Monday, November 29, 2010
Simulation Forecast
Reflection 13—
The Museum of the American Indian is inherently ironic in its formation. The dismissal of reality is an unfortunate product of our cultural and political contempt for the indigenous people of America. The government displays the mirage of honoring and representing Indian culture and history on our national mall, when it is more of a glossing over of the past and present Indian reality. We have to make the conscious choice of whether to fully acknowledge Native American history or at least do it the service of honestly ignoring it altogether. Instead of choosing one of these two truthful options, we have decided that it is better to misrepresent the Indian past by focusing on the rich and diverse cultures. This would be all well and good accept for the fact that it was these cultures that America dismantled, discounted, and disrespected. It is a futile enterprise of reconciliation to now acknowledge the cultures without also recognizing the gross misdeeds we have performed.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Reflection 14
I thought about it a little more, and I realized how much the institution of thanksgiving in general directly correlates with constructivism. Thanksgiving is a purely American institution, where people spend hundreds of dollars traveling to family homes to spend a long weekend together, while for the rest of the world it's just another weekend. Thanksgiving gives the American public an identity completely unique to them, which distinguishes them from the rest of the world. And so thanksgiving also contributes to the theory of constructivism.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Reflection 13
*Just to clarify, I do not in anyway use that word to suggest I don't like the US or don't want to be an American. It is more to clarify that I love being who I am, and that is British. It is a joke I use a lot but I sometimes get myself into trouble for it, so I just had to clarify to anyone who took offense to that.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Blog 11—
Columbus is unique. His religious piety that he prized over wealth makes him a remarkable man. However, his progression from a respectful bewilderment of the Indians to an antagonistic force, bent on subjugating their culture, undeniably rests some degree of blame for the subsequent colonization on his shoulders.
Arguably any other European would have more quickly made the jump from assimilation to colonization, but the reality is that Columbus was the first European man with the ability to make that transition; which of course he did. It is clear that he delights in the natural aspects of the new world, which many other men would have viewed as secondary to wealth, but his discovery of Indian culture was altogether normal and predictable. Tzvetan Todorov asserts that Columbus possessed an extraordinary amount of pride, predisposing him to infuse irrevocable truth in the skewed observations he ascribes to the new world. This idea can be expanded to the sentiment of European superiority, so although other Europeans would have had the same enslaving colonialist doctrine as Columbus, it was Columbus who first shaped the Indian reality in that light.
Columbus began the inevitable progression from discovery to domination, and despite the fact that he went about the transformation in a slightly novel manner, he crossed that bridge. The subsequent actions of Spanish colonizers were dually part of their own subversive intentions as well as reflections of the precedent set by Columbus. With the great praise gifted to Columbus for his world altering discovery, there must also be dispensed an equally harsh degree of responsibility for the actions that his discovery initiated.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Did Columbus set off the domino effect?
Bonus Blog question
In terms of which representation of Native Americans is more acceptable, I believe you could see both representations either way. Most Native American rights advocates (as well as the Native Americans themselves) would find the museum a more acceptable view of "Indians" because it showcases and represents the history and culture of various Native American tribes that generally most people don't know about and don't think about on a regular basis. They would also probably find the representations of "Indians" made by the Redskins unacceptable because in their view, it is an innacurate representation of Native Americans and possibly an ethnic slur. But at the same time, Football fans probably don't think much about the slurs behind naming a football team a Native American derogatory term, and see it simply as a representation of the sports team they love and support until the day they die. But the senario becomes different when talking about how the same football fans would view the Native American museum. In this case, the football fans take on the same view as the American public; which is that they don't know very much about Native Americans in the first place. That is not anyone's fault though, because Native American affairs simply are not prevalent in American news and culture, so they are often forgotten about. Sure, people are taught about Native Americans in elementary school, but it is not likely they still remember it far into their adulthood. So in this case, it is impossible to say wether these people view the museum as acceptable or not, because they just don't know enough to decide in the first place.
Blog Post 11
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Reflection: Prioritizing
Monday, November 15, 2010
Reflection: The reality of what circumstances can mean
During Friday’s discussion, we got to talking about education as a right vs. a privilege and how accessible higher education is to society. When some people started saying things like, “you can get anything you want if you work for it,” and “college is possible for those who really want it,” I started to get a bit annoyed and it got to me on a personal level. I was frustrated at people’s ignorance, but at the same time I recognize that some people are just removed from certain situations and thus stems their lack of knowledge. I raised my hand to voice my opinion and concluded with something along the lines of “it all depends on circumstances.” PTJ then asked, “like what?” and at that, a flood of emotions washed over me. Since I was not comfortable sharing personal situations, and since that was all that was going through my mind at the time, I wasn’t able to verbalize my thoughts or offer any examples as to what circumstances I was talking about. I’d like to try again.
