one more time

Encaustic Presentation: Quick TIme

Final Post: Farewell and Thank You

If we are to create a global even playing field then American needs to help create policies and systems which reduce the discrepancy between the wealthy and the poor around the world. If the gap between the rich and poor is only becoming vaster, how can America think they are doing their job as the self imposed caretaker of the world?  Also, have we not learned that foreign direct investment has hurt this country and is making it harder for us to recover from this economic crisis. It is interesting that Strayer mentions that we ship low cost items abroad, and then import high priced items in. I am pretty sure I read this fact a while back, that we actually ship our garbage to China and then they make goods that we then import again. Really, we send our garbage out just to buy it back as repackaged garbage? You can not put all of the blame on the government though, we as a population we promote this activity too. We are the consumers and we can choose not to play along with the absurdity. But most of the county just goes along with this form of economic abomination.

I remember a time when I was a child and my parents did not have a credit card yet. We just bought what we could afford. I don't know how that would work anymore. I am borrowing money to get this education, so I am no better really. Maybe I tell myself that it is for a good reason, but I still will be financially worse off after I graduate and I doubt that within a year the job market will be that much better off than it is now. Also, colleges keep pumping out graduate, so it is not as if the competition will be any less steep. hmmm. Ya, soothing thoughts to mend the wounds of the world.

I found the reading on the differences in feminism interesting, too. The varying degrees of belief in oppression. When the one woman said that we live so intimately with our oppressors, it is hard for us to see our personal suffering. That is a pretty bold and broad brushed comment. I liked how the African American women feel the need to work with the men, not against them. I feel similarly with them. We can not separate ourselves anymore as a species, we have been doing that for a too long and it has not seemed to work. I think we need to join together and build upon our individual strengths and perspectives. I do not think that competing against each other sexually will accomplish our deepest desires. That is short sighted and I liken it to cooking your food in a microwave, yes it is cooked, but it sucks.

The Most Recent Century: In All My Ignorance #2

Once again, In all my ignorance, and I am embarrassed to writing this too, but not as embarrassed as the last post, I did not know the the Great Depression was a world wide experience. What a jerk. I kinda thought that maybe we were special, albeit unfortunately, this time around that our economic crisis was felt globally. I really was blind that the Great Depression played a part in Hitler coming into power. I know there are parallels between our contemporary situation and the Great depression, like the statements booming economy, market frenzy, and bursting bubbles– I just did not realize global world economy was in the mix too. Wow, and I used to actually have a bit of confidence when I opened my mouth. Now I know.

(wc 129)

The Most Recent Century: In All My Ignorance #1

In all of my ignorance, and I am pretty embarrassed to be writing this, I really did not realize that the Vietnam War was fought over the American struggle with communism. I really feel like an asshole right now. I guess in school, when I was younger, we were all so concerned with the Cold War with the USSR that I was unaware of all of the hot wars going on that were about communism. I knew about the Korean War, I watched MASH for Pete's sake– even though that was typically though to be about the Vietnam War. I obviously, well maybe not so obvious after you read this post, I knew about the vietnam War, it was everywhere as a child, that and the gas shortages. Well, thankfully now I no longer live in ignorance about this topic. (wc 156)

The Most Recent Century: A New Era

One of the points Strayer makes against considering the Twentieth Century and beyond a new era is the brevity of time lapsed. He states that compared to other eras, which have lasted 500 years and longer, this "era" would have only been a bit over one hundred years. I disagree that long length in years is a requirement for defining an era. I think it has more to do with the rate of change of ideas, technology, progress and the like. I feel that the rate of change of these components of humanity have sped up to where one hundred contemporary years could very well be relevant to 500 ancient years. So, I think that we can consider the 20th century and beyond a new era. If the modern era was defined by reclaiming humanist ideas, expanding the understanding of science and believing in its capabilities to bring humans closer to their potential for good and help us continually improve, outright colonial takeover, and revolutions that were founded on the ideas of equality, democracy, religious tolerance, and popular sovereignty. Then the post Modern Era, if you will, is founded on humanist beliefs gone crazy, where humans have now put our own importance above everything else, the understanding that science can lead to horrors as well as enlightenment, and an era of wars which from where no one learns from. I do believe we are in a new era. (wc 239)

