Van Gough as Professor [Will Brehm, Week 13, Substantive]

Max Weber’s “Science as a Vocation” loosely portrayed academic life like that of an artist. Many professors exist, but sometimes, especially in Germany, a long, difficult road overshadows the glorious “end.” Trying to “say” something unique haunts professors and parallels the easily conceptualized image of a starving artist trying to paint something original. I’m thinking Van Gough here: his horribly tragic life ended without fame, but today, he is revered as one of the best painters—ever. It is not his poverty that makes his story tragic; rather, it is that he never received recognition for being “one of the best” while alive. Also like art, the professor/researcher wants his or her work to be surpassed by later generations of professors/researchers. Opening up doors for future generations (what teaching is all about) stratifies a professor (I hope) more then the prestige of having “Dr.” precede his or her name. It is this never-ending search for Truth that appeals to some, but can frighten others. (That’s what separates the PhD’s from the MA’s.)

More importantly, I think Max Weber hits on the real dilemma professors face: not only do they have to research, but also they have to teach. Teaching is no easy task. Keeping “intellectual integrity” in the classroom proves difficult for even the best teachers, especially when the subject at hand is the exact niche area the professor has nearly spent his or her whole academic career consumed in. How can he or she NOT have an opinion that projects outwardly and “biasly” onto the students when teaching the class? But this is exactly what Max Weber urges professor not to do. Instead, the professor should let the learner make up his or her mind; the professor simply guides students. It’s a noble idea, one I strongly believe in, but, unfortunately, it doesn’t translate into everyday practice.

To look at this idea from another angle, Max Weber challenges students to take their education by the helm and search for “the threads of his life.” That is an utterly profound idea, in that education can go in many, individual directions. It is finding that direction through individual passion that will make life so enjoyable. Van Gough could have changed careers to increase his standard of living in bland economic terms, something our culture has come to embrace. But Van Gough found passion and joy in what he loved most, painting. And painting was worth more than any amount of money a mindless job could have produced. He would continue to paint even if that meant cutting off his ear off and eventual suicide. He found a passion during his life, and today we are lucky enough to enjoy his stunning work.

Binaries [Will Brehm, Week 12, Reflective]

I’m going to elaborate on the idea of binaries in a broader sense, as Professor Pervez asked, and then link this idea to our understanding of Terrorism.

Binaries pervade American culture—more than one thinks. The Civil Rights movement was the struggle between black and white. Hitchcock categorizes women into “blonds” and “brunettes.” Only two types of computers exist: Apple and Windows. One follows religion either moderately or fanatically. Capitalism triumphed over communism. Countries around the world during the Cold War were either with us (and capitalist) or against us (and communist). American Presidents will always be either a Republican or a Democrat. Whom one supports for President defines oneself by the whole ideology of that political party. This means, if one voted for Bill Clinton, one must be anti-abortion (renamed pro-choice to sound more democratic), pro-globalization, pro-gay marriage, pro-taxes, pro-universal health care, and anti-big business. If one voted against Bill Clinton, one *must* believe in the opposite of the issues mentioned above. If one doesn’t believe in the Iraq War, one must be against the troops. One is either with us or against us.

First World vs. Third World. North vs. South. Right vs. Wrong. Alternative vs. Mainstream. Center vs. Periphery. The list goes on and on…

If one has a more complex set of ideas, please don’t go on the Bill O’Reilly Show or the Countdown because one wouldn’t fit into a specific box that our culture yearns for. See, everyone must fit into a nice, neat box; it fools anyone into thinking one has a true understanding of the issues at hand. The complete opposite, of course, sits on the other side of the fence.

Binaries are easy, but implicitly push a hierarchal structure; one side justifies itself as having better qualities than the other. Simply put: right triumphs over. wrong. No one really thinks of being on the “wrong” side. Binaries easily—yet wrongly—connect to each other, too. So if one supports universal medicine, one must also be a socialist and, thus, a Nazi sympathizer. Alternatively, if one voted for Bush 43, one must also believe in a strict interpretation of the bible and, thus, hate homosexuals.

