#Main - Lecture by Journal - Newest Journal First: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Lecture Seventeen - Data Don't Confused People, People Confused People.
Dear HTML,
Data is the main topic in this week's lecture from 103. Sally outlined in the lecture how all social science is about gathering data and intepreting data about people. The quality of the study depends on the quality of the data, and the validity of the analysis. This week's reading "Science Chases Legends" examplifies the way data and analysis depends on each other. The geomorphologist notices something strange about the data. Provided that the data is good, there must be some reason for it. If there were not a good analysis of the data, in this case, the strange rock formation, no one would have found out about the prehistoric aquaculture.
Similarly, bad data and bad analysis can ruin studies. The "diverseness" of the city of Vancouver was argued in class, based on the data provided in the paper, from Statscan, and also from personal experience. The data from Statscan was very confusing in this regard, because the surveys were based on the terms 'visible minority', and 'ethnic origin.' It is interesting to observe how two different papers based in two localities can put forward different conclusions by selecting different data from the same StatsCan census. By interpreting the percentage of 'visibly minority' the Vancouver paper is able to put up the headline 'Vancouver Leads the Diversity Race.' It is pointed out in class that, compared to Toronto, Vancouver is a much more 'Bicultural' place, where two main communities, the Caucasian and the Asian communities, make up the bulk of the population. The term diversity itself is called into question.
Any set of data can be analyzed and mis-analyzied to give desired meanings. The data itself is quite neutral, if not always correct. Intrepretors of data however, often instill meaning into data where there were none before. This giving of meaning is part of the job of a social scientist, but its variablity often makes it the most difficult part of the job.
Tony Chu
Lecture Sixteen - What it means to be huamn.
Dear HTML,
This week's lecture is a marked break from the previous weeks, diving into the problems raised by intimate relations between man and machine. Interestingly enough this week 102 lecture discuss the distinction between the self and the other referencing Freud and Lacan, and I believe these two are very closely linked. The creation of the cyborg raises questions about the distinction between the self and the world, the human and the non-human.
I have always seen machines as an extention of myself. Being raised in the age of computers I have no fears of machines. They are not the same inexplicable boxes my parents sees. The most distinctive experience of the machine as an extension of myself comes from playing videogames. If one is good at videogames, the controller should no longer be concious in one's mind while playing. One's brain is quite literally plugged into a game. For me, that is the essence of the relationship between man and machine. The machine, at many different levels, is just an extention of my conciousness.
There is no distinction between the man and machine that is not arbitrary. I believe what Descarte believes; that we have a divine soul which directs the machine body, which that machine body is organic or mechanical is almost irrelevent. That being said, I believe that computers are calculation machines, which can be programmed to simulate human responses, but in the end, remains a simulation. That is to say, machines can have the indistinguishable appearance of spiritual conciousness, but will never actually have actual consciousness. It will always remain a simulation.
All of thse cyborg talk is kind of mysterious to me. As I see it, we have extended our conciousness into outside objects since the first time human beings picked up a club as a tool. We have been cyborgs since the beginning of civilization.
Tony
Lecture Fifteen - Industrial Organics
Dear HTML,
The 101 and 103 lectures overlaps this week in the discussion science as it relates to societies, particularly the contentious issue of genetics. Science, since Bacon's time, has always been about progress. Scientists attempts to master each aspect of nature it encounters, whether it be steam, atoms or genes. Entreprenuers have always been quick on their heels, twinking each discovery to find profit in it. With genetics, however, we have come face to face to our fundamental nature. Questions about morals and ethics comes into the fold as we delve deeper into the human genome.
This weeks reading was from J Hannigan, and it talks about the process of making claims about the environment. This has great relevence as it directly affects what gets into the daily news, and therefore largely controls what is concious in our minds. It is an interesting bit of irony that scientific claims, ones which may concern our very being, need to be contructed and marketed just like another other product. Hannigan mainly used acid rain as his case study, but his 'constructionist perspective' can be easily extended to the GMO (genetically modified organisms) debate as well.
A convienent case study here would be my reading for 101. It is a chapter from the book "Enough: Staying Human in and Engineered Age" by Bill McKibben. Mckibben warns of the dangers of genetically modifying human beings by constructing a moral high ground using sporting as an anecdote and a lead. The article appeal to the reader's sense of horror about being dehumanized. While it does not discount genetic cures, it stresses that once genetic 'cures' are developed, there is nothing that would stop genetic 'improvements.'
