Student Election Judge Application And Permission Slip: Fill & Download for Free

Preface (Feel free to skip this part if you are looking for a quick answer without a social context.)Although I find bits and pieces I agree with in other answers, I am going to address this from a biological / anthropological point of view, and address this because even after a 35 year career teaching in college, I still find myself slipping in and out of the same state of mind as you’ve described.So don’t take my ‘answer’ as therapeutic advice from a non professional. I’m just like you … trying to get a handle on the ups and downs of my own identity … so there will be more than a bit of solipsism in my answer.I am a ‘white’, American ex-pat who has lived more than half my life in Japan. While with friends, I don’t consider myself as a member of an ethnic minority … just another fishing-crazy, guitar-playing, community-volunteer … hanging out and doing my thing with buddies of shared interests.But institutions can be quite another beast altogether.I resigned in protest from a tenured Associated Professor position because of persistent institutionally sanctioned marginalization — even dehumanization … ‘colleagues’ entitled to order me when and what language to use … or to refrain from community outreach projects without their permission … ‘colleagues’ entitled to deference by their Japanese ethnicity alone. In other words, institutionally embedded racism.More than two years now, and despite a more than acceptable curriculum vitae, I still can’t find a job even as a part-time instructor.Locked out.Institutionally isolated.As implied in the title of Arudo Debito’s book, Embedded Racism: Japan's Visible Minorities and Racial Discrimination (by Dr. Debito ARUDOU). (Lexington Books, 2015), I am now quite sensitized to the white privilege I had unconsciously enjoyed while growing up in the states, simply because I have been deprived of that privilege while living in Japan. I am far from the only one, or the most tragic case … Cautionary tale: Bern on how no protections against harassment in Japan’s universities targets NJ regardless of Japan savviness and skill level.But I do not consider myself a victim of racism per se. I am lucky to have close Japanese friends who care for me. I am just one representative of many marginalized groups in Japan — 1/6 of all Japanese school kids are at the poverty level, Japan ranks near the bottom of developed countries for empowerment of women, and the aged/retired of Japan according to at least one study are the loneliest and most marginalized among developed nations.Less than a month ago, 19 mentally handicapped people, not more than an hour’s drive from my home, were slaughtered in Japan’s worst mass murder since World War II … and this is just the tip of a hidden iceberg. I am just one of many marginalized by all-too-clever opportunists. Steve Martin (Steven Martin)'s answer to What topics should black and white people discuss to better understand each other?The upshot is this … humans, homo sapiens, are primates, social primates to be exact. ‘Self’ … and therefore ‘grounding in reality’ is a social construct. ‘Reality’ is an open-ended question, but a sense of grounding, though provisional and in dynamic flux, is necessary for our personal sense of meaning and the vitality to pursue that purpose.To repeat, I am a member of homo sapiens, a social primate, and that is the ground I stand upon.Until a couple of hundred years ago, the Japanese language did not even have a word for ‘self’ until ‘Kojin’ was coined to translate a work by Rousseau. The Western Enlightenment idea of a Cartesian, independent subject, distinct from others or surroundings had been traditionally defined in Japan by relationships.As pointed out in a recent (March 2018) magazine editorial in JAF (Japan Automobile Federation), the Japanese word for citizen, ‘shakaijin’ is at most only a couple of hundred years old, coined at the beginning of the Meiji Restoration. The Japanese writer of the article went on to explain that a lot of the current social problems of Japan arise from a clash of values between humans as members of small, village (tribal) units, and the obligations and responsibilities of citizens of a nation-state.I would go further, and say this is a problem of all nation states, and am more likely to believe in evolutionary anthropologists such as Robin Dunbar, that the fundamental unit of social primates is a small community, perhaps as small as a family, but not exceeding a couple of hundred people at most. More than that, and we can remember each other’s names, much less each other’s skill sets, dreams, traumas, and unique characters necessary for efficient collaboration. Our most natural and salient unit as social primates is not the herding and swarming numbers that make up nation-states or large corporations. In such large numbers where the majority of people are strangers, we have to rely on flawed and limited rules (laws) for a stable society … not the immediacy, but limited in numbers neural patterns of empathy. How much ink has been spilt on the fragmentation of identity and alienation of the self when finding we are just cogs in a machine ‘too big to fail’ … and yet inevitably will fail because the rules and laws are fixed and gamed by sociopaths driven by blind ambition?But back to the social primate as a communal beast … the worst punishment, short of death, that could be imposed on a social primate is banishment … and in the absence of another accepting community, banishment would mean death. In a large scale society, we might be able to keep an institutional job without the nurturing support of a community … but we would still suffer emotional, psychological death … as is the metaphorical meaning of many a zombie movie.While American parents might typically punish a teenager by ‘grounding’ them (pun intended), confining them to their room or the house, the Japanese are more likely to punish a child by shooing them out the door and locking it … leaving the kid outside, alone, and crying to be let back in.Maybe Americans can more easily identify with banishment from social cliques while in high school. This is harsh enough to elicit suicide among teens and adults across the world, but is particularly bad in the highly institutionalized ‘communities’ of Korea and Japan.Short answerI can not be totally certain that my analysis or ‘solution’ matches your own, but I find myself most grounded when I am absorbed in a collaborative, problem solving task, particularly in the aid of