Teenagers as Commodities

“The most valuable commodity on planet earth is a young mind with a willingness to learn.” — Stephen West

I liked this quote from Stephen West’s Philosophize This! podcast, but I take issue with the word “commodity”. To be fair, it’s part of a longer quote “Real quickly, the most valuable commodity on planet earth is not gold. It’s not platinum. It’s not oil. The most valuable commodity on planet earth is a young mind with a willingness to learn.”

I looked up the origins of “commodity”: https://www.etymonline.com/word/commodity

early 15c., “benefit, profit, welfare;” also “a convenient or useful product,” from Old French commodit “benefit, profit” (15c.) and directly from Latin commoditatem(nominative commoditas) “fitness, adaptation, convenience, advantage,” from commodus “proper, fit, appropriate, convenient, satisfactory,” from com-, here perhaps an intensive prefix (see com-), + modus “measure, manner” (from PIE root *med- “take appropriate measures”).

From early 15c. as “article of merchandise, anything movable of value that can be bought or sold.” General sense “property, possession” is from c. 1500.

I’m pretty sure that West’s point, if you listen to the full episode ( https://www.philosophizethis.org/podcast/episode-056-kant-pt-1-an-introduction-to-the-introduction ) is that bad teachers can ruin philosophy for their students, and (I agree here) it’s almost criminal. As a teacher, I know we have a responsibility to try to make the subjects we teach appealing and engaging for as many students as possible as often as possible. Sometimes we screw up. Sometimes we aren’t prepared and give great classes anyway. Sometimes we are prepared and we still waste everyone’s time with something that just never gets off the ground. The bar is lower than for, say, doctors or air traffic controllers, where not being fully prepared means someone might die.

However, I agree with West that we shouldn’t let that young person down. We shouldn’t let their curiosity die. We’re also tasked with the necessity to incite curiosity, because we were all students once and we know how it was. We were mostly interested in sex, our own personal attractiveness, our own desires to be appreciated and loved. And we signed up for chemistry or English or whatever because we needed the credit, or it was part of the program, and had no real desire to be there in the first place.

But that’s why I took issue with “commodity”. What is happening to kids using social media is criminal. It’s just as bad as giving them crack to sprinkle on their Cheerios in the morning. They even seem less interested in sex these days because the constant sugary, endorphin rush of a first kiss is replaced by a thousand likes for their new haircut, as shown on Insta or Snapchat or wherever. That “willingness to learn” has been co-opted to learn about what they might want to buy, and slapping them with ads from morning to night. Teenagers are articles “of merchandise, [some]thing movable of value that can be bought or sold.“

And I, like everyone else, have some really good excuse to keep using social media. I have a friend with a farm and she posts beautiful pictures on Instagram. (Her blog is linked on the start page of Forolavache). I have colleagues who insist on using WhatsApp, which is just Meta selling our data down the line. I want off and out and away, but I’d have to convince so many people to join me, or lose touch with them.

I promised that this blog would always be about something positive so I’m going to change gears here after my little rant.

I got to see Neil Young play last night. He’s seventy-nine and took the audience on a journey of music, melodies and his own odd poetry. It was beautiful. It rained a bit, but everyone just put on their rain gear or got wet. No one rushed home. We were willing to suffer to see and hear someone who hasn’t given up caring, hasn’t given up hope.

We need to keep at it. As teachers, we need to captivate our students, keep them involved in their learning, encourage their curiosity. We can’t give up trying, or give up hope.

So that’s my takeaway this week. It’s worth it to be mildly inconvenienced sometimes in the pursuit of transcendence. We will never be able to change if we can’t, when it starts to rain, just cover ourselves, wait for it to stop and enjoy the moment all the same, if possible in the company of a cute, stuffed cow.