Since this is my last Culture Guerilla column before I graduate (or as my friend Cody Waters says, via J.R.R. Tolkien, before I “diminish and go into the west”), I wanted to elaborate on what I was trying to accomplish with the column.
Self-indulgent? I hope not, but maybe so. To paraphrase Fox News (the first time I’ve ever done so), I report. You decide. In any case, since this is sadly my final column, I’ll beg for the benefit of the doubt. I need closure.
The editors of A+E and I first imagined Culture Guerilla as an outlet for my contrarian views on just about anything, and originally that’s where I started. But as I kept writing, especially about education, I wanted to argue that having a conversation about cultural criticism is key for constructing the kind of world that we’d like to live in, and also what kind of education we’d like to receive.
It’s like this: when the governor of Florida says that your liberal arts education is useless, why shouldn’t students push back against the educational culture that denigrates the humanities?
Why shouldn’t we push back against standardized tests like the GRE that have reduced students to commodities in a corporate educational market?
Or why shouldn’t we stand on the side of vilified groups, such as Arizona Hispanics, whose culture is made “second class” by design through structures of education? And, finally, why should students anywhere accept “banking concept education” that tells them they know nothing?
Writing about these topics, in a sense, is not so different from writing about pop culture figures like George Lucas or Kim Kardashian.
How we react to the culture around us affects how the culture we live in is created and perpetuated.
And it’s through criticism that we are able to negotiate the culture around us and have a hand in shaping that culture.
Of course, me making fun of Snooki in my little Minaret column probably won’t change the world.
But what I’m talking about is that we need a shift in culture from one of consumerism to one of critique—because a culture of critique is a culture of democracy.
And I think that culture begins one person at a time. It won’t be handed down from on high; instead we end up with a culture of GREs and Greedo shooting first. Both derive from a culture of consumption.
I’m not really arguing that all of my opinions are right. All I’m saying forcefully is that having a critical conversation about the cultures that we take part in is important.
Otherwise, that culture is dictated to us to serve interests that may not be our own.
And sometimes, the culture in question is as flippant as why do so many people care so much about Kim Kardashian’s divorce? But sometimes, as in the stereotypical portrayal of Italian Americans in Mob Wives, issues of cultural representation have enormous implications on how we view the world around us.
So I suppose a column like Culture Guerilla alone is like shooting spitballs to take down an elephant, but I suppose, given enough spitballs, such a thing could be done.
Mikey Angelo Rumore can be reached at michaelangelorumore@gmail.com.