“Education’s Unfortunate, Meagerly Ascribed ‘Value’ in a Capitalist Society,” by James Gapinski

I was planning on using my unannounced blogging hiatus as the discussion topic for my next post.  The circumstances of my absence are rife with potential insight — while I won’t go into the specifics of my break, mainly because it would be of little interest to most readers out there — as usual, I try to avoid posting useless personal tidbits, and I only mention my personal life when it is relevant to a broader message or purpose.  But I digress; I’ve got a piece on the nature of writing brewing, as inspired by my hiatus.  However, before I was able to compose the piece in question, a new blog topic presented itself to me.

Yahoo has been my homepage for as long as I can remember — primarily because I use Yahoo e-mail services.  Whenever I log onto the Internet, I cannot help but notice the “news” updates that occupy the center of my homepage.  Yesterday morning, one title grabbed my attention as a grim commentary on our society.  I have seen similar titles on many occasions, but for some reason none swayed my hand to write until now.  The general tone of the news article is one that only such a rigorously capitalistic country could condone.  The piece’s mantra is this: money is more important than education.

The article that sparked this blog entry is entitled “10 Jobs with High Pay and Minimal Schooling Required!”  The exclamation point was in the original title, as if to suggest that that getting cash with minimal school is an exciting prospect.  And why shouldn’t it be?  In a capitalist society, entrepreneurs are always attempting to get the most return for their investment: it’s just good business.  Yet, I wonder why education is seen primarily as an investment not only in this country, but by much of the world.  Is the fundamental and personally fulfilling act of learning simply something that one invests in for monetary gain?  Is education really just a “cost” that should be circumvented if the price does not yield profitable enough a reward?

Prior to the global influx of capitalist rhetoric, this title might give pause, but today it seems natural.  Many may think “of course I want to make a lot of money quickly” not even looking at the other side of this title, indicating that it is best to forgo higher learning in search of a quick buck.

Why is it that contemporary society equates education with financial success, suggesting that financial gain is the ultimate purpose of education rather than its capacity for fostering personal and interpersonal discovery?

Many students in college are there to increase their earning power, only expanding their mind because it will land them a better job.  If a shortcut is found, why not take it?  Why bother becoming an enlightened, knowledgeable human being with insight and a great capacity for critical thinking?  If not to become rich, what is the purpose of learning anything?  Under this doctrine, wealth is the supreme goal of our species, and unless something is able to generate wealth, it is worthless.

Understanding that many people cannot afford higher education, this article may benefit a large segment of society, but its overall tone was not one geared toward the lower class.  Admittedly, the article does discuss the cost of college, which is a very unfortunate barrier (one that capitalist ideals have created), but the poor do not seem to be the main audience.

The article talked about getting good pay without spending years in school, accumulating debt that will dampen the almighty earning power of your future “career” (mentioning the  time constraints above all else, barely mentioning any economic constraints), as if schooling that does not yield financial gain is a waste of time.  Furthermore, it explains that influxes of college grads have “damped the value” of a degree — seeing the education gained as simple an income source, never once considering that no one can truly devalue a person’s knowledge.  Knowledge is, in fact, one of the few things that nobody can take away from us or “devalue” with systems of currency and control.

There is something wrong with this doctrine, when human knowledge is considered less important than fickle, filthy, utterly worthless money.

This article is truly a reflection on our society’s values — values which capitalism espouses and which many likely share.  Yet this twisted value system gives me pause (even as it seems natural, as aforementioned, to those indoctrinated into this way of life).

And I trust (nay, I know) there are others who also take pause — those who are not blinded by the American pursuit of cash.

Status Updates on Recent Writing Gigs

Well, it appears my first Examiner piece was rushed through faster than I thought it would be.  My column is now active.  You can expect new articles on the Milwaukee creative writing scene several times per week.  Especially pertinent pieces will be linked from my blog.

My Creative Writing Tips Site at Life Tips is also coming along smoothly, with much of the clean-up and site management work coming to a close, making it easier for me to focus on creating new Tips and drafting a book pitch.

New Creative Writing Column

I now write a column for the Milwaukee edition of Examiner, a popular online newspaper.  The column itself follows creative writing and indie publishing happenings in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

My first piece will appear within about a week.  After that, I’ll be writing at least three new articles each week for my Examiner column, providing publication reviews, open mic spotlights, author interviews, and other related content.  As with my blog, I am open to occasional guest columnists or collaborative pieces; anybody interested should contact me.

I won’t post regular updates about this gig on my blog.  However, as usual, I’ll be linking to articles whenever they seem particularly relevant to this blog’s feed.

This has definitely been an exciting couple of weeks for me, as I now have more writing projects that emphasize creativity and craft.  I’ll still be writing “How To” articles and consumer guides to help pay the bulk of my bills, but it’s nice to have a few side projects that allow for more intellectualized discourse.

Creative Writing Tips Site

I was recently granted the opportunity to take over the Creative Writing Tips Site on LifeTips.com from the former site manager/writer, Kelsey Childress.  Currently, I’m working on cleaning up the existing tips before I begin posting my own.

Additionally, I’ve begun active blog posting on the Creative Writing Tips Site.  Unlike my more personalized discussions here at Just Suppositions, my Life Tips Creative Writing Blog is dedicated to more objective discussions of the creative writing craft.

I’ll be submitting a book pitch to the Life Tips editorial staff once I finish aligning the site’s tips with my goals for the Creative Writing Tips Site.  I will post such broadly relevant book updates here, but anybody interested in the site’s daily creative writing banter will need to visit the Creative Writing Tips Site for details.

