History (cont.)

History can be a hagiography, a morality tale, and a cautionary tale, all to some extent, because history normally has a purpose for being told. If history is being taught in school, it is not only to educate children on facts of the past, but also to present to them morals and cautions which can be learnt from our history.

For example, there are many elements omitted by Japan in their history textbooks, including facts about their conflict with China and the invasion of Manchuria. Although it seems here that the historian is deliberately twisting the truth, it is not necessarily false, and it is history written for young Japanese students. The bias comes not only from the historian, but also from the audience, who supply the demand for history that has a ulterior motive.

Rwandan Genocide and the Truth reconciliation commission

The talk on the Rwandan genocide raised questions on what is evil. Philip Zimbardo, the professor who conducted the Stanford prison experiment in 1971, defined evil as someone who abuses power by intentionally hurting another person. He also created a thesis, The Lucifer Effect, which looks at what brings out the evil in ‘good’ people. Therefore, when looking at history and judging why certain decisions were made, we need to look at the power dynamics of the time. For example, being the one who feed the information to the public gives one power. That person has the power of language, and can manipulate the thoughts of people in different ways.

Conflict is mostly caused by everyone thinking they are the victims to a problem. Nonetheless, an apology doesn't necessarily solve the problem, as it can be hollow. In the case of USA's apologies to its indigenous communities, the apologies do not mean a lot. However, in the case of Japan and China's ongoing rivalry, neither are willing to admit any responsibility and apologize. I think conflict is almost unavoidable, but as long as the rivalry is relatively peaceful, then it is just like rivalry between sport teams, except political. As long as the living standards of the people are relatively good, violence or major events do not occur. 

AOK- History

-What shapes the views of a historian? (PERCEPTION) 
-Do historians look at facts emotionally?( EMOTION)
-Do historians piece together the past through reason? (REASON)
-Is language the most effective weapon of the historian? (LANGUAGE)

Evidence which recreates history for us, are often buried in a certain chronology and has been treated in a certain manner which also provides information about the piece of evidence. For example, by looking into our garbage, we can discover clues to the past. However, history is a process where we interpret the evidence, and present it in a certain way. It is a science and an art, because it includes the process of  searching evidence that supports a certain hypothesis, and is a skill which is creative, interpretive, and is part of the art of argument.

The factors that shape the views of the historian are important, because  people have different backgrounds, and the differences in their background causes different interpretations . Bias is subjective, because  we cannot judge objectively if we are being lenient towards one argument.

Although the opinions of a historian should not be affected by irrational emotions, historians do see facts emotionally. In fact, if we were presented with just the facts of an event, we may not be able to understand its importance: it is when historians interpret the facts for us, and recount the event with emotion that history seems to have a greater meaning. “Facts do not speak for themselves”- the facts alone do not present the past, but it is the historians, who are emotional beings, who present the past.

History, being a science, should be pieced together through reason. A good historian will use empathy as a tool to understand the motivations for decisions made in the past, analyze its expedience, and be able to examine the personalities of the decision makers, as well as their circumstances and other extraneous factors. It seems unlikely that all the history presented to us has gone through this thorough process with objectivity. It is also logical to say that the past may be pieced together to someone’s advantage, including the historians. This makes the history presented still logical, but maybe not as truthful or objective as people may perceive it to be.

Language is the medium with which a historian presents his/her interpretation. The significance of the language used is that it can evoke emotion or even shape a person’s perception. It is also important as a means to find out the truth, because it is when people and opinions debate upon facts, we are able to approach the truth. 

How much control do you have over your own future?

Can people with different opinions be right?

What can a personal story tell us about the big issues?

In our discussion, wealth was considered an important factor in how much control we have over our future. The more money we have, the more opportunities we can create and the more hope we can buy. However, the majority of us would choose good health and spirit over infinite wealth.

I think that what makes us happy and having control over the future are separate. A lot of people want a stable, fairly simple future: a family, a house, maybe a car etc. Having a more secure grasp of our future would help us achieve this, but often the ultimate aim is to be secure and happy. 

The control we actually have over our own future is small. So many factors influence our future: politics, the economy, the weather, accidents, the people we meet etc. We often have a decent amount of choice in our actions and how we think, but sometimes even this is restricted in the bigger picture. When we meet someone from a different culture, the person is often strongly influenced by their surroundings and culture. It is a bit like the frog in the well: we can't actually have a perception without society's filters, so even in a 'free democratic' state, our decisions and future are guided by our influences and circumstances. It is not like we can't change our future, but I think a lot of luck is involved in destiny. 

Hoping for a better day ~Reflections on Israel and Palestine

This presentation made me reflect upon what is needed in conflict resolution.
The problems between the Israelis and Palestinians have made people suffer for a long time. While at first the problem began with a disagreement of beliefs and identity, because the conflict becomes political, it becomes impossible for anyone to live in Israel without having their day-to-day lives affected by this conflict.

