Culture and Tradition

Short essay - evolution of memes

  1. Introduction
  2. Description of chapters in video
  3. Reflection (agree/inconsistencies, home country memes)
  4. Summary

Meme BCE 1946-1993
Exploration Wave 1993-2005
Broadcast Wave 2005-2010
Renaissance Wave 2010-2015
Dank Meme Wars of 2015-2017
SJW Wave 2015-2017
Abstract Wave 2017-2019
Generational Wave 2019-2020

Intro

Jan Ścienski - Mr. S
mail - jan.scienski@pw.edu.pl
preferred - mr.s.politech@gmail.com
Teams preferred
1st message - formal, 2nd - like texting

2/3 homework, no test/midterm
some project
final grade heavily depends on final exam

final exam - mainly short answers, some 'fill the blank'

Subjects of the course

USA

1492 - Columbus gets into USA

The Origins of Slavery

1619 - First British colony, James Town, VA.
Dutch trading vessel White Lion comes to the port for repairs
They didn't have money to pay for repairs, but had something new - slaves (not yet technically). They had 20 Africans onboard.
British didn't have any experience with slavery. The 20 Africans were called 'indentured servants', meaning they had some kind of a contract for ~7 years.

Indentured servants were subjected to English Common Law, being citizens of Britain.
Slaves were not. Slave 'contract' was for life.
they were treated as chattel - movable property

1620 - Slavery gets legalized

The slavery got so popular and profitable, that
1660 - King Charles creates Royal African Company, trading black gold
British vessels were sailing from Britain to Africa, taking blacks onto ships and then selling them in America

1799 - French Revolution ends
1807 - Britain outlaws slavery
America has to rely on its own slave trading

North of America focused on Business, south focused on agriculture
because of that, slaves were needed in the south
up north, not so much

1860 - Around 1 million slaves are traded. Legalized slavery

Slaves were not seen as people, they were seen as tools. Other names of slaves:
Buck - strongest
Prime Hand - field workers
Breeding Wench - baby making
Fancy Girls - Master entertainment

1861-1865 - Civil War
1865-1877 - Reconstruction of the south

Civil Rights

Emancipation Proclamation

issued by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, during the Civil War
Declared all enslaved people in the Confederate states to be free
Allowed black men to join the Union Army.

Three-Fifts Compromise

Agreement made during 1787 U.S. Constitutional Convention
Each enslaved person would count as 3/5th of a person when determining a state's population and representation in Congress.
Gave the Southern states more political power than if only free people were counted, but less if enslaved people were counted.

Jim Crow laws

State and local laws (mainly south), that enforced racial segregation from late 19th century till 1960.
Mandated separate facilities for blacks and whites - schools, transportation, restaurants. False idea of separate but equal
Key part of the system of racial discrimination that lasted until Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965)

Civil Rights Movement

Henry David Thoreau
American Transcendentalist (unity with nature)
named Walden
very disappointed of the American government

Civil Disobedience
non-violent resistance
duty to rise up against unjust laws
governments are 'agents of injustice

Important people
Emmett Till

Emmett lives up in the North, goes to the South
While sitting by a shop, he whistles at a woman. Brother and a husband of that woman kidnap him, beat and torture him for 3 days.
Mamie Till - decides to make an open-casket funeral
"I want them to see what they did to my baby"
Photo of beat-up Emmett gets published in a newsletter
It's the first time that North sees South's racism so clearly
On the death-bed, woman that got whistled at admits, that the whistling never happened
Emmett Till open casket|500
1955 - Emmett Till open-casket photo

Ruby Bridges

First black kid in a white school (technically not white anymore)
Ruby Bridges|400
1960 - Ruby Bridges escorted from the school by US marshals. Marshals were for her protection, assigned by the government.

Rosa Parks

Montegomery, AL
It was expected for blacks to sit on the back of the bus when whites are in the bus.
Rosa was riding an empty bus, siting in the front, and then a white guy entered. Told her to go to the back, she said 'no', bus driver called cops, she got arrested.
Rosa Parks in the bus|500
This is example of non-violent disobedience.
Non-violent disobedience were met with not-so non-violent consequences

Martin Luther King Jr.

Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it. it is a sword that heals.

MLK advised blacks not to take bus rides as a form of boycott. After a year, the desegregation on buses was lifted.

Thurgood Marshall

Laywer, 29 wins for blacks against racism cases
famous for destroying 'separate but equal'

Most famoust win - Brown v. Board (of Education), Topeka, KS (1954)
by law - black and white students were required to go to different schools (as long as the same level of education is provided). But of course, black schools were badly managed, had no funds, overcrowded, etc.
"If all students are equal, why need to separate them"
Supreme Court ruled that the separation was unconstitutional

1st Supreme Court Justice Afro-American

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The Father of Civil Rights Movement

Religious background
Most famous speech - "I Have A Dream"

Malcolm X (Little)

Elijah Muhammmad (Nation of Islam)
'X' in the name is for his lost racial identity (lost tribal name)

Created multiple islamic churches, charged for that.
While he himself wasn't aggressive in person, his quotes were giving weird signs

Media manipulation

Astroturf Methods

fake grass (roots) - top to bottom approach

Grass Roots

  • Organic, person-centered approach
  • Bottom-up method

Charged Language

TEDx - Media manipulation by Sharyl Attkisson

To read

Aldans Huxley - Brave new world

George Orwell - 1984
censorship
what people feared

Aldous Huxley - Brave new world
conditioning
what people feared

5 filters of media

  1. Media Ownership - profit first, truth maybe
  2. Media Advertising - YOU are the product
  3. Media Elite - It's a big,