“Wine in a Cup,” by James Gapinski

Last night I drank a full-bodied French Merlot from the Bordeaux Region.

A few sips in and I decided I didn’t like the vintage, but I finished the drink and poured a second.

I sipped it from a disposable plastic cup.

A Note to My Readers: I placed this under the Social Commentary category because the above sentences are rife with cultural critique.  As a chance of pace, I won’t flesh out the details; sometimes the raw firsthand account is thought-provoking enough.

Poetry Publication from June, 2009

“The Color of Life,” Art City, edited by Mary Louise Schumacher, 26 June 2009.

This recent poetry posting is a bit different than my usual literary magazine contributions, so I decided I’d do more than simply throw up the link to this latest poetry appearance.  In April, I was contacted my Mary Louise Schumacher, the writer behind the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Art City blog.  She stumbled upon my blog because of the Milwaukee Art Museum reference in my posting “New Look.”  She was curious to read and possibly post the poem about Ellsworth Kelly’s Red, Yellow, Blue II I had alluded to.

I was delighted to receive this e-mail, as Kelly is one of my favorite artists I enjoy undertaking projects related to his artwork.  After my early ekphrastic work at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha (which resulted in the poem about Red, Yellow, Blue II), I received a research grant from University of Wisconsin-Whitewater that allowed me to travel to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  The specific purpose of my trip to the Walker was to view the several Kelly pieces on display in the gallery and Kelly’s Double Curve in museum’s Sculpture Garden.  While at the Walker, I even got to see the third installment in his Red, Yellow, Blue series, which was quite a treat.

Though it has been over a year since I worked on anything related to Kelly’s paintings, I was excited to pick back up the reigns for some new thought and discussion regarding Kelly.  After a bit of work, I forwarded Schumacher the poem and a newly crafted supplemental piece.  The mini-essay I created helps explain the poem’s connection to the piece in great detail, exploring the very essence of associative ekphrasis.

So, rather than just being a poetry publication, this recent posting on Art City also contains noteworthy prose that I hope you’ll enjoy.  I was also pleased to see that Mary Louise Schumacher posted a full-color image of the Kelly piece alongside my poem; when this poem originally appeared in a literary journal a couple years back, the artwork did not appear with it.  The colorful addition is definitely an added treat.

“On the ‘Soul’ of Writing,” by James Gapinski

In the tradition of responding to commentary with further drawn-out, esoteric musings — as I first did with my post “Faces” in late March, based on a Facebook comment by a friend — I’ve taken the liberty of extending a brief blog comment into a full-blown posting (albeit a short posting).

A little over an hour ago, a writer named Mea Nada Madison posted a comment on the “Unnecessary Editorial Insolence” thread, largely concerning my essay “Writing for the Moment: ‘Idea Journals’ and the Tutorial Session.”  She cited her experiences writing, looking back on past journals “not even recogniz[ing]” the handwriting, let alone content, as if writing comes from some deep recess of the “soul.”

While I don’t think I’d personally go so far as to place the spiritually-inclusive “soul” label on the journaling process, I do believe Mea makes a valid supposition. I too have looked back at past impromptu writings with a sense of awe, wondering where the words came from.  It’s what keeps the process dynamic and fresh — almost as if the language itself “works through” mental processes, letting a person think beyond what he or she might normally contemplate, simply by scribbling those thoughts onto paper as they appear in true stream of consciousness, pseudo-Virginia-Woolf-style.  Rambling, as I am now, with connective streams converging in long run-on-sentence-esque piles of beautiful, mysterious words.

Of course, cleaning up those words into a presentable, dictatable format — therein rests a painstaking challenge.

“Unnecessary Editorial Insolence,” by James Gapinski

I wonder how many writers are attributed to works not fully their own.  The number must dwarf the number of writers who have creative freedom.

While reviewing one of my articles recently accepted for publication, I noticed the copy editor changed my gender neutral “he or she” wording to a more discriminatory “he” designation.  My name is now attached to this article, with the seemingly “minor” change leading anyone who reads the piece to assume I am either bigoted or simply sloppy with my writing.  Words are everything for me, and this change bothers me; as Ernest Hemingway said and I mentioned in my very first posting on this blog, “prose is architecture, not interior decoration.”  I take great pride and care in crafting each and every word.  And while I can appreciate a copy editor fixing accidental typos or cleaning up text in the name of guideline adherence, I am not sure why an editor would willingly and deliberately choose to change gender neutral language to gender specific language.

It’s an interesting editorial change; interesting, and unduly abrasive to my authorial ethics.

While accepted for publication, the piece has not appeared in print or online yet.  I will post it on my blog when it is available.

Poetry Publication from June, 2009

“Paris is Dark,” Gloom Cupboard, edited by Dorla Moorehouse, Greg Oguss, and Stuart Sharp, Issue 98, 19 June 2009.

Restaurant Recommendation: Beans and Barley

I know a few of my readers are fellow Wisconsinites, and many others hail from neighboring Midwestern states, so I thought I’d share a local restaurant recommendation for those in the area:

Beans and Barley, located at 1901 E. North Avenue, Milwaukee, WI 53202.

Aside from being delicious, the café caters to the animal rights tenets I espouse in this blog. The restaurant has a huge selection of vegetarian options. Whereas most menus feature only a few veggie alternatives, Beans and Barley reverse the equation, offering only a few meat options.

For more details, see my recent review of the establishment:

“A Review of Beans and Barley Market and Café,” Associated Content, 11 June 2009.