European Moment: No Noble Time

There has been no noble time for us as humans. I once thought that we must have had a more noble time than this; we must have had a time where we were concerned with the other as a common human, but I cease to believe that anymore. There is no proof. There is no record of such a mass consciousness which regards one another with common respect and consideration. If a time could have occurred, which could be but is not now either, it must have been during the Enlightenment. During that time of understanding where people yearned to be considered humanly and fought to be respected could have been such a time, but it was not. So much change occurred during that time period that it was a possibility, if only slight. After witnessing so much death and suffering during the plague, one would hope that it would profoundly change the dynamics of our human relationships as a whole, but it does not. I liken it to the experience I have every month: I bleed and it is uncomfortable, messy, and alters the way I live my life, but when it ends, as it always does, I completely forget that it happens. I don't think about it at all. It is not until it comes again and I go through it all another time that I think about dealing with it. It must be some sort of psychological switch that women have, that they can go through this roughly twelve time a year and remain sane. I think history has this kind of magic too. People can be so terribly mistreated, but when it ends they can turn around and terribly mistreat someone else. Or maybe it is like the conservation of energy, a child of the scientific revolution. Energy is never lost it just changes forms. If we take the actions of France during their revolution: the people take hold of the Enlightenment's ideals of Humanism and human equality and they become more Democratic. But if we take power as energy, where does that dominating power go, it does not disappear it only transfers, so it transfers to the colonies which belong to the French. I am only using the French as an example, all of the European powers do this, even Belgium; you know it's ramped if Belgium playing along. How do you play fair if you are trying to win such a game? I don't think you can. If you could, that moment might have proven a good time to try: population was lower due to the plague, humanism was making humanity important, science was opening minds, and industrialism had the ability to de-dehumanize people in the workplace. Maybe I'm an unrealistic idealist. Whatever I am, I am ready for humans to evolve into a new species that is concerned and values our potential for love.

(wc 480)

The early Modern World: Me too

I found it interesting how the tactics of the Jesuit missionaries in China, at first, were different then other missionaries in the way that they developed more of a relationship with the Chinese, instead of just bulldozing them into Christianity. The Chinese were too established in their way of thinking and living for that to happen; they had a strong foundation for their identity and beliefs to root in and really felt they they did not need the Jesuits or Christianity. They took from them what they found useful and interesting, like map making. My favorite part of the reading, which came after the Pope had to act un-evolved, controlling and insecure, came when the Chinese were ending their relationship with the Jesuits and some of them viewed the Holy Communion as a form of cannibalism. I have always wondered about that act of eating the body of Christ and drinking his blood; I realize it is a symbolic act, but I too feel that it is cannibalistic and in a way harkens back to so called "barbarianistic" rituals of human sacrifice and blood worship. I enjoyed reading that other people felt that ritual was a bit disconcerting too. (wc 194)

The Early Modern World: The Hope for Fertile Ground

The words of Girolamo Cardano are prevalent today: "The most unusual circumstance of my life is that I was born in this century in which the whole world became known... " I think that were are in a time of another great coming together of the "whole world". We can communicate and share ideas with the whole realm of humanity with the technology of today. It is allowing us to have a new conception of the world and our place in it, which is on a larger scale, but parallel to the experience humans, especially Europeans were having during the 15th and 16th centuries. I do feel as if once again certainties are being exchanged for uncertainties. it is a vulnerable time for us as a human community, because we are now again a human community. As I wrote about in a past entry, we have come back together after much time, travel and experience. We have come back together and we can choose how we want to progress into the future. Do we want to remain hyper competitive and dominate with and within our environment and ourselves? Or do we want to evolve on an emotional level becoming more empathetic, understanding, cooperative, collaborative, and unifying as a species? I believe that we have this capability and I do not think that it will take the usual extended period of time evolution usually take to transform ourselves. Will this create a new species of human? Homo emotinalis? Maybe? That might really give homo sapiens someone to bully... Back to the time of change and uncertainty. As was true for the people of the 15th and 16th centuries, this change and uncertainty created a rich and fertile ground for the scientific revolution (as stated in the book). So, I am so curious what kind of ground will this time of change and uncertainty create? Right now many people think our ground is no longer fertile, we have blanched it and therefore it will soon be completely sterile. I am more hopeful than that. Perhaps I am ignorant and the innate need to find the silver lining is blinding me to the fact that it is already over. Like in the movie Jacob's Ladder when the palm reader is looking at his palm and tells him, "Baby, you're already dead." I am still clinging to the silver lining that our uncertainty will bring us together as a species instead of ripping us apart. Maybe I sound a bit like my ancestors, they were so inspired by this change and thought that these new ideas would bring them closer to god or the truth and eventuality to themselves. At the time they could not imagine the death and destruction this new technology would bear future generations 400 or so years later. (wc 467)

Accelerating Connections: Adapting to Challenging Enviornments

In Cassidy's essay he states that behavioral ecologists say that an important aspect to humans is their unbelievably quick ability to adapt to challenging conditions. "This human ability to innovate during periods of heightened environmental stress is one of the hallmark characteristics of our species and has been central to our ability to enter and expand throughout the entire breadth of the New World since the last Ice Age." (Cassidy 22) This aspect of our ability to adapt to challenging environmental landscapes reminded me of the way the pastoralists were able to adapt to the lands which were inhospitable to agriculture. It gave me hope that we too as contemporary humans have the ability to adapt to our changing landscape. Yes we are accustomed to a certain way of life, but we too can adapt and change our relationship to the land and our environment. Hopefully we can do this before the situation becomes toooo challenging.

