"Mam says would you ladies like some breakfast?"

"Oh, no, we couldn't possibly take what little you have--" Annagramma began.

"Yes, please, we will be grateful," said Tiffany, louder and quicker. The man nodded, and shut the door.

"Oh, how could you say that?" said Annagramma as his footsteps creaked down. "These are poor people! I thought you would--"

"Shut up, will you?" snapped Tiffany. "Just shut up and wake up! These are real people! They're not some kind of, of, of idea! We will go down there and we will eat breakfast and we'll say how good it is and then we will thank them and they will thank us and we will go! And that will mean everyone has done the right thing by custom, and that will be what's important to them. Besides, they don't think they're poor, because everyone around here is poor! But they're not so poor that they can't afford to do the right things! That would be poor!"

Annagramma was staring at her with her mouth open.

"Be careful what you say next," said Tiffany, breathing heavily. "In fact, don't say anything."

Terry Pratchett, Wintersmith

My thoughts/theory on the socioeconomic status of the main characters in Danny Phantom;

Tucker Foley - Middle class

It would seem he has been to the Amusement Park that Sam refers to in “Attack of the Killer Garage Sale” (as he knows the price to get it and the food expenses) meaning it is within his reach to go there, but not on a moment’s notice and not frequently, as he declines her offer to go, due to the expenses.

He can afford things like his PDAs, however he mentions in one episode that his current PDA isn’t paid off yet. This shows, his family, like many, can afford to make payments on electronic devices, however do have to pay in monthly installments and it’s a big enough deal that Tucker, at 14, is conscientious of the fact that his device is not paid off yet.

While we only see a few shots of Tucker’s house, it seems to be a fairly normal house and his bedroom appears to be a standard size bedroom (unlike Danny’s and Sam’s which are larger).

Even though he can’t afford unplanned trips to the amusement park and needs to make payments on certain items, he is never shown to be struggling for necessities, such as food and clothes.

This therefore, leads me to the conclusion that the Foleys are a part of the middle class.

————————————————————————

Danny Fenton - Upper Class

In “Attack of the Killer Garage Sale,” Danny’s parents make the statement that, as Fenton’s, they have plenty of money (but tell Danny he needs to earn his)

In “The Ultimate Enemy”, Jazz is seen to be telling her classmates that she has to choose between Hartford, Stanford, and Yale (all of which are expensive schools). Never is the money needed to go to these schools, mentioned as a problem though. And that can’t be blamed on “the show not tackling such issues,” as after Valerie’s family looses their money, Valerie is shown to have to work a job in order to save up for college. Therefore, it seems to be implied that the Fentons can afford to send Jazz to such a school, and still pay for Danny to go to college, two years later. The only loophole to this would be Jazz having a full ride scholarship to the school of her choosing, which is possible, but not probable.

When we see Danny’s house, it on the outside appears to be a normal size two story house, however Danny’s bedroom looks to be bigger than the average bedroom, some shots even making it look like it could be the size of a master bedroom. As well, both him and Jazz (the two kids of the house) are shown to have their own tvs in their bedrooms, something that isn’t standard, especially not at the time the show aired.

His parents have to pay for their ghost hunting equipment somehow.

This all makes it seem likely that Danny is actually from the upper class. It’s just not glaringly obvious, probably because his parents, rather than spend money on typical rich people things, such as fancy homes, ect., choose to spend their money on ghost hunting and lab equipment.

———————————————————————

Sam Manson - The 1%

The Mansons appear to be rich far beyond the Fentons. Sam states that her family is filthy rich. She was also self conscious enough about the amount of money they have, that she kept it hidden from Tucker and Danny for a long time.

Their house is huge. They have a screening room, bowling alley, middle of the night access to delivery services, and are said to be able to afford a plane and/or a yacht, most of which are out of reach to average upper class citizens.

There is an episode where she rhetorically asks why her parents can’t have day jobs, like normal parents, implying that her parents don’t work, at least not in the traditional sense.

She mentions that their money comes from her great grandfather, which tells us that her family’s fortune is “old money,” and there is enough of it that it’s been around for generations (though that fortune has probably grown over the years from being invested in the stock market and such)

With all this in mind, it seems the Manson’s are a part of the 1% or close to it.

