In light of thanksgiving, family gatherings, and general conflict, I'd like to share with you all one of my favorite quotes:
"There are three things I've learned never to discuss with people: religion, politics, and the Great Pumpkin." - Linus (Peanuts) I love this quote. It's even my current Instagram bio! I think it's a great quote and something that is great to live by when it comes to celebrating Thanksgiving. I have such a wide array of religions, races, and opinions within my family. I have Mexican cousins, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jews, republicans, democrats, you name it. In order to avoid conflict on a day that is meant to be happy and focused on your thankfulness, I avoid speaking about religion and politics. Religion is pretty easy to avoid at the table. Religion is varying in my family, so it's more convenient for everyone to just avoid it entirely. God isn't dinner table talk in my family. Politics, however, are a little bit more difficult to avoid. It's become increasingly difficult to avoid politics since my major is International Studies, I live in the nation's capital, and attend university at the country's most politically active college. So, with that, I went into Thanksgiving prepared for the worst. Much to my surprise, things were not the worst. The focus of the conversation settled on Trump, and to my surprise, Trump brought my family together! Not in the sense that we were all like, "Woo! We all love that guy!", but more like, "Woo! We all hate that guy!". Even my dad, the token Republican, had some pretty nasty things to say about dear Mr. President. It was pretty nice, being one big, enraged by the president and current state of politics, family. Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Also, I wanted to add that Thanksgiving is a holiday that attempts to hide the cruelties of colonialism and the savage murders of Native American nations. Many Native communities observe Thanksgiving day as a day of mourning and that's something we should all consider and respect. I could go into a lot more detail, but for now I'm not going to. I hope you all had a relaxing break and enjoyed your time at home or wherever you were.
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This week we focused on Todorov's Conquest of America. I enjoyed it and I thought it was interesting, but I didn't really feel like I gained any new information from this book. I feel like I've been learning about colonialism and the conquest of America since I was in elementary school, so it didn't really feel like I was gaining a lot of additional information from Todorov. He had a lot of interesting perspective's, but I didn't think it was anything revolutionary... (I feel pretty rude right now, tbh). Even though it was a good book, I didn't love it and I probably wouldn't choose to read it again.
I know that historical context is really important when analyzing current politics, but I feel like most of us have the context of colonialism and conquest in mind already. With that being said, I would've liked it if we spent more time learning about a current world politics issue, like the refugee crisis or nuclear relations or something like that. I'm not trying to critique PTJ in the slightest because I think that this class has been very informative and helpful, I just feel like we are a little behind in terms of current events. I do think the simulations have been very helpful in this regard, so yay for those! On pg. 62, Todorov asks: "Did the Spaniards defeat the Indians by means of signs?" Well, did they?
When it comes to defeat against the indigenous peoples, it was something that Spaniards seemed to have perfected and held pride in. With their historical accounts of their conquests they very clearly and proudly boasted of their triumphs, hardly shying away from topics such as rape, torture, and erasure of culture in said accounts. They possessed means of destruction that the natives hadn't even imagined yet and were far from developing. Using their advanced weapons, "Christian" ideologies, and diseases, they wreaked havoc on their "newly discovered" civilizations. They left nothing for salvation and had intention to do so if it didn't directly benefit them (embedded liberalism, maybe?). As listed and stated, the Spaniards had many means in which they defeated the Native people of these regions, but the one I am going to primarily focus on in this post is the means of "signs". To me, signs is their means of communicating with the natives. They used sabotage, misinformation, manipulation, aggression, and intimidation in their sabotage to bend the natives to their will. They capitalized on their "superiority" to bring down those they deemed as less intelligent than themselves. In the first chapter, Todorov mentions that Columbus feigned knowledge of the native language, acting as though he could understand what they were saying, when he really, really couldn't. This is an example of the sabotage and manipulation that was utilized during the times of colonization. I believe that in the end, the Spaniards utilized many modes of destruction to defeat the natives, and although the signs aided them greatly, it was not the only means in which they did so. Like Olivia, I wanted to mention Todorov's point that history is written by winners. Olivia made great points in her post about the array of "victories" for the Spaniards: the defeat of the indigenous people and the erasure of their culture and voice and that this is proof that defeat goes far beyond a physical overpowering, but can be seen socially and systematically. I think this was a very important thing to touch upon because too often we only think of the physical repercussions of countries and people touched by the impacts of war. In my first year seminar class we focus a lot on the psychological and culturally damaging aspects of war/conflict and prior to this year, it wasn't something I had considered too much. I was more caught up in logistics and historical accuracy, but I now see how detrimental war is to the identities of those impacted by it. This week, we discussed embedded liberalism and whether or not it is still utilized in world politics today. I had a little bit of difficulty understanding exactly what embedded liberalism was and how it has been applied to international politics in the past, but after some additional reading and true contemplation, I think I've got it!
