Loved this opinion piece. A great piece. Thanks to social media, every ignorant moron in the world (who has access to internet & social media) blatantly & very easily shares inspirational pics & quotes, without thinking even for a couple minutes, what is that inspirational pic or quote is saying.
I agree that we all need inspirational stories, pictures, & quotes from time to time, to push us in the right direction, to do whatever is necessary to do, to achieve our goals. But, these inspirational items need to be taken with some context.
Nowadays, I've come across a lot of Paulo Coelho's quotes. Now, he might be a great person. He might be the nicest guy one will ever meet. But, several of his "inspirational" quotes rub me the wrong way. Why? Now, there's nothing wrong with those inspirational quotes, in & of themselves. And we have to keep in mind that those quotes might have been taken out of context, too. But, many of his quotes are not suitable for Muslims. And it really bothers me when Muslims 'like' or 'share' his quotes all over social media. His quotes are coming out from his background in Christianity or perhaps, non-Islamic, background.
Similarly, & as the opinion piece correctly points out, it is much easier to say "when there's a will, there's a way" than actually finding a way to resolve the problem. If we say that to graduates in Canada, Australia, Greece, Spain, Italy etc. that they can find a way to climb out of poverty & find a great job, then you may prove yourself a complete ignorant. It's not easy for everyone to do anything there is to do to climb out of poverty. There are several external factors, which are out of one's own control. Perhaps, they are disabled, or hold a religious belief that prohibits them from working in certain industries.
For instance, as a devout Muslim, I refuse to work in financial services, alcoholic beverage, arms manufacturing, casinos & gambling industries. Heck, I cannot even work for real estate brokerage firms because then I have to sell mortgages, which involves interest-based payments. Many more grads are struggling in the job market because they don't have the right connections in the labour market, since academic qualifications mean nothing.
So, it's very easy to quickly share mind-numbingly stupid & inane "inspirational" quotes & pictures, but if we stop for a minute & think before clicking that "like" or "share" button, then we'll realize that without context, that "inspirational" quote or pic is meaningless.
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http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/10/inspirational-online-images-daniel-cabrera-homeless-filipino
While walking past a McDonald’s restaurant in the Philippines a medical student, Joyce Torrefranca, spotted a young boy sitting outside doing his homework at an improvised table. It was late in the evening, but the boy could read & write using the lights coming from the nearby restaurant.
Moved by the scene, Torrefranca took a photograph & posted it on Facebook. “For me as a student,” she wrote, “it just hit me a lot, like, big time.”
Torrefranca wasn’t the only one inspired by the nine-year-old boy without a home. Since Daniel Cabrera’s house burned down, he has reportedly been living in a food stall with his mother & 2 brothers. His father is dead. Reports also say he owns only one pencil. A second pencil was stolen from him.
As the story went viral, people emerged to help the boy, giving him books, pencils & crayons. He also received a battery-powered lamp so he would no longer have to do his homework in the car park. A fundraising page was set up to help cover the costs of his schooling.
This is far from the first inspirational story to attract attention online. Whether it’s a limbless man surfing, a cancer survivor climbing some of the world’s highest peaks or a homeless woman making it all the way to Harvard, we are easily touched by these stories, & there’s nothing strange or wrong with that. But we might want to examine some of the reasons why we – or others – love them so much, or at least question the conclusions some of us wish to draw from them.
One tabloid newspaper has recommended parents show the picture of the hardworking boy to their children next time they are moaning. In a similar vein, someone has turned the picture into an inspirational postcard with the caption: “If it is important to you, you will find a way. If not, you’ll find an excuse.”
In these interpretations, the picture is used to suggest that there are no excuses for failure or poverty. Even if you are poor & live in a makeshift home, you have the choice to work yourself out of that predicament. All you need is determination, willpower & the right, can-do attitude. Private troubles, whether poverty or unemployment, should remain private troubles. They should not be regarded as public issues because that is merely a way of trying to find an excuse. Such is the lesson we should teach ourselves & take from this.
It is depressingly easy to find other examples of this mindset today, the idea that we can all rise above our circumstances – however difficult – through a programme of self-improvement.
