Throughout the years, pop culture has imposed a large amount of trends and shaped the lifestyle of its closer followers. It has achieved this impact because people have always been in contact with the different pop culture expressions and they often enjoy this type of entertainment. Moreover, according to Gerald Graff in his article “Hidden Intellectualism” pop culture or how he calls it “being a street smart” goes beyond entertainment and it is another type of intellectualism. Although pop culture can somehow promote critical thinking, its advantages in the long run should not be overestimated nor should the school knowledge be undermined.
With regard to critical thinking, it is intriguing how pop culture; as vague as it may sound, has actual benefits to individuals and general culture. The author using a personal example admits that “when you entered sports debates, you became part of a community that was not limited to your family and friends, but was national and public” (Graff 384). Thus, knowing about issues going on independently if it is about T.V shows, movies, music, fashion or sports, is an useful tool to establish conversations with others. Most people is immersed and constantly in touch with pop culture making conversations more easy. Besides, if taken
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Most of the things people learn from pop culture do not contribute to the creation of a better world, it is ephemeral knowledge. Furthermore, it can not be compared the knowledge that a student will receive from his or her school to what it is seen on television or a video game. Ultimately, the goal should be find a balance between the school work and appreciating popular culture. Finally, teenagers should stop seeing intellectualism as something wrong or “not cool” because after all, knowledge means
Well known article writer, Leonid Fridman, in his article, “America Needs Its Nerds”, describes the truthful idea that nerds and geeks, in our society, are ostracized while the kids who play sports and party are prominent. Fridman’s purpose is to impress upon the readers that nerds should not have to conform to society’s unimpressive values of what it means to be “popular”. He adopts an indignant tone in order to convey to his readers that the idea of nerds and geeks needs to fought. Fridman moves to the idea that children who would rather read and build model airplanes are the social outcasts compared to the ones who would rather play football and get wasted at parties.
Itzel Garcia Nava Lea Bingham ENG 111. 104.108 Aug. 20, 2016 According to society, there are two types of intellectuals: the street smart and the book smart. To society, only book smart seems important while street smart is referred to as a waste of time.
In Gerald Graff’s article “Hidden Intellectualism,” from the 2003 copy of They Say I Say, the author explores the idea of what true intellectualism is by recalling pieces of his childhood. The way schools and society view intellectualism comes in to questions as being one sided or false altogether . There remain several sides to the argument regarding education and include anything regarding what should be taught, how it should be taught, and what marks the mastering of a subject. With true education as well as the proper way to teach being a heavily debated topic of controversy, the question of the right way to teach is heavily sought after. Public education has always been a topic of intense controversy in the United States since its early founding years.
A Summary of Gerald Graff’s “Hidden Intellectualism” Gerald Graff’s “Hidden Intellectualism” goes through many reasons why not being book smart could be a good thing. The sports world is a way of people connecting through the competitive sports that always lead to some sort of debate (268). Graff grew up always liking sports and being “street smart” living in Chicago. He always read sports magazines growing up and realized that reading magazines was a good tactic for schools to teach street smart kids how to write good essays based on their hobbies of reading magazines (265). “What doesn’t occur to us, is that schools and colleges might be at fault for missing the opportunity to tap into such street smarts and channel them into good academic work”(264).
In the article, “What Monkeys Eat: A Few Thoughts About Pop Culture Writing” Linda Holmes is trying to explain that we should focus the study of pop culture from what we ought to watch, read, or listen to, to what we actually watch, read, or listen to. What we take in to entertain ourselves is what drives the conversations we have on a daily basis. “What monkeys eat” is referring to us as the monkeys, and what we eat to our forms of entertainment. The shows we watch an the celebrities we follow are all what “we eat.” These influential factors are what we mostly write about, instead of the more important topics such as, war or how the economy will look in the future.
Dance might be just a movement of a person’s feet and body for others. But to me, it means more than that. Dance is an art, a way of expressing your thoughts through your body involving perfect posture, unstoppable practice, and confidence. Gerald Graff’s, “Hidden Intellectualism” mentions that intellect does not only exist in academic form of thinking. Non-academic subjects should be apart of intellect because knowledge can also take the form of street smarts.
