Final Reflection, Woohoo.

Over the course of the semester, I've learned more about how to analyze global affairs in a critical manner. I can now look at an issue and say, "Well, this happened, but why?". This sort of skill is vital in any sort of economic or political line of work. I may not have learned a lot about various global issues, but that wasn't the point of the class. Rather, it gave me the analytical framework necessary to further success in international relations. It was a lot of work, but I found a lot of gratification when debates in class continued over blogs or in 721. These discussions played a large role in shaping the way class itself functioned, and our actions were really what shaped the way the course was directed and what was taught. In that regard, I found the class a fascinating experience. I certainly don't walk away from the class with any regrets, nor do I have any about my blogging experience. As to whether or not I will blog in the future, I can only really wait and see what I feel like doing. I've found it an interesting way to carry on debates, but they're only fun when you have other people discussing your ideas with you. As a result, this sort of involvement will likely only continue in a sort of community where I can expect regular feedback from a regular body of readers, like I had this semester.

One way or another, I'm glad for the things I've learned in the course. It's altered my perspective on a lot of things and changed the way I look at the world, and that is far better than regurgitating information that I would have learned in some of the other classes.

Assorted Ramblings

I've filled my blog requirement, so I actually want to use this occasion just to write about things important to me. I'm watching a documentary as we speak about genocide around the world and those who have tried to stop it as the years have past. I look at history as a realist. I don't hold a lot of countries accountable for not intervening in many cases. For instance, I see it as being so difficult to actually provide any element of stability in Darfur, and American intervention could make the situation worse. Yet somehow, I can't just sit by and look at something like the genocide in Rwanda and, knowing it's more than wrong, let it happen. Probably my favorite part in Quantum of Solace was the part where Felix Lighter was sitting on the plane with the American officer right after meeting with the movie's antagonist. The mustachioed American, when Lighter questions why the US was allying with someone with so clearly negative intentions in Bolivia, replies that if the US allied only with good people, there wouldn't be an ally to be had. I agree with this statement. Sometimes, allying with a Pervez Musharraf can be necessary to maintaining a status in the larger context of regional stability. But when I look at every instance of genocide around the world, the United States does not stand to gain from allying with a Juvenal and Agathe Habyarimana, Slobodan Milosevic, Omar al Bashir, etc.. However, I see the United States historically tying itself to Pol Pot or Saddam Hussein in a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" sort of mentality, and I can't help but feel disgusted.

Genocide is an unforgivable crime. The fact that these situations keep occurring, even though we say "never again" repeatedly shows me how humanitarians are all too often all talk. They don't have the power to stop what happens. States are the only ones with those powers. If Srebrenica or Rwanda are any indicators, the UN only makes situations more disgusting when soldiers stand by and do nothing. It's why Romeo Dallaire nearly killed himself when he was unable to do anything for the people he had worked with for months before the genocide began following Juvenal Habyarimana's assasination, possibly performed by his wife Agathe and her inner circle (the akazu). But at the same time, I don't see states as providing the necessary stability in the recooperation of genocide-ravaged communities. When I view modern reconstruction efforts, I see the Ethiopian intervention in Somalia, the Iraq War, the Hutu-Tutsi tensions coming to a head in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (and their previous manifestations in Burundi), or the other numerous attempts at reconstruction, I don't think we've had a truly successful attempt at restoring a society since World War II. This provides so many complications to my ultimate instinct that intervention is vital to prevention of genocide.

As the documentary comes to a close, I see how TV can't possibly portray how horrific genocide is. It didn't even get the point across as strongly as I have seen done in literature, such as in Philip Gourevitch's We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families. Yet even this book can't display how horrendous genocide is. What shocks me more than anything about genocide as a crime is the instinct it creates, where people are more shocked to survive than to die. In Rwanda, Tutsis had just had this instinct driven into their minds that they would die. I hate sitting here knowing that I have these opportunities before me, solely on the basis of my birth in this nation, and other people live only awaiting death. I don't know what can be done about genocide. Don Cheadle isn't going to stop Darfur, no matter how many celebreties think he has the right idea. Ideally, yes we can stop any genocide. We can stop the janjaweed in Darfur. We could have stopped the genocidaires in Rwanda, or bombed the camps in Germany during WWII. But could we have done what is required to stop further perpetration of the crimes? Would American intervention in Darfur stop the JEM from coming into power and oppressing Arabs? Or would intervention in Rwanda have prevented the rise of Laurent Nkunda and his Tutsi backlash? Somehow, I don't think so. I just wish there was something that could be done.

Objectivity and "Citizenship"

I can see a few ways in which the question can be interpreted. Given the connotation of the novel in which it is contained, it refers to the process of constructing "the other." It likely implies the best and worst ways of doing this. It can hold a sort of universalist "the best person is a citizen of the world" sort of connotation. Potentially, it could even be used as a critique of nationalism, in that nationalism blinds someone to the glories of other cultures. However, all of these interpretations skirt around one critical fact, and that is that nationalism obscures objectivity. I would argue that this is true, but ultimately irrelevant, as this nationalist bias cannot be overcome in the short term.

