F.S. Michael's Monoculture: How One Story is Changing Everything (Red Clover Press, 2011) was awarded the 2011 George Orwell Prize for outstanding contributions to the critical analysis of public discourse. The announcement was made at a ceremony in Chicago on November 20, 2011.
The annual prize, established in 1975, is awarded by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), which has over 35,000 members and subscribers worldwide. The award is given in memory of British author George Orwell, author of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949) and the political satire Animal Farm.
Monoculture: How One Story is Changing Everything is based on wide-ranging research that shows how one of the stories we tell about who we are, where we come from, and where we're going is taking over the others, narrowing our diversity and creating a monoculture. Michaels shows that because of the rise of the economic story, six fundamental areas of life -- work, relationships with others and the environment, communities, physical and spiritual health, education, and creativity -- are changing, or have already changed, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
"The governing pattern a culture obeys is a master story," Michaels writes, "one narrative in society that takes over the others, shrinking diversity and forming a monoculture. When you're inside a master story at a particular time in history, you tend to accept its definition of reality. You unconsciously believe and act on certain things, and disbelieve and fail to act on other things. That's the power of the monoculture; it's able to direct us without us knowing too much about it."
Back in the Middle Ages, back when the dominant monoculture was one of religion and superstition, Galileo famously challenged the Catholic Church's "geocentricity" with a heliocentric model of the universe. Accused of heresy and punished accordingly, he nonetheless sparked the dawn of the next monoculture, which reached a tipping point in the 17th century as humanity came to believe the world was fully knowable and discoverable through science, machines, and mathematics.
Our's, Michaels demonstrates, is a monoculture shaped by economic values and assumptions, and it shapes everything from the obvious things (our consumer habits, the music we listen to, the clothes we wear) to the less obvious and more uncomfortable to relinquish the belief of autonomy over (our relationships, our religion, our appreciation of art).
"A monoculture doesn't mean that everyone believes exactly the same thing or acts in exactly the same way," writes Michaels, "but that we end up sharing key beliefs and assumptions that direct our lives. Because a monoculture is mostly left unarticulated until it has been displaced years later, we learn its boundaries by trial and error. We somehow come to know how the mater story goes, though no one tells us exactly what the story is or what its rules are. We develop a strong sense of what's expected of us at work, in our families and communities -- even if we sometimes choose not to meet those expectations. We usually don't ask ourselves where those expectations came from in the first place. They just exist -- or they do until we find ourselves wishing things were different somehow, though we can't say exactly what we would change, or how."
Flora Stormer Michaels is a first-time author who lives in British Columbia. Her research and writing have been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Killam Trusts, and regional and municipal arts councils. Michael Pollan won the prize in 2010 for In Defense of Food. Other recipients include Pulitzer Prize-winner Charlie Savage, television host Jon Stewart and the Daily Show, economist Juliet B. Schor, linguist Noam Chomsky, and cultural critic Neil Postman.
BOOKS:
Monoculture: How One Story is Changing Everything (Red Clover Press, 2011)
[BCBW 2011]
The annual prize, established in 1975, is awarded by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), which has over 35,000 members and subscribers worldwide. The award is given in memory of British author George Orwell, author of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (published in 1949) and the political satire Animal Farm.
Monoculture: How One Story is Changing Everything is based on wide-ranging research that shows how one of the stories we tell about who we are, where we come from, and where we're going is taking over the others, narrowing our diversity and creating a monoculture. Michaels shows that because of the rise of the economic story, six fundamental areas of life -- work, relationships with others and the environment, communities, physical and spiritual health, education, and creativity -- are changing, or have already changed, in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
"The governing pattern a culture obeys is a master story," Michaels writes, "one narrative in society that takes over the others, shrinking diversity and forming a monoculture. When you're inside a master story at a particular time in history, you tend to accept its definition of reality. You unconsciously believe and act on certain things, and disbelieve and fail to act on other things. That's the power of the monoculture; it's able to direct us without us knowing too much about it."
Back in the Middle Ages, back when the dominant monoculture was one of religion and superstition, Galileo famously challenged the Catholic Church's "geocentricity" with a heliocentric model of the universe. Accused of heresy and punished accordingly, he nonetheless sparked the dawn of the next monoculture, which reached a tipping point in the 17th century as humanity came to believe the world was fully knowable and discoverable through science, machines, and mathematics.