(wc 156)

Accelerating Connections: Love and Fear; Threat and Envy

One ought to be feared and loved, but it is difficult for the two to go together... I do not agree that one ought to be feared and loved, but I do agree that it is difficult for the two to go together. Does or can love exist without fear? It seems that for most of  humans, I presume, that love does not exist without some degree of fear attached to it. We fear rejection, loss, death, unfaithfulness, our own vulnerability, and honesty. Those are just some of the fears that go along with the way we understand and practice love. But it seems that most people, as individuals, choose to love regardless of the seemingly unavoidable element of fear which goes along with it. So why do most governments choose to be feared instead of loved? Is it as Machiavelli states on page 347, "Fear is maintained by dread of punishment which never fails..." Do we need to be governed by the fear of punishment? Are we as a species unable to govern ourselves by utilizing our own power of personal responsibility? Our we so covetous of gain that we are unable to guide ourselves morally in our interactions with other peoples? It seems that we are unable to guide ourselves, individually, morally without deviating into some sort of power struggle. Even the San peoples needed their society to have rituals in place which kept the individual in check. Just the fact that they have the process of insulting the meat leads me too believe that it was a needed act to keep a hunter from thinking to highly of themselves which then leads to the misunderstanding of use of power. 

The difficulty of being loved and feared at the same time feels similar to me as feeling both threat and envy simultaneously. As Strayer states on page 392, that the first societies in Western Europe and North America to experience the modern transformation became both a threat and a source of envy to the rest of the world. It reminds me the phenomenon of those who were once subjugated that once they earn freedom become the subjugator themselves. How we can feel threatened by something and someone and at the sometime feel envy of them/it seems a strange and dubious ability in the nature of humans, and also to be the source of the ebb and flow of power which has continuously occurred throughout our 250,000 year existence as Homo sapiens. 

(wc 415)

Defining a Millennium: Where are we at in our larger cycle as Homo sapiens?

Where are we at in our larger cycle as Homo sapiens? That has been a question that keeps coming to me as I read these chapters. I'm not exactly sure why, it could be just pure ignorance, but I really did not realize that we have been exhibiting so many of the same character traits for some many millennium: competition, hungry expansion, globalization, hunger for power, dominance of ourselves and other species, control of goods and services, classism, neglect of our responsibility to our natural surroundings, slavery, etc. I really thought that globalization was a modern notion: how wrong could I be. This ignorance could also be a result of never having this historic world view which has allowed me to see our species in the broadest of views.

So where are we in our larger cycle a Homo sapiens? It does seem as if we exist in cycles. Looking at the Chinese, they have ebbed and flowed through times of unity and times of discord. I think we are at an important time in our larger cycle. I think this because we all started out on on continent, Africa, and started the slow journey around the globe. The ice age ended and separated us again. Over the next 12,000 years we have slowly been coming back together. We are at a high time of global connectedness. We have all come back together. I wonder if we can unite as a species at this moment and evolve into something more than our past. It seems as if we have perfected that way of living with each other and our planet. We know how to compete against each other and feel like we have won. But the reality is that we have not won, we are losing. I wonder if we can take this grand moment of global unity and cooperate on a massive scale to see what we can become. I wonder if we are able to evolve, once again.  (331)

Defining a Millennium: We are speeding up, not time

If one of the products of contact with strangers is change, technological advancement, evolution even then we are in an age right now of a monumental surge in the amount of contact strangers have with each other. The internet could be comparable to the Silk and Sand Roads and the Indian Ocean Trade Routes of the third wave civilizations. All of these readings have made me start to wonder that it is not time speeding up or going by faster than it used to, we are speeding up. We are the ones that are going by faster. When I think about how long it took the Paleolithic people to create change, 240,000 years to advance stone tools, and even the Neolithic people moved at such a slower pace than we do today. It is the the fact that our technology is changing so rapidly that leads to the illusion that time is speeding up.
(155)

The Classical Era in World History 500 B.C.E – 500 C.E

The Classical Era in World History 500 B.C.E – 500 C.E

     Can an Empire foster security, artistic endeavors, exchange of goods and services, mix cultures, expand ideas, and foster ingenuity without violence, oppression and exploitation? (Strayer 99) The Persians were known for the brutality of their God appointed kings, but then they were able to comprehend the value of respecting different cultures under their power. The example given in the book is that of Cyrus allowing the exiled Jews in Babylon to return to Jerusalem and rebuilt their temples. (Stryer 100) How is it that we can in one moment exhibit the insight of the power of the common good, and then at the same time want to conquer as many peoples as possible? Why do humans want to be better than each other? Where does that destructive competitive drive come from? It might seem that is started with the concept of mine and yours, but the San people of Southern Africa understood that concept of mine, and they also understood the destructive power it could foster if not held in check. Their technique of insulting the meat was useful in keeping the human ego in a healthy state. Is it a possibility that once people moved into civilizations and then empires they lost the ability to keep their egos in a healthy state? Did the beginning of the ability to conquer nature with agriculture also lead to the incessant desire to conquer others as well? I guess we as Homo sapiens concurred the other Homo species, but we do not have a record of how that happened. We do however have a record of how humans have treated each other at the start of the agricultural era and now through the second and third wave of civilizations.

