week 15...wait what?!?

This week has been a lot. There seemed to be a lot of things which were due so I was a bit all over the place. In World Politics we started off the week with our simulation. Well that was honestly a bit discouraging because all we did was debate for an hour and change one word! I am laughing as I am writing this because of how silly that is. The word we did add though offers a plethora of opportunities to expand upon the proposal in future debates. On Thursday we discussed a very interesting reading called We Who Stole The Dream. It was a short story written by an AU alum who had to use a man’s name to get published in the first place. The story was fascinating there was so much in it that could be analyzed. What really had me was the significance of smiling was different for the Terran and for the Joolani, the Terran believed it meant happiness whereas the Joolani used it to show sadness. The other concept which caught my attention was the Stars Tears. The fact that the elites of both species were drinking it made me think of a song by The Who titled Won’t Get Fooled Again and the line is at the very end of the song, it goes “Meet the new boss, Same as the old boss”. Those who commanded power in both species were able to get away with atrocities. I believe that power enables atrocities, one does not equal the other, but they enable each other. It was a great last class.

The other days of the week passed in the same fashion as usual, Wednesday I babysat and then went to the abroad meeting to gather more information about this summer. Thursday and Friday were busy as usual, I was running all over the place. Friday I went ice skating with my friends, we tried to go see some Christmas lights but that did not work out. However, a nice security guard let us into a building which had a nice Christmas tree and sleigh set up. It was a fun night. Saturday I spent all day at the library of congress and then I babysat my favorite child. She is the most adorable human in the world, she always makes me laugh and I end up having the silliest times with her. Sunday I attended the global scholar brunch. The food was delicious and it was fun to eat out with friends for free. The weather was really nice too.

Ok back to studying now.

Overall not a bad second to last week.

Reflection #15

This is my final reflection, and I am very sad about that fact. I have greatly enjoyed this class and the content we have covered. I have learned many new things, and I learned to open up and actually participate in the conversations.

I was a bit scared to enter this class, I was intimidated by all the other people in my group, they all had these impressive biographies and seemed so prepared. In the first couple of classes, some voices sounded louder than others and that was intimidating. The readings were also difficult for me to properly understand in the beginning, they were interesting, yet I had trouble focusing on the content and retaining the information. After the first couple of classes came and went, I was able to properly understand this class. As more and more of the readings went by, and we did more discussions on them, I started being able to understand more of what was being discussed, and my participation went up. I was having more fun not just being in the class, but interacting with my fellow peers.

One of the ways that this was helped, was this class having such a great teacher who was open to questions and was able to figure out just what a student was trying to say but may have had trouble articulating themselves. While we went on tangents a lot of the time, I had a lot of fun with those too, since it let many people contribute to the conversation and also learn or think about a new topic.

Not just in the classroom, but after hours? One of the best things. I would have friends talking about what went on and all that was discussed and how they love going to office hours. I also had a lot of fun in office hours, especially discussing tea and music, and in our most recent talk, morality. There is a reason that your office has a line to speak with you.

I will be very sad after our last risk game, as that means we won't have class with you anymore (unless we take a graduate class). Either way, I hope to enjoy my last game of risk, and also still visit your office hours.

Thank you so much for a great semester,
- Eli

#15 Final Reflection (ym)

     Originally, I was not planning to do an overall reflection about this course. But then... I was getting kind of emotional and everything... so... (if my memory is working), I am going to reflect my 15 weeks of World Politics during the fall semester 2019.

     I remember the first day of class when I walked into the classroom being really really nervous. The fact that I am a part of the Global Scholars Program, the fact that I have a different style of the World Politics class which I thought it required so many skills, made me so nervous that I was even scared for the first few weeks (actually months) of the semester.

     Although I did not really speak up during class, I truly learned a lot by listening to my classmates speak their thoughts and opinions. Not only the thoughts, but how they develop their arguments from picking up specific elements from the reading that we were assigned, and how they apply their arguments to the real world in the International society today. Specifically, the class was not only about the ideas of World Politics and the major school of thoughts, but it was much more about the significant factors in order to discuss World Politics (which I might discuss in the final essay). If I ask myself if I grew up during this semester, I cannot answer a straight "Yes" in terms of speaking up during class. It will take me a much longer time in order to quickly develop some effective arguments to share with the class. However, reflecting these blog posts, I want to believe that I am somehow writing a better post compared to the first few weeks of the semester. One of the important things I have learned throughout this course, is the unlimited opportunities we have in order to learn what we want to learn. The topics we discussed in class and some of the blog questions made me think a lot and actually made me research in my own time to deepen my understanding about those topics, which I feel what a true learner does.

