There’s a huge difference between being able to decipher letters and grammatical structure and to recognize or say the words on the page and being able to truly read, that is, to understand what those words actually mean. I was reminded of this earlier in the week by events at the university.  Students in the music program cannot take their final performance jury [applied examination] until they have paid all their fees. Similar policies are in effect in other departments.  A number of students discovered when appearing for their juries that they would not be allowed to take the jury.  This practice is not arbitrary or capricious.  The Music Department discovered through bitter experience that, without this policy, a substantial number of students never paid those fees. As a result, course syllabi carry that warning; every applied music instructor is required to announce that policy; and signs are posted on the bulletin boards for the week before finals reminding students of the consequences.

Yet with each succeeding year, more and more students, primarily first year students, discover that the warnings are accurate. This suggests to me that we have a generation – or at least a portion of a generation – that either (1) does not truly comprehend written instructions, or  (2) feels that there is no responsibility to read such instructions, or (3) feels no compunction to follow such instructions, or (4) believes that no instruction applies unless it is specifically addressed verbally to them on repeated occasions, or (5) applies only to everyone else, or (6) possibly all of the above.  This phenomenon is not new.  There have always been individuals who have ignored warning signs, wet paint signs, and the like, but when a growing and significant percentage of college students protest “I didn’t know [whatever]” after being told at the beginning of the semester, reminded in their course syllabus, after being reminded in their last class, and having notices posted on the bulletin boards, then we as a society have a problem… and so do those students.

Part of the problem, frankly, lies in the secondary school system which has become so preoccupied with “student success,” i.e., getting students through, that far too many students enter college with no understanding that failure to do the work – all of the work and not just what they like – and to finish it in the time period required is not only necessary in college, but in the world beyond college. Each year college syllabi become longer and more detailed, partly because incoming college students also cannot or choose not to listen, possibly because it is difficult to hear when one spends most of one’s time with earbuds in both ears.  Now, it appears, many also do not respond to written communication, possibly because both eyes are so locked on  smartphones that nothing written registers, either.  Yet the education gurus respond to this by declaring that faculty need to use more interactive technology to reach students.

At what point will all the “reformers” realize that students have responsibilities… and not just faculty?

“Have It Your Way” was the central theme behind a series of Burger King commercials first aired in the early 1970s and then re-introduced and re-emphasized in the 2000s, and the idea has clearly a special resonance with Americans.  According to a Google search, there are over 80 million ads and approaches on the idea of doing it “your way.”  Then there’s the iconic song, “My Way,” written by Paul Anka and popularized by Frank Sinatra, which is one of the songs most recorded and performed by other artists. While Sinatra reportedly later stated that he hated the song and found it self-serving, it remains one of the most popular songs sung at funerals.

Although there is nothing wrong with wanting things to go our way, and trying our best to make them so, there’s a difference between aspirations or goals and expectations, and a generation or more of commercial enticements based on the theme that we “deserve” to have things our way seems to have created – or definitely boosted – the expectation that “things” ought to go our way.

In economic terms, American businesses, as I’ve discussed more than once, are concentrating almost exclusively on maximizing profits – having it their way, if you will – without regard to either employment wage levels of their employees.  Employees, those that can, are pressing more and more for jobs that are “meaningful” to them, often regardless of what business needs happen to be.  Increasing numbers of college students have begun to tell their professors what they think they should learn and how much work they should do, while state legislatures are telling state universities what percentage of students should graduate in how many years, without any consideration of the costs or the number of instructors or professors necessary to meet those goals.

The same expectations are revealed in national politics.  Eighty percent of Republicans believe President Obama lied to pass the Affordable Care Act, while seventy-five percent of Democrats believe he didn’t.  What makes these numbers interesting is that the majority of Republicans believe that the ACA will hurt them personally and financially, while the majority of Democrats feel that the ACA will benefit them.  In its latest issue, the Economist published graph illustrating how the legislative process has changed in the United States Senate drastically over the past thirty-five years, showing legislation that in the late 1980s the majority of legislation was passed by cooperative efforts of both parties and how that has changed over the years so that, by 2013, almost none was passed cooperatively.