     Back to the question of is it possible for an empire not to be an asshole? There is an example in the book of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka. He started out in the usual emperor fashion, but was able to see another way of ruling after witnessing much bloodshed. There was growth and ingenuity under his reign and he practiced peace. Too bad after his death, human nature returned to its destructive ways. (Strayer 120)

     Is the fluctuation of order turning into disorder to then becoming order again a necessary natural fluctuation in which growth occurs? The information on page 88 on shows how there was not any new technological or economic breakthroughs during these second and third wave civilizations for a few reasons: the land owning elite were cool with their reaping, peasants did not want to make anymore than necessary because it would just be stolen by the elite, and the merchants, the best chance at making change, were dominated and made to look suspicious. So, there was not much disorder to become order again. There was a status quo being upheld and everyone kind of played along. Spartacus had a good idea, but it was not for social change, just personal change. So, that could be a lesson right there: For things to change in life they must be attempted for more than just yourself.

     I don’t know is an empire or civilization for that matter has the ability to rule and prosper without exploiting people, land, resources, and other life along the way. The Empire of the United States surely is unable to.  (word count 564)

Journal Entry Number One: First Things First

Journal Entry Number One: First Things First

…as well as early attempts to impose meaning on the world through art, ritual and religion. (Strayer pg.5)

            Is this attempting to say that there is no inherent meaning to existence, only meaning that we impose upon existence? It reminds me of the philosophical question, “ If a tree falls in the woods and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Sound waves exist whether or not they are heard. So, is that a question of the inheritability of sound making waves, or the ears ability to hear those waves? That question always kind of bugged me for this reason; squirrels have ears, so they would hear it if  “no one” was around. I always took the “no one” in that question as encompassing only humans. If it did not only mean humans, I do not think the word “one” would have been used in "no one". Back to the original thought: if Homo sapiens did not inhabit the earth would life on this planet have meaning? My first reaction is to say duh. I truly believe that life and all of the other existence that exists out there in the Universe(s) has meaning that does not need us to impose anything upon it. But I think this is trying to say that maybe Homo erectus did not think about meaning, just dinner. So does meaning need to be comprehended for it to exist? Can meaning exist without being pointed out or recognized? For meaning to exist does the question why have to be asked first? I’m actually not up to thinking anymore about that question right now, but I am interested in thinking about it again soon, and I am very interested in what other people have to say. 

I was thinking about why historians have not written a lot about the Paleolithic time period and I thought that maybe some historians are propagandists for the non-nomadic life because that is where the money is. It was just a small thought.

Does anyone else thing that Native Americans have a slightly Asian facial structure, and if so, is that because their ancestors crossed the Bering Strait Land Mass from Asia? Also, I found it interesting that the people of the Americas did not really have any larger animals to domesticate (The Southern portion had the llama. Never trust a llama.). It made me think that might be why the Native Americans were still living more of a hunter/gatherer life style into the late Modern time period. They were not attempting to dominate nature but work with nature; that is more of a Paleolithic philosophy.

When I was reading about the Venus figurines, which had been found from Spain to Russia, I wondered when the collective consciousness developed? Was it when our brains became bigger in the Homo sapiens? Or was it present even as far back as the Homo habilis? Do you know?

It is mind blowing how fast we moved from being in communion with nature to attempting to dominate it. I wonder if because for 240,000 years (more if you consider Homo habilis a homie) nature had the upper hand and could kick our ass at will without much of a fight; I mean we had fire, some stones and a fur or two, but really we did not have a chance against her. That ice age must have sucked. So, I wonder if once the weather mellowed out and we could have a bit more control, we ran with it? The rate of change in our relationship with nature just feels to me like some pent up frustration was there and as soon as the climate was ripe… pounce. I just cannot wrap my mind around how drastic the nature/human relationship changed for most Homo sapiens. This change also goes hand in hand with our relationship to other Homo sapiens. The radical departure form a predominantly egalitarian construct to a class system happened with such ease. As Strayer states in the book, The Code of Hammurabi talks about slavery like they had been doing it forever, but it had only been 1500 years since the first civilizations began. Where did that way of interacting stem from? Mind-boggling.

2008... fingers crossed!