I have to admit, I was quite moved by the 101 reading, and it gave me the creeps. Contructionist or not, claims do alter our consciousness depending on its constitution.
Tony
Lecture Fourteen - What Did We Know, and When Did We Know It?
Dear HTML,
"No matter how big and destructive your problems may seem now, remember, you've probably only seen the tip of them." - "Problems" Despair.com
Our time is called the Information Age where we are supposed to have access to a flood of information at our finger tips. It is amazing and very alarming, however, the extent to which this available information has been filtered, processed and selected. How much do we know about the environmental problems around us? I think James raises a good point about how information which are presented to us are often selected for their marketability and controversy instead of their relevance and importance. Often we do not know what causes our problems. When we do know, the information is often overlooked.
I have began to read 'Biology as Ideology' by R. C. Lewontin. The chapter 'Effects and its Causes" puts some of science's problems in prespective. The cause of tuberculosis is poor work conditions and overcrowding, not only the tubercle bacillus bacterium. The bacterium is only the agent. Similarly we can say that CFC is only the agent of industrial profiteering, which is the real cause of the ozone thining.
Politics of profiteering further complicates matters. Industries do not like to be branded as the source of problems, so often unsavoury scientific findings are not revealed to the public. When controversy envelops a commercial or industrial practise, scientists becomes lawyers in the court of public opinion, battling each other in producing "scientific evidence" to augement their rhectoric. Truth does not always triumph, but what triumphs is always branded as the truth.
So what DO we know about our problem? We might not like what's under that tip.
Tony
Lecture Thirteen - The Eye of Sauron
Dear HTML,
This week’s lecture is focused around the inadequacies of modern resource management. The fishery crisis on the East Coast of Canada is used as the case study. After decades of over-fishing, the cod stocks in the Canadian Atlantic waters are severely depleted. The problem is complex and far reaching, but its root is surprisingly simply. The problem is tunnel vision.
In the movie ‘The Return of the King,’ the evil king Sauron is depicted as this big orange eye at the top of a tower. Its gaze is like a search light, focusing upon and lighting up whatever holds its interest, while incapable of seeing anything else. The eye is forever looking for its one ring of power. This image of Sauron provides a strange but helpful analogy of the modern commercial state at work.
The capitalist state has but one thing in mind; profit margins. From on high it looks down on the ground work, modifying whatever it sees fit in order to maximize profits. In that act of simplification all pre-existing ways of life are lost. This week’s reading accounts how the power of the capitalist state transformed the fishery industry. From communities seeking subsistence the fishing outports were transformed into modern mass processing, highly efficient, profit-oozing fish factories. The hyper-efficient fish producing machine effectively stripped the ocean of cod in two decades.
The key and fatal difference in the two approaches is that, the small subsistence fishing communities caught what they needed, while the fishery corporations caught all that they can. The transformation of these communities left no flexibility and no other method of survival. The unprofitable but sustainable subsistence economy is lost.
Sadly, that is the result when profit replaces subsistence as the primary goal of operations.
Tony
Lecture Twelve - Selective Hearing as a way of Life
Dear HTML,
I've heard a saying that goes like this, "Lie to yourself, because you are the person you can most easily fool." In the lecture James talked about how the scientific method has many inaccuracies which cannot be easily eliminated. The fact that these data are obtained scientifically does not mean that they are accurate, only that they are the best of what a group of scientists can do. This bank of data, however, is a giant source of information with which interest groups charge their debates. Scientific data are often varied, ambiguous and voluminous to the point of being impossible to thoroughly process. It is perfectly suited for selective analysis, in other words, rash judgment.
In the lecture James talked about Standardization and 'Myths'. I saw both of these as ways people deal with reality. "You can't handle the truth." I forgot which movie it is from, but it really is a great quote. Reality is too big for any one person or group to deal with comprehensively and thoroughly. Creating 'Myths' is not only a bad way to deal with reality; it is also the only way. If we had to wait until all of the data to come in before people act, nothing would ever get done. Standardization does work, sometimes. (A very qualified 'sometimes.' I'm guessing replaceable parts production would be one example where standardization does work.) In order to deal with reality we must, to some extent, simplify it. Our dilemma is that, once we simplify reality, it is not reality anymore.
But no one needs to know that, not even ourselves. Right?
In this week's reading there was a passage that talked about early royal surveys of France , where the forest examined only for the lumber it can produce. All the bushes, fruits and game that it can produce the natural habitat it provides for other animals and the communities that rely on forest's resources are completely ignored. For all of its flaws, however, it is a very typically human survey. There is no reason at all in the surveyors' eyes to examine every tree leave and bush in the forest. They naturally filter out all that they deem useless; a sort of 'selective hearing' process.