Nationalism certainly implies a certain bias in favor of one's own culture and way of life. In establishing this bias, one removes any semblance of objectivity in discussing foreign affairs. I consider myself a fairly worldy individual, but I can't deny an obvious bias in favor of the United States in discussing global politics. This likely wouldn't exist if I saw myself as a "citizen of the world," but I don't feel as though I can realistically do this, as I will discuss later. This bias is key to nationalism's existence in a discourse. In order to remove this bias, one has to completely remove the lens through which one sees others. Regardless of one's status, one will see the world through a certain constructive lens. This is affected by basic psychology, upbringing, surroundings, etc. and cannot be overcome, especially in the short-term. Governments operate in the same fashion as individuals. Even the most objective of governments will see affairs only in the capacity with which the observed thing will affect them, and at worst will view them with a severe inferiority bias. To remove this lens would be to defy the very aspect of the current national construct.

I'm a big fan of the idea that people join into a family, city, nation, etc. only because they feel a sense of belonging and a desire to belong. This is the reason Americans connect with Americans in a national sense, why Quebecois see eye-to-eye with other Quebecois, or why Thai live in Thailand. These connections run deeper than a simple familial construct. I don't sit here as a Tennesseean and feel a fundamental connection to every other person who lives in the United States today. The ties that bind us together are far more shallow than those that connect me to my family. Yet these ties still exist, and "cloud our judgement." To overcome these ties is to remove the lens through which one views the world. I would argue that because of humankind's fundamental grouping instinct, it is difficult, especially right now, to overcome this barrier. Though the world is more connected than ever before, humans still do not feel a fundamental connection to each other on the basis of their mere humanity. We see that all other humans are humans, but see no "other" to unite us as humans. Rather, Americans see Mexicans as "the other," because though vastly similar in cultural values and similar histories, the two have not lived together and shared identical cultural experiences. This fact inhibits the abilities of the two cultures to effectively communicate because they do not feel enough in common. I would argue that this bias exists even among the "global citizen" Todorov sees himself as. This character still views the world through a certain lens, that of multiculturalism. All nations are foreign to him, meaning he doesn't have a firm grounding of a national home (which establishes a large part of my critique of this statement, as it's pretty hard to get someone to give up identification with their home). This very fact gives him a bias: in quoting Said, he feels an element of connection with other expatriates, ascribes to a certain set of values expatriates typically hold, and as a result, makes himself no different from the nationalist. He still views the world through a lens, and this lens is just as cloudy as mine.

This fundamental desire to belong is nearly impossible to overcome. Though it is possible for it to be taken away in regards to global affairs, the creation of a new "other" is the only thing that will bring us to that point. Alien invasion, anyone?

A Restful Weekend Reaches its Midpoint

So I wasn't in class Friday, so obviously my reaction will exist in a vacuum. I will use this opportunity to talk about things that interest me as a result. The pirate talk, though fascinating, has been beaten to death by this point. Everyone wants to stop it, but no one really really wants to other than the French and Indians, who have already killed several groups of pirates. So going a little deeper than superficial pirate battles, let's look a little deeper here. I'm interested to see how this could destabilize the region further, and to see the extend to which Yemen becomes involved in the process. It certainly won't be doing much to stop it. But could the economic instability already prevalent in the country expand even further as damages to the minor shipping out of the nation penetrates deeper into the national economy? How could this affect the prices of oil?

So as if we haven't talked about the election enough, I read a fairly interesting blog post about race and the election. To many on the left, Barack Obama somehow indicates that somehow everything is going to be okay in America, that racism is a thing of the past, and that somehow, even though he isn't in office yet, "yes we did." I think Obama's acceptance speech was great, in that it realized this. But I fear many among his supporters think that now, he has it covered from here. Just because someone you agree with has been elected doesn't mean we need to stop being vigilant about government accountability and its involvement in the private lives of American citizens. I'm not going to believe in change until I actually see it. Seeing disheartening numbers such as these go to show how there really hasn't been a value shift in the American voter. The same blocs exist in American politics; the only thing that has shifted is the relative power of the northeast and southwest over that of the southeast, the traditional "swing vote" of American politics. Clearly, a much deeper, long-term change in demographic perception must occur in the United States before "change" becomes a reality.

The Construction of "The Other"

We live in a world today where everything can be answered and all known if enough money is spent and creative power employed. We have removed gravity as an obstacle to expansion, tied the world as one with the Internet and telecommunications services, and are close to discovering the exact nature of matter itself. Yet through it all, are we truly any further along in advancing knowledge and the human understanding of the creation of this knowledge than we were when Columbus made arguably the greatest discovery of all time in finding the Americas? I posit that the psychological processes through which we view and ethically judge our problems have only shifted slightly and the actual means of obtaining knowledge, though far less-limited and based far more in empirical observation, are still limited by the same constraints that restricted Columbus's thoughts of mermaids.

I'm essentially viewing the human experience on a Normal distribution (forgive me; I just got back from a statistics test.). In discussing the views of the most intelligent parts of society (who I will consider outliers), one distorts the actual distribution of human knowledge and understanding. Just as Newton's ideas were novel for his time (viewing him as the genius he was), the scientists creating the Large Hadron Collider are not of your typical human cut. It's not fair to include the upper echelons of the intellectual spectrum, all while ignoring the lack of contributions from the mentally handicapped. Therefore, we have to look more toward the middling parts of the spectrum, where Columbus likely would have fallen (perhaps he was even a part of the lower half of the curve, as exhibited in Todorov's discussion of Columbus's outdated beliefs). The way the average human being observes situations has changed little over time.

Assumptions made about individuals and "others" are based in largely superficial value-based judgments, just as those Columbus made about the Native Americans were. We view people as indicative of natural and social trends. Columbus's belief that parrots and dark-skinned people were indicative of gold. Similarly, widespread beliefs about non-Christians in America inspire a deep-seated fear obviously unjustly held. I'd actually like to compare the two, using this case as a sort of empirical example of these biases and their penetration into the broader human worldview.