In Los Angeles, for instance, the New Village Charter High School is using transcendental meditation not just to release stress but also, in the words of its principal, Javier Guzman, “to combat poverty”. This may help some of the children to achieve better results at school. But the problem is not personal when the bottom income quartile in the US make up only 5% of enrolments in top universities.
Another proposal to fight poverty comes from the US Republican politician Paul Ryan. Inspired by the writer Ayn Rand, he recently presented an anti-poverty plan in which he proposed poor people should sit down with a life coach & develop an “opportunity plan”.
This might sound a uniquely north American venture but Sweden, popularly known as the land of equality & welfare, is probably the country that has come closest to achieving Ryan’s dream.
In the course of only 4 years, the Swedish state paid out 4.7bn Swedish krona (£360m) to job coaches. The actual benefits of this initiative have proved modest, & the methods used by these coaches, including healing & therapeutic touching, have been called into question.
But more problematic than their questionable usefulness is that these methods implicitly encourage socially vulnerable groups, whether poor or unemployed, to stop looking for answers in the public sphere. They are told instead that the barrier lies within themselves.
One US study, which followed unemployed white-collar workers who attend support organisations, found that jobseekers were encouraged to stop reading the newspaper and go on a “news fast”. They were also asked to stop using the word “unemployment”, since that would betray a negative attitude.
Similar observations were made in Ivor Southwood’s auto-ethnographic account of UK jobcentres, Non-Stop Inertia, in which he describes how jobseekers are told to do “three positive things per week” or else they might be disciplined.
In his recent ethnography of the Swedish equivalent of Jobcentre Plus, Roland Paulsen describes mandatory humiliating exercises, so-called brag rounds, in which the long-term unemployed are encouraged to show off in front of their fellow jobseekers.
In a distressing article recently published in Medical Humanities it was suggested that these types of exercises, intended to modify attitudes, beliefs & personality, have become a political strategy to eradicate the experience of social & economic inequality.
Again, there is nothing wrong with being moved by a picture of a young boy concentrating hard on his homework. But we should remember that pictures of this kind may serve more sinister purposes when paired with “inspirational” messages. Serious discussion of external circumstances – including a proper understanding of inequality – is not helped by the suggestion that the only thing holding a person back is their attitude.
I agree that we all need inspirational stories, pictures, & quotes from time to time, to push us in the right direction, to do whatever is necessary to do, to achieve our goals. But, these inspirational items need to be taken with some context.
Nowadays, I've come across a lot of Paulo Coelho's quotes. Now, he might be a great person. He might be the nicest guy one will ever meet. But, several of his "inspirational" quotes rub me the wrong way. Why? Now, there's nothing wrong with those inspirational quotes, in & of themselves. And we have to keep in mind that those quotes might have been taken out of context, too. But, many of his quotes are not suitable for Muslims. And it really bothers me when Muslims 'like' or 'share' his quotes all over social media. His quotes are coming out from his background in Christianity or perhaps, non-Islamic, background.
Similarly, & as the opinion piece correctly points out, it is much easier to say "when there's a will, there's a way" than actually finding a way to resolve the problem. If we say that to graduates in Canada, Australia, Greece, Spain, Italy etc. that they can find a way to climb out of poverty & find a great job, then you may prove yourself a complete ignorant. It's not easy for everyone to do anything there is to do to climb out of poverty. There are several external factors, which are out of one's own control. Perhaps, they are disabled, or hold a religious belief that prohibits them from working in certain industries.
For instance, as a devout Muslim, I refuse to work in financial services, alcoholic beverage, arms manufacturing, casinos & gambling industries. Heck, I cannot even work for real estate brokerage firms because then I have to sell mortgages, which involves interest-based payments. Many more grads are struggling in the job market because they don't have the right connections in the labour market, since academic qualifications mean nothing.
So, it's very easy to quickly share mind-numbingly stupid & inane "inspirational" quotes & pictures, but if we stop for a minute & think before clicking that "like" or "share" button, then we'll realize that without context, that "inspirational" quote or pic is meaningless.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While walking past a McDonald’s restaurant in the Philippines a medical student, Joyce Torrefranca, spotted a young boy sitting outside doing his homework at an improvised table. It was late in the evening, but the boy could read & write using the lights coming from the nearby restaurant.