See how nonsensical this gets?

With terrorism, our culture has placed any violent act that is “anti-American” into a box that is being debated as either “terrorist,” “Islam-o-fascist,” or “Jihadist.” Semantics aside, that idea completes the binary with “Pro-America,” or what can be defined as “Freedom,” “Democracy,” and “Liberty.”

Now a simple analogy shows why the terrorism binary—for that matter any binary—doesn’t work. If a white male, early-20s, robs a bank because he fell into some gambling debt, do the papers proclaim that a “Christen-fascist” commented a grave criminal act against innocent Americans? Nope. We try to understand why exactly he or she was driven to commit such an act.

I don’t see anyone (at least not in the papers) trying to understand why a terrorist committed a horrific act. Instead, we demonize the person for following a fanatical religion. What happens is that we are subtly suggesting that a person who commits a violent act, which we never fully try to understand his or her motives, must be below us, the non-violent people who only fight for democracy. And if that person happens to follow a different faith than the majority of Americans, the act must be religious based. And since binaries (wrongly) connect to others, we now see Islam blow the Christian Americans,

I have one solution to this “clash”: We can no longer allow our selves to simplify complexities. Let’s strive for compassion—what most religions preach.

Terror [Will Brehm, Week 12, Substantive]

The idea of terrorism is complex. Simply identifying where it occurs proves difficult. Yet labeling acts as terrorism is now fad. We liberally throw the term around to classify any act of aggression.

In his first chapter, “an anthropological excursion into the Muslim world,” of Journey into Islam, Akbar Ahmed displays the lack of understanding the West has towards the Muslim world and vise-versa. Ahmed shows simplistic understandings have invaded the complexities of religion, diplomacy, and different ways of life. We try to understand everything in the quickest way possible, often times missing ideas that don’t fit into our tiny box of understanding.

Explaining the origins of the term “Islamofascist,” Ahmed shows that the distortion of “Taymiyya’s complex ideas” have been “reduced to a bare shibboleth…a battle cry.” This interpretation of Islam helps the West label ideas into good vs. evil, a simple binary that consist of falsehoods. Ahmed earlier explains, “the problem with hatred is that it thrives on falsehood.” Our poor attempt to understand has created this hatred, and now we use the term “terrorism” to define any violent action that is hard to explain, let alone understand.

Ashis Nandy writes about a few incidences where hijacking at first was labeled terrorism but as more details came out, that label did not work anymore for the captors were found to not cause any terror. Both readings show that more understanding needs to occur; as easy as classifying a cast as terrorism, we cannot take the easy way out. Simply concluding that an act was terrorism might be a step we have been become too accustomed to post-9/11. We need to show “cultural sensitivity” just as Hailey did on her excursion with Akbar Ahmed.

More Choice the Merrier [Will Brehm. Week 11, Reflective]

This post is in response to Meredith’s post, “Separation of Church and State” (11/14/07). She asks many interesting and difficult questions, but I will only address one: “How can [divisive] political issues [such as stem-cell research or abortion] be understood in the context of America’s founding, its history, and ideological foundations?”

To begin this discussion, a quote from [I can’t believe I’m actually quoting this!] The Brown and White article, “Speaker: Jewish identity a part of polish history” (Nov. 13), on visiting Yale professor Gershon Bacon. “The key to history is ‘context, context, context,’ said Gershon Bacon.” Mr. Bacon nailed it.

America’s founding resulted as a backlash against King George. Our founding fathers didn’t want any one person or institution to have absolute control over its peoples. To achieve this unbelievably democratic ideal, choice was given for just about everything. If people can choose their representatives, religion, state, job, etc., then democracy can thrive.

Government is not supposed to represent God or His will; rather the founding fathers saw government as “instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” (Declaration of Independence). Citizens matter because they get to choose, specifically who represents them in Washington. “The law of Nature and Nature’s God entitles” these men (and women) to choose. How they choose is up to them, not God.