With that, I do not think that embedded liberalism is still utilized in international politics in the modern age. I think that aspects of it are still applied to global political theory, but embedded liberalism as a singular strategy isn't totally relevant these days. However, I think it is referred to and has helped to model some things that we do today when participating in and analyzing world politics. I really like learning about stuff like this because it exemplifies the changes that occur in politics, especially international politics. The political realm and its climate is constantly changing and evolving, which requires the same type of change for the strategies and ideas applied to it. I hope we learn more past and current political theory this semester. Continuing our "continuity and change" topic from last week, but this time in the sphere of political economy. The question is: have recent changes in the organization of the global political economy meant the end of the postwar "embedded liberal" order, or are they an example of "norm-governed change"?
Embedded liberalism is something that I hadn't really considered prior to our class discussion. Sure, I had heard the term and briefly learned about it in my eleventh grade AP United States History, but I really didn't understand it. Now, I think I might. I think that embedded liberalism is basically the process in which governments increase social spending in order to appease those who may be 'iffy' on the stance of globalization. In order to keep all groups in contentment, the gains of such embedded liberalism must be shared. With that (hopefully correct) context in place, let's get into the ACTUAL blog question! I think that embedded liberalism is a little bit outdated now a days, as in it isn't really used. When I think of embedded liberalism, I think of things like The Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan was enacted in the years following the second world war. America provided twelve million dollars to countries in Western Europe and claimed it was to help the recover from the economic and social repercussions of war fatalities. However, it was largely done so that America could maintain control of European countries and keep them in the form of democratic states (capitalist) to keep them away from communism (lack of free trade). Like previously stated, embedded liberalism must 'benefit' all groups involved. However, I believe that there is a large amount of political ongoings that we are largely unaware of. Even though we think of acts and actions from 1945-1985 (these are the years that the era of embedded liberalism is primarily referred to as) I believe that there is a large chance that things are happening under the surface of public politics that could be referred to as embedded liberalism, but is done through the means of other services other than mere financial aid. Unfortunately, when I went looking for modern day examples of embedded liberalism I couldn't find them. But then it made me wonder, could I not find them because they weren't there, or because the term embedded liberalism IS outdated and occurrences are no longer sorted under this category? So, I kind of think that I can't truly answer this blog post. But, right now, I think that embedded liberalism is an outdated term and currently underused term for something that still occurs today in a more discrete way. Maybe norm-governed change is just a new term that is being used in place of embedded liberalism? Week 10! Wow, how crazy is that? 10 weeks of college and World Politics under my belt!
As amazing and thought provoking as things have been in school and in this class, the thing I'm focused on the most this week is the election. Tomorrow, November 6th, is the 2018 midterm election and there's a lot at stake. The current administration is reckless and frankly, an embarrassment. Their poor actions and lack on thought for future generations and the marginalized could seriously harm us if we don't act to stop them now. There's a lot of history that could be made tomorrow. The first Native American woman could be elected to congress, the first LGBTQ+ Native American could be elected to congress, numerous LGBTQ+ individuals could be elected to various governmental positions, we could see the first ever election of a Muslim woman in congress, and the first time election of many racial minorities. All of these will be inspiring historical feats and I hope to see them come to life tomorrow. Voting has really been emphasized this midterm election and the usage of social media to encourage it has been insane. I have never, ever seen so many celebrities, activists, and normal people utilize social media to relentlessly to inspire social change. As much critique as there may be on social media and the youth of today's "obsession" with social media and technology, it's really helping all of us out and making understanding the process a lot easier. Here's to hoping that democrats get back control!!! Go vote!!!! Please! |
Hey there! I'm Halle Jaymes and I'm a first year SIS student from Southern California. I'm hoping to focus on Europe as my region of study and hone in on sustainable fashion and general fashion in International Relations. Archives
December 2018
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