Moved by the scene, Torrefranca took a photograph & posted it on Facebook. “For me as a student,” she wrote, “it just hit me a lot, like, big time.”
Torrefranca wasn’t the only one inspired by the nine-year-old boy without a home. Since Daniel Cabrera’s house burned down, he has reportedly been living in a food stall with his mother & 2 brothers. His father is dead. Reports also say he owns only one pencil. A second pencil was stolen from him.
As the story went viral, people emerged to help the boy, giving him books, pencils & crayons. He also received a battery-powered lamp so he would no longer have to do his homework in the car park. A fundraising page was set up to help cover the costs of his schooling.
This is far from the first inspirational story to attract attention online. Whether it’s a limbless man surfing, a cancer survivor climbing some of the world’s highest peaks or a homeless woman making it all the way to Harvard, we are easily touched by these stories, & there’s nothing strange or wrong with that. But we might want to examine some of the reasons why we – or others – love them so much, or at least question the conclusions some of us wish to draw from them.
One tabloid newspaper has recommended parents show the picture of the hardworking boy to their children next time they are moaning. In a similar vein, someone has turned the picture into an inspirational postcard with the caption: “If it is important to you, you will find a way. If not, you’ll find an excuse.”
In these interpretations, the picture is used to suggest that there are no excuses for failure or poverty. Even if you are poor & live in a makeshift home, you have the choice to work yourself out of that predicament. All you need is determination, willpower & the right, can-do attitude. Private troubles, whether poverty or unemployment, should remain private troubles. They should not be regarded as public issues because that is merely a way of trying to find an excuse. Such is the lesson we should teach ourselves & take from this.
It is depressingly easy to find other examples of this mindset today, the idea that we can all rise above our circumstances – however difficult – through a programme of self-improvement.
In Los Angeles, for instance, the New Village Charter High School is using transcendental meditation not just to release stress but also, in the words of its principal, Javier Guzman, “to combat poverty”. This may help some of the children to achieve better results at school. But the problem is not personal when the bottom income quartile in the US make up only 5% of enrolments in top universities.
Another proposal to fight poverty comes from the US Republican politician Paul Ryan. Inspired by the writer Ayn Rand, he recently presented an anti-poverty plan in which he proposed poor people should sit down with a life coach & develop an “opportunity plan”.
This might sound a uniquely north American venture but Sweden, popularly known as the land of equality & welfare, is probably the country that has come closest to achieving Ryan’s dream.
In the course of only 4 years, the Swedish state paid out 4.7bn Swedish krona (£360m) to job coaches. The actual benefits of this initiative have proved modest, & the methods used by these coaches, including healing & therapeutic touching, have been called into question.
But more problematic than their questionable usefulness is that these methods implicitly encourage socially vulnerable groups, whether poor or unemployed, to stop looking for answers in the public sphere. They are told instead that the barrier lies within themselves.
One US study, which followed unemployed white-collar workers who attend support organisations, found that jobseekers were encouraged to stop reading the newspaper and go on a “news fast”. They were also asked to stop using the word “unemployment”, since that would betray a negative attitude.
Similar observations were made in Ivor Southwood’s auto-ethnographic account of UK jobcentres, Non-Stop Inertia, in which he describes how jobseekers are told to do “three positive things per week” or else they might be disciplined.
In his recent ethnography of the Swedish equivalent of Jobcentre Plus, Roland Paulsen describes mandatory humiliating exercises, so-called brag rounds, in which the long-term unemployed are encouraged to show off in front of their fellow jobseekers.
In a distressing article recently published in Medical Humanities it was suggested that these types of exercises, intended to modify attitudes, beliefs & personality, have become a political strategy to eradicate the experience of social & economic inequality.
Again, there is nothing wrong with being moved by a picture of a young boy concentrating hard on his homework. But we should remember that pictures of this kind may serve more sinister purposes when paired with “inspirational” messages. Serious discussion of external circumstances – including a proper understanding of inequality – is not helped by the suggestion that the only thing holding a person back is their attitude.
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