While reading "Value/Evaluation", by Barbara Smith, I was most struck by the idea of social context. Smith says, "the 'force' of our judgments in every sense - that is, their meaning and interest for other people and their power to affect them - will always depend on, among other things, the nature of that context and our relationship to the people we address" (4).
I work in retail pharmacy. It's a fast-paced, loud, and busy job where any conversation is punctuated by customers, ringing phones, crying children, beeping fax machines, drive-thru customers, and more ringing phones. I work with primarily women, aged 23-60. We all read in our free time, and a sort of impromptu book club/Netflix binge-watch club has started. While we don't all read the same book or watch the same show at the same time, books do get passed from person to person, hours of sleep are lost between shifts, and they are discussed between the phone calls and assorted crises that inevitably arise at work.
Barbara Smith's ideas about social context in particular prompted this question; Why do I seem to enjoy most of the books and shows recommended to me at work? While we all share gender and occupation, we come from different age groups, different social classes, different areas. We are college students and grandmothers. We are married and the eternally single. We are Republicans and Democrats. The genres of these books and shows fluctuate from romance to action to drama to sci-fi. So why?
Because of the 'relationship' that I have with these people? Am I more likely to enjoy their suggestions because I like them as people? I think so. I think that because I see value in them, I see value in what they enjoy. I know these people well enough to know what to expect going into it.
-Carley Berry
hmm...I'll be curious to return to this when we start reader-response, though it also has to do with those unwritten ways we assign value (through recommendations, choices).
ReplyDeleteBefore I read "Value/Evaluation", by Barbara Smith I didn't know what social context was and it started to make sense to me after reading it. I was more likely to like the things that my friends/family recommended to me over complete strangers who would sit beside me on the metro and recommend random things. If someone is more valuable to me then their recommendation is more valuable to me as well. If my mother tells me that she really liked a television program or a novel, I'd be more willing to check it out than the random woman beside me on the metro telling me I should read something she is reading. My mother has a lot of value while the stranger does not.
ReplyDeleteI think this was solidly written and very interesting to read. I can definitely relate to assigning more attention to certain forms of entertainment once a close friend recommends it to me. I also think there is definitely more to be said on this, however Im not sure if this quite touches on reader response--which I guess is what I figured you were kind of alluding to--simply for the fact that it doesnt deal with how you, or your coworkers responded to the works/TV you guys deal with. I think it would be interesting to hear how similar your guys' opinions are on each of the works/TV--being as though you all are women and working in similar fields. I would assume that you guys would have strikingly similar opinions on what books/shows you guys float around, but on the flip, they may be entirely different because as you said you all are different ages with different political ideologies..
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