Zach’s readings and lecture ranged over a number of interesting topics. Feel free to answer one, some, or all of the following questions – they are all related. Look up information about Bernie Sanders’ and Hillary Clinton’s respective foreign policy perspectives – how do they compare with Dorfman’s perspective on international relations, as he described in the lecture? Instead of what it has been and is doing, what do you think the United States should do with its unparalleled military and economic power? What should the US do regarding nuclear weapons and refugees? Lastly, how have your views on foreign policy been formed? How reliant on media companies are you for information about US foreign policy, and if you feel overreliant on them, how might you develop a more diverse set of information sources?
IMPORTANT
**use lecture notes and the course reading attached to this
Upcoming Lecture on 4/28 Pre-Talk Comments: Zach Dorfman
In “Among the Disrupted”, a case is made against “posthumanism”, an understanding of the world as dominated by structural, impersonal forces, where human agency is denied or marginalized. There is a bit of an anti-technological edge here, but it is softened by the concession that technology is merely a tool – and that what matters more than the tool itself is how it is used. This reading evokes the tension between technological pessimism and optimism – is technology improving or worsening life? – but wisely focuses not on anything intrinsic to any particular technology, but rather on how we should use it. (For instance, if technology has undercut the old business model of media products, making them into public goods – nonexcludable, nonrivalrous, by definition – then perhaps we should treat them like public goods, provided by democratic government instead of private firms.)
On the Cult of Bankable Projects, the author makes some similar points as Arundhati Roy (who I highly recommend, she’s a brilliant writer) on problems with international aid organizations. One of the bigger questions it opens up is: can we separate the global economic system from particular problems calling for intervention and “aid”? Or are the two so intertwined that more systemic solutions are required? (Interestingly, “aid” as a word originated to describe a tax or tribute paid by a vassal or tenant to a feudal lord.) This article focuses more on well-meaning mistakes or bureaucratic ineptitude, but there is also the issue of contemporary international aid operating more like its feudal variant: like when loans are given to dictators to use to buy goods and services from rich countries that primarily benefit an underdeveloped country’s elite, while the country’s poor majority are left to repay the loan which never benefited them in the first instance. (That is precisely the feudal definition of “aid”: a payment for nothing to society’s elite, simply to make their luxurious lifestyle possible.)
“Save Our Public Universities” is particularly relevant to all of you, since you are all in a sense guinea pigs or lab rats being experimented upon by the previous generations. First, the teach-to-the-test experiment in high schools, and now, the neoliberalization experiment in colleges. (If “neoliberal” for you is effectively synonymous with “liberal”, please look it up now – it’s probably the most important concept you can learn.) In a nutshell, the idea these genius Olds came up with was this: “Oh look, the Soviet Union doesn’t work so well – oh and then it collapsed! That confirms my prior belief that capitalism is better than socialism. You know what? Since capitalism is better than socialism, let’s go whole hog on this capitalism thing – let’s introduce its guiding principles everywhere, let’s make markets in everything, and make everything operate by market principles. What could go wrong?
THIRD ESSAY QUESTION: Zach Dorfman
Zach’s readings and lecture ranged over a number of interesting topics. Feel free to answer one, some, or all of the following questions – they are all related. Look up information about Bernie Sanders’ and Hillary Clinton’s respective foreign policy perspectives – how do they compare with Dorfman’s perspective on international relations, as he described in the lecture? Instead of what it has been and is doing, what do you think the United States should do with its unparalleled military and economic power? What should the US do regarding nuclear weapons and refugees? Lastly, how have your views on foreign policy been formed? How reliant on media companies are you for information about US foreign policy, and if you feel overreliant on them, how might you develop a more diverse set of information sources?
LECTURE NOTES:
Editor and writer for International relation policies
Aspects of war from the 20th century
Memories of politics
• Fall of Berlin wall
• Newspaper headline
o Occupation of Kuwait
o Feb 2003
• Protest
• Senior in high school
o Sitting in environmental class
• Teacher told students one of the plane hit the WTC
• Media was not covered
• School went to lockdown
But snuck out
• Unlike his friends, he didn’t lose anyone from 9/11
• Shocked that something like this could happen
• Shocked at the foreign policy
o Politics were not an academic exercise
• It could move people to do something very horrendous
• “just war theory”
Limitation of what the state could do
• “post”
• High school
o In his favorite class history taught by his football coach
• Discussing the use of atomic bomb from Nagasaki or Hiroshima
Was it justified for the use of atomic bombs
• Shocked that most students raised their hands and more so at his teach
• Disagreeing opinions does not lower the respect for the person you respected
• Could be blinded by moral
• 東京大空襲 killed more people than nagasaki and hiroshima combined
• Could not comprehend how weapons like these that take many lives away could be justified
Other weapons are also considered as malainsane
• International policies are unbalanced
• Few problems
o Migration or the effects of global warmings
o We often talk about nuclear weapons as distractions, we never talk about why we hold possession of it
• 9 states: Russia, Israel, Pakistan, North Korea, etc
93% are held by US and Russia
• Global zero will never be achieved unless Israel feels safe
• India and Pakistan
Dispute reason
4 wars have been fought for independence
Pakistan arsenial are vulnerable for
• North Korea
Hereditary leadership
Enemy: South Korea, Japan and US
• Race for security only creates conflicts
• 北朝鮮の国境が引かれたのは1947
• War against war is continous
• Every generation fights its different type of war