improving worker conditions. On the other hand, the outrage around animal welfare has lead to results. Cage-free eggs are now available at every supermarket. This article from 2016 describes plans to develop technology that would allow eggs to be tested for the sex of the chicks that will hatch, so that instead of killing the male chicks, those eggs can be discarded - a policy negotiated by The Humane League, a non-profit focused on animal welfare.

Even without strenuously exercising the sociological imagination, it seems apparent that such reforms only reinforce the aim of maximum productivity by making the livestock industry ever more ‘efficient’, and reducing cruelty is only a byproduct. Animal husbandry has probably been a part of every society, but the form it takes in ours is unprecedented: massive commercial slaughterhouses are not the only way we can get meat. The horror of them is not that animals are killed, but that the way they operate leaves no room for the consideration of either the animals’ or the workers’ welfare.

More evidence as to the atypical nature of the livestock industry is in the spillover effects. Increased rates of alcoholism and domestic violence have been reported in the households of factory farm workers. Sinclair noted in The Jungle that “men who have to crack the heads of animals all day seem to get into the habit, and to practice on their friends, and even on their families, between times”. A 2009 study sought to explain why crime rates increase in a community after a slaughterhouse begins operation there. Social disorganisation theory, which holds that as heterogeneity increases in a population, social institutions are weakened and crime increases, might seek to explain this using the demographics of the workforce (usually young men, often immigrants). But the authors argue that it is a result of the nature of slaughterhouse work. In comparison to other industries with similar workforce demographics, and demanding manual work, it is only slaughterhouses that are associated with an increase in violent crime - lending support to Sinclair’s hypothesis.

I would conclude then that the focus on the plight of animals in the livestock industry needs to be broadened to include how humans are also exploited by the industry, as well as how being made to inflict violence on animals can make workers more likely to inflict violence on others. Any attempt to reform or replace our current system of animal husbandry would do better to take the human factor into consideration. If we really do value human lives over those of animals, this strategy should be more successful.

Sources:

“Baby Chicks Ground Up Alive - The Truth About Eggs.” Kinder World, https://www.kinderworld.org/videos/egg-industry/baby-chicks-ground-up-alive/.

Constitutional Rights Foundation. “Upton Sinclairs The Jungle: Muckraking the Meat-Packing Industry - Constitutional Rights Foundation.” Bill of Rights in Action, vol. Volume 24, no. No. 1, Fall 2008, http://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-24-1-b-upton-sinclairs-the-jungle-muckraking-the-meat-packing-industry.html.

Maryn McKenna. “By 2020, Male Chicks May Avoid Death By Grinder.” National Geographic, June 2016, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/people-and-culture/food/the-plate/2016/06/by-2020--male-chicks-could-avoid-death-by-grinder/.

Nebraska Appleseed. “The Speed Kills You”: The Voice of Nebraska’s Meatpacking Workers. 2009, https://neappleseed.org/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2013/01/the_speed_kills_you_100410.pdf.

Hosie, Rachel. “This Investigator Goes Undercover in Factory Farms to Expose the Brutal Animal Abuse That Is Standard Treatment.” The Independent, 4 Jan. 2017, http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/animal-abuse-factory-farms-undercover-investigators-pigs-chickens-cows-turkeys-mercy-for-animals-a7501816.html.

Fitzgerald, Amy J., et al. “Slaughterhouses and Increased Crime Rates: An Empirical Analysis of the Spillover From ‘The Jungle’ Into the Surrounding Community.” Organization and Environment, 2009, http://www.animalstudies.msu.edu/Slaughterhouses_and_Increased_Crime_Rates.pdf.

How David Bowie Used a Non-Binary Alien from Mars to Deconstruct Gender and Self

Example of "gendered movement" onstage, Source: Wenner Media

            David Bowie is often remembered not only for his songwriting and various musical abilities, but for his frequently shifting alter egos and his androgynous, otherworldly stage performances. Using characters such as “Ziggy Stardust” and “The Thin White Duke”, he was able to completely subvert and blur the lines that make up the performative acts of gender and self.