Columbus saw personal traits indicative of naturally-occuring tendencies, whether they be in the Natives or the land itself. Likewise, the American distrust of atheists, Muslims, and to a lesser extent, Jews is held because of fears of the events supposedly surrounding them. Excitement surrounded Columbus's discovery of a darker-colored people, as his historical experience had led him to believe that finding those of darker tones was indicative of wealth. Portuguese experiences in particular in exploring the West Africa led the nation to great wealth. Seeing that those who lived in hotter environments were dark-skinned, Columbus drew a connection betweeen the two.

locales with darker skins = wealth (thusfar in experience)
ergo
darker skins = locales of wealth

Though I think correlative-causative analysis has shifted this perception among the intellectual elite, the average person does not think in these terms. Take, for instance, anti-Muslim backlash following the 2005 banlieue riots in Paris or the deepened fear exhibited in Americans following 9/11. In both cases, people drew connections that logically ran as follows:

individual Muslims = rioters/terrorists
ergo
all Muslims = bad

or

communists = atheists
ergo
atheists = communists

The logic is exactly the same. It relies on a simplified assumption that conditional analysis is a two-sided coin. If I am white, I therefore must follow a certain trend or be indicative of certain broader conditions. This backward analysis obviously still persists, as atheists remain America's most distrusted minority. My conclusion in this case is that the vast majority of people have not viewed the way they view indicators within a society, and as a result, the actual interpretation of knowledge has not changed. It is still dependent largely on experience rather than empirical analysis, even though with time those empirical facts discovered by more elite figures can come to be accepted.

Onto my second point, that the actual means of obtaining knowledge have not altered so far beyond the manner in which Columbus gained insight into viewing the Natives. As Athkor pointed out in her post, the actual way in which we view knowledge is still based strictly on observation. Even Columbus's analysis holds true here. We still draw conclusions about things, whether it be gravity or the geopolitical order, on previously-existing historical trends or current observations. As Hume pointed out, our knowledge is based in expectation. All we can do is reasonably (very, very reasonably, at that) assume things to be true. That being said, I'm not sitting here denying the existence of gravity. But I am saying that it is still a theory, as by some freak chance it could be disproved. I wouldn't put any kind of money on gravity being disproved any day soon. But the fact does remain that it is a possibility, and is just as great of one nowadays as it was during Columbus's.

So how does this connect to our discussion topic, "how do we construct our perception of outsiders?" Intellectuals can logically extrapolate a perception based on social norms, values, geographic barriers, etc.. But the average individual will not take into account these same conditions when discussing "the other." A bias will still exist without the lengthy analysis the average individual is unwilling to undertake. Most things are viewed at face-value, creating a situation much akin to that of Columbus.

Gay Rights Protest/Poverty

Today, I attended the DC segment of the Prop 8 protest. For me, this was the first time I've showed up at a protest. Not really a whole lot of political controversy worth getting riled up over in Tennessee. Well, I mean, there is, but I'd probably be the only one to show up. You wouldn't get thousands to come out in force like there were in L'Enfant Plaza in front of the White House today. I mentioned this briefly in the comments on Michele's blog post (not going to link to it; most of you all have read it already, and we don't need further activity on that front.), but I didn't show up in front of the White House today hoping to make change. I knew that my presence wouldn't drive anything forward. Yet I stood there in the pouring rain as a show of solidarity with my fellow human being. I'm a realist; I don't expect change to come until there is a widespread alteration in understanding among voting constituencies. Protests in California won't do anything. For me, this wasn't about Prop 8. Throwing money at problems isn't going to fix it, here or in LA. It was a moral imperative that I show up and support a cause I believe so strongly in, one that is the primary reason I am a social liberal.

Epic typos set aside, I felt that class was fairly successful. Prioritization of resources, as discussed in the Copenhagen Consensus, is an immensely complicated process. Obviously, our model was, as stated, a model. There were a lot of things that it didn't even take into account. It didn't provide a means of measuring wealth in a relative sense. But the aim wasn't to show a winner of some kind. It was merely an attempt at displaying the difficulty nations potentially see when they have so many various problems to juggle, whether it be poverty, corruption, or disease, and I felt that was a successful endeavor.

What I do find to be fascinating, though, is how we can fight poverty today in the face of corruption. When I see situations like those in Somalia, I see the abuse of foreign aid and the inability of a state to monopolize force in such a way that warlords don't steal all of the food or medicine. How do you fight corruption on an empty stomach? What is the tipping point? How is it that a nation like the United States could have a revolution over something so simple like taxes, but the means of survival are so lacking in these countries that taxation doesn't even happen? I still struggle with what could be done to provide Africa with the strong, just leadership that it needs, yet still help feed the people there that need it. I'm tired of trying to throw money at the problem. It doesn't work, and it's not enforcing change. It all seems so hopeless. There just seems like there is so little that we can do about the problem, and we almost just have to wait for strong leadership to emerge in Africa in a situation where this leader's adherence to institutional standards is almost required.

Structure or Basic Needs?