All of the 'Fragile', 'Robust', 'Resilient', and 'Capricious' view points are just people selectively listening to different parts of the scientific data available. There is also creative interpretation of data, but that only adds another layer of deceit over what is an already confusing reality.
Lets not get into that, since I have no solution.
Tony
Lecture Eleven - If People didn't Exist, Bad Things wouldn't Happen to Them
Dear HTML,
James raised a very interesting point about human disaster in this week's lecture. Natural disasters are not 'natural' at all. To paraphrase Nietzsche, 'people attribute effects to chance when a thousand little causes are at work.' If it weren't for the existence of people, disasters wouldn't happen. This idea can be taken in a number of intriguing directions.
Simply put, disasters are events in which bad things happen to people. Therefore there is two key ingredients which have to coincide in order for a disaster to happen. It is easy to think that people are the unfortunate victims of 'natural' disaster, and not recognize that people have to be in the 'right' place at the 'right' time in order for disasters to happen. James raised two great examples of natural disasters which are not quite natural in the lecture; the forest fires on the West Coast and the hurricanes on the East Coast. Houses built in the middle of the forests are always at heighten risk of fires. Large housing projects like those in Kelowna really do not belong there in the fist place. A similar scenario exists for the housing developments on the Florida coast. Massive hurricanes hit those areas regularly. Building houses on the Florida coast is deliberately putting lives in harm's way. These disasters are always tragic, but there is nothing natural about it.
If I were to push this idea further, I would say that disasters happen because people exist. Avalanches which happens without killing anyone or destroying any property are not disasters, they are a natural phenomenon. People 'cause' disasters when they put themselves and their property in the way of nature's cycles. In many ways, active or passive, human beings always participate in bring disasters to themselves.
I still believe knowing everything is God's job.
Tony
Lecture Ten - The Washington Tales
Dear HTML,
It is interesting to look at the conventions of religion and nationalism and find so many similarities. The many common elements seems almost incredible. However, if we keep in mind that both systems aim to instill and reinforce faith within an ideal, then the similarities are really not all that surprising.
Greg began the lecture with a general definition of religion by Geertz. His definition is very broad and encompass all symbols and meanings which inspires and reinforces faith in the framework of a system. It is through this definition that Greg can use the paradoxical term, secular religion. The American nation is used as the example throughout the lecture. Everything symbol used in the process of nation building in the States fits under Geertz' definition of religion. From the Declaration as a holy text, the museums as the shrines, to the capital as the site of pilgrimage, all sorts of symbols are used in nationalistic and 'religious' ways to enforce the 'inalienable' existence of the nation.
It prompts one to ask, what is religion then? By Geertz' definition is almost seems like religion, both secular and supernatural, are just institutions which wield incredible power over people's imagination. With this power over people's imaginings these institution can rule the people. Is that truly the function of religion in society? Greg talks about how in the social sciences we are not to ask existential questions, so I won't go into those.
However, I do want to ask this, in an almost Nietzsche sort of way. What function does religion serve in society, as opposed to the functions it serves in the individual? Why does religion, both the secular and the supernatural variety, appear to be just forms of control? Supernatural religion is supposed to bring stability to an individual's spiritual life; that is its function. The secular religion is similar because it is supposed to be companionship and peace to a "believer's" political and economical life. Where does this gap in function come from? Another Nietzsche question comes up; whose end does institutionalized religion serve?
I don't think God would approve.
Who, then, uses the irrational forces of religion?
Tony
Lecture Nine - The Nation Strikes Back
Dear HTML,
I learnt about the concept of 'ideology' in the 102 classes, and they apply well here.
The nation is a construct. It is not natural, even though it is often treated that way, and left unconsciously alone. This week's reading includes The Nationalization of Culture by Lofgren, which talked about the elements of a national project. The concept of the international thesaurus of nationalism is very useful. It simultaneously demonstrates what each nation holds to be unique and value most highly, and also show how this list of qualities are international and imitative of Western nation-building traditions. The ideology of nationalism is in its nature an global-minded way of thinking.
From the reading and the lectures, as far as I was able to understand, the national project is the continued upkeep of the national imagination a la Benedict Anderson. Although the Civic and the Ethnic nations are branded as very different things, they share that same motivation in their efforts to tie people to the land. Whether this creation of the national imagination is the awesome parades on National Days or the banal flashing of the delineated national map on the weather report, the function of it is the same. The function of these flagging (Banal Nationalism) is to continue the nation.