Today, our founding principles are actually being trampled upon. We have politicians trying to enact legislation that would take away our choice away in the name of God, reducing the power of democracy. So, in terms of the divisive issues of today, any attempt to limit our choice is an infringement on our democracy. If we understand the context in which this great nation was born and then try to apply that understanding today, we will see we have committed grave injustices to our founding fathers ideology.

Democracy is low these days. But there is hope. First we must recognize that a resurgence of democracy will not be found in a combination of church and state. We must continue to demand to have as many choices as possible raise democracy high.

[UPDATE 7:15 pm] "There will never be a hill that you didn't have to climb when it comes to injustice in this world. You have to keep climbing it. The important thing is not to say Democracy is a myth in our country. It's to have better gradations: Democracy is very weak today in our country, we have to make it stronger and stronger until it becomes the profoundly realistic American way of life and crowds our the myths." -Ralph Nader

Multiple Modernities [Will Brehm, Week 11, Substantive]

“Charles Taylor observes that, ‘we need to speak of multiple modernities, the plural reflecting the fact that non-western cultures have modernised in their own ways and cannot be properly understood if we try to grasp them in a general theory that was originally designed with the Western case in mind.’ Modern variations of Turkish Islamism, rather than simply a threat to secular democracy or a revival of ‘religion’ in public life, are an example of how different forms of ‘secularism’ emerge in different cultural and political circumstances.”

This quote really reveals the complexity of international retaliations. We cannot try to understand every country through a ‘general theory’ because each country has developed in a unique way. Just as every human is different, so too are countries. We have a unique conception of different religion; using this conception to understand other cultures, without considering local facts, will result in a narrow view of the world affairs—most likely leaving us without a full understanding. Non-understanding results in skewed relations.

When religion enters the international scene, heated debate follows because many people define their life through their religion and witnessing a new form of their religion can be upsetting. A dogmatic, inflexible conception of a particular religion results in misconceptions and misunderstandings. Defining this disconnect in Taylor’s term, ‘multiple modernities,’ really, to me at least, shows that a huge amount of knowledge needs to occur to understand the many unique constructions of international relations in general, specifically regarding religion.

Progress: now called Globalization [Will Brehm, Week 10, Reflective]

The fascination with globalization is not new. It merely falls under the larger idea of “progress.” (I feel I’ve debated the idea of progress since Freshmen English class.) Progress happens in every civilization—past, present, or future. When the boat made its first voyage, the world became a little more flat (as Mr. Freidman would say); when the telephone first rang, we became more connected; when hunter-gathers encountered a different tribe, new ideas—most likely different hunting methods—were exchanged; when Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, the cotton industry expanded the US’s economy.

Cultures mixed more frequently as we progress and “things” from other cultures move to new cultures. Those ideas that work well will be copied. Eventually an individual culture becomes a collage of other unique cultures: a hodgepodge of ideas, none 100% individual, combines to actually create individuality. We progress because we interact more. Today the interaction is global; thus, we have globalization.

The presentation mentioned “modernity” often. Modernity does not mean modern. Modernity grew out of the industrial revolution. It was fundamental change: a cultural, political, economic, and technical evolution. (Think of “Cubes” by Langston Hughes: the Senegalese bringing back a gift from Paris described as disease.) During this time the connectedness of cultures spread far more rapidly than before. The culture collage grew into a larger and more abstractly constructed piece of art.

But with progress comes backlash. When the cotton gin was widely used, the number of slaves in America increased; when the boat first set sail, so too did the transportation of disease; when tribes encountered other tribes, conflict became apparent. Ideas are a gift to our cultural development, but sometimes bring bad stuff.

Does this mean that progress—now called globalization because interaction takes place globally—is bad? Nope. It means that with the good comes the bad. What we can learn, though, is that while the good may come (and should be embraced), an understanding that the bad will follow should sit center stage. We should try to quell the bad as soon as it approaches.

Globalization is here. But what comes next, a backlash?