     Starting off with the day when we discussed the difference between "global affairs", "international relations", and "world politics", to the day when we played Diplomatic Risk, to the day when we played the simulations, to the day when we had the "fishbowls", group discussions, and debates...
I remember the excitement and nervousness feeling at the same time on Mondays and Thursdays 9:45-11:00. I cannot thank Professor Jackson enough for all of the supports throughout the semester; I could not go through without it. Also, thank you to everyone in the program who really motivated and stimulated me to do my best in class. I can say out loud that joining the Global Scholars Program was not a mistake. I am happy that I was able to learn with this group, and I think I am "wealthy".

#15 Class Participation Post (ym)

     Starting off my last class participation post about the simulation! I truly enjoyed the mixed emotions during the simulation as the Japanese delegation. 
"We are going to dredge into the ocean".
That is literally how the Japanese delegation felt throughout the simulation, because most of the representatives wanted to discuss about Issue II. I was totally forgetting the fact that there were more representatives of institutions and organizations than the countries. Issue I, short-term goals for the refugees was not really important for those institutions. I could have noticed that earlier, and raised my hand in the very beginning of the simulation so that we could have started discussing from Issue I, which was more effective for delegations such as Japan and China. Well overall, regardless of the fact that we could only add a term, I wished the delegate of Kiribati was here along with some more countries of the pacific. (I appreciate the fact that PTJ noticed how desperate I wanted to raise my hand to move onto Issue I, and told Gabby so that Japan could speak and move on.)

     "the Dream has not come true. It may be that it has no home."
When I first read this quote, the word "Dream" caught me into my eyes. Afterwards, the quote made a lot more sense. "Of course." I was telling myself in my mind, "A dream cannot have any homes, because there is no endpoint for any dreams. It continues to develop, so we are not able to achieve them."

     An interesting question we did not get to answer was: Does society has dreams? Although I could not come up with an answer during class, as I was thinking about it, I think all societies have their own dreams. People, also, have a natural curiosity about dreams. However, because of the lack of resources, usually dreams have low priority within any civilized societies. As a consequence, little or no attempt is made to encourage their pursuit or to provide the necessary means to do so. While answering this question by typing out here, I was thinking about the dream of the world. I cam up with an answer of: No, the world does not have any dreams because there is not any perspective from the "world". Some may argue that the United Nations or some international institutions can be the representation of the world. However, as we have discussed in the very beginning of this World Politics class, the definitions of "world" and "international" are different. Therefore, although "world peace" might be one of the dreams in the world today, I do not think that is necessary the dream of the world.

Final Reflections

Sadly, we have come to our final week of classes, along with our last reflection post. I'll try to keep this final reflection short so that I don't get too nostalgic. Honestly, I feel torn between a sense of excitement or sadness. While I am happy to have almost completed the semester, I am going to miss having PTJ as our teacher. Teachers like him are the reason I came to American and why I'm even more excited to continue on my education in SIS. Having intellectual conversations about foreign policy and the theories behind them is all good and dandy. However, learning from a professor who can give substantive knowledge while also guiding your experience as a student on a personal level is of the most important to me. I will admit I was hesitant about World Politics before the semester started because I had gone to preview day and seen PTJ give a sample lecture. My whole life, I've only taken classes where teachers talk at you but never really engage with you. Learning to me was writing down whatever the Powerpoint or the teacher had said, but not really questioning or analyzing it further. Now, having taken World Politics for the past 14 weeks, I can whole-heartedly say that PTJ has changed my perspective on learning as a whole. I know genuinely recognize the advantages that can be gained from class debates or "fishbowls." Not to be overdramatic or anything, but there were moments when doing my World Politics homework that I had an epiphany. During the Subotic article, I finally felt like I had found the place where I supposed to be. I honestly have no clue why that piece resonated with me so much, but I'm glad that it did. Some of the pieces that we read were extremely well written and insightful but not all of them had the same emotional impact. Maybe this was the reason they impacted me so much, but nevertheless, I'm grateful for everything that we discussed within the past 15 weeks. That even includes Todorov, although at certain moments in The Conquest of America he dragged the point out. I'm grateful that this World Politics class was my introduction to the International Relations world and is now the basis on which I will further build my education and later career. While I'm sad to leave the environment that PTJ has created for us, I think its important to recognize that it isn't really the end. Just because we won't be in his class anymore doesn't mean that we can't discuss Disney or Star Wars anymore. I for one will be needing a full debrief on his thoughts on the Rise of Skywalker at the beginning of the Spring 2020 semester. With that said, I'm looking forward to our "final". Diplomatic Risk was by far one of the most chaotic classes we've had and I'm very much looking forward to seeing what happens next Thursday. Until then, I'll just work on our final essay and continue to look back over the past 14 weeks with happiness and a tiny bit of nostalgia.