The Problem with Rugged Individualism

We have an “individualism” issue. From CEOs to the heroes that populate our screens, to the very methods we use for storytelling (looking at you, Hero’s Journey), the individual is venerated. This is fine and dandy until you realize that it’s directly opposed to more socially focused, cooperative, and collective mindsets, and leads to toxic competition between us. The way we see individualism is a core aspect of neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is an ideology that calls for free markets, free trade, and minimal government intervention in the economy. If you’ve ever heard about “trickle-down” economics, neoliberalism is the house in which that ideology lives. Neoliberalism also makes the blanket assumption that people act rationally, are motivated by self-interest, and make decisions based on what they can get or gain out of the situation. Surprising no one, I think that these individualistic assumptions made under neoliberalism stifle social progress and liberation.

Neoliberalism can lead to social atomization and loneliness. If the focus is on an extreme sense of individual responsibility and self-reliance, there is less room for people to build the capacity to have strong and long-lasting relationships. This lack of capacity also can make it where people put their own needs over the needs of the community. Acting in this way can strain the social bonds that do exist and can leave people feeling like they don’t belong or have meaningful connections.

Economic inequality is also made much worse by individualism under neoliberalism. With a smaller government and lower regulations, there is less money available for social democratic programs. For people who are disenfranchised or fall on hard times, this only widens the gap between the haves and the have-nots. It creates a feedback loop where those with money are able to use that money to further their own interests, through lobbying, investing and more. This mobility is not available for lower classes of people. People who own the means of production have a lot of power over those who have to work.

Oh, by the way, this stuff also affects the environment. As neoliberal profit incentives extract and pollute more than they can return and sequester, people, acting in their (or their venture’s) individual self-interest in the short-term screws over our beautiful planet in the long term. This is how we get into overconsumption (I mean, why does EVERYONE need to own a car??).

Neoliberalism’s encouragement of hierarchy also ties strongly into individualism. In order to uphold the type of society that it proposes, there has to be a rigid pyramidal system. The competitive nature of this brand of individualism will lead to winners and losers, which brings with it a hierarchy around what people believe they deserve. This type of thing perpetrates social hierarchies based on things like race, gender, class, ability, and other identities. When small minorities hold lots of control over industry, different social hierarchies intersect and make extremely difficult living situations for those at or near the bottom.

All of these things orbit around one idea: privatization. By making certain functions of society private, even those which should be available to everyone, like healthcare and education, even our services become individualized. Profit-driven companies for public good services mix about as well as oil and water. This profit focus leads to worse outcomes for the communities, customers, and clients being served. This also reinforces hierarchy; people who can afford more things get a better experience.

Honestly, I’m not sure who thought building an entire society on this individualistic, hierarchical model was a good idea. It leads to a small group of people having ridiculous amounts of power over others and resources. As those people consolidate power, the greater populace is left with fewer and fewer scraps. The only thing this can do is exacerbate socioeconomic problems.

Scientists outline a bold solution to climate change, biodiversity loss, social injustice

Socioeconomics in The Great Gatsby

Socioeconomics is how economics, or wealth, impacts a person's place in socially. The message to the reader is on the first page when Nick is recalling something his father had told him and the novel states, “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one… just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you’ve had.” This tells the reader to be mindful of what they have and grateful for their advantages. The essay “Social Class and Status in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby” shows this in the statement, "The “haves” are those with the control over these things, the natural, economic and human resources, while the “have-nots” are everybody else." The divide between the people who have and the people who don’t is still seen today where we have billionaires with more money than they could ever spend in a lifetime, and people who live paycheck to paycheck. This theme encourages readers to be aware of these differences and these inequalities. Socioeconomics is also the American Dream. The American Dream at it’s core is money and power, that in America everyone has equal opportunity to make money and gain power. This is not the case because, as shown in the book, if you are born rich you have all kinds of opportunities in education and never have to work a day in your life, like Daisy. However, for someone like Wilson it is much harder to make as much money as Daisy because he actually has to work for it and build up from the bottom instead of starting at the top. The characters are divided up into social classes as shown in a quote from the essay “Social Class and Status in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby”, "The Buchanans and Jay Gatsby belong to the class privileged through property and education, Nick Carraway could be considered to be a member of the propertyless intelligentsia and the Wilsons are members of the working class." The class distinctions in The Great Gatsby shows how the American Dream as the illusion that it is giving the message to the reader that not everyone is fortunate and that just because someone works hard, does not mean they will be able to become as wealthy as someone like Daisy or Gatsby. An example of these class distinctions is how Myrtle was treated after her death. They just laid her there for everyone to look at and no one even called a doctor. They didn’t even seem that interested in catching whoever killed her. If this had been Daisy or Jordan in this situation people would have acted much differently and treated them with more respect because of their money and popularity.