The author includes pathos to persuade the audience to support his argument "there are very few countries in the world where anti-intellectualism runs as high in popular culture as it does in the the U.S. " This statement makes the audience feel pity of our nation and gives us
Entertainment Controls Them All Huxley has a theory of entertainment as control and we can see it throughout his book Brave New World. The fact that his vision was made years ago, makes this vision even more interesting, because knowing that entertainment has a big impact into our society for the book reveals similar forms of entertainment to control it’s people. The ways that the book was created has brought to conclusion that our society is controlled by entertainment. Our society has become a trivial culture preoccupied with entertainment.
Griffin vs. Dr. Kemp A quote by Albert Camus states, “A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon the world.”, a quote by Albert Camus, (Decision Innovation). This quote encapsulates Griffin, H.G. Well’s a main character for whom he so aptly names the noveld, Griffin, created by author H.G. Wells, in the novel The Invisible Man (Decision Innovation). Griffin, the main character, is both the protagonist and the an antagonist of the novel and.
Many readers will easily recognize the expression "Big Brother Is Watching You." It is a reference from Orwell 's novel 1984 in which the country of Oceania tries their best to destroy the past and remake the future. Oceania tries many things to keep their people quiet and repressed so they cannot question the government 's authority. One example of how the government represses their people can be explained by the slogan Ignorance is Strength. "Ignorance is Strength" has played a significant role is George Orwell 's 1984.
Between films, television, novels, and the Internet, there are many different types of popular culture in which society is immerged. One might argue that studying pop culture is shallow and worthless, but this is debatable because most of what we do is shaped by pop culture in some way. Studying pop culture may allow us to understand trends in culture that can aid in other society-based careers, as well as study societal and power constructs with greater accuracy. As technology and media develops further and further, pop culture should be studied in academia, as it is a relevant way to examine the moral constructs of the society and understand trends in culture. In the future, if pop culture is included in academia with the same importance as other subjects, future graduates may be more in tune with society than ever
Gerald Graff is a former English professor that examines the fallacies of academia in his essay “Hidden Intellectualism”. As the title suggest, Graff’s essay will depict how children are becoming intellectuals through the discussion of cars, sports, fashion, and TV. There is also discussion about how schools are overlooking this knowledge as being beneficial to a student’s success in academic writing and what they can do to relate the students previous understanding of extra-curricular activities to academia. My essay will examine the foundation of “Hidden Intellectualism” and the pros and cons of applying this to modern education systems. There is seldom an academic writing that is relatable and I am excited to read, but Graff executes this
As the digital age comes upon us, more and more Americans become dissatisfied with the state of literacy in this generation. Because the Internet paves the way for shorter and shorter interactions, namely articles versus novels and six-second viral videos versus films, many people that grew up in the age of the Internet have a preference for this condensed form of entertainment. Dana Gioia of The New York Times asserts in his essay “Why Literature Matters” that the decline of reading in America is destined to have a negative impact on society as a whole. Gioia opens his essay with a bittersweet account of which trend is occurring in the twenty-first century America arts scene. He notes that as college attendance rates blossom, the interest
My claim is: ¬¬¬¬¬Steven Johnson best selling book Everything Bad Is Good For You contains studies about the benefits of popular culture in our life and how it is making us actually smarter. Considering the fact that technology evolution affects all of us ,he chooses to talk precisely about the influence of mass media and video games over the years. I consider that he makes his point very well giving certain examples from his childhood and sharing thoughts he had back then.
Because of its commonality, popular culture both reflects and influences the people’s way of life; because it is linked to a specific time and place, popular culture is transitory, subject to change, and often and initiator of change. Since it affects every people’s life, it is a hard task for us, aspiring teachers to be the artisan of the Filipino youth for we are the one who will mould their character and through this powerful tool, we can be able to manage smoothly if we have enough knowledge about this. Popular culture and fictional entertainment media have an enormous influence on society. Whether in the genre of television sitcom or drama, or fictional stories in popular film, the entertainment media teach us something about ourselves as we map new meaning onto our own experience based on what we see and relate to; for good or for ill, it also teaches us a lot about others through fictional means (Tisdell, 2004). This statement tells us there are too many influences that contribute rearing a child’s mind.