As discussed by Judith Butler in Performative Acts and Gender Constitution, gender is an inherently performative act put on equally for one’s self and for those around them. In 2019, it’s not uncommon for people to intentionally subvert and play with ideas of gender with the intent of undermining traditional gender roles, but in the early 1970s when Bowie started experimenting with these ideas onstage it was groundbreaking. Androgyny in the world of rock had been pioneered by his contemporaries such as Marc Bolan of the band T. Rex, but Bowie took this to a level that had previously not been explored by creating a character he would perform as every single time he went onstage between 1971 and 1973. This character was named “Ziggy Stardust”, and in short it was a non-binary space alien from Mars that traveled to Earth to spread messages of love and rock and roll.

It wasn’t that Bowie was completely disregarding the idea of “doing gender”, it was that he was taking it to such an extreme level as to completely change what it meant to do so. When performing as Ziggy Stardust, Bowie would dress in elaborate, flashy costumes that didn’t quite fit into traditionally “male” or “female” categories of clothing. These varied quite a bit, from strange kimono/short skirt mixtures, to elaborately colored jumpsuits, to garments that don’t even have names in the English language to describe them. Another integral part of his visual breakdown of gender consisted of the makeup he would wear. When performing, he would paint his face in white, pink, and gold in order to give himself an otherworldly appearance, but it also played a part in contributing to his breakdown of gender. By applying it in a way that wasn’t traditionally male or female, but something else entirely, it subverts expectations in a way that “does gender” without signaling male or female.

Source: The Japan Times

Source: Mick Rock 

His onstage appearance played a very significant role in this breakdown of “doing gender” but what played an equally important role was the performances themselves. When watching videos of Bowie performing as Ziggy Stardust, something is immediately apparent about the way he moves onstage. It’s common knowledge that there are subtle differences in the way that men and women move and walk, but Bowie takes this "gendered movement" to an entirely new level. A majority of the time, there’s something unnameable yet undoubtedly feminine about the way he moves, but this becomes especially apparent when he switches between moving in traditionally masculine and feminine ways. It’s difficult to describe in words, but it’s immediately apparent when viewing it.

In addition to subverting and muddling traditional ideas of doing gender, the alter-ego of Ziggy Stardust was also used by Bowie to subvert the idea of doing self. As Bowie’s popularity grew in the early 70s, the Ziggy character started to become more than an onstage persona. It started to become the way that he lived. Wherever he went he would dress extravagantly like Ziggy did, he would wear more subdued versions of the stage makeup, he would interview not just as British rock star David Bowie, but as a mixture of Bowie and the new character he invented. His alter-ego simply became another aspect of his personality that he could switch back and forth between, almost eliminating the standard view of “doing self” and replacing it with distorted, more extreme version of it. He wasn’t just “doing self” to show the world the version of David Bowie that he wanted them to see, he was doing self to manufacture an entirely new person that he could turn into. This culminated on July 3, 1973 when Bowie killed Ziggy onstage by announcing that the character that brought him to fame was no more. Bowie unlocked a new aspect of his psyche by taking “doing self” to an extreme, before committing a sort of public ego-murder, eliminating part of himself in ritual fashion.

Bowie as Ziggy while not performing, Source:Mick Rock

Ziggy Stardust was originally intended as just a vehicle to get to the type of immersive onstage experience that Bowie envisioned, but it quickly became more than that. Ziggy became a way to break down the gender binary 40 years before it was a mainstream idea and to change the concept of self into something else entirely. By using this character, Bowie was able to take ideas of self and gender to the extreme, and in the process, completely subvert them.

Bibliography

Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Theatre Journal, vol. 40, no. 4, Dec. 1988, p. 519., doi:10.2307/3207893.