In the lecture Greg lists five common myths about nationalism which obstructs our understanding of nationalism as a historic force. I think that as well as being myths, they also outline a certain element of truth which are aspects of nationalism. It would be erroneous to dismiss these myths as simply false. Myths are simplified representations of reality which makes the world easier to deal with. Often myths simplifies too much, but there is still value in myths insofar as they aid our understanding.
Now I'm just wondering how much can people separate economics and politics. Can the world truly be economically integrated yet politically divided?
Tony
Lecture Eight - One Europe, Two Europe
Dear HTML,
The lecture for this week talked about how Europe came to be what it is today. Beginning from the Cold War period up until the present day, the lecture traced the steps of the USSR's downfall and the rise of the EU. The EU and the USSR seems to inversely mirror each other's progress. The EU grew from humble beginnings as the European Coal and Steel Community to become one of the largest and wealthiest trading blocs of today. The USSR, once the second largest military power and the leader of the Soviet Socialist bloc, crumbled and splintered into ethnic republics.
I find the modern day EU particularly fascinating. It is at once an effort of union among the once-significant European States, but also a stage for showboat nationalist statecraft. Both the force of nationalism and globalization are at work within the frame of the EU. On some issues, like the military and the economy, the two forces merge and push for integration. In face of the globalizing economic world, individual European states risk becoming insignificant. A common currency, a common market, and a common foreign trade policy benefits all of the unionized Europeans, at least, that is the theory. The military alliance in NATO allowed Europe to remain a military player on the global map.
The effectiveness of the EU will be interesting to watch. The USSR was a both a success and a failure in terms of uniting nations and ethnicities. With a central military force a myriad of nations were kept together for almost sixty years, terrorizing the rest of the world. It failed also precisely because of that central concentration of power.
In the EU the forces of nationalism and globalization shimmers and bubbles, at once conflicting and merging with each other. Some Europeans wish to move towards a European supra-nation, others violently resist that concept.
I think that the EU's success will depend on how successful its administration will be at making the Europeans imagine themselves as one people.
Tony
Lecture Seven - The Nation-State Departs?
Dear HTML,
This week's lecture was about how the Nation-State is or is not relevant anymore. I tend to side with Greg to say that the nation is still relevant. In my opinion, Greg's most convincing point is that the "withdrawal of the state from the market doesn't signify the state's withdrawal from the world." The economy is globalizing. The world is not. After all, people are not just about buying and selling, and the society is nothing but a bunch of people.
Trevor's half of the lecture is packed with claims about the integration of the world economy. The New International Division of Labor is a very real fact we can see from the consumer products around us. There is no doubt that the world's economy is integrating. This integration comes with the development of production. As Greg points out, this "Globalization" is nothing new; Chinese silk were worn by Romans. Even anti-globalization policies are not new. A Roman Emperor attempted to ban silk during his reign, because he believed that Roman gold is being drained out of the economy for useless silk. This talk about globalization is very much linked to last week's lecture. Globalization comes with development, and there is nothing people can do to halt the advance of history.
I agree with Greg because the world is not only about he economy or production. The nation as "category of practice" exists at the level of the individual mind. Although, we might be eating American food, driving Japanese car, using a Korean cell phone, sitting on a Italian sofa, we are still mentally Canadians. Shopping globally only means that we are wiser consumers and doesn't necessarily mean that we feel like citizens of the world. The forces of nationalism can be compared to the air around us. It is hardly noticeable because it is there all the time. We notice its presence, however, when it is whipped into turbulence. Greg's example of flag-waving on Sept 12th and the rise of the far-right in the EU illustrates that strength of nationalism in our world today. Remember how nations are supposed to be imagined communities? Our imagination, if anything, have become stronger than before.
Trevor had a quote from Kenichi Ohmae: The End of the Nation-State (1995) "Nation-States [have] lost their role as meaningful units of participation in the global economy of today's borderless world." I would like to point out that it says "global economy." Trade barriers are indeed collapsing. They are forced down by globalization development, even as far-right nationalists attempt to keep them up. National barriers, however, are not falling. In fact, they will not fall until people stop fancying themselves better than others. That will never happen.
The concept of the nation is mainly political. As long as a bunch of people still imagines that they are of one nation, they political power that comes with the nation-state will not go away. Although in today's world, all consumers do what is logical and buy cheap, we know that people, especially large masses of people with a common hallucination, are very capable of being totally illogical.
