College Photography and Politics

I realize I've neglected this blog since I've started college, but now I've got something to write about.

This is a post about the failure of first impressions, cool stuff, and politics.

My first year photography seminar had me reading from a book called Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, about the importance of a physical first impression: the snap judgement you make about a person when you lay eyes on them for the first time. The book offered the example of not believing that a hefty athlete was actually a hardcore intellectual. However, this psychologist named Samuel Gosling did a study concerning personality traits, and compared what people said about themselves with what their friends said, and what complete strangers who got to look at their dorm rooms for fifteen minutes said. His results showed that glimpsing a dorm room was the most informative. You can know a person for a really long time and know them really well, but if you see where they live, without them in it, you can make more accurate conclusions about their personality.

Similarly, another example to support an honest snap judgement made without witnessing the actual person in question focused on screened auditions for orchestras. Before a curtain was placed between those judging the auditions and the musicians trying out, very few women were in professional orchestras (we're talking late 20th century here). Once the visual presence of the musician was removed, and all the panel could observe was the music being played, those listening could isolate the one thing that mattered about the audition: the music. Instead of seeing a dented instrument, a cheap model, a nervous shuffle to the stand, an odd embouchure, they'd hear how well the piece was played and judge solely on the sound. Such a change in the audition process introduced many more women into professional orchestras, because conductors and the like assumed that women could not possibly play better than men. They were proved wrong.

(All of that is my little summary of the reading I was assigned from Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell: I encourage you to read it.)

Now, Gladwell came up with some fascinating stuff, but how does that tie into politics, you ask? Immediately after reading and writing a brief reflection on it, I went on Facebook to see that the page, "Miss Representation" (for the documentary on women's social presentation: check it out) had posted an article from the Washington Post on the attack of Michele Bachmann's manicure. I won't start on that issue per se, but rather tell you the thought that stemmed from it:

It occurred to me that with women working their way into politics and up to the white house--or one party or another trying to play a uniqueness card that could counter Barrack Obama's--we fall back on stereotype to judge them. We don't worry about Obama having a midlife crisis amid the debt crisis and running off with some vivacious young blonde, but our society is legitimately concerned that a female president might have a mood swing and destroy a relationship with another country, or ruin the state of the union by entering menopause early from the accelerated aging that comes with being president.

If I were Michele Bachmann I'd say, "I know that in this job I'll chip more than just a nail or two, so I want to make sure I've got enough nail to chip." (Though as a girl I'm not a fan of her nails. Just sayin'.)

However, I'm digressing a little bit. Even with the snap judgements made about having a Y or second X chromosome, it occurred to me to have a blind debate. Let the candidates sit in their pajamas or a suit, hair gelled back or bed-headed, and talk through just a microphone, sitting in a booth backstage, so no one can be distracted by their snaggletooth or eye bags or manicure while they're discussing something as important as the future of our country.

I realize this is unrealistic and a really strange approach, and there's most likely a better way to do this, but my point is: what would elections be like if we didn't see our presidential candidates initially? If we heard their positions before we saw them? Let's focus on the competence of our president before his or her closet.



wheeeee citation (because I didn't read the entire book before writing this post, and if you actually want to read the part i'm talking about, you'd want to know page numbers): 
Malcolm Gladwell, “Listening with Your Eyes,” Blink, (New York: Back Bay Books, 2007) pp. 245-254