Socioeconomics is also shown in the book through cars, boats, and other electronics are used as a sign of socioeconomic succuss. Gatsby has a beautiful car that is new and expensive. It is described in the novel with the quote, “It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hat-boxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of wind-shelds that mirrored a dozen suns.” Even the connotations of the words used to describe the car, like “rich”, “triumphant”, bright”, and “mirrored a dozen suns”, shows the car is beautiful and fancy.  This shows he has a significant amount of money. Wilson on the other hand, doesn't have a nice car and is not wealthy. This is shown by the quote describing his garage, “The interior was unprosperous and bare; the only car visible was the dust-covered wreck of a Ford which crouched in a dim corner.” These two quote show a stark contrast between Gatsby’s car and Wilsons and also a contrast of their lifestyles. Gatsby lives lavishly while Wilson lives without excessive luxury. The cars are also metaphors, Wilson is in the working class, he is building, fixing, and supporting the luxuries the upper class has. However, Gatsby has the nice car, and it kills someone in the working class showing the power he has even if he does no work. In an article from the National Association of Independent Schools, the author sums this up with the statement, “Fitzgerald’s automobile trope, which was connected to/intertwined with socioeconomic status.” The price of Wilsons car reflects his wealth and that connects to his social standings because unlike Gatsby, he can’t afford to have big elaborate paries filled with celebrities and influential people. Gatsby’s parties cost a lot of money and that is shown in the quote, “Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York—every monday theses same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves.”  He spends the money every week to provide hundreds of people with food and drinks and entertainment and he has the ability to hold such social gatherings because of his economic success. The car also shows The American Dream. The American Dream is then revealed in the novel when Daisy and Gatsby hit Myrtle with the car. Since Daisy is meant to be this symbol of money that is The American Dream, and Myrtle was shown throughout the novel reaching for The American ream and wanting wealth, like when she got that dog in the beginning and wanting to be with Tom because he had money, it showed The American Dream’s reality crashing into Myrtle and killing her hope for reaching it. 

“For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.”

-Sir Thomas More

Blog 2: My role in the environment 

My role in the environment 

*I have highlighted captions that introduce some of the paragraphs content* 

Although I do not plan to pursue a career in environmental interpretation, I will discuss how I will apply environmental interpretation techniques to my relationship with the environment and potentially to my future professional endeavors in this post. 

I don’t want to cause harm when fixing a problem 

As an environmental interpreter, my ideal job would be to offer a humanist perspective on the earth, since it is incapable of defending or speaking for itself. In this instance, the terms "humanist" and "humanism" refer to the advocacy of an ethical life approach toward the natural environment. Consider if a solution would negatively impact other beings.  

Be aware of what is being done 

Processes regarding the protection of the environment seem to be overlooked by the general public. I don’t mean to say the current situation is perfect, but efforts are made to conserve and mitigate impacts. Finding a realistic co-existence of human (we already do this but the thought behind the comments is based on the context of exchange) and natural environment.  

Ask questions. How do you understand the topic? Consider all outcomes. 

What actions are required of humans by the environment? achieving more carbon neutrality? Moving away from energy sources that produce emissions? What is eco-friendly's cost-benefit ratio? Do solar panels produce more waste than energy that is efficient? Every option and alternative needs to be considered. These questions should be asked of anyone who is passionate about the environment. Being an environmental activist and advocate involves more than just picketing; it also involves raising awareness and coming up with solutions. I became aware of the extent to which lobbyist groups influence the political process and, consequently, the potential impact of environmental stewardship through my involvement with an environmental consultant. Those who are environmental activists tend to ignore this element.  

In natural interpretation, it's critical to identify environmental issues and devise remedies that will both enhance the situation of a particular problem and avoid having a detrimental effect on others. 

Manage expectations, be realistic, be critical

As a Canadian I also try to be aware of the realism of popular solutions and how effective they can be in Canada. An example I’ll use is the use of EVs (Electric Vehicles) many Canadian cities are very far apart which can cause an issue with charging availability and another looked-over factor some parts of Canada are too cold for EVs to start. In a role as a natural interpreter I believe it is not only important to understand science but also to understand the socio-economics and reality of how humans make improvements for the environment. 

In my approach of natural interpretation I want to include understanding the livelihood of others when coming up with solutions.

This concludes the second blog on how I see my role as an interpreter. Please let me know if you relate on some topics and how you see your role.

Thank you :)

Should abortion become less available and more stigmatized, some women will feel that as economic pain in the short-term. But the long-term socioeconomic gains will be significant, and the biggest winners (besides the children who get to live) will be women themselves.