The nation isn't going away soon.
Tony.
Lecture Six - Whose Development is it anyways?
Dear HTML,
Development is not a neutral idea indeed. I feel like a bourgeois.
Let's us not talk about what development is, and leave it as the modernization of industries, and the development of the market. I'd like to focus on 'Whose development is it Anyways?' Is development indeed a bad idea gone wrong? There maybe be good evidence that it is.
Most of Trevor's lecture was spent lying down the facts, and presenting, briefly, the position of each side. The so called blue side is pro-development. They are the advocates of global free trade, embodied by the Export Processing Zones. The market's forces will one day modernize the world. The red side is anti-development. They are the dependency theorist that believe the multinational corporations are making the third world dependent on their capital while using the EPZs to manufacture goods for the lowest prices.
Like it or not, Globalization has started. The market's force cannot and will not be turned back. We have to wonder, however, whether this is for good or for ill. In this week's reading 'No Logo: Discarded Factory' we can see that the author Klein is definitely on the 'red' team. She outlines the conditions of the workers in the EPZs slaving away for American pocket change. The system of subcontracting work to the third world in Klein's opinion is exploitative of the third world, and it doesn't improve the condition of the third world people nor the nation.
Despite being advocate of global free trade and market economy, I believe her argument is sound. EPZs are exploitative and will remain that way, despite what the West does. It is no longer the Western nations that are exploiting the third world, but the Western corporations. The multinationals are able to exploit the world now because, unlike governments, they are not elected and suffer relatively little political pressure. Moderate development is definitely a boon for multinationals. Their maturation is also a boon for the multinational corporations as well, since these nations will become new markets. This form of exploitation will continue to exist, and people's lives in the third world will not improve unless something else is done.
Unfortunately, there is nothing else that can be done. The multinationals wave their contracts in the air, while the third world nations, eager for development, snap at these contracts like hungry dogs. They will fight each other for these contracts. This will only become worse because it is relatively easy to grow "production" as compared to growing "markets." The third world in the foreseeable future will always be competing for contracts. I believe that in the really long run, these third world countries close the gap between themselves and the first world. However, there will be long suffering in these countries before development's fruits ripens. Mass consumption is a long way off.
And who knows if those fruits will not be bitter in the end.
(Sorry, lazy, no links this time)
Tony
Lecture Five - Fordism and the Keynesian Social-welfare State
Dear HTML,
Greg's comment near the end of the lecture really brought the entire lecture together for me. The very fact that Marx has yet to be proven wrong is a very interesting point.
The mechanism behind modern capitalism, the 'Mode of Regulation', is a key part of capitalism that I have taken for granted, and thus never noticed. It appears that the system of regulation starved off capitalism's "collapse" (dot-com bust) time and again and put it back on track. The collapse of the stock-market in 1929 appears to me to be one of the collapses that Marx envisioned.
Marx was right in saying that capitalism is prone to unemployment and recession. The 'capitalism' that Marx knew in his time was chaotic and disorganized, not to mention immoral. That unregulated 'capitalism' was doomed to collapse.
Marx envisioned the emergence of Communist society out of the funeral pyre of capitalism. What happened instead was the emergence of Fordism and the Keynesian Social-Welfare state, or what I would like to term, temporarily, Capitalism v1.1.
(Here we go off a tangent.) Capitalism, as Trevor stated in class, is founded upon the free market, where producer and consumer comes together to freely exchange goods and services. The use of the term 'free' has a definite positive connotation. The words 'free', 'natural', 'disorganized', 'chaotic' can all be used in a similar context. I believe, by the virtue of the free market, capitalism is chaotic in nature.
(Back on Topic, I guess) Early capitalism, or Capitalism v1.0, is totally unregulated and chaotic. Imperialism and exploitative colonization was the result. The capitalist economy in western Europe became bloated. It kept producing goods and force feeding it to new markets in the colonies. International markets, however, eventually ran out. Wars were fought over foreign markets. (I guess this could be called one of cause of the world wars.) The stock-market crash in 1929 was an example of over-investment. With too much investment producing too many goods and no new market to sell to, Capitalism v1.0 tipped over and collapsed. (By this time, living standards were falling and war began to boil.)
Fortunately for Capitalism, (and unfortunately for all the rest of the world) the world war provided a huge market demand for weapons. The bloated economy turned to producing weapons, and did not die. After two world wars, people looked for a change in the social system. Some states turned to socialism and communism (The Soviet Union; Communist Yugoslavia), while others (Keynes) modified capitalism and moved on.
