Modern Mans Violent Urges

Carin Miller 02/10/09
English 1010-11 Reaction Essay

In the earliest days the role of a man was to hunt food and protect their families from the predators that could and would eat them if given the opportunity. Enemies lurked around every corner so a man had to be strong, aggressive, and fearless. There was no room for hesitation, in a moment life could end and usually in violent, tragic ways.

The women in those days were required to look after the children and tend to the hearth. They would collect herbs and berries for food and medicine. Woman’s role was to meet all of the immediate needs of the family but due to their smaller build women were dependent upon man’s strength in order to survive the dangers that threatened to disrupt or end their lives.

All of that has changed drastically. In modern society there is no need for man to hunt for food, hunting has become a sport. These days he can just walk into the local grocery store and find whatever he wants to eat. Women, rather than tending to the hearth, carry briefcases and go to work while the children are in school all day. The wild animals that once threatened to ravage human beings are kept at bay by invisible city walls, a boundary that they rarely cross.

With over 10,000 years of genetic programming the human race has been required to acclimate to the lifestyle of the contemporary world in only 100 short years. That then begs the question; what do we do with all of the internal instincts that we have been programmed with from the dawn of human existence? There has to be an outlet for all of the aggression that men would be using for survival, no?

It makes sense that men would turn to sports and movies in order to find a way to release all of the pressure fighting their instinctual nature creates. With the competitive drive of sports like football and baseball, action heroes like Jason Bourne, outlaws like Scarface, and savvy crime fighters out to save the world like agent 007, men can rest assure that their role as aggressor and protector will remain firmly in tact.

The raw, rugged appearances that these men emulate make women instantly feel protected. There is something distinct about the way men like this walk, talk, eat, breathe, and smell. These apparently violent men are hot and functional! In other words not they are not “just another pretty face.” They know what they want and they take it. No questions, no apologies, only a knowledge that, despite the danger they may confront nothing will stop them from attaining their goal.

Women see commercials for products Levi’s and Braun and they are intrigued by the rough and tumble qualities these men portray. It is generally presumed that these ingredients are the requirement for a man to be “a real man.” Men in turn want to buy these products so that women will find them more appealing. This attraction helps ensure that women and men, while gradually merging into the same social roles, still are interested in the opposite sex enough that the human race will continue.

With that being said I think I would be remiss not to mention women are increasingly moving into violent, aggressive, spectacular roles in the movies and advertising as well. Take for instance Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. She is elegant and sexy, yet she can take on five guys at the same time and kick all of their asses without so much as smudging her lipstick.

It occurs to me that as we continue to move forward into a more liberated equal perspective of the sexes, gender roles will be forced to continually redefine themselves. I can only speculate based on the current manifestation that women and men alike will become increasingly more androgynous as the characteristics of what defines the sexes becomes increasingly less distinct on either side. One way or the other, only time will tell for sure.

The Contemporary Slave

Carin Miller

Reaction Essay

I've heard it said before that the new form of slavery is capitalism. Living in today’s world it is hard to see the dawn before the day. Everything moves so quickly and there is this nagging voice in the back of your mind going “You have to keep up, hurry.” So day to day you get up and drone on. It’s hard not to feel like a lemming at times. You go to work and produce so you can continue to feed the corporate machine knowing that should you refuse to do so eventually you are certain to meet your demise.

Without the funds you reap through your tireless labor you no longer have the false sense of stability and comfort that the modern world has convinced you since birth you require for survival. The amenities afforded act as a drug luring you back in, believing that without such things as: electric, cable, or Wal-Mart you are no less than doomed. Of course you are. After all you need all of these things!

One day I stopped to fill my tank at Maverick and the power had gone out. The pump wouldn't turn on and so I went in to talk to the attendant. Inside I found a young man in nothing less than a frantic state. Not only had the power gone out but the backup generator didn't kick in. He was on someone’s cell phone obviously talking to his boss trying to explain that without the electric he couldn't even open the drawer to make change and people had already pumped gas. I grabbed a drink and walked over to the counter where I was informed that even if I was paying with exact change there was no way for me to be rung up and besides “I am not sure how to figure the tax anyway”

I couldn't believe that we have come so far that a little thing like figuring 6.5% on the dollar would be much too difficult to calculate without the help of a computer. I was actually turned away, along with many others. People who had pumped gas were being asked to leave their ID's along with a contact number to be reached at a later time when the system was up. It was to me, absolutely unfathomable.

When I consider the pitfalls that our current technological dependencies offer I am fearful for my children and for “generation: Right Now” as I have taken to calling them. Tomorrows children are so inundated with the immediacy of today that they don't even know the difference.

I remember a time when there was no Internet, no cell phones, no caller ID, or
Youtube videos to watch at your own convenience. If you wanted to watch a TV program you waited until it aired, there were no DVR’s for future viewing. As a matter of fact there wasn’t even VHS, only Beta and you had to have money to have those bad boys! Entertainment did not consist of PS3 or Xboxes but Atari was on the cutting edge. I vividly remember my parents being awed at the animation of Pac Man and Donkey Kong. I never had a microwave until I was in my early teens. They didn’t even exist when I was little. If you wanted to reheat last night’s dinner you used it in tonight’s dish.

Call me old fashioned but I miss those days. The days when you imagination was your best friend and the backyard would become some sort of deep Congo jungle where you could collide with a wild animal lurking around the tree trunk at any given moment. The days when you would do the simple arithmetic to a math problem in your head and you could turn out a correct answer, and if you couldn’t you just got out a pencil and a piece of paper, no problem. How about disappearing deep into the pages of a novel written by your favorite author. My kids have to almost be forced to read these days. Sure I enjoy some of the modern conveniences but sometimes I wonder what the payoff really is. I save more time yes, but in kind, I find more things that need doing, don’t I.

The happiest time in my life was a few short months in the summer of 1997. I had nothing to my name that I couldn’t fit in a backpack. It was just me, my pack, and the open road. I left home with $.63 in my pocket and no idea how I was going to get where I was going and even the destination was a mystery. All I did know was there was this feeling in my gut that I couldn’t ignore and the rest would unfold as it was meant to happen.

It was amazing. I felt more liberated more alive more at peace with myself than I ever had in my entire life up to that point! The idea that I had no place I had to be. There was nothing holding me back from exploring the world and no “strings and things” to get in the way. The plain and simple fact was, there was nothing in this material world that I needed, and what’s more I found that without these things staring at me all the time I didn’t want them either.

The people I met during this time were the most dynamic thoughtful people you could ever make the acquaintance of. I learned from every single one of them. I learned about the world, about other people, more importantly about myself. I found strength within me I had no Idea existed. Sure my father worried. He even tried “talking sense into me” but I knew what I was doing was exactly what I was supposed to be doing. There was just no getting around it.

I am glad that I had that experience. I can honestly tell you that if my house burnt down tomorrow and my family all made it out safely I would most likely feel more relief than anxiety. I would miss some of those things, sure. Still I don’t think that the event for me would be cataclysmic.

Some call modern day consumerists "cult members." You know the scariest part of a cult? The fact that, those who immerse themselves, participate in, and let it rule their lives usually don’t even know they’re in it!