Hill, Marian. “David Bowie and His Alter Egos.” The Connector, The Connector, 6 Oct. 2018, scadconnector.com/2018/10/07/david-bowie-and-his-alter-egos/.

Thian, Helene M. “For David Bowie, Japanese Style Was More than Just Fashion.” The Japan Times, The Japan Times Ltd., 11 June 2013, www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2013/06/11/style/for-david-bowie-japanese-style-was-more-than-just-fashion/#.XMYdguhKhPY.

Has immigration increased crime ?

When president Donald Trump first announced his candidacy in 2015, he starts his speech with “we will make America great again” (president Trump) and “we will make America safe again” (president Trump). In order to keep his promise to his followers he is targeting immigrants from Latin America specifically from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. President Donald Trump does this by claiming that immigrants who are crossing the United States, “are bringing drugs, crime, they are rapists” (Donald Trump) He is using these words to create fear among American citizens and create chaos among the people to increase his credibility that the United States is not safe. By using this Donald Trump makes a promise to American citizens that he will protect them by building a wall along the southern border of Mexico to stop immigrants from crossing to the United States. Also, he promises to create stronger immigrant policies to keep them away.

President Trump focuses on gang groups like MS-13 in Los Angeles who are criminals and are terrorizing the community. The trump administration is saying that “Every day, sanctuary cities release illegal immigrants, drug dealers, traffickers, gang members back into our communities,” (Donald Trump) Donald Trump is categorizing all immigrants as drug lords, criminals and describing them as the “problem” for the increment of crime in the United States. Many of the immigrants are workers, children who are running away from a corrupt government, to save their lives and for better opportunities. “The American Dream”.

Although the president is claiming this, there is no actual data that links immigration to the crimes in the United States. There are studies that disprove trump's claim. For example, in Anna Flagg study done in 2018, she is comparing the immigrant population to crime in America and how if it affects one another. Anna Flagg found that “the immigrant population in the county has more than doubled since 1980, overall violent crime has decreased by more than 50 percent.” (Flagg) This shows how the growth of immigration has nothing to do with crimes in America. Another example of this is shown in a study done by Walter Ewing with the American immigration council where it states that in the “FBI data indicate that the violent crime rate declined 48 percent—which included falling rates of aggravated assault, robbery, rape, and murder. Likewise, the property crime rate fell 41 percent, including declining rates of motor vehicle theft, larceny/robbery, and burglary.” Once again this proves how the increment of immigration is actually lowering crime rates. Also, immigrants are less likely to commit any type of crime compared to a Native born.

"The myth of the criminal immigrant" Anna Flagg, New York Times March 20,2018 

The data disproves president Donald Trump claims against immigrants, but it proves that the people who are committing these crimes are American citizens. In Emily Moons article it talked about how, “homicide conviction rates were 16 percent lower for immigrants than for native-born Americans in Texas in 2015, and criminal convictions overall were 50 percent lower for immigrants.”  This is proven in different events that happened in the United States in the past years where there has been school, church shootings caused by a white person. Also, how these people are not convicted because of their “mental health” issues but if it would have been a Hispanic person, they would be convicted to many years in prison without thinking that they might have a mental health issue. Citizens are the one who is making the United States unsafe.

Finally, some might argue how 22% of the population in prison are Hispanic and must have committed a crime.

“They’re in Prison for being immigrants not for being criminals” (Anna Flagg)

Bibliography

Ingraham, Christopher. “Two charts demolish the notion that immigrants here illegally commit more crime” Washington post. Accessed April 24, 2019.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/06/19/two-charts-demolish-the-notion-that-immigrants-here-illegally-commit-more-crime/?utm_term=.16b9ec9a84ca

Moon,Emily “research tells us that immigration does not lead to higher crime rates” psmag. Accessed April 24,2019 https://psmag.com/social-justice/research-tells-us-that-immigration-does-not-lead-to-higher-crime-rates