In solving Inayatullah's poverty crisis, a nation first must correct basic structural issues before addressing the provision of basic needs. In my mind, the progression from poverty to developing society is first achieved through the construction of basic infrastructural assets. Modern society tends to revolve more around the import-export dynamic, something impossible to achieve without strong infrastructural support and a system of stable institutions. With roads, ports, airports, etc., nations can create a vastly improved diet, service structure, industrial machine, and more. This is the most effective way to address Inayatullah's clash between the global division of labor and sovereignty. Farming societies, particularly in Africa and Southeast Asia, are highly specialized. I would argue this fact has more to do with geography than Western colonialism, but that is beside the point. What I'm arguing is that agricultural societies exist in a way that they can only produce one of several crops, many of which (especially in the case of Inayatullah's example of Egypt) can only produce cash crops that are inedible, creating a reliance on the import-export structure. As a result, there is no way for impoverished communities to provide for themselves until corrupt governments are broken down and roads are constructed to facilitate trade. Most would argue a sort of Maslow's hierarchy of needs here, but I want to provide my critique of Maslow's application to modern society construction. I best fulfill the hierarchy of needs with this argument, in that I have proven that providing for economic infrastructure modification you can provide for these needs, where the agricultural or medical basics can't be efficiently distributed without roads.

We also see issues arrive in regards to the pricing of food without easy means of transportation. With no roads, we see increased transportation costs. When we take a look at the already extravagant prices of transportation, whether due to fuel costs or piracy(!), something as simple as roads can reduce prices, making it easier for the impoverished to afford food.

Infrastructure and corruption reduction will go a long way toward on decreasing the costs of providing aid, removing bureaucratic impurities and infrastructural issues.

Oh, in other news, I want to discuss my excitement over Liberty Prime, the communist-killing freedom-loving robot of Bethesda Software's Fallout 3. Watch the video, and appreciate his ultra-patriotism in all its glory. As I finally advanced upon the Jefferson Memorial and activated Project Purity on Tuesday night, I was driven into fits of joy and happiness upon hearing the robot shoot planes out of the air while saying such phrases as "The last domino falls here!" or "Death is a preferable alternative to communism!". This kind of awesomeness brought so much joy into my life, and I just thought I should share it with you all.

The Election/Bread for the City/Assorted Musings

So the election was pretty much incredible. I personally didn't have much at stake in it until Palin was nominated, but I'll talk about that later. My room hosted the floor election party, which was a wild success. When Obama won, it was hard not to get caught up in the fervor that caught the campus in a state of rapture. I'm a Red Sox fan, and Obama was almost as cool as the '04 World Series win. But I was actually there, in DC, celebrating, instead of sitting at home in Tennessee with my family. Actually showing up to yell in front of the White House was incredible. Love or hate Bush or the election, it was historic, and being there in front of the White House was one of the most moving, fascinating experiences of my life. To see a people whose trust in the nation and government has been crushed singing God Bless America and the national anthem was a genuinely inspiring moment. I can say that I've always been proud of my country, even when I don't like how a political process ends. George Bush was my president, Barack Obama is my president.

One thing I can say about the outcome is that I would still be proud of my country if Sarah Palin were vice president. Though the hatred I have of that woman runs deeper than the blackest pits of Hell, she would still be my vice president. One thing that I see in the right now is the discombobulation of the left during and after the 2004 election. I've seen conservatives falling into the same traps liberals did with the "not my president" shirt fad with Bush. I see a party where Sarah Palin has become the "intellectual elite." This was a party that used to stand for causes I believe in, particularly small government. Conservatives like to say that Bush betrayed the party, but this is part of a long-standing evolution of the Republican Party into a socially conservative, economically liberal populist party. And don't expect this to change anytime soon. So far, with the distancing of the academic community from the Republican Party, I don't see anywhere the party can go. If the Libertarian Party were to temper most of (if not all) of its views, it could seize on this chance as the party of the future. But for now, until the 9/11 Truthers, isolationists, and conspiracy theorists get out of the game, nothing will happen on that front. For now, expect a Democratic majority that will not lose its grip on power until corruption sets in like it did to the Republicans in 2006.

Anyway, I want to agree with the vast consensus that Bread for the City was probably our coolest visit so far. It was just a pretty moving trip. I felt like I saw a nonprofit that was really making change, not issuing broad-based policy initiatives with no substance. It was in the community working and representing its interests. It doesn't change my perspective on the vast majority of NGOs, but I saw how they can do good. It may not change the world like a lot seek to, but it went a long way toward improving the lives of the community it lived in, and that's something to be proud of.

I thought this was a fairly interesting twist on the Russian-Georgian conflict and its newfound ethnic conflict. Possible re-emergence of tensions?

Unemployment-Inflation Trade-Offs

The question essentially asks us to compare a monetarist unemployment policy, in which adjustments in the interest rate affect the rate of employment, to a more active role of legislative properties in handling economic externalities. Is controlling inflation more important than staving off unemployment? Do we buy into the idea of the Phillips curve trade-off or the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment, or in other words, do we trade off inflation for unemployment, or in the long run does it even matter?

We could start this off prefaced with a little bit of history. As most know, the big result of the Great Depression economically was the rise of Keynesian economics. Fundamental to this system of the idea that if we work to lower unemployment rates, we face an inflationary trend. Milton Friedman in the late 60's advanced an idea that posited there was no long-run trade-off between the two. He argued we should keep inflation in check, because unemployment would naturally gravitate toward NAIRU. The collapse of the Bretton Woods system and the resulting policies of Volcker in the United States and Thatcher in Great Britain essentially marked the death of institutionalized Keynesian policy and the rise of Friedman's Chicago School of economic thought. But as is pointed out in Martin Wolf's analysis of the situation, rather than Keynes falling into obscurity and Friedman reigning supreme, we see "a world of fiat money has supplied modest inflation and supported stable growth." Though we now see this system that has existed since Bretton Woods's collapse coming under question once more, I still find the current monetary policy a suitable means of ensuring long-run stability versus storing wealth in a commodity bubble.