Subjective Morality

We are all different people in the world with different backgrounds and different moral compasses. An example of this is that some people believe in the death penalty, while others don't because it is immoral to them. Morality, in this example, is subjective. Do you believe in the death penalty because it means that a criminal is put away forever, or are you against it because you believe no person should have the power over another to be killed? Depending on what side you are on, you believe your side is the moral one. However, if the grand scheme of things, we are all supposed to be equal, so why is one person's morality worth less than another's?

I raise this question up because, in society, the West's view of morality seems to be the leading one. And why is that? Who chose to let these people dictate what is right and what is wrong? Is it wrong to sacrifice another human being to the gods? Our western views and moral compass tell us no, yet what gives us the right to tell those people to stop sacrificing people? I believe that we are all equal, just different with different views. Bringing in morality causes that balance of equality to shift.

With more knowledge of the other (or just other people), we may not agree with their ideals, but we do not have the moral high ground to make the other lesser or wrong. You may argue that with more knowledge of different cultures, you could then prove that yours (or another), is the most morally correct one. However, that is not true, because once again, you are making one people have a high ground over others. We are not able at this stage able to look at other cultures and not think of their morals one way or another. Yet with more knowledge, you should at least be able to see that there are different cultures out there and that they are all as equal as your own.

We can all be equal and different. While I may not agree with Nazi killings and believe that they are immoral, I am being subjective based on my own moral code. Equality doesn't mean you have to match their moral code.

- Eli

#15 Axes? Levels? Types? Effects? (ym)

     I literally was staring at the blog question for a straight hour. Besides the fact that my brain is not functioning (as usual), I just needed to read the question over and over so that I could comprehend the pieces of the question step by step. Ahhh it still hurts my brain. This is so hard, but I will try.

     So there are three questions:
1. If we consider knowledge of effects, does "difference with equality" lose its moral force as an ideal?
2. Should we be looking instead to eliminate inaccuracies in favor of better-supported empirical claims?
3. Is that process itself a reassertion of the kinds of hierarchies that Todorov argues that we need to call into question?

1.
First of all (unfortunately), I finally realized that the three axes introduced by Todorov were more written equivalent than in terms of increasing (developing) levels. I think I was getting a little bit confused because I have related these axes with one of Todorov's quotes which was in ascending order of levels. As I was reflecting the past classes and this blog question, I now have a thought that the three axes presented by Todorov is more of different types and rage of thinking, instead of thinking as hierarchies. As I go back and read the quote again, I do not think he is talking about equity or inferiority (I am not saying that the thought of the three axes representing the hierarchy is incorrect... I just thought this is another way of examining his three axes... ahhh I do not know). Okay, back to the first question: what is "difference with equality"? what is "lose its moral force as an ideal"? I think "difference in equality" lose its moral force as an ideal if we consider the knowledge of effects (such as the three axes by Todorov), because now we have the perception that "knowledge of effects" is not in terms of superiority, but another "way of thinking".

2.
For the second question, I think the answer is No. This was what we have exactly discussed during the simulation on Monday. Containing an inaccurate term within a claim will give nations or people more variety in terms of understanding; which will allow different ways of thinking. Therefore, in order to avoid this situation, I think we should eliminate any inaccurate terms. However, it is also significant at the same time to not eliminate too many terms, because that will end up with a broad and vague claim. Adding a single term will open up different possibilities for people because of the variety in the interpretations. United Nations, for an example, includes some vague terms so that the majority can agree and can pass the resolution.