Misra, Tanvi “ For the last time, here's the real link between immigration and crime”citylab.Accessed April 24, 2019 https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/02/crime-immigration-city-migrants-refugees-state-of-the-union/582001/

Flagg, Anna “The myth of the criminal immigrant” nytimes. Accessed April 24,2019

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/30/upshot/crime-immigration-myth.html?smtyp=cur&smid=fb-nytupshot

Ewing, Walter “The criminalization of immigrants in the United States” Accessed April 24,2019

https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/criminalization-immigration-united-states

The Citizenship Question on the 2020 Census: Trump's Metaphorical Border Wall

Are you a citizen of the United States? Many of us have encountered this question in various questionnaires and surveys, and those of us who are born or naturalized citizens often don’t think twice about answering “yes”. It may seem like an innocent question on the surface, but in our recent political context, the nine bold words in the following image have unleashed an enormous amount of controversy.

This box is what the Trump administration wants to newly include in the 2020 Decennial Census. The census is a survey sent out each decade to every household in the US. It’s main purpose is to enumerate (count) every person residing in the US so that the appropriate number of representatives in congress can be assigned to each state, and so that the congressional districts can be drawn up appropriately. The questions that will be asked in the 2020 census are currently confined to age, sex, race, hispanic origin, relationship, tenure (owner/renter), and now most likely citizenship.

To understand the controversy behind this question, one must put themselves in the shoes of a non-US citizen. President Trump made immigration a major focus of his campaign. During his administration, he has attempted to push through many anti-immigration policies such as the US-Mexico border wall, replacing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), the travel ban, and the refugee ban. This ideology that the current presidential administration supports has undoubtedly instilled fear in immigrants for their safety and security in this country. Imagine a non-citizen Hispanic immigrant watching a crowd of hundreds of Trump supporters angrily chanting, “Build the wall!” After witnessing something along those lines, I would expect them to be very reluctant to fill in that lowest checkbox.

https://www.eutimes.net/2019/04/us-customs-and-border-protection-exposes-trump-says-he-built-zero-miles-of-wall/

That reality brings us to the reason for the controversy behind the citizenship question. It is expected that immigrants and particularly Latino residents will be reluctant to respond to the citizenship question or the entire census at all. Many may think that the government would use the information against them or their relatives, even though it is illegal to share someone's census responses with law enforcement or immigration agencies. Census Bureau research has projected a 5.1 percent drop in responses from non-citizen households, estimating an undercount of 6.5 million people if the citizenship question is added in 2020. This undercount would violate the constitution by failing to accurately enumerate the US population. It would cause areas with larger Latino and other immigrant populations to be underrepresented in congress, elections, and the allocation of an estimated $880 billion a year in federal funding.

These areas include the states of California, Florida, Texas, Arizona, Illinois, and New York, which are each at risk of losing a seat in the House of Representatives, and therefore an electoral vote. This triggered multiple lawsuits to be filed, including one by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and one in New York City. District Judge Jesse Furman’s ruling of the lawsuit in New York is currently being reviewed by the Supreme Court. Based on the oral arguments during Tuesday’s session, it appears that the justices are split along ideological lines and will vote 5-4 in favor of allowing the citizenship question.

The Trump administration claims that the addition of the citizenship question is needed for “more effective enforcement” of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting. Many find this hard to believe, considering Republican administrations have a history of pushing legislation through that discourages racial minorities from voting. In addition, the conservative Supreme Court justices that agreed with this claim actually helped weaken the Voting Rights Act in the 2013 ruling of Shelby County v. Holder. The enormous levels of irony in this situation point to the reality that the citizenship question is simply a form of discriminatory policy that is designed to underrepresent immigrants, Latinos, and the people that the Voting Rights Act was enacted to protect. In other words, it’s Trump’s metaphorical border wall that perpetuates racial inequality in our society.

Bibliography

Amadeo, Kimberly. "How Do Trump's Immigration Plans Affect You?" The Balance. Accessed April 24, 2019. https://www.thebalance.com/donald-trump-immigration-impact-on-economy-4151107.