So yeah, you're probably doing pretty well if you're able to gravitate toward full employment. I buy into the idea that in the long run, we gravitate toward full employment. But the vast majority of the time, we aren't there and we're in a recessionary phase. So we could say we're wealthy, but it's all subjective.

World: Going to Hell in Handbasket?

So I'm sitting here reading my news feed on Google News, and realizing that pretty much nothing cool is happening right now. I figured I'd provide some interesting news links for potential news stories in the coming days/weeks/months and then maybe find something or other to talk about.

Thousands more Syrian troops deployed on Lebanon border.

Russia, Libya sign civil nuclear deal as Kadhafi visits: Tripoli

Now El Loco's pursuing the bomb

Syria may have approved US border incursion

The Syrian border raid is of interest to me. It marks the continuation of the most recent manifestation of American counterterror operations. Does the United States have the right to protect its security interests if it means violating the territorial sovereignty of another nation? Does the other nation have a right to respond when it views sovereignty as its primary goal? Well, to answer the latter, obviously yes. Nations still have to pursue their own interests, regardless of whether or not they pursue our own. But that doesn't mean we forsake our own so the Syrian Mukhabarat can fulfill its ends. The United States views security as prime right now, and has a right to fulfill that end, especially when they kill an al-Qaeda commander and were apparently tacitly endorsed in their mission by Syrian government officials.

Security in Context

We often like to make philosophic arguments that is impossible to be completely secure. Well, yes. This is obvious. To be secure in an absolute sense is impossible, just as being completely rich, or completely full, is literally impossible. About the only thing you can be is completely dead (D:< BRUTAL). So really, arguing about whether or not it is possible to be completely secure is nonsensical. The "black swan" problem shows this. You may identify every white swan possible, but there always exists the one you can't. So we have to put this in an arguable context, or else the question is abusive and has no way to argue two sides of the question. The question is unanswerable. So yes, the infinite nature of possible threats makes full security impossible, considering anything can be perceived as a "threat."

Gun Control and Realism

Before posting, I want to preface this discussion with a problem a lot of people bring up. People have been arguing that the extent of their belief in gun control lies only in registration for guns and child locks on them. Outside of the NRA, you will be hard-pressed to find many people that argue against waiting period for guns. To me, pro- versus anti-gun lies in whether or not they should own them. I consider myself pro-gun, but I'm willing to wait three weeks, or even a year before I get my gun. I can do that if I know that other people go through the same process and it will save lives. I will put a child safety on my gun because I care about my children. That's not a big imposition. But saying I can't own my gun is an unrealistic solution to the problem that is gun violence. We need to find a realistic solution to the problem. I just want to use this to frame my position, as well as the context in which I discuss pro- and anti-gun laws. The Brady Laws are not anti-gun in my position, as they allow for gun ownership while preventing dangerous uses, and statistically reducing gun violence. Yet calls for all-out bans are what I plan to oppose.

I found that class's debate Friday about gun control tied in very nicely to my readings in E.H. Carr's The Twenty Years' Crisis. The book argues that in handling situations on an international scale, we must find a balance between idealism and realism. Idealism is a self-defeating idea; it provides a statement about the way things should be without telling us how to do it. Realism is essentially necessary to reaching any ideal end. This argument ties in easily to discussions of gun control.

Though in an ideal world, means of killing each other would not exist, the fact remains that they do. As Nicholas Cage stated in the beginning of Lord of War, there is 1 gun in the world for every 12 people. They play an immense role in spurring on conflict in sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East in particular. Clearly, a broader initiative must be made toward restricting small arms and light weapons (SALW) use in conflict zones beyond paying typical UN lip-service to the idea.

But what I find most interesting about the problem of ownership is rates of ownership in many European countries, to whom we frequently look as the "gold standard" of gun control. Nations such as England do not even arm their police officers. Yet for each Britain (where there are five guns for every 100 people), there is a France, where there is approximately one gun for every three. Or Israel, a nation that arms its teachers, is home to companies such as Galil and Israeli Weapons Industries, yet maintains a low gun violence rate relative to many other nations (1 2). This variety of situational murder rates points to the fact that there must be some other cause other than gun ownership that spurs on violent crime. As a result, I would argue this essentially proves, or at least highly supports, the claim that merely taking away all guns does not provide a true prescription to gun violence as an issue.

We all agree that gun violence is a problem. Yet we must provide an economic solution to the problem. We need to provide an incentive for people to get rid of their guns, or to cease using them in the manners described. There must be some kind of balance to truly prevent gun violence. Taking away assault weapons won't handle it. Making people voluntarily give them up will. Providing cost-based incentives, as Adam's discussed community work does, will best serve the ends of all. This will not completely eradicate gun violence; nothing ever will. But we can at least make realistic strides in the direction of reducing gun violence while still allowing for ownership for sport. I'm not pro-gun control. But this is because I find a lot of programs promulgated by those on this side of the spectrum to be unrealistic. Programs such as Adam's, however, make me much more likely to advocate such a situation, hence my ultimate support for parts of his position. Though I disagreed vastly with many of his reasons for wanting to ban guns, or maybe even the ultimate extent to which he seeks to do restrict usage, I found the programs he chose to advocate as being very strong and serving the same end I desire of reducing gun violence. None of them outrightly banned gun use. Rather, they provided a strong incentive-based plan that effectively reduced their useage in target communities. This is something we can all believe in.