A plea! [Will Brehm, Week 10, Substantive]

Reading Globalization and Inequality: A Plea for Global Justice by Dallmayr confirmed my ideas of the inherent inequalities capitalism produces. As the West evangelically prophesizes economic liberalism, it seldom mentions the unjust results: a larger population with less prosperity. In other terms, economic liberalism produces a concentration of wealth at the top. Less prosperity is more than the poor as Paul Krugman points out:

“MYTH #1: INEQUALITY IS MAINLY A PROBLEM OF POVERTY. 
According to this view, most Americans are sharing in the economy's growth, with only a small minority at the bottom left behind. That places the onus for change on middle-class Americans who -- so the story goes -- will have to sacrifice some of their prosperity if they want to see poverty alleviated.” (The Great Wealth Transfer. Nov. 30, 2006 edition of Rollingstones.)

In America, as inequality grows, CEOs are making over 250 times that of an average worker (Krugman, same article). (I don't know too much, but that isn't right.) We hear “supply/demand,” “self-interest,” and “profit” as the building blocks for success. We hear “less taxes” and more “privatization” to reach greater efficiency. Success, now, is easily defined in economic formulas. Proponents shout “communist” or “socialist” at any contrary thought. I feel we are taking this idea too far as globalization spreads.

What happened to states protecting (in terms other than security) its citizens? If we leave everything in the hands of a globalized market, I one day won’t have to call myself American. I can label myself a poor man who’s being “watched” over by the market. I think Dallmayr’s got it right: we need to plea for justice not only within our own State, but also–and more importantly—within the global. To whom do we plea is the real question. The answer: the market?

Nihilism...be afraid! [Will Brehm, Week 9, Reflective]

Oh, ethics how you make me think. Should morality, virtues, or utility define you? If I use morals, then I get trapped in a constructivist’s debate. Defining morals is contextual and intersubjective. If I liberate country X, I justify my action through my duty to help the citizens of country X. But, the rulers in country X, whom I just overthrew, will probably view my actions of invasion of a sovereign nation as immoral (and therefore unethical).

If I use virtues to define ethnics, then I trap myself into a dogma that may not be shared worldwide. My idea of justice, a component of virtues, may differ from that of Country X. It also falls prey to evolution of just want justice is. Is the death penalty justice for a murder? The argument becomes skewed if we base ethnics on virtues. (Other virtues include generosity and charity.)

If I use utilitarianism to define ethics, I get stuck into a statistical nightmare. Just as a student mentioned in class, how does one define, empirically, how many people Mother Teresa helped? An act that helps many people may be deemed ethical, but using this standard to critique other acts is problematic: again, context matters.

Ethics, to me, does not come to the table when making decisions. (Beliefs and values might, but ethics do not.) No individual actor is an ethicist while being a “decider.” Actors make decisions based on the knowledge available. Ethical judgments are left up to, well, everyone after the decision has already been made—people like us. I don’t believe George Bush thought about ethical questions while coming to the decision to invade Iraq in 2003. He had interests, maybe justified by morals, but did not consider ethics.

In this sense, I feel ethics is quite troubling. Other people define my ethicalness by evaluating my actions through individual, unique standards. You define my ethics. Therefore, nihilism is my new approach. I do not subscribe to any set dogma; rather, I will judge ethics a case-to-case, person-to-person basis.

Just Causes [Will Brehm, Week 9, Substantive]

In assessing an unjust cause, Holliday proposes three markers: 1) use only the information available at the time of the decision (to go to war) to determine unjustness (no hindsight!); 2) ask whether the action solved the problem; 3) use many factors, not just body count, to determine the end result. Holliday’s markers have great logical sense that cut across deep ideological and political lines for evaluating solutions to unjust causes.

In American media today evaluating the Iraq War as a just cause repeatedly produces attack from politicians, lobbyists, and individual citizens. These debates hinder our Nations ability to make future just decisions.