"Maslow's hierarchy of needs"
I found Andrew Watson's reference to Maslow's hierarchy of needs interesting: the needs of people living in the conflict-affected areas are being less and less fulfilled,  bringing their level of fulfillment down to safety, and sometimes even to physiological. Their worries for tomorrow are so simple, yet due to a difference in identity, people cannot achieve these basic needs.

Problem solving is at the top of this hierarchy. To have the emotional capacity to be able to solve problems, reduce prejudice, accept and respect others, first the bottom needs need to be attained. The situation in which the people live in though, cannot address these needs. The longer the people are deprived of basic needs, the more the situation aggravates: an example being a change in attitude, where people begin to use definitive language and hold dogmatic views. The children grow up in this environment, and the views of their parents are passed on through the generation. The views begin to lose sight of the reason the conflict happened in the first place.

In this presentation the importance of education was justified, because respect for each other can be promoted, and a attitude towards conflict resolution can be created, especially because people have suffered enough hard times. Educating the younger generations can help create understanding of the problems that exist, and create a generation who know how to work towards conflict resolution.

10 Thousand Miles (film)
What did we see that surprised us?
The style of the movie and the plot were good, but not many of the elements in the movie actually ‘surprised’ me, because I have a father who travels often to these areas of the world, who’s told me about their situation, and I think their cultural background is more similar to that of Japan than that of the Western world.
What I felt was interesting was that the university students that appeared in the film that they mostly wanted just to have a family, and didn’t feel a great desire to travel. Most of them didn’t have the means to travel, but it was also that they didn’t have much motive to travel. In comparison to the allegory of ‘the frog in the well’, it seems that people are perfectly content staying ‘in the well’.

What was TOK about this?
The main idea of ‘the frog in the well’; having a limited perception/vision of the world, and going on a journey which stretches this perception was TOK. Each person came from a different background and experienced situations and saw what they had not known before. This gaining knowledge by aquaintance and learning about different ways of thinking is TOK. It was also interesting that Liam, the producer of the film, felt essentially that what the western media portrays of this part of the world, and what the ‘local’ Chinese media portrayed showed completely seperate images. From his first hand experience, he described as reality being somewhere in between, which I think is the case with most medias.

‘Politically Correct’
Political correctness is often mocked because of its extent that it becomes ludicrous. In the radio show that we listened to in class, the man mentioned ‘gaijin’, which means foreigner in Japanese. I think the separaration between what is and what is not is not always so clear, and the term ‘gaijin’ is a good example of this. It seems to me that in Japan because of the common use of this word, it is almost implanting a discrimatory notion in Japan, that people are either Japanese or not.

WOK: Emotion

Emotion vs Cognition
In this lecture, the justification for emotion as a way of knowing was that although emotion is a illogical, subjective, the existence of qualia (the physical reactions emotions produce) means that there is a stimulus passing through the mind, and although unconscious, it is not less subjective than perception eg. perceiving color is subjective. It involves information being processed before stimulus arrives at the perception. The emotion also has knowledge such as instincts which can be vital for survival.

Another argument was that emotion gives knowledge meaning. Logic follows an emotional reaction, and arousal is essential to all mental functions. Boredom is the lack of emotion, and knowledge has no meaning if it does not arouse emotion.

I feel this argument in a broader philosophical sense is valid, but in a practical sense, weak. If it is emotion that gives knowledge meaning, it would mean for example people who find maths boring, do not find meaning in knowing maths. This is not necessarily true. I have times when although I am not interested in something, but I know the importance of knowing it, so I learn it. There may be no immediate emotional arousal when the knowledge is acquired by individuals.
However it is true that if there was no emotion behind all the knowledge we have, knowledge probably would not have been created. We search for knowledge because we want to, because we need to, and those are emotional reactions.

Language II

Swearing

As a part of using language as a means of knowing, we looked at the implications of swearing. In the day-to-day life we use it normally as strong means of expressing. We also looked at the literal meanings of swear words in different languages:

English=sexual

French=sexual

Quebecois=religious

Dutch=disease

Swedish=religious+ sexual

Danish=Devil, Satan, Hell

Finnish=Devil, illness

Japanese=animal+ sexual

There seems to be a similarity, that most of these are sources of fear.

However I think  the word ‘swearing’ in itself already reflects the English language and culture, and trying to look at the different swear words in different languages already specifies what we mean by swearing. In French we would call these words ‘gros mots’, and in Japanese we would just call this type of language ‘dirty’. I agree that most languages will have ‘bad’ and ‘taboo’ words to express strong emotion, but especially as we get away from the European languages and look at languages of completely different origins, this doesn’t apply directly the way ‘swear words’ have a role in English.

Humor

Humor is strongly linked to language and culture. My personal experience about this is again from my origins, Japanese. There is a type of comedy (like stand-up comedy or ironic humor) that exists only in Japan, which consists of being silly going along with a joke, and someone else intervening and saying the ‘punch line’. This sounds really weird in any other language and is completely alien to even cultures closer to Japanese like Korea or China. There is also an expression, “Go get laughter even if it sacrifices yourself (physically)”,  which explains the Japanese TV shows where people do the craziest things.