Susan Bordo Blog

Spindler, Amy. “It’s a Face-Lifted, Tummy Tucked Jungle Out There.” nytimes.com. The New York Times Company, 9 June 1996. Web. 27 Oct. 2011.

            

        In The New York Times article “It’s a Face-Lifted, Tummy Tucked Jungle Out There,” Amy Spindler, style editor of New York Times Magazine, claims that more middle-aged men are resorting to anti-aging products and plastic surgery to look younger and thus, to score or secure jobs in the business sector. Spindler asserts that “downsized corporations,” businesses that are decreasing in numbers but growing in size, are hiring more young men because they believe that a worker with a youthful look appears to have the stamina that companies value and count on for their success. This harsh reality is raising fear among 45-to-54-year-old male job seekers who must now compete with younger men for jobs as business executives. Fear of job loss, according to Spindler, is driving executives “to take measures to look younger, with smooth skin, a full head of hair, and a taut stomach,” and companies selling products and services that help men achieve these looks are capitalizing on that fear. Spindler exposes this phenomenon in order to reveal that, like women, older men are feeling that same pressure of maintaining youth that women have and continue to experience till this day.

Blog #5- "David Foster Wallace, In His Own Words"

     For this commencement speech, David Foster Wallace takes a nontraditional approach when addressing education and how it applies to young adults graduating college and entering the real world. Wallace actually tells college graduates the Truth about the reality of adult life by reiterating the frustration, boredom, and selfishness that encompass such a life. The one piece that intrigued me the most was what Wallace calls our "natural default setting," a self-fish, narrow-minded way of thinking and the greatest obstacle of adult life. Education plays a vital role in that it is about gaining awareness of our default setting, not acquiring knowledge as we were taught to think. It is about harnessing the will and effort to think differently about people and problems we will encounter "day in day out."

Blog #4- "The 'Banking' Concept of Education"

     While this analysis of our current education system versus a more promising one is intuitive, it is yet another reminder of how disastrous our education system is and what it can become if we break this cycle of oppression, dehumanization, dichotomy, and so forth in our schools. Students from K-12 as well as college students are fully aware of the reasons or factors that contribute to the failure of our education system: standardized testing, memorization, little-to-no creativity and critical thinking in the classroom, etc. The main problem is that we, teachers and students, have little power as far as bringing reform, and there is no incentive for our state representatives to pass education reform. That being said, it is frustrating sometimes to discuss about such topics that were, are, and will continue to be a pressing national issue. As pessimistic as it sounds, talking about a better education system won't bring about a better education system.