3.
In conclusion, if I have the mindset that this "difference in equality" allows more opportunities to think and there are just another way of thinking, I do not think the argument of Todorov is reasserting the kind of hierarchy. Of course I cannot argue that there is absolutely not inferiority within the three axes. I can definitely see the ascending level. However, if we think about the terms of effect when we think according to the three different axes, I think we can say it is not about inferiority anymore, but just different types and fields of knowledge.

     I really do not have any confidence in this blog post; which is sad, because it was our last substantive post... but I will keep thinking about this topic; until it will not hurt my brain anymore.

New York New York!

I really liked this week. It started off with our Monday class and finishing up our discussion about The Conquest of America. Our discussion was good, but personally there were times where I struggled to understand the deep complexities which Todorov incorporated into his work in order for the reader to gain a greater understanding of the Spaniards and their conquest of the natives. I think Todorov also wanted us to relate it to today and see how we as individuals or even as states interact with the “other”. Tuesday I did quite a lot. I woke up early to walk a friend to class and say goodby as she was leaving to go home that day. Then I, along with a friend, went to the capitol building in order to visit a representative and pick up her apartment keys. I realized it was the most I had ever done in the morning before my Chinese class. Afterwards I returned to campus, went to Chinese class and then rushed back to my dorm in order to get all of my affairs in order so I could make my train to New York.

I arrived in time for my train, got a lovely window seat and promptly after finishing my participation post slept for the rest of the ride. I was very tired since the fire alarm had gone off at 1am that morning. I arrived in New York and my godfather as well as his wife were there to pick me up. We returned to his apartment and devoured a scrumptious pizza. The next day we walked around the city and saw the play A Christmas Carol. It was a beautiful day and I had a lot of fun with them. I think my godfather is funny, so I was laughing quite a bit this week. We had a delicious dinner at a Spanish restaurant where I shared a paella. The next day was Thanksgiving. We went to New Jersey to have dinner at a family member’s house. It was good, but nothing is quite like cooking from your mom or dad. I loved celebrating this holiday with them and cannot wait to do it again next year. Surprisingly I did not do any shopping on Black Friday, I did some work and then went on a gorgeous walk through Central Park. I had a delicious Italian dinner at a place only a short walk from their apartment.  I love their apartment and its location in the city. Saturday, I did more work and then we went to a nice restaurant for a birthday dinner. Sunday, a gray day in New York, is the day I departed and returned to American University.

Week 14 done. 2 more weeks till I go home for the holidays!

#14 Class Participation (ym)

     The class on Monday was interesting. The quote picked up during class was:
"Find your country sweet is only a raw beginner. Finding each country as your own is already strong. Finding the whole world as a foreign country is perfect."
Also, we discussed about the three axes Todorov introduced; axiological level, praxeological level, and epistemic level and tried to connect with the quote above.

     First of all, I would like to add my own explanation to this quote above. Maybe Todorov wrote this quote is such as concise way so the readers can easily understand. However, if people were to analyze this quote in their own ways, I can tell there will be so many different ways to describe this quote. In terms of the simple thought of this quote, I can understand the content (what he is trying to tell the readers). However, I disagree with the last sentence of his quote. I can agree with him, if he is meaning to say that if we view a world from an outside perspective objectively, then it is the ideal way. But at the same time, I felt that it is impossible to view a country from an outside perspective as a foreign country if you do not know any other countries. I just think that he needed to include some descriptions and explanations about this quote so that it would be able to avoid the confusion by the readers.

     Next, when connecting this quote to the three axes, I personally do not think that it is just simple as it is. I think many readers would tie them as:
・Finding your country sweet is only a raw beginner.
    → Axiological level: good or bad
・Finding each country as your own is already strong.
    → Parxeological level: identifying self with others, imposing the image upon others
・Finding the world world as a foreign country is perfect.
    → Epistemic level: knowing others' identity and understanding the fact
Of course, I can understand and see this idea. For an example, if you take a close look at the quote, the scale of the "country" is increasing as the perspective and the way of thinking is developing. Also, as each level develops, the way people judge their values are developing in a "better" way; people are being able to understand more within a complicated complex scale.

     The choice of words are the key in both this quote and the explanations of the three aces. Generally, I appreciate the word choices of Todorov, because I can understand the reason he is using the worlds for some specific definitions that those words can contain. However, at the same time, I think there are certain word choices where I feel he could have had a better decision about it.