The mode of regulation is what kept Capitalism going. It is an essential part of capitalism. I guess socialists would say that capitalists 'stole' part of the socialist formula and used it for the 'continued exploitation of the workers.' I would say that people are just trying to find a system that works. If it helps to keep the system running, why not?
Marx may well be right still. The mode of regulation hangs on a thread; capitalism can still easily collapse. Although I dare say that a communist society would never spontaneously emerge out of the ashes of anything.
Well, what do I know? I'm just trying to understand the world better.
(Oh, and some of what I wrote here would be a throw back to my journal for Lecture Two.)
Tony
Lecture Four - Collectivism and The Soviet Empire
Dear HTML,
Sorry about the journal being so damn late.
My father was a young entrepreneur (or refugee, or escapee if you look as it from the communist perspective.) who narrowly escaped the grasp of Communist China by swimming to Hong Kong when he was 22. I've heard the anti-communist rhetoric often enough. He was, after all, someone who went around the system; he was part of the resistance.
One of the things about the lecture which strike me, however, is the familiarity of what he said. I guess my father would be one of those who had a 'real life' under the heels of big brother. He remembers his youth, being a city boy, learning to play the flute under the star beside a creek, when he was deported to the 'farm-life labor camps.' He remembers the songs sung to the static-filled radio tunes in the country dark. The fields of sugar crane (not the Christmas kinds that we know) which he sneaked into for a snack.
He was constantly trying to run around the system, break out of the system.
To take control of his own life, he decided to swim across a strait with $10 dollars in his pocket.
The point that really interests me involves the ideas we are playing with in 102. Kant had said that the Enlightenment is man's emergence from immaturity. Immaturity being the inability to reason and the dependency upon authority. By this definition, the Soviet system as it existed in the 1950's can be liken to an Anti-Enlightenment. The Soviet system was built upon Paternalism, the idea of having someone above who knows better, and who makes decisions for you.
Rousseau had said that once we are bounded by a social contract, we are not free. By his definition almost no one in this world has 'natural' freedom. However, Kant believes that some restrictions on civic freedom promotes Enlightenment, or freedom of thought. According to Kant, it is possible for a person to be free, even when bounded by the social contract, as long as they have the freedom to exercise their reason publicly. That is to be able to publish their thoughts independent of the institutions.
A soviet citizen has no right to make public use of their reason (by Kant's terms.)
Therefore even by Kant's definition, people under the soviet system is not free. I think this is an important difference between modern western society and Soviet/Communist society. Some of these (Kant's freedom) is restricted in a religious way in many Middle-Eastern countries.
But as Joy said, there's always two ways to look at things.
The Soviet system takes away decision making from the local level and takes it all the way up to the central planning committee. Kant would say bad, bad, bad. No freedom, Paternalism, yadi yada. Soviet took away freedom of speech, no public use of freedom.
It obviously failed as a viable economic system. The soviet people did not achieve the same amazing leaps and bounds in living standards and technology as the west had. The Enlightenment ideal in the west blossomed into a rich media.
All depends on how you look at it.
The Soviet system took away the stress
on the people to compete. No one fought to become stinking
rich because no one can possibly become stinking rich. Enlightenment led the people away
from the true teachings of God. Instead of reading the Bible
everyday, people read the latest developments on Benny and J.Lo's
affair. (You can argue the value of the Bible, but I do not thing you
can argue the worthlessness of the Ben and Jen stories.) Freedom of
Gossip may or may not be a good thing.
Are we really moving further and further away, as Rousseau had said, from the natural and true state of human kind?
For me, it all seems to boils down to one very simple question. (Simple as in the whole argument can derive from this single question - fundamental)
Can choice really lead to happiness?
By my own intuition, I'd say yes.
Tony
Lecture Three: Politics- The Nation State and Geopolitics
Dear HTML,
The nation is really a very curious idea. I really like Anderson's concepts in the text "Imagined Communities" where he says that the nation is nothing more than a group of people's common imagining. I guess this is a proof of the power of imagination, because the forces of nationalism which stems from this imagination had immensely powerful effects on history in the past two hundred years.
The concept of the nation is apparently based upon two things. Firstly, a bunch of individuals thinking that they share something in common, and therefore believing that they are a group (category practice). I'll call this force inclusion. Secondly, the individuals within that grouping must believe that they are somehow very different from all other individuals in the world. I'll call this force exclusion. Therefore, the nation is just one of the many forms of social cohesion. It is in any many ways similar to other units of social cohesion like family, corporate, academic discipline, social class (proletariat), political party and sports clubs.