Berman, Ari, Dan Friedman, Abigail Weinberg, Ari Berman, Tonya Riley, Jane C. Hu, Julia Lurie, Oliver Milman, Ari Berman, Rebecca Leber, and Ford. "When It Helps Trump, the Supreme Court Suddenly Cares a Lot about the Voting Rights Act." Mother Jones. April 23, 2019. Accessed April 24, 2019. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/04/in-census-case-supreme-court-suddenly-cares-a-lot-about-voting-rights-act/.

Cohn, D’Vera, and D’Vera Cohn. "The Citizenship Question Planned for 2020 Census: What to Know." Pew Research Center. March 30, 2018. Accessed April 24, 2019. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/30/what-to-know-about-the-citizenship-question-the-census-bureau-is-planning-to-ask-in-2020/.

Milbank, Dana. "Now Playing at the Supreme Court: How to Preserve White Power in Four Easy Steps." The Washington Post. April 23, 2019. Accessed April 24, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-census-case-presents-how-to-preserve-white-hegemony-in-four-easy-steps/2019/04/23/ef2b6712-660b-11e9-82ba-fcfeff232e8f_story.html?utm_term=.346d02dc3788.

United States. U.S. Department of Commerce. Economics and Statistics Administration. Questions Planned for the 2020 Census and American Community Survey: Federal Legislative and Program Uses.

Wang, Hansi Lo, and Nina Totenberg. "A Decade Of Implications At Stake, Supreme Court Hears Census Citizenship Question." NPR. April 23, 2019. Accessed April 24, 2019. https://www.npr.org/2019/04/23/705210786/a-decade-of-implications-at-stake-supreme-court-hears-census-citizenship-question.

Achieving the American Lifestyle with a Simple Swipe (And a Lot of Debt)

            While watching an episode of "Broad City" (a show geared towards millennials), I came across a Credit Karma ad that sparked my interest. A young woman was lamenting at her credit score on her Credit Karma app, seeing a low score of 550 while surrounded by a small apartment with flickering lights and a roommate cutting her toenails only a few feet away from her. It was obvious she was discontent with her surroundings, surroundings that the average person her age is accustomed to. She looks back down at her app and swipes right on her score. All of a sudden, her score on the app goes up to 700. Her surroundings change, and she finds herself sitting in a much bigger room with nicer furniture, her roommate much further away in their separate spaces. Both of their outfits reflect trendier, more refined appearances. She looks excitedly back down at her credit karma app and swipes right again. Her score goes up another 123 points and she finds herself in a loft of her own, with even nicer furniture, and her roommate turns into a dog. You can see a city in the large windows behind her.

            This video caught my attention because I too use the Credit Karma app, but only to check my credit score. My app doesn’t give me the magical ability to swipe right and change my surroundings. Credit Karma’s ad offers its audience the false message that if you download Credit Karma’s app, you too will find yourself in a new flat with a new golden retriever by your side. This message comes from the idea that using credit in this type of way will improve your life. Credit Karma advertises a lifestyle of luxury: improving your credit score (in some unknown way) and being able to purchase new furniture, new housing, new clothing, and a new dog.

           While this ad came from Credit Karma Canada, the commercial relates to the issue of credit cards and debt in American society, as well as other capitalist societies such as that of Canada. We live in a society in which spending more than we have is encouraged and is the norm. We find ourselves encouraged to apply for credit cards at a young age for the purpose of building our credit score so that we may borrow more money in the future. Credit scores are used for a variety of privileges, such as gaining a landlords trust in order to rent an apartment, getting better car insurance rates, and even getting a job (Issa, 2019). These privileges are meant to help us achieve the ideal lifestyle that Credit Karma advertises.