Economics & Security

The actual security risks of the economic crisis are overblown in that the nature of the current situation affects developed nations more than less interdependent counterparts. The actual security risk lies on the margins of society: those poor nations facing large-scale conflict will likely only witness decreased foreign involvement in their crises. Because Somalia does not have a strong credit derivative or mortgage-backed security market that has collapsed as a result of the sheer amount of homes being constructed in the giant crater that is that nation, it has little to fear from the situation. Its current situation will likely remain constant in the face of its status as a thoroughly detached, largely autarkic economy. The same stands for the vast majority of the third world in which most conflicts exist.

The third world is nowhere near as interconnected in the global market as are nations that have recently faced economic disaster. This disaster has spread from nation to nation largely due to the various investment strategies used by stockholders in each nation. These stockholders are people who have money to spend beyond basic needs. Random Congolese farmer #3,407 won't be worried about his heavily divested stock portfolio. Rather, his concern will be whether or not he can eat regularly. As a result, these conflict zones are not hurting from the global crisis.

Though larger nations are suffering a relative decline compared to many second-world nations, these do not pose an inherent security risk, especially considering their dependence on first world success. Chinese industrial output is now slowing as a direct result of declining consumer demand for Chinese goods, which were already cheap as is. Additionally, the second-world nations (a la Brazil, China, India, etc.) were already achieving rates of growth far greater than those of industrialized nations. As a result, they can not be viewed as a serious security risk.

There are certain situations which may in fact benefit: look at Russia, Venezuela, and Iran, three countries that had become increasingly belligerent as a result of rising commodity prices are now in decline due to falling demand. Russia no longer has the leverage it has over European countries and Venezuela does not wield large influence over Latin American politics in the same way it once did.

The actual national economic decline cannot be viewed as a giant security risk.

Mid-Semester Reflection

I was pretty inspired by Rachel's post, and I want to outline my plans on what I plan on doing with the rest of the semester.

• Comment more on other people's blogs. I haven't at all yet. I always read them, but never have much to say. I want to change that and take a more active role in class preparation. I've tried framing my blog posts in a more discussion-oriented manner, but I don't even get insolved myself. I figure holding myself to the standard I desire out of everyone else is a good place to start.
• Talk less in class. I always have something to say. But part of my development as a student ought to be in refining what I have to say more before I say it, and give more constructive comments like Ben does. One thing I've always noticed is that even though he doesn't talk a lot, everything he has to say is very, very insightful and adds a new aspect to the discussion.
  

Nietzschean Dialectic and World Affairs (Updated 10/20)

So I've been reading The Twenty Years' Crisis by E.H. Carr, one of the seminal works of realist philosophy. It's fascinating in a completely nerdy way. He argues that there is a constant struggle between realism and utopianism, where the two clash and come to a consensus, only to struggle again as the consensus drifts away from its initial intent. This is a model of the Hegellian dialectic, which argues you have a thesis (a big idea) that clashes with the antithesis (an opposing idea), which don't eliminate each other but combine to form the synthesis (the culmination of the thesis and antithesis; a sort of in-between). Hegel argues this process essentially ends, and the synthesis is the final form of that idea. Carr spins this on its head, building off of Friedrich Nietzsche's critique of the Hegeillian dialectic, arguing that the synthesis merely becomes the new thesis. What I found interesting about Carr's take on the dialectic was his application to world affairs.

Carr sees world affairs as a clash between utopian idealism and realism. The two eventually reach a consensus, or the dialectic is toppled, only to restart again. Values to Carr will never reach a final humanitarian or political pinnacle. Rather, they will constantly evolve. History must be viewed as a never-ending vacuum, not something that will ultimately end, as Francis Fukuyama argues in discussing democracy as the final manifestation of global order. He argues that realism without utopian vision is sterile, and utopianism without realism is ineffective and counterproductive. I found this view interesting in that he is the first "real" realist, yet he argues a realist vision requires a sort of utopian complement in order to actually do anything. A realist without utopia consigns him or herself to a sense of powerlessness that forces stagnancy. This can be a sobering reminder for the "power politician" (about which Carr argues there is no such thing as a politician without power). Yet one way or another, the important message for those living in Carr's idealistic time period is that utopian thought has no inherent value unless it can be lived out and practically applied. He points to the European imperialism, the League of Nations or Comintern of instances where blind idealistic thought backfired, and in many cases hurt those it intended to protect. It's an equally sobering point.

More interesting and applicable in our dicussions of the world today are his discussions about why international organizations are largely ineffective. He looked to the formation of the League of Nations as an empirical example of how this happens. He argues that the reason the League was founded was to solidify the position of powerful nations. For instance, those nations pushing for its creation were the US, Great Britain, and France (the victors of World War I). In fact, several members of Great Britain's House of Lords openly advocated making it a G-8-like exclusivist organization for great powers only. The League was founded according to a "harmony of interests", which he claims did not exist. The theory of harmony of interests argues that states' interests lie with those of the people, and the people's interests are those of the state. This theory's flaws became clear upon World War II's advent, where the "harmony of interests" became synonymous with the interests of the victorious powers. Even more condemning in his mind is the relation of power between the states and international organizations.