Governments

Forms of government

  1. Monarchy (Dictatorship) - power of one
  2. Oligarchy - power of the few
  3. Republic [Res Publica] - power of the Law
  4. Democracy [Demos Kratien] - power of the majority
  5. Anarchy - power of none

As the government's power increases, the power of the people decreases

Branches of US Government

  1. Executive - President (2 turns x 4 years)
    enforces the law
  2. Legislative - Congress (Senate [100people, 2 per state], House of Representatives [435 poeple])
  3. Judicati

Religions

Religions in America

Abrahamic

Eastern

Other

Non-affiliated (non-religious)

Religious Freedom Restoration Act

Indianapolis, IN
Right to refuse service to people not in your belief
Christians can refuse Islamic, but also LGBT, and opposite
Miller v. Phillips - Miller wanted a cake for their homosexual wedding, which Phillips declined to do. In the end, Supreme Court ruled for Phillips.
The First Church of Cannabis

Does everything sound bad?

Tenents

  1. One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason
  2. The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions
  3. One's body is inviolable, subject to one's own will alone
  4. The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach open the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.
  5. Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.
  6. People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
  7. Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

If you agree? Welcome to the Satanic Temple

Drugs

Drug - a substance which has a physiological effect when introduced into the body
Freebasing - cooking process

Types

Uppers (stimulants)

Methamphetaime
Nicotine
Cocaine
MDMA
Mefedrone
Crack
Sugar
Steroids
PCP

Downers (depressants)

Fentanyl
Ketamine
Marihuana (THC - Tetra Hydro Canibanol)
Alcohol
Benzos
Morphine
Opium - Heroine
Nitrous

Hallucinogens (psychadelics)

LSD (Lisergic Acid Cyethylamide)
Psylocibin
Ayahuasca (DMT - Dimethyl Triptamine)
Salvia
2C-x
Datura

Addiction

Drugs in America

Marihuana

Types
Sative

Taller & slimmer, leaves are longer and thinner
Head high
Alertness
Uplifting & euphoric
Creativity
Increased energy
Best for daytime use

Indica

Shorted & bushier, leaves are shorter and wider
Body high
Relaxation
Appetite stimulator
Sleep aid
Pain relief
Best for nighttime use

First creation

Marihuana was first used in the US as cash crop (grown for other purposes) in 1920's
It was deemed illegal in 1937
Colorado was first to decriminalize in 2010
Washington was first to legalize it in 2012
The 'last domino to fall' is California

Culture

Mainstream culture - most popular, hegemonic
Subculture - within the US (goth, potheads, cosplay)
Counterculture - fights against the US (punk, anarchists, LGBT)

From doctor - good drugs
From dealer - bad drugs

The most drug advances were made by Germans during WW2, because of the experiments.

Stanley Milgrim's experiments (1961)

Obedience (to authority)
Started as observation of Nurimberg Trials, where German soldiers after being asked "Why did you do it?" replied "Because I was told to do so"
Question - how far can we push the obiedence in normal people

Two groups:

For each wrong answer, students were being shocked - harder every time
Students and Teachers were separated, but Teachers can hear the student.
With the teacher, there was an observer (lab coat, pen and paper) who in case of the student protesting "Please stop, it hurts, I don't want anymore", just said "Please continue".

The amount of teachers that were willing to push students up to killing them, was almost 2/3
When the teacher could see the student, the number dropped significantly

The men in the lab coat was perceived as authority, despite not knowing the teacher before.

Philip Zimbardo - Groupthink/Mob mentality

Single person is smart, as a group we're dumb

24 most average people separated into two groups

War on drugs

1971 - Nixon declares drugs as public enemy no. 1
Lots of soldiers were coming back from Vietnam addicted to heroin
1982 - Reagan officially declares War on drugs
Nancy Reagan (First Lady) - "Just say NO" campaign (against kids trying drugs)

Crack epidemic

1980-1984 - Crack appearing in big innercities (Chicago, Miami, NY, etc.)
1985-1990 - Crack spreads nation-wide and becomes epidemic

Yuppie

Young Urban Professionals - working in city, leaving in suburbs

Racial injustice

Blacks were mostly blamed for the spreading of crack - institutionized racial injustice.
The solution to the problem was locking away in prisons, with different punishments for crack vs. cocaine. Crack gave higher sentence

Mandatory Minimum Sentence

Trafficking 1kg of heroin - 10 years
Trafficking 100g of heroin - 5 years
Caught traff. 2nd time - 20 years
Caught with possession - 15 days to 2 years

Wasted money

Empty prison cells lose money
There are more prisons than education institutes in the US
~$75 billion of cost each year

Unsafe neighbourhoods

Neighbourhoods are dangerous, making the Police feel unsafe in them, creating a need for militarizing the Police. This causes neighbourhoods to grow hatred towards the Police, which creates a never-ending circle.

Treatments

What is the goal of prison?

Public health

Big problem is that lots of drug abuse is unsafe, dirty etc.
Canada creates 'safe heroin injection site' where they provide needles and help (you have to bring your own heroin)

Holidays

January - New Year, Martin Luther Jr. Day
February - St. Valentine's Day
March - Easter, St. Patrick's Day
April - Easter, April Fools
May - Labour Day, Cinco de Mayo
June -
July - Independance DN
August -
September -
October - Halloween
November - Thanksgiving, Black Friday
December - Christmas