          Similar to Ritzer’s discussion in “The Credit Card: Private Troubles and Public Issues,” credit cards allow the economy to function at a higher level because people are able to spend more money than they have. Because American society has a tendency to blame individuals for social problems, when things go wrong, such as bankruptcy and an accumulation of more debt than one can handle, individuals are blamed for their own spending behavior, despite the fact that individuals are very much encouraged to act in this way (Ritzer, 1995).

          Using the sociological imagination, we must place this human behavior within the broader social context in which it exists. In American society, banks and financial institutions benefit from people who obtain loans and credit cards. There is a lot of competition between banks as far as getting consumers to choose them for their credit needs. Even the American government spends more than it has. According to the US National Debt Clock, the US currently has upwards of 22 trillion dollars of debt (USDebtClock.org). This creates a “climate” in which spending more than one has is seen as acceptable (Ritzer, 1995).

          According to USA Today, in 2017, the average American household had $137,063 in debt and yet the average household income was only $59,039 (Sun, 2017). This means that the average American household owes more than it can make in two years. This is not the result of individual behavior, but of a lifestyle of spending and consuming that is encouraged by our society.

           Instead of looking down upon those, like me, who engage in the lifestyle that is so often advertised to us in commercials like that of Credit Karma, we should hold businesses and our government accountable for the behaviors that they have been encouraging for years. Credit Karma’s commercials and those like it reinforce the idea that this kind of behavior is normal and is the ideal way to live in American society. Banks and other businesses that profit from the debt and credit spending of civilians are at fault for the normalization of credit card spending. It is important to view this issue from a sociological lens in order to understand the underlying causes.

Works Cited

Credit Karma (2019). New Flat - Your Score Can Do More. [video] Available at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rU-IKwDquDg [Accessed 24 Apr. 2019].

Issa, E. (2019). 5 Benefits of Having A Good Credit Score - NerdWallet. [online] NerdWallet.

Available at: https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/finance/benefits-of-good-credit/

[Accessed 24 Apr. 2019].

Ritzer, George "The Credit Card: Private Troubles and Public Issues," reprinted from Expressing

America: A Critique of the Global Credit Card Society, 1995. Copyright © by Pine Forge

Press. Pp. 1-30.

Sun, L. (2017). A Foolish Take: Here's how much debt the average US household owes. [online]

Usatoday.com. Available at:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2017/11/18/a-foolish-take-here

-how-much-debt-the-average-us-household-owes/107651700/ [Accessed 24 Apr. 2019].

Usdebtclock.org. (2019). U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time. [online] Available at:

https://www.usdebtclock.org/ [Accessed 24 Apr. 2019].

Understanding Human Nature Through Conspiracy Theories

       In a survey conducted by YouGov about if people believe the world is round or flat, 2 percent of Americans responded that they have always believed the world is flat, and 5 percent responded that they always thought the world is round, but are now skeptical or having doubts. Given the small size of their population, the flat Earth movement is amazingly influential. We can see that in the 5 percent of people who have doubts that the Earth is actually round, as well as the fact that the majority of people have heard about this movement. In recent years particularly, the movement has received even more attention. In November of 2018, a Netflix documentary called “Behind the Curve,” was released. This documentary focused on the ideology behind the Flat Earth movement and gave the perspective of the believers of the flat Earth theory, as well as the perspectives of various scientists. Instead of disproving the flat Earth theory, the scientists examined the deeper issue what causes people to reject information that is widely regarded as the truth. This rejection of the truth is a common issue in today’s world, and not just in terms of “flat earthers” or other conspiracy theorists, but in regards to our political climate and media. Examining the ideology behind conspiracy theories allows us to answer the bigger question of what causes people to reject widely held truths, as well as the issues that accompany this.

