Write a reflective essay in response to ONE of the questions listed below. Instructor is looking for and then try to provide that.
This is what I am looking for: your clarity and thoughtfulness. Clarity means that your sentences are clear, well connected to each other (organized), and that you are communicating your point of view to your reader. As your reader, it is not my responsibility to figure out what it is you are trying to communicate.
By thoughtfulness, I want to see your thinking about the question and what you have concluded, even if just temporarily, about the topic. However, there is also more to this. Thoughtfulness wonders about what it initially thinks and digs deeper into its own thought to ask questions of why we think as we do, and where we might be wrong. Thoughtfulness wants to think about the question, and not quickly answer it. Clarity is also connected to thoughtfulness – you should strive to show why you think as you do and that your thought is a product of a process of questioning and wondering.
This assignment will be graded in relation to the depths of your insights (avoidance of quick and clichéd conclusions, demonstration of your new thinking) and the clarity of your expression (are you communicating your point, or is it lost in your own private language/ideology or unclear language).
An opinion is not a reaction or a long-held presumed belief. Instead, it reflects fresh thought within the parameters of the material and ideas we have been considering. Feeling that the work you are doing is important to you is essential to an excellent grade. This feeling of importance is not well built on the desire for an excellent grade. It is built on an engaged and caring interest.
Write simply, academic expertise is neither expected nor desired. Use your own voice but be clear. Explain why you think as you do and do not just rely on declarations. The number one issue with papers is that rely on presumptive declarations that are not made compelling through explication. You must make significant references to at least one lecture. This should be a mention that your paper considers in depth and not just a passing comment. Your paper should be in conversation with the lecture material. I am not particular about citation styles. “According to lecture…” is an appropriate way of citing lecture. You should feel encouraged to write in the first person. There are to be no secondary sources used in this paper.
You are going to have your judgments, but your paper should not be a pamphlet defending these judgments. It should be about what you think about the question asked of you. Make sure and focus on the social/personal psychological elements. While psychology intercedes with the political world (as it does with all worlds), the essence of your paper should not be about your political views but about your discernments regarding our social psychology (and its potential impact on the self).
Use the question as a provocation to your own thinking about the subject or theme that the question represents. The questions are sprawling and point in a general direction. You are responsible to discern the essence of each question. Do not respond to each question, within the question, separately. This is not a short answer test. Find your way into the question and do not necessarily feel a responsibility to touch on each aspect equally. However, do take note that the questions are trying to include you as a unique person and that you should not avoid how you think and live in your response.
Your response should be no more than five double spaced pages. This is the maximum length.
Write a reflective essay on ONE of the following questions:
1. An idea presented in lecture was that our love songs suggest a doubt about recent social educations that we have received (for instance, that we only need to love ourselves) and that these educations are not ultimately satisfying nor paths to personal well-being. We are still being told that we want romantic love. Considering our modern popular love: songs how do they consider prominent beliefs about personal independence, the meaning of sex, romantic expectations and how this is divided by, at least in mainstream popular music, by gender? What do they teach or represent for their audience?
2. It was offered in lecture that suffering has become sexy. Explain your understanding of this phenomena. Is it a coping mechanism or a solution to the romantic dynamic of today’s culture? How do you understand the difference? How did the attractiveness of romantic suffering and self-blame come to be a social psychology and a personal psychology? What do our modern love songs say about us as a people? Do our enjoyment of them liberate or trap us, or something else?
3. What is the difference between ideas of confidence and delusion, as understood by our social psychology? When we say “fake it until we make it” are we also still asked to fake it after we have made it? Does our modern popular song advertise poses and persona over actual identity or is there no such thing as actual identify (or is the ability to pose part of our actual identity)? How can we separate who we are from how we want to be perceived? Do you like the person that you see advertised to yourself in popular music?
4. In recent years, songs that are about feeling alienated from the modern world and desiring some deeper forms of peace are becoming more popular. Why do you think this is the case and what do you think of it? Is our social psychology, as reflected, if only, in our popular music, becoming more honest or more depressed (how might these two categories be different)? Is this trend, in your view, healthy for us? What does your response say about songs that celebrate higher levels of systemic success?
5. I offered in lecture that our social psychology connects to our personal psychology but that we live lives mostly devoted to the latter. Does this make us complicit in the problems of our times? If you use music as an escape to feel good about yourself, does this render you a part of the problem? Should you be angrier than you are? Should you be kinder? What is the social psychological meaning of the soundtrack of our present culture? What does teen spirit smell like today?
6. Psychologically speaking, our response to the anxieties of our lives has largely resulted in a sense of personal responsibility – there is something wrong with me and I need to correct it. I am ill, not my society. Is our popular music an ally to us or is it doing us harm? How do we understand what it is to be inspired, to be good, to be truthful, to be a success? We like to think that these terms (inspiration, good, truth, success) are subjectively defined, but is this the case in our psychological lives?