marginalized others. Steve Martin (Steven Martin)'s answer to Is it true that in Japan there are no beggars?JustificationTo me, this is what it means to be a mature social primate at its best … and (at the risk of falling into the teleological fallacy) this is what I consider the highest goal of education, science, art, religion, psychiatric counseling, good parenting, community activism … you name it.Alas, communities of shared good-will and intentions, tend to follow an arc of institutionalization. When the individual’s choice of how, when, and why to participate in the group is replaced by rules, protocols, and rituals for the sake of efficiency … the community is no longer a community. It has become an institution, subject to mission-creep, the dysfunctions of rigid hierarchies rather than circles of friends, and a minefield of nooks and crannies for opportunists to marginalize and dehumanize ‘capital’ for their own self-entitlement.Yesterday, April 3, 2018, I was chatting with some neighborhood friends in a neighborhood English conversation cafe, and found myself going into a little more detail about the dysfunctions of large-scale hierarchies (for humans), or any abstract system (Gödel's incompleteness theorems).All hierarchies and systems rest upon assumptions, outside the system, that can not be proven. Even science itself assumes things such as ‘cause-effect’ or ‘quantifiable, empirical data’. But when you look at the edges of scientific paradigms such as the event horizon of black holes, or Plank Distance … cause-effect and quantifiability break down, and normal science can ‘progress’ only with the blind faith that ‘cause-effect’ or ‘quantifiability’ is usually good enough. Thomas S. Kuhn’s classic, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, is a good clarification of what I am talking about.In the case of mathematical systems or human hierarchies, I described to my friends the ‘incompleteness’ or inconsistencies in terms of tautologies and contradictions. But those at the top of human hierarchies also rely on secrets (or fake news) and a cunning, machiavellian use of timing in order to maintain control. A good read for the psychology behind such dynamics would be Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer. Even though the book was about fanaticism and mass movements, I think his psychological analysis is equally applicable to the current dynamics of politics and big business.The good thing is that these Towers of Babel will eventually collapse under their own weight. The bad is that there is a lot of collateral damage in that process. So I’ve come to tend to gravitate towards communities, and look at institutions, no matter how prestigious, with a cynical eye. But even that rule of thumb is suspect.Just a few years ago, while I was a still a card-carrying ‘tenured Professor’, among the many obligations I felt privileged to carry out as an educator was as a community volunteer and activist. I was even asked by students from Japan’s highest ranked University, The University of Tokyo (as well as other Japanese ‘Ivy League’ schools, Waseda, Keio, and Sophia), to judge their English Speech contest, the 東大杯 The English Oratorical Contest for the University of Tokyo ESS Trophy. I agreed, upon they follow my usual condition by doubling the standard honorarium paid to judges, and then donate it to the charity of their choice … which they gladly did. I was again asked to be a preliminary judge for this year’s (2018) contest, which I accepted, and they agreed, upon the same conditions (see below).Just three or four years after resigning from my tenured college position, and with nothing but time on my hands, I thought I would volunteer to teach English through songs and games at the new pre-school next door. The fact that I have lived in the same community even longer than the parents of kids in the school did not carry any weight at all. I did not even get beyond a greeting and self introduction through a voice intercom at the locked gate to talk with one of their ‘teachers’. Hmm. So much for finding a ground in ‘community’.Edit. Wed March 7, 2018 … I have just finished another round of being a judge for Tokyo Universtiy’s All Japan English Speech Contest, as well as a finals judge for Soka Daigakku’s All Japan contest … both as a volunteer on the condition that the speech contest committees double my judge’s fee and donate it to a charity of their choice. I specifically asked the Tokyo University speech contest committee to introduce me in their brochure as follows:第12回東大杯(2017年度)　公式HPWithout being associated with an institution in Japan, beyond close friends, you are invisible … a NEET. A large percentage of NEETs suffer from mental illness directly related to institutionally sanctioned marginalization (or lack of ‘grounding’ in a social context).The suicide rate due to institutionally sanctioned bullying (power harassment) is so bad, that as of a couple years ago, the Japanese Government enacted a new law which requires all companies of 500 or more personnel to provide mental health care assessment and treatment on a yearly basis. There’s just one catch. The corporate executives and elected politicians in Japan have just as cozy a relationship as their American counterparts, so in order to avoid putting too much financial pressure on those ‘poor’ corporations, the mental health care does not need to be conducted by mental health care specialists.Feeling harassed by the boss? How about being treated by a little prick of a needle? Or is it that a little prick with a needle ? I’d guess there is an equal probability that the more invasive measures of western doctors and big-pharma, as well as practitioners of acupuncture, are somewhat lacking in mental health care capabilities.But back to how I find my grounding. When I am not with personal friends, or involved with some task lending a hand to those in need, I find myself most grounded in ‘the great dialog’ of world culture … books, movies, or music have provided my sense of grounding. It is through a resonance with the thinker or artists’ message that sometimes I can feel enough to keep me going, to keep me connected with humanity. Sometimes. I hope to add to that ‘great dialog’ in the future.Simply posing your question on Quora is a good start to finding and building your own community of like-minded problem solvers … and of finding the great thinkers and artists with which you resonate. They are great because they continued to question their beliefs and actions.Best of luck to us both — bonobos in training ;-)