One key and interesting difference between the nation and the other social units listed above is that the nation, being as powerful as it is, is also very poorly defined. Everyone can see that the nation exists, no one can really actually define where one nation ends and another begins. There is no absolute definition. (This is as opposed to other social units. Family actually *usually* have the same blood. Club members are registered on a list. Working class has jobs.)
Let's think about the concept of the nation statistically. (Excuse my simplistic mathematical rendering)
Each individual have a bunch of stats. Each individual also have a list of "ideal stats" which they judge whether other people belong in their nation of not. People who fulfil a certain percentage of the "ideal stats list" are accept by the individual as part of their nation (inclusion), those who don't are rejected (exclusion).
Now imagine that each person is represented with a dot on a graph according to their "stats". Around each person is drawn a circle which represent their "ideal stats list" or, more accurately, what their individual idea of their nation is. Let's call that circle the 'national circle'.
What do we get?
Well, first of all, a total mess. Which proves one important point. The idea of the nation is hardly a well defined one, and is very messy when you get right down to it.
In a graph such as we imagined it above, there will invariably be areas of higher concentrate of dots. Most of these dots will have a national circle with surrounds the area of high concentration. Each of these highly concentrated 'mess' on the graph would represent what we usually define as a nation. Let's just call them 'messes' for now.
This imaginary graph is helpful because it demonstrates many of the difficulties associated with the idea of the nation. There are no well defined lines with which we can circle the 'messes' and separate dots inside and outside of it. At best we can only set arbitrary limits, and with these limits we marginalizes 'dots' which are on the edges of 'messes'.
The problem is, 'dots' don't get upset when they are marginalizes, people do.
There are also a problem with the sizes of each individual 'national circle'. Some circles are big, others are small. This creates an interest phenomenon of mistaken national identity, where a dot A circles the rest of the 'mess' as its own nation, while most of the other 'dots' doesn't include dot A into their circle. There are also a dot B which maybe in the middle between two 'messes', or what is known as dual-nationality.
In Imagined Communities, the dot A phenomenon is most clearly demonstrated with the Creoles in the colonies. The Creoles had 'national circles' which included themselves and their counterparts in the mother country. However, the people in the mother country do not include the creoles in their 'national circle' because there is two stats that the creoles does not fit; the locality of birth, and the locality of residence. The creoles are thus 'marginalized' by most of what they consider their own nation.
There is one curious observation I'd like to share. Taiwan, by these definitions, would be a newly emerging "imagined community". Since the intermingling between the mainland and the island is cut off, the people of Taiwan became acutely aware of their 'statistical difference' from their counterparts in mainland China.
Hmm, looks like I have to establish something else about the 'ideal stats list' first. The 'ideal stats list' is not something that is static, chosen by each individual arbitrarily. Rather, it is a list that is constantly changing based on other lists that are 'broadcasted' by other individuals in the environment. Therefore, there is often a feed-back loop which makes the 'national circle' of adjacent 'dots' similar. (Peer Pressure Behavior) This feed-back is perpetuated through media such as print and radio. Once developed, this feed-back becomes stronger and stronger, resonating through-out a 'mess'. This phenomenon explains the unifying power of nationalism.
Ok, back to Taiwan. Since the feed-back effect is cut-off between Communist China and Taiwan, the 'ideal stats list' mutates (excuse the biology analogy) and the small changes are compounded through-out the island of Taiwan with its media. This is a very simplified explanation of how China still views the people in Taiwan as part of its nation, while some people in Taiwan wants to 'redraw' their national circle.
Almost feels like divergent evolution of an animal specie cut off into two populations (Darwin).
Woah, I just wrote an essay. And I missed how Rousseau can be incorporated too. =P
Tony
Lecture Two: A History of the World in 90 Minutes
Dear HTML
"A history of creative exploitation." This week's lecture was heavy stuff. At least when I think about it deeply. A history of the world before 1945 is not difficult material, as I've done it all before in high school. What bugs me is the cruelty about it, and also how capitalism is portrayed as "teh sux".
Capitalism is something I believe in. It still is, even after all of this stuff about how capitalist Europe descend upon the rest of the world like a hungry pack of wolves sucking dry all resources and destroying local livelihood. That is because I do not believe that what happened in the 15th century can be called capitalism. The Atlantic Triangle and the Plantation system is not a necessary result of capitalism. It is the result of pure, ruthless, unregulated greed.