When looking at what draws people to conspiracy theories, examining the issue from their perspective provides useful insight. In “Behind the Curve,” a well-known flat-earther named Nathan Thompson is introduced. One of the first things he says in regards to the conspiracy is: “Then I realized why they’re hiding the truth. It’s because they don’t want anyone to know anything. They want people dumb, blind, deaf to the truth.” Mark Sargent, another well-known flat-earther, expresses a similar opinion when he says teachers or professors can’t be flat-earthers, because “once you get to a certain level of education, the education system more or less owns you. You’re not allowed to do certain things.” Both of these statements convey the distrustful attitude that many conspiracy theorists have in regards to powerful institutions. Explaining this distrust further, Dr. Joe Pierre states that most, if not all, conspiracy theories start with the idea that conventional wisdom isn’t to be trusted.  Because these people do not trust what they are told, they turn to alternate explanations, and thus conspiracy theories are born. These theories are then promoted by social phenomena, such as confirmation bias. In the documentary, Dr. Per Espen Stoknes states that: “If one has a belief or an attitude, they will search for instances that confirm what they believe. And also, they’ll find themselves with a lot of other people who think the same way as they do” (Behind the Curve). With this, it can be said that a source of conspiracy theories is distrust that is propagated by people with similar views. 

This distrust, or the rejecting of what is widely regarded as the truth, is referred to as denialism. Simply put, denialism is refusing to admit the truth of a concept that is supported by a large amount of evidence, often to avoid a psychologically uncomfortable truth. Similarly, researchers define conspiracy theories as “explanatory beliefs about a group of actors that collude in secret to reach malevolent goals” (Wolchover). With this, it is evident that conspiracy theories are simply a form of denialism. Conspiracy theories are how people rationalize their denial. This also explains one reason that people turn to conspiracy theories: psychological discomfort. Conspiracy theorists aren’t just people on the fringes of society though. In fact, research from the University of Chicago indicates that at least 50 percent of Americans believe in at least one conspiracy theory. This makes the harmful aspects of denialism even more prevalent. While most people use denial on a small scale in order to deal with challenges of living in a world where “people lie, make mistakes, and have desires that cannot be openly acknowledged” (Kahn-Harris), denialism is an issue when it becomes large scale. In the case of the flat Earth theory, or people who deny evolution, denialism can lead to a distrust in science and research. Overall, denialism has the potential to create an environment in which various academic and political efforts to draw attention to the truth are unsuccessful due to an overarching suspicion that nothing is what it seems.

  All though conspiracy theories may seem harmless at first glance, they can have widespread consequences. This denial of the truth, over time, can alter society’s perception of fact and fiction. Lastly, conspiracy theories reveal an important aspect of human nature: Our tendency to avoid, and even deny, things that make us uncomfortable or things that we are unable to rationalize. 

Bibliography

Behind the Curve. Directed by Daniel J. Clark. Los Angeles: Delta-V Productions, 2018.

Kahn-Harris, Keith. "Denialism: What Drives People to Reject the Truth." The Guardian. August 03, 2018. Accessed April 18, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/03/denialism-what-drives-people-to-reject-the-truth.

Lorentz, Lina. "What Makes Conspiracy Theories Appealing?" Stockholm University. Accessed April 15, 2019. https://www.socant.su.se/english/about-us/news/what-makes-conspiracy-theories-appealing-1.349910.

"Most Flat Earthers Consider Themselves Very Religious." YouGov. Accessed April 18, 2019. https://today.yougov.com/topics/philosophy/articles-reports/2018/04/02/most-flat-earthers-consider-themselves-religious.

Natalie Wolchover and Live Science Staff. "Are Flat-Earthers Being Serious?" LiveScience. May 30, 2017. Accessed April 16, 2019. https://www.livescience.com/24310-flat-earth-belief.html.

"The Flat Earth Society." The Flat Earth Society. Accessed April 16, 2019. https://www.tfes.org/.

Vedantam, Shankar. "More Americans Than You Might Think Believe In Conspiracy Theories." NPR. June 04, 2014. Accessed April 18, 2019. https://www.npr.org/2014/06/04/318733298/more-americans-than-you-might-think-believe-in-conspiracy-theories.