I doubt if anyone can say which came first, the commercial emphasis on “having it your way” or the social change in attitude that found that message so appealing, but how it happened matters far less than the devastating effect that belief is having on American society and politics.

None of us can have everything all “our way” all the time, or even close to it, not if we want to have a working economy and an even halfway functional government in the years to come, and it’s past time that we not only came to grips with that, but started doing something about it.

Take two singers.  One is a talented all-around musician, with a full grasp of her craft, pleasantly attractive, but not beauty pageant class.  The other is beauty pageant class, with a good natural singing voice, and one knock-out classical song, and not much else.  Do you want to guess which one wins singing contests that involve an audition of only one song?  There are also certain singers who win or place highly in competitions, but never have a career because the only thing they’re really good at is winning competitions, just like those pleasing personalities who are so good at interviews and much less competent at doing the job.

Take the CEOs of large companies.  There are the competent-looking tall ones with a commanding presence… and then there are the others – except a number of studies over the years have shown that while there is a far higher percentage of  tall and competent-looking CEOs at larger companies (who get paid significantly more, on average), there’s absolutely no correlation between appearance and their performance as CEOs.

It’s a bit different with authors, but there are more than a few who publish one book and nothing more. Possibly the most famous authors who only wrote a single book are Harper Lee  [To Kill a Mockingbird] and Margaret Mitchell [Gone with the Wind].  The music industry is filled with singers and musicians who had only one hit song in their entire career. It’s no different in politics, and it would be hard to count the members of Congress who served exactly one term… and who are now long forgotten.

The problem with all too many of these one-hit wonders and one-trick ponies is that, all too often, their one trick overshadows others who are actually far better at whatever field it may be.  The least glamorous CEOs are generally far better than the ones who merely look good, and a great many executives who don’t have the height and “look” likely never get the chance because their talents are deeper but less obvious. There are significant numbers of authors who have produced large numbers of good, and sometimes great, books who’ve never made the big best-seller lists, but whose total sales have been respectable if not substantial over a long period. And there are authors who didn’t have the “flash” or trick to impress agents or publishers who self-published and later made the best-seller lists.  In this, Richard Paul Evans comes to mind.

There are good character actors who are far better at their craft than many big name stars, and whose careers have lasted far longer, and, unhappily, there are younger actors with the same kinds of talent and determination who will never get the chance because they’re solid, dependable… and don’t have a flashy trick… or gimmick, as the old song says.

Being married to a performing singer and university opera director means that I get to meet all sorts of people, ranging from students to retirees, from those who are very creative and interesting to those who are financially very well-off and support the arts, some few of whom are also creative.  I also have been drafted at times to craft various documents, including fund-raising letters, and this has led to some interesting situations. 

Although the university is located in the Utah county with the lowest individual and per family income, with a large rural component, and no heavy industry and only a comparatively few mid-tech or light industrial concerns, several directors of one charitable group absolutely refused to allow the use of those facts in a fund-raising appeal.  Why?  Because, first, they felt it would alienate any executives in the small manufacturing community, because it implied to them a criticism of their wage scales, even though the appeal specifically noted that the small manufacturing community was an exception to the generally prevailing low wage scale.

When I attempted to discuss this with one of the individuals who insisted on deleting the statistics, that individual provided a detailed explanation of how his company paid far higher wages than the local average and how their training program had enabled workers to move from the bottom to the top of the wage scale, all of which was absolutely true.  He then claimed that that low income problem was because of four factors: a local culture that emphasizes large families at a young age; the lack of high-tech manufacturing; a rural economy outside of the city proper; and the fact that “people choose their life-styles.” 

The executive who listed those factors was largely correct in his assessment, and, more than likely, equally correct in assessing how his peers would react, but that assessment didn’t make the problems go away. It did make it more difficult to explain why an organization needs funds for programs to benefit the children of those who are less fortunate without pointing out that more of such families exist in one’s community.  It’s as if some of these more financially fortunate individuals want to deny the reality of a situation while attempting to ameliorate some of the problems caused by that reality.