Kevin DeYoung

Hot take but any wage below livable wage should be considered slave wage

"In D.C. and in cities around the country, the ever-expanding racial wealth gap exacerbates the conditions that contribute to this uniquely U.S. crisis. Decades of housing discrimination, redlining, lack of access to quality education, high rates of joblessness and low-wage employment compound the challenges faced by Black communities. As the former vice president for programs at the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence put it, “inequality isn’t just about making money or not making money; it’s really about whether you’re going to survive.”

- Valerie Jean Charles in We Can’t Tackle Gun Violence Until We Address Racial Inequity for Truthout

One of the most important books of the past 15 years is Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher. The basic idea of it is that it describes the pervasive nature of capitalism. It seeps into our hopes, dreams, and thoughts, shaping how we currently understand the world and imagine what the world can be. It’s some spooky shit. Even so, the scarier thing in my mind is hierarchical realism. To me, that feels even more fundamental to our shared worldview than capitalism. Capitalism exists atop (or within) the hierarchy. Capitalism is a relationship of hierarchy. Instead of the top of the pyramid serving the bottom-most elements like in other complex systems (think of how the sun emits energy, plants photosynthesize that energy and animals eat those plants) the base of the pyramid toils for the sake of the top. In nature, the ant colony doesn’t “serve” the queen like we tend to think. It protects the queen because that means that the population can continue to exist. There are no orders being given. The colony efficiently self-organizes into emergent forms that efficiently solve problems. Simple sets of abilities and impulses combine to create elegant solutions.

In our social systems, with capitalism being one of the clearest examples, our hierarchies exist for the opposite reason. We protect kings not because it benefits us, but because it benefits them, at our expense. They then socially engineer consent and mindsets to reinforce their position. This impoverishes our imaginations and prevents us from seeing social possibilities outside of domination and coercion. This is the negation of autonomy and abolition.

This arrangement seems to be taken for granted in most folks’ minds. In our social, political, and economic realms, there is a tacit assumption that those relationships have to be vertically integrated. Orders have to come from the queen, carried out by the colony.

Unsurprisingly, this is a very undemocratic and un-egalitarian way to organize society, but it’s been the dominating mode of organizing at least since civilization has been a thing. This is because it allows for power to be unevenly distributed, and for that distribution to be reinforced over time. Authority is king (and kings are authority). Human value isn’t intrinsic. It is proportional to class position. This also makes it difficult to change social relationships. This arrangement stifles our progression as a species, and our ability to be in community, period. Whether that’s connecting with other humans or other natural beings, this foundational relationship of domination is very toxic for us.

For us to break free from this, we have to go in a different direction. We have to reorganize society using bottom-up approaches so that we can not only have all of the benefits of being in society but are able to provide those benefits for everyone, sustainably. By taking a horizontal orientation, we can take steps to model our societies off of the ecosystems that they reside in, making them resilient, adaptable, and ecological.

Understand that we don’t need a pyramidal structure to run society. Holding all of the decision-making power at the grassroots level allows for autonomy to flourish.

If you take nothing else from this, understand that realism does not equal reality. The pervasive nature of something, especially something man-made, does not mean that it was always this way, and it always has to be this way. Know that we can do something different and really reach the ideals of equality and freedom. We just have to be willing to put in the work.

Idk what I'm doing

I feel very strongly about things in the realm of politics and economics. I don't have anyone IRL I can really talk to about it though. Most family is right leaning and thus are either ignorant or in support of things that make my blood boil. My closest freinds are all moderates or uninterested in politics. Which makes them difficult to converse with because they just plain don't know enough about whats going on. Or they don't care enough. No one seems to care enough. Not about the things that matter in order to move us as a society forward. Everyone cares about what their lizard brains tell them to care about. What their pre-scripted identities and allegences tell them they should care about. No one en-mass is interested in having a well though out and internally consistent code. They are content to be riddled with inconsistencies, willful ignorancem, and denial. Endless amounts of cognitive dissonance where people idiotically advocate against their own self interest and indulge their infinite capacity for self delusion. I am not enlightened. I am not exempt from many of these tendencies and habits, but I am slightly more aware than average and it provides me never ending stress and anxiety. My compulsive desire to look in the mirror and see a good person has me day dreaming about vandalizing the property of my political opposites on a daily basis because I carry a rage that I can't ignore. But my wife would rather me not slash conservatives tires so vomiting my half baked ideas on the internet will have to do. This blog is more for me than any potential readers. But if you do stumble upon this and for some god forsaken reason want to read more, then future posts will have more consistent themes.