Our's, Michaels demonstrates, is a monoculture shaped by economic values and assumptions, and it shapes everything from the obvious things (our consumer habits, the music we listen to, the clothes we wear) to the less obvious and more uncomfortable to relinquish the belief of autonomy over (our relationships, our religion, our appreciation of art).
"A monoculture doesn't mean that everyone believes exactly the same thing or acts in exactly the same way," writes Michaels, "but that we end up sharing key beliefs and assumptions that direct our lives. Because a monoculture is mostly left unarticulated until it has been displaced years later, we learn its boundaries by trial and error. We somehow come to know how the mater story goes, though no one tells us exactly what the story is or what its rules are. We develop a strong sense of what's expected of us at work, in our families and communities -- even if we sometimes choose not to meet those expectations. We usually don't ask ourselves where those expectations came from in the first place. They just exist -- or they do until we find ourselves wishing things were different somehow, though we can't say exactly what we would change, or how."
Flora Stormer Michaels is a first-time author who lives in British Columbia. Her research and writing have been supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Killam Trusts, and regional and municipal arts councils. Michael Pollan won the prize in 2010 for In Defense of Food. Other recipients include Pulitzer Prize-winner Charlie Savage, television host Jon Stewart and the Daily Show, economist Juliet B. Schor, linguist Noam Chomsky, and cultural critic Neil Postman.
BOOKS:
Monoculture: How One Story is Changing Everything (Red Clover Press, 2011)
[BCBW 2011]
Articles: 1 Article for this author
NCTE Orwell Award 2011
Summation
F.S. Michaels' Monoculture: How One Story is Changing Everything is an intriguing look at the concept of monoculture-the development of particular patterns of life or a master story that shows up again and again and creates a potentially invisible structure within our culture that shapes our sense of how the world works. As one online reviewer put it so well: "In Monoculture, F.S. Michaels methodically lays out how our societal worldview has been slowly overtaken by a single story - the story of economics. From education and the arts to how we eat, think, and play, Michaels asserts that we have been steeped in a single point of view where value is reduced to what can be sold and worth is determined by financial expediency. Michaels' writing is clear and sharp as she brings the impact of this pervasive global philosophy down to the personal level, showing how it affects our lives in the everyday."; Michaels describes herself as "a deep generalist"; - someone who looks for unexpected patterns and connections across a broad range of cultural systems, organizations, and human interactions-we are pleased that she brought this pattern to our attention.
PREVIOUS RECIPIENTS
2010
Michael Pollan, author of Food Rules and the Oscar-nominated documentary Food, Inc.
2009
Amy Goodman, co-founder, executive producer, and host of Democracy Now!
2008
Charlie Savage, author of Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy
2007
Ted Gup, author of Nation of Secrets: The Threat to Democracy and the American Way of Life
2006
Steven H. Miles, M.D, author of Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror
2005
Jon Stewart and "The Daily Show" Cast
2004
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh and Writer Arundhati Roy
2003
Susan Ohanian
2002
Bill Press
2001
Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
2000
Alfie Kohn
1999
Norman Solomon
The Habits of Highly Deceptive Media: Decoding Spin and Lies in the Mainstream News (published by
Common Courage Press, 1999)
1998
Scott Adams and Juliet B. Schor
1997
Gertrude Himmelfarb
1996
William Lutz
The New Doublespeak: Why No One Knows What Anyone's Saying Anymore
1995
Lies of Our Times (LOOT): A Magazine to Correct the Record
1994
Garry Trudeau
1993
Eric Alterman
1992
Donald Barlett and James Steele
1991
David A. Kessler, Commissioner, Federal Food and Drug Administration
1990
Charlotte Baecher, Consumers Union
Selling America's Kids: Commercial Pressures on Kids of the 90s
1989
Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
1988 Donald Barlett and James Steele
1987
Noam Chomsky
On Power and Ideology: The Managua Lectures
1986
Neil Postman
Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business
1985
Torben Vestergaard and Kim Schroder
The Language of Advertising
1984
Ted Koppel, moderator, "Nightline"
1983
Haig Bosmajian
The Language of Oppression
1982
Stephen Hilgartner, Richard C. Bell, and Rory O'Connor
Nukespeak: Nuclear Language, Visions, and Mindset
1981
Dwight Bolinger
Language--The Loaded Weapon
1980
Sheila Harty
Hucksters in the Classroom: A Review of Industry Propaganda in Schools
1979
Erving Goffman
Gender Advertisements
1978
Sissela Bok
Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life
1977
Walter Pincus, Washington Post
1976
Hugh Rank
1975
David Wise
The Politics of Lying