I’d be the first to admit that people make both good and bad choices, having made some of both myself over the years.  And some bad choices do lead to low incomes and, often, poverty, but the fact remains, after all the rhetoric, that the county does in fact have the lowest per capita and family income in the state, and  not all of that can be explained away by poor choices on the part of individuals.  In addition, children don’t choose their parents, what work those parents do, or what culture exists where the family lives. Geographically isolated small cities and towns without plentiful water supplies will not have much, if any heavy manufacturing.

Unfortunately, the mindset represented by those who didn’t want the facts listed has an impact well beyond local charitable appeals.  Problems of all sorts don’t go away just because there is a “good explanation” for their cause.  Put in a lighter way, one of my friends, a retired engineer, observed that, when the highway department installed a huge sign on the interstate highway stating “Bump Ahead,” the highway types thought they’d solved the problem.  They’d only described it… and solutions have to go beyond description.

A little while ago I came across a book review website/blog that pretty much trashed my 2002 novel, Archform:Beauty in a way that was clear the blogger had neither any understanding of what the book was about nor of a lot of other things.  So I simply posted the following comment on the review, “Interestingly enough, both Kirkus and Publishers Weekly gave it starred reviews.”  Not surprisingly, the blogger replied to the effect that he really didn’t care what they thought and that he was selling it back to the used book store… and by the way, that my own words said that minority voices were important.  I agreed that minority voices needed to be heard, but that didn’t mean that they were either accurate or inaccurate simply by virtue of being minority voices.  Then I was questioned about why I’d made the first comment, as if it were somehow rude to question a review offered with open comments. When the blogger then stated that I‘d never change his mind, I pointed out that my comments weren’t made for that point since it was obvious I would never change his mind. I should have left it at that, but, unfortunately, I didn’t.  I added the phrase that I wrote for people who could think, with the clear implication that he couldn’t. I understand that created a slight furor with some people.

This “discussion” of sorts, however, crystalized, at least in my mind, something that I and a great many others have talked around and about, but which tends to be overlooked.  With the proliferation of niche news, niche blogs, niche products, we are creating, or have created, a society where anyone can express the most inaccurate or misrepresentative or misleading views or selected facts for “their” following,” and because like attracts like, seldom are these facts ever challenged in that niche.  Oh, CNN may dispute Fox News, or CBS and BBC news may present very different views of a story, but there is seldom another side shown on any niche program.  What’s truly frightening to me is that there’s more discussion of the other side on the entertainment shows such as Colbert or Bill Maher, or it’s buried on early Sunday morning news shows.  Obviously, there are exceptions, but they’re few, and getting fewer. This “niche isolation” also contributes to societal polarization because the followers in each niche continually reinforce their beliefs in their interactions with each other, which makes it easier and easier to ignore, minimize, or marginalize any conflicting views.  

In addition, the internet/world wide web has become a “wild west” of information dissemination, where some sources are good, some bad, and all misrepresentative to some degree.  The web has also become more and more powerful in influencing what readers choose to buy or not to buy, and for authors that makes favorable information valuable and unfavorable information worrisome, particularly if that unfavorable information is highly misrepresentative or inaccurate.  What compounds this us that with people compartmentalizing their information intake there’s no telling if they’ll ever encounter other information to balance or expand their knowledge base about an author, particularly if their initial information comes from a source that views the author unfavorably.

Part of the reason why I made the initial comment in the first place is because I’ve always disliked anonymous snipers, particularly when they don’t know what they’re talking about. I think, far too idealistically, that such people should not go unquestioned.  But what I realized well after the fact, was that society has become so polarized that, for the most part, very few people still retain even semi-open minds when their judgments or beliefs are questioned. The problem with my reaction to the “review” is that, in all likelihood, all it did was make people who would never like my books anyway mad at me, while suggesting to those who do like my work that I’m excessively sensitive.

But all writers are.  That’s not the question.  The question is how we should balance such sensitivity when facing adverse material on the web that could affect our sales, reputation, and livelihood… and how we actually do.  It’s easy to suggest we remain above the fray, and that has historically been the best policy, but with the way the times are changing, I have to wonder if such “neutrality” is necessarily wise… and yet, I’ve seen and heard certain authors have spent so much time and money reacting to so many slights, misrepresentations, and inaccuracies that I’ve wondered if that didn’t do more damage than help.

It’s definitely a brave new world (web).