American Progress is a Myth Against Ideologies

Not to say that I was blind to the constraints on my agency since my blog post commencing Winter quarter, titled “Myth of American Progress,” but there have been many eye-opening moments I experienced throughout the quarter that made me exclaim a soft “Whoa” to myself. Since the initial blog post, I have come to reevaluate whether or not America has truly made progress from its mistakes in history such as slavery. Unfortunately, American ideologies are far too strong that a vision of progress is often blurred.

I have never been one to believe that I am a completely free agent. I recognize the constraints that are drilled into my agency simply from the body that I was born into. I am a Vietnamese-American female with a petite body. When I was writing this, I found it easy to continue and list “definitions” of who I am that I felt constrains my agency. Even more concerning, is why physical and physiological definitions as the ones listed above, are shaped so much by ideologies that they do become constraints of my agency.

My biggest “Whoa” moment came during one of the initial lectures during discussion about agency. I found myself to be guilty of being ignorant and even submissive to certain constraints of agency. I pride myself in the actions that I do take in rebellion against conformity. However, the example discussed was fashion and self-expression through fashion. There is a defeat in asking “Can I work this?” when shopping, because clothes, unfortunately, are also now labeled with gender, social group, and even emotion. I am very guilty of asking that question, but am even more guilty for still needing some sort of validation despite knowing that the question is silly. In my previous entry, I argued that with ignorance, American progress is a lost cause. Though my fashion choices are not exactly a matter of life and death, such an acceptance of ignorance is concerning on the larger scale.

A more philosophical question to beg about the example concerning fashion sense, is the roots of our individuality. Another “Whoa” moment I had was with the single statement from discussion’s lecture: “Images both are shaped by ideologies, and shape ideologies.” The news that images of the media shape our culture and that our culture shapes the way images are presented in the media was not new. However, the statement provoked an anxiety of entrapment by ideologies and their manifestations through the media. Needless to say, with fashion, ideologies are constantly changing and repeating itself. But I found myself troubled at which points I began liking the themes I do; this worry is consistent throughout the reflection of all my choices.

Reevaluating the entry I had previously written, I found that the previous entry had a specific focus on whether or not I believe in American progress, with the themes of Frederick Douglass’s Narrative in mind. By the end of the quarter, we had reached the Cold War era. I’ve come to realize that the ways of constraining agency, that are heavily influenced by a people’s ideologies, have only evolved. Ideologies are innate to man, as they seem to derive from deep within.

Deep within man, the most prominent emotion, and very powerful drive, seems to be fear. Ideologies such as racism against blacks and orientalism, are both deep rooted in fear Western men have against the foreign. Those that come foreign are immediately questioned of humanity, and often immediately ostracized. Due to these types of fears, men are pinned against other men, ideology against ideology. War breaks out.

Revising my stance from my former entry, I do not believe in progress, including that of America’s. One’s fears are translated into ideologies that arguably makes them adaptable in the vast world, but such ideologies cannot be destroyed. Because ideology is such a powerful drive, thus constantly constraining our agency, progress is a miss or hit in the hands of the many existing ideologies. Racism and orientalism has only evolved, not ended. Progress is only sporadic.

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