Car Culture in Los Angeles - Research Paper Example

? Car Culture in Los Angeles The analyzed source talks about the intense car culture in Los Angeles. It says that people are rarely found without a car in the United States. This is because Los Angeles is the most developed and the second most populated city in the United States. According to many sources, it is called “the creative capital of the world” because of the presence of so many creative people. There are more creative people residing in Los Angeles than any other part of the world (Guinn). Also, it is very powerful economically. It has the longest sea port and its economy is mainly fueled by international trade and entertainment. Apart from that, it is very developed in many other fields, such as aerospace, medicine, finance, telecommunications etc. Plus, Los Angeles is one of the largest cities in the United States. It is sprawled over a vast area and the topography is quite mountainous. These factors are reason enough to understand why car culture is quite dominant here. With people facing little economic or financial issues, the majority of the population can afford to own a car, hence, public transport is very limited. It is a great challenge for a foreigner to adjust in the city of Los Angeles. A foreigner is very likely to get overwhelmed by its vast sprawl, fascinations, lights and attractions. Therefore, foreigners must be dealt with great sensitivity. American residents are so adjusted in their lives that they pay little attention to foreigners who grapple to adjust in the huge and vivacious city. The Pedestrian is a short story by Ray Badbury in which he describes how people change after they start living in the city of LosAngeles. It is a futuristic depiction about a man named Mr. Mead who was a new immigrant in the city of Los Angeles and was not much prone to the city culture. He loved exploring things at night. He did not like to disturb any one and would quietly set out in the streets for walking and enjoying the cold breeze. However, this piece represents good sarcasm on how the world has changed today. People who enjoy the beauty of nature are rarely appreciated, rather they are considered to be maniacs or psychotics, just like Mr. Mead was considered to be mentally ill. The story also proposes good sarcasm on the ever decreasing value of books, magazines and journals. People today rarely find pleasure in getting physical books and reading them. Rather, they resort to reading the e-version from the internet. The libraries have suddenly become so outdated and no one wants to visit them. If we keep on continuing with the same trend, there will come a time in 2052 when we will reach a stage where we can perfectly relate to the story predicted by The Pedestrian. Individuals today rely more upon the entertainment they find on the internet. They download books from their iPhones through iTunes and read them, as it is so much more convenient. Hence, a person who is alienated from technology in the world of today will be treated as a stranger, just like Mr. Mead has been treated in The Pedestrian. Also, nowadays, people consider it abnormal to walk down the streets during night. People at large have become so insecure that they’d get scared if they see a man walking down their streets just randomly. Everyone has a dog which barks at even a slight movement. This is because of an every growing crime rate which is due to wide disparity between different segments of the population. With the growth in technology, nuclear families and globalization, people have moved further away from the beauty of nature. This story also presents a very interesting phenomenon, known as “Culture shock”. People, when they migrate to foreign lands, find it hard to settle in. There are many problems that they face as a result of their migration. Logistical and lingual issues are just two of them. They undergo feelings of fear, unease, discomfort, agitation and frustration as a result of being implanted in a completely new setting and a different environment. Foreigners experience culture shock the most. It has been found out that culture shock consists of many different stages or phases. This is because the level of adaptability varies from person to person. Some people are very acceptable towards the change in their environment and, hence, suffer from a milder culture shock. On the other hand, some people are completely receptive to new ideas, cultures and trends. These are the people like Mr. Mead who find it really hard to adjust in the new place and, therefore, suffer from a much stronger culture shock. Till now, a very stringent or clear way of preventing culture shock has not been discovered. Subjective techniques are there, but it is difficult to analyze the results attained from them, as they are subject to variance according to an individual’s interpretation. Hence, in the case of The Pedestrian, Mr. Mead was experiencing a great culture shock, as he was unable to settle in and adjust according to the climate and attitude of Los Angeles City. According to Dr. Kristin A. Juffer, when a person goes abroad, he cannot even adapt to the routine aspects of life. The simplest routine tasks of eating, drinking, watching TV, listening to musicor shopping in a nearby mall demands great concentration and dedication on part of the foreigner in order to compete or survive better. Because of this, a person undergoing culture shock may become very mentally tired in a short span of time and then become agitated and irritated as a result. This experience is called culture shock. Only people who have once under gone such an experience can completely understand it or relate to it. In the story, the policeman could not be empathetic towards Mr. Mead, as he hadn’t gone through the same experience of culture shock at any point in his lifetime (Cleveland, Mangone and Adams). Culture shock occurs as a reaction to an environment change. It includes both cognitive and affective components. Sometimes great stress is cause to the person. The focal point of this stress is variously identified. It is because one is completely alienated from