Reflection 12
Friday, November 12, 2010
Reflection 12—
So as we left class about twenty minutes ago, PTJ brought up the question we will be addressing next week regarding the aim and intent of international aid, and how those should be configured. All my life I have wanted to be involved with some sort of NGO or aid organization that helps people on the ground, in the field. On a human plane this is extremely rewarding for both the anthropologist and the receiver of aid.
However…in light of some strong points in today’s discussion, it seems as if the best way to facilitate general well-being is to interact with governments rather than individual civilians. If someone builds a school in an African nation or even a school district, that affects what…10,000 people max? Instead if the government is supported and solidified fiscally, economically, and in terms of security, there is a far higher probability that the nation as a whole will experience great benefit, rather than a single community. The gap between funds and efforts that it takes to reform a government is certainly extreme, but even partial reforms will have a larger umbrella effect than educational engagement in a individual community.
This is not to discourage anthropological efforts because in terms of human relationship personal efforts are far more valuable. However, there are two levels of foreign aid that need to be addressed and the first is undeniably macro engagement. Once fundamental government responsibility is established, from there NGO projects and the kind of aid we would normally consider to be “aid” becomes more sustainable and eventually can be built upon. That is why a country like Kenya with a more stable government is far more capable of sustaining development, than a country like Chad, whose government is merely a means for leaders to steal enough from the people so that they can experience a comfortable European exile. Governmental structures are what international aid should first address.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Acknowledging perspectives
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Addressing the root cause
Monday, November 8, 2010
Reflection 11—
So yesterday I was watching this comedy skit by John Oliver, who is Jon Stewart’s senior correspondent on “The Daily Show.” Oliver is British, so his material is mostly concerned with how ludicrous people in America are, and how ridiculous our government is. At one point in the routine he tells a story about when he was watching TV one day he saw an advertisement for an inflatable barbeque. The idea of this marvelous invention is that you can cook while you swim. Oliver pointed out that only in America would you find this toy. He talked about how the Chinese could certainly make it and for cheap, but no Chinese family could ever “pull off” an inflatable barbeque.
This joke taken lightly is hilarious, but when one really considers the fact that American companies are investing even a cent in the production of inflatable barbeques you have to be a little worried. As we go into the next couple weeks discussing poverty, the disgusting material whorishness of Americans should certainly be on our minds. This last week we talked about an income gap in America. The global income gap and rift in standard of living is far more pronounced and far direr. It may be worth exploring alternatives to inflatable barbeques in the interest of promoting some semblance of balance across the globe.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Reflection 11
I also found it unbelievably ironic to find that they actually sold Pentagon shot glasses. I spent a good half hour cracking up at the idea in my head.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Security?
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Blog 9—
In terms of our perception of our own security, there is something inherently comforting about knowing that our troops are off somewhere fighting a bad guy. This is our natural reaction to foreign intervention before we logically assess the impact of waging a war in a country halfway across the globe. Another way to conceptualize the affect of the war in Afghanistan on our security is that it really has no impact. The Taliban isn’t about to invade the United States, they don’t have a stockpile of nuclear weapons for the sole purpose of destroying western ideals and democracy. So why do we care?
In the Krebs article he makes the case that the War on Terror is a rhetorically formulated idea that allows the U.S. to intervene in places like Iraq and Afghanistan under the guise of subverting terrorist operations that are threatening America. In reality, Afghanistan may be harboring Osama bin Laden, but how important is that to our security? Not very. Having thousands of troops deployed in the Middle East does very little to prevent a terrorist attack on the United States, and is hard pressed to have any sizable impact on stemming the growth of existing terrorist organizations.
The primary result of indefinite engagement in the Middle East is the utter waste of American capital and resources. When Mayor Giuliani spoke during parents weekend he attempted to make the point that war was stimulating to the economy. Well welcome to the 21st century Mayor, because war no longer creates millions of jobs in weapon production because it doesn’t take 10,000 tanks to fight Al Qaeda; one might even be too many. War simply saps the strength of our nation, as illustrated beautifully in Diplomatic Risk when armies were removed for active wars. If there were any way to categorize the war in Afghanistan as it relates to our security, it would be dangerous. It is harmful to our economy, which according to our President is an integral factor to our stability and security as a nation. The former administration got us all wrapped up in warfare, which ended up threatening our sovereignty rather than strengthening it as was hopefully intended.