The state's authority lies in its monopoly of power. Without this, the state has no ability to enforce its will. For an international organization to be trusted with arbitrative power or effectiveness in world affairs, states are forced to yield an element of their authority over to this body. Those who believe a nation will give up this power "evade the unpalatable fact of a fundamental divergence of interest between nations desirous of maintaining the status quo and nations desirous of changing it." It is advantageous for a smaller nation to stay out of a body like the UN, as it is seen, in Carr's view, as the body representing the interests of those larger nations (the P-5 nations) rather than a podium for the smaller to voice their opinions; without a transfer of power from the nation as a body to the international organization, they serve merely as a hollow body with no real power.

I'm also pretty fascinated with his stance on where morals themselves come from. Carr argues that they emerge to fit a situation. For instance, the idea of a League of Nations did not emerge to prevent war, but to solidify the power of those nations who would be threatened by it. It was a means of preserving the current balance of power. These values, he argues, are relative to the position of the nation expressing them.

He's also got some pretty astounding foresight. He saw the decline of the nation-state as being inevitable following World War II, and the rise of power blocs (a la Warsaw Pact vs. NATO) and superpowers.

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EDIT:

I found this article in Foreign Policy, and thought you'd find it interesting. Good quick way to get on a government watch list: The List: Rebel Websites to Watch

The Nobel Prize

Kind of the most ironic award in history. Invented by the man who invented dynamite, the Nobel prizes have always represented the highest level of academic achievement in anything, ever. Yet lately, we've seemed to have a bit of a shortage in what we give them for.

Take Paul Krugman. A genius. I love a lot of his work. His politics can be wonky, but his economic work is brilliant as far as I'm concerned. But he received the award not in recognition of some new ground-breaking way of handling the economic crisis, like the award's historical reputation would dictate, but for his papers written around 1992 about pricing. A little late, no?

And more importantly, the dispute about the Nobel Peace Prize. Al Gore? Jimmy Carter? All have done a lot in the modern world in talking about peace, but none have acted with the resolve of a Nelson Mandela.

So I ask you all: what does the Nobel Prize mean? What should it recognize? Who deserves what? How should it be decided?

It's a fairly frivolous topic, but the one in economics caught my eye given the recent situation.

Victor in the Debate? No One

This may come off as evading the question, but I don't really feel like any of our groups got to the core issue here, mine included: the broader economic implications of the debate. It represented the various interests of American industry versus foreign competitors. We have "the American middle class" upon whom there is a perceived "war" waged by foreigners, and the unmentioned consumers themselves. The consumers had the best chance to actually address how important their role in the debate was. They are the reason free enterprise exists. They're the reason we have this debate in the first place. They're the largest, and sole, market for American cars. Everyone has to appeal to them. But I felt as though they took a stance that was more belligerent toward American manufacturers and workers rather than pro-consumer. Had they not done this, they would have had the debate in the bag. I think we were all arguing with utility in mind; the UAW wanted to maximize utility for the workforce, the Sierra Club wanted to protect the environment upon which we depend, etc. The consumers were in the only position to win. The debate became so muddled that no one really defended themselves anymore and merely slang mud at each other. It had plenty of substance; it just wasn't the focus of the argument.

Water - Market-Based or Necessity?

So I stumbled upon this fascinating debate on The Economist about the market price of water. In the so-called "era of sustainability", water shortages are caused by a growing population facing what was always viewed as a renewable resource becoming scarce.

One side argues that water must be priced so that "customers served under identical cost conditions should be charged equal prices" and that water "should be supplied and priced in such a way that the price for each class of service equals the marginal cost of serving that class." This initial argument comes off as oligarchical, but immediately transfers itself into an interesting take on a way to solve global water problems. The proposition then argues that if we are ever to solve water's scarcity issues, we must realize that "market pricing is central to enabling the forces that allow the efficient allocation of the resource." It's a fairly theoretical case that doesn't have a lot of basis in anything other than empirics, simply because there isn't a historical instance of water being priced at market value outside of the unique situation of Arab desalination efforts.

The opposition, rather than moving into pragmatics that would seem like a sound response, takes a borderline-Marxist opening statement, arguing that there is "no reliable 'market price' in a volatile world driven by greed and profits." This off-putting statement transfers into an argument made that we must "respect the water cycle" and limit our own use. We merely must put in our own limits based on availability.

Though I think the proposition's point is fairly ridiculous, the actual skill with which the opposition sought to defeat it was lackluster. I personally voted yes, simply because the argument in favor of sustainability and environmental protection was actually argued better by the market-force side of the affair. The opposition offered no mechanism by which we might regulate our water uses other than personal judgment, which tends to be at best arbitrary. I was left convinced that regardless of necessity, water was something that must be treated as a commodity if we are to actually conserve it.

I personally would have made an argument akin to the market argument of permits for hunting and fishing. In a completely unfettered market, everyone has access to fish. This causes problems such as overfishing, a chronic problem facing fishing industries across the world. As a result, many nations, the US included, instituted hunting and fishing permits. This cut some out of the market, but in the long run kept fish alive long enough to allow the populations to reproduce. This sort of permit system almost fulfills the opposition's aim of regulating the water market through our own personal judgment. It maximizes marginal utility and ensures the longevity of a scarce resource.

The level of controversy surrounding this topic was the reason I chose it. I hope to get some comments and opinions about the articles.

Vigilantism on a National Scale

So watching Boondock Saints got me thinking about the moral quandary that is vigilantism. For those who don't know, the movie is about two brothers who kill mafiosi, claiming to be justified by God in their actions. It poses a moral question: when something is obviously evil, is it right for a person to intervene and stop this evil from happening? And in the context of the class, is it right for a nation to violate the sovereignty of another nation on principle alone?