the new culture in which he or she is trying to settle in. Different individuals react to different culture shocks differently. The extent to which they react to them varies. Many American employees who are working in multinational companies abroad find it really hard to adjust in those countries and leave the job, resulting in a high attrition rate. High attrition rates have become a matter of great worry and concern for the employers, since they are investing a lot in the employees when they are being sent to a foreign country. Their boarding, lodging, residence, airfare is all borne by the company itself. However, companies fail to take into account the factor of culture shock and, hence, get into this trouble. Till now, there has been little research that has been done on culture shocks and how to prevent them. But nevertheless, a few methods and procedures have been very astutely devised in order to study the level of culture shock. The procedure is quite subjective and does not include any objective measurement (Juffer). According to the same study, the intensity of the culture shock varies according to the number of friends a person has, the number of homes of his own culture that a person visits, his personal religious beliefs, time exposed to his own culture’s media and his marital status. In the case of Mr. Mead, he was a completely secluded man who was not married; he did not have any friends or social circle. Maybe, he was not even exposed to the media of his native country, so he was undergoing a deeper depression due to culture shock. According to Samuel Jones, culture cannot be equated with the traditional definition of culture as arts. Culture is a mix of certain emotions; it is a blend of many traditions, heritages, legends, values, histories and beliefs. People belonging to different cultures have their own set of expectations, their own distinct attitudes, their own rituals and role models. ‘The cultural realm’ is deeply ingrained and is very inherent. It is continuous and builds up over a period of time. Talking about The Pedestrian, the police works upon the orders of the Government and, hence, the government should ordain the police to analyze softly all those who are experiencing culture shocks and devise proper mechanisms to deal with them. (Jones) If not treated properly, people undergoing culture shock may also lead to gang warfare in order to vent out their agitation. This idea is discussed below. Gang warfare may refer to a conflict between two or more gangs. But Mr. Mead was not being captured because of any conflict or controversy, but it was simply because he was considered mentally ill. According to articles written by Allen Davis and James Densley, the world will face a major threat from gangsters in the future. After the recent street violence in London, the threat has grown even more. In order to be better equipped against gang warfare, police officers must conduct an in-depth study regarding what it is like to be a gangster. What oppressions and harshness leads someone to become a gangster and what should be the specific methods of dealing with all this? Some individuals do get involved in the game, but gangs establish the rules and keep score. Gangs also offer a controlled territory in which to play and a host ofeconomic and other incentives to members. Extensive research carried out into gangsand gang life has drawn out a number of crucial learning points for police of?cers. Great addiction on drugs may also unconsciously lead an individual to get too much engrossed in gang culture. Gang economics and hierarchical structures, however, ensure that money is never so simply obtained. Even the most successful street-level drugdealers are working far more unsociable hours, in far more dangerous and unsanitary conditions, for far less monetary reward than an ordinary member of the public in their place of work. Gangs essentially operate a pyramid scheme in which money ?ows upwards to the more seniorgang members. Monetary rewards are inversely proportional to offending risks. Gang ‘elders’ direct the criminal activity of gang ‘Youngers’, but typically only reward them in kind or with ratings as opposed to with an equal share of the ‘gwop’ (money). Peer respect is a form of currency that has no ?nancial cost to the gang and this keeps their overheads low. Thus, in order to counter frustration and depression of culture shock, it won’t have been surprising if Mr. Mead would have also resorted to gangs for waging out his anger. Hence, it was important for him to visit a psychiatrist who would help him to get out of this deplorable state of culture shock. This is because gangs would present a way of channelizing his energies and would also present him with a moderate income. He would find similar people in gangs with similar experiences that might soothe him. It is agreeable that the realization of nobody paying attention to his books must be very frustrating for Mr. Mead. Considering that authors were treated with great respect in the olden times, authors are not accustomed to the behavior that Mr. Mead was subjected to. The police man did not even regard his profession as a serious one. This point bolsters another assumption about the future which is loss of cultural and social values. The youngsters of today have lost respect for their elders or seniors. They only respect those whom they find cool or attractive. The youth of today is far away from literature and learned people. This trend is more likely to grown in the future and result in a situation similar to what is depicted in the story of The Pedestrian. Works Cited Cleveland, Harlan, Gerard J. Mangone and John Clarke Adams. The Overseas Americans. Ayer Publishing, 1980. Print. Guinn, James Miller. Historical and biographical record of southern California: containing a history of southern California from its earliest settlement to the opening year of the twentieth century. Chapman pub. co., 1902. Print. Jones, Samuel. Culture shock. 2010. Web. 10 December 2011 . Juffer, Kristin A. Researching Culture Shock: The Culture Shock Adaptation Inventory. 1993. Web. 10 December 2011 . Read More