In one of the few books on economics I have read, there is an idea about capitalism by Steven N S Cheung that I personally prefer. (I'm paraphrasing, I might be very wrong.) He sets out that, first of all, human society is competitive and will always be competitive because of human nature. Secondly, people are born with unfair talents and born in unfair circumstances. Thirdly, people will always try to better their own livelihood, often at the expense of others (greed?). (Three Commonplaces - 102) Under these assumptions it is easy to see why the situation in Europe during the years led to the subsequent ravaging of the world. The Europeans were merely being competitive and trying to better their own livelihood. It just so happened that they were in a better position to do that than other cultural formations.
From his three assumptions, Cheung derived one insight. Greed is an unchangeable human trait, we might as well take advantage of it. The capitalism system needs to be regulated in a way that maximizes the beneficial aspects of human competitiveness (As evident in the rapid improvement in living standards in the last four centuries) and minimizes the harmful aspects of it (The savageness of colonialism cannot be deny, nor can uneven development of the world be ignored.) Without regulation, "capitalism" boils down to pure exploitation. Trevor's lecture provides a very good example. Unregulated "capitalism" still occurs in today's world. (Clothing-corporate sweatshops, among other things)
Cheung proposes that a free-market economy coupled with a healthy, well defined system of private ownership protected by an independent law system would be the best bet.
Personally I don't know if that is true. (I need a couple more years in University - probably tens more) However, my intuition seems to agree with it, except that I believe a comprehensive education and re-education system needs to be in put in place as a social safety net.
In today's economy, the commanding commodity is slowly shifting from capital to knowledge. (I am SO sure that I am not the first one to say it.) I believe that giving out education for free is better than plain handing out dough to the unemployed. It's a better solution than socialism.
Ok, I don't know why I wrote that. It's a journal I guess.
Tony
(Sept 27th) Tightening up. I didn't define my terms very well. I need to re-establish what I mean by greed, capitalism and introduce the idea of the free-market economy. Greed is people's inherent instinct to acquire property. Capitalism, as defined in the Houghton Mifflin Canadian Dictionary, is "an economic system characterized by freedom of the market with increasing concentration of private and corporate ownership of production and distribution means, proportionate to increasing accumulation and reinvestment of profits." I am trying to distinct between capitalist methods and exploitation.
Both capitalism and exploitation are driven by greed. (Perhaps there's a nicer sounding word, but whatever.) I believe that the Atlantic Triangle and the Plantation system are examples of European exploitation for usurped colonies. Even though capital was used as a tool in that exploitation, the system doesn't fit the definition of capitalism. Capitalism only works under a set of regulations which protects everyone's basic rights to their own labor and property. In short, the capitalist systems needs all of its members to have fair opportunities to compete. Using capital to bully the working class is not capitalism, it is exploitation. Exploitation in this form is what leads to Marxist revolutions.
Oh, the other point I'm trying to make is that greed is neutral. It is like fire in the sense that, if it is controlled, it is good; if it is not, then fire becomes destructive.
Lecture One: Modernity and the Social Sciences
Dear HTML,
It seems that out of the three foundations lectures, this one stayed with me the most. Well, other than the single idea of representation and reality anyway. Even here though I'm beginning to see the idea central to the course. Reality is always deeper than what appears to the common eye. The idea of representation superimposed upon that reality only makes things even more complicated.
The most interesting point in last week's lecture is the "science" in social science. The natural sciences and their seeming superiority lies in the "fact" that their discipline (102) is exact, precise, and establishes universal laws about the natural world with which engineers can improve society. In fact, the idea of a rational, exact science which improves society is the driving force of Modernity (102).
In some senses that is true, in some sense that's all bull (101).
Firstly, the sciences are not as exact as they seem (101). Often their experiments are fraught with error. Their discipline is as prone to human error as the social sciences. That is why they need hundreds of lab rats, and repeated experimentation.
Secondly, and more importantly, the social sciences are faced with greater difficulties than the natural sciences. Humans are not automatons, and cannot be experimented with in the same ways we trivial with atoms and energy. They never react the same way twice, and their behavior changes when they are observed. A watched kettle doesn't boil any slower, but a watched worker WILL work faster (Westinghouse Case).
Yet both the natural sciences and the social sciences adhere to the same principles of science as outlined by Francis Bacon(102). Social scientists uses the same set of scientific procedures to understand their world; the only difference is that these procedures are adapted for use upon human beings and society. Social scientists, just like their natural science counter-parts, work to use their learning towards the improvement of the human condition.
Yeah, that's about it this week.
Tony.