Both questions can be answered at once: yes, idealistically, with pragmatic restrictions. There are situations where evil is so pervasive that even the most morally flexible of individuals can see it for what it is. The Holocaust is the most obvious instance; most today would argue that intervention was a moral imperative. Others include such cases as the Rwandan genocide, the purges of Stalin, various religious extremes of the pre-Westphalian era, or even the Japanese internment. These were instances where evil was clear; the difficulty arises in naming a perpetrator.

The Rwandan genocide is a strong case of where defining an actual criminal is difficult. Juvenal Habyarimana, the president of Rwanda, and his wife Agathe, the two responsible for instigating much of the Hutu-Tutsi hatred, were dead early into the genocide. Defining an actual leader of the conflict remains difficult; various genocidaires have been tried over the years for their crimes. Yet in the end, no one can walk away and name one perpetrator, one evil, one target of hatred in the Rwandan genocide. This is what makes post-genocide Rwanda so interesting (in only the most morbid of senses). Many Tutsis are forced to live next to men and women who killed loved ones, as the government pardoned all Hutus for their actions. Few will deny that the vast majority of the Hutu population openly participated in the genocide. But do we blame the Hutu race for their role in the genocide? Often forgotten was the genocide next door in Burundi, where Tutsis slaughtered Hutus. The moral twists and turns of the Rwandan genocide create one of those instances where lashing out seems too abrupt. There is no focal point of evil, like in the Holocaust. No face behind the slaughter. There were those like Hassan Ngeze who enflamed the rage of the Hutu population, but he was merely a mouthpiece for the ideology that drove the slaughter.

So now we ask: in the case of the Rwandan genocide, how would a vigilante find a proper target? This creates a moral limbo in which defining who is to blame for a crime is nearly impossible due to the nature of the crime itself and the manner in which it was perpetrated. The action was beyond any kind of doubt evil. Yet who is accountable? Where is the line in which vigilantism is justified drawn?

This is obviously a question with no clear answer. As a result, I'm hoping to get comments on the topic answering these questions to get some good disussion going. Can a nation intervene in the affairs of another nation where the issue is not one of black and white?

Mass Effect! Aliens and the Social Construct

Suppose years from now aliens land on the White House lawn. How would this affect humanity? How would it affect our social institutions, but more importantly, our own sense of identity? I will attempt to answer these questions through a realist, liberal, and constructivist lens, viewing how they affect national and atomistic relations.

A realist argues that human relations do not fundamentally change over time. Because of the newly discovered security threat posed by the aliens, a realist would advocate the expansion of the "human defensive sphere" to include all of earth. The invasion of aliens would expand the perceived security risk, putting humans under a new security blanket. The world would essentially see itself in a balance of power situation with the aliens, rather than one divided by power blocs or even nonpolar nation-states. Relations between the aliens and realistic order would be tense due to the assumption of the aliens' hostile intentions, increasing the likelihood for conflict or land-grabbing. This is a nearly identical situation to what occurs under the liberal scenario; only slight variations occur.

A liberal would view the aliens as potential allies. Nations would broaden their trade horizons, expanding their economilitary blanket over the world, embracing the expanded communication and trade. They would have many technologies or other goods to offer, and Earth may additionally have goods to offer. Viewing this situation as a liberal, one would not even assume peaceful intentions on the part of the extraterrestrials. Again, liberalism is not idealism. It does not preclude the use of force, even as a first resort if popular will demands it. A liberal would then examine their political system, and they were undemocratic, they would not be viewed as a legitimate force with which the world should not have diplomatic relations.

A constructivist would see the change from a historical point of view. Humans have a fundamental desire for a sense of belonging and unity in the face of the anarchy the world presents. This is exemplified in familial structure and its extension into tribes, evolving into the town and feudal state (ending with the Thirty Years War), extending into the modern Westphalian nation-state. As humans communicate more and more, they find more bonds with other people when compared relatively to how different outsiders are. For example, a Chattanoogan and a Bostonian had nothing in common 200 years ago. Yet now, as we see Chinese and Uzbeks or Brazilians, we view ourselves as Americans in the broader worldview. When aliens land on the White House lawn, we will collectively view ourselves as citizens of the world, in the constructivist imaginary. This is where the human identity plays a huge role in determining the actions of the world. The questions from here would be answered by how we saw ourselves as human beings in the galactic space. To answer this question would require an analysis of what human nature itself was, what our interest was as a species, and how we would adapt to our newfound situation.

I'm going to pre-empt the argument that we'd just go insane and fight back immediately, or that they would start out with an Independence Day scenario where the White House is vaporized. I don't think arguing that we'd go to war immediately is really effective given the context of our discussion, where we're trying to frame this in an international (or in this case, intergalactic) relations mindset.

Humans would have what amounts to an identity crisis. For the entirety of our existence, we have never even contemplated the advent of an alternate species challenging our dominance. When others did pose a threat, they were dealt with. But facing a new entity on equal or arguably superior footing would require great changes in the human dynamic. This is so extreme a situation where I feel a realist or liberal would see constructivism as a viable solution or worldview to see human identity as something greater than nations. If we had any hope of overcoming our identity crisis, we would have to define what made us human versus the aliens, rather than what made us American versus Bahraini or Kyrgyz. I'm not even going to try to predict how this would happen. But the ultimate determination of human identity would fix the course of action in countering the alien threat or embracing the cute cuddly Ewok neighbor.