I suggest taking Holliday’s markers a step further. Using the three markers eliminates any attempt to lampoon decision makers because it limits the evaluation to a few factors. However, we can, and should learn from past decisions to help tweak and redefine our decision making process in the future. We should be able to reveal sources of crucial information that may have been unnoticed in the lead up to the decision to solve an unjust action. The next time a decision is upon Washington, it will undoubtedly broaden its scope of information. Strategies for solving the problem (war plans, economic sanctions, etc.) can be retrospectively assessed to alter future plans. What worked and what didn’t work shouldn’t be left to historians. Current policy and decision makers need to understand past decisions to learn from them. The factors to determine the end result, which go unnamed in Holliday’s essay, could be expanded and explained as more decisions are made. Learning from our past decisions—creating stricter criteria for assessing future unjust causes—will create a more just world. Without our ability to learn, we will continue making unjust decisions to what we perceived as an unjust cause.

Moving about in negligee [Will Brehm, Week 8, Reflective]

Listening to the class discuss the idea of gender issues made me understand the underlying problem. We are critically challenging our systems of thinking inside the system itself. This approach blinds our perceptions and forces us to attack the feminist lens. Let me break this down through an example.

The group suggested feminine jobs such as nursing or preschool/kindergarten teaching. The thinking goes: either women are housewives, which many decide to do, or enter the workforce in a “powerless” job. (Yes, Gabe pointed correctly that many of these jobs are utterly powerful, but this misses the point. These jobs are powerless because men, in powerful positions, have deemed them so. It is the idea of power that helps construct out understanding of gender. Feminine jobs do not influence political or international decisions. If those in power (men) think of these jobs as powerful, would not the funding for these jobs (teaching, nursing, etc.) increase? Alternatively, put a man in these positions and see what stereotypes come out. How do we read a male nurse or a male kindergarten teacher? As Newsweek pointed out a few weeks ago, either those men who choose to enter preschool/kindergarten teaching are seen as pedophiles or homosexuals. We continue to reinforce the femininity of some jobs and the masculinity of others.) Those women who want power must loose their femininity and acquire masculine traits. Thus, we have separated and defined gender roles in very specific terms. She either accepts the patriarchy and embraces femininity (becoming powerless) or steps outside of patriarchy and looses all feminine qualities (becoming powerful). We leave zero other spaces. It is this dichotomy that we are stuck in. And we discuss feminist theory inside this dichotomy, which produce attacks (“but some women want to be housewives”) or find specific examples (“look at the president from Ireland”) as a way of dismissing the theory. Living inside this dichotomy leaves us seeing short term, not long term. If we step outside the system and view what the heck is going on inside, we will see some serious trends. What we will discover, if we can escape the conventional thinking, is that we have never created a lasting, genuine space for powerful feminine women. We continuously want to stick gender roles inside the housewife/masculine women binary.

Food for thought: deconstruct the term “housewife.” Not so great of a term, is it? Wanting to be a “housewife” really shows how we live inside this system and struggle to escape.

More food for thought: William Carlos Williams wrote an amazing poem titled “The Young Housewife.” It follows below.

“The Young Housewife” by William C. Williams
At ten AM the young housewife
moves about in negligee behind
the wooden walls of her husband's house.
I pass solitary in my car.

Then again she comes to the curb
to call the ice-man, fish-man, and stands
shy, uncorseted, tucking in
stray ends of hair, and I compare her
to a fallen leaf.

The noiseless wheels of my car
rush with a crackling sound over
dried leaves as I bow and pass smiling.

Mystique-ing the Feminine [Will Brehm, Week 8, Substantive]

I love using the feminist analytical lens. A lens, I believe, that always needs to be own. Just as Meredith pointed out, it’s a lens that usually stays covered and unused by many IR thinkers. Feminism to me is equality between the genders. Who wouldn’t support that? The real problem, though, stems from the constructed understanding we have between the genders. Understanding our own construction sometimes challenges our belief system. Suggesting that men have treated women poorly often results in attacks on the messenger (a logical fallacy). People do not like to think they live inside a system that supports the silencing of women—that we all (both men and women) may be part of the problem through our perpetual silence.

Look: specific ideas of “femininity” and “masculinity” abound in American culture. One way to analyze gender roles is to take a community and see trends within the genders. Take Lehigh. Imagine walking around Lehigh for the first time. Would you see a diversity of clothing? Nope. Men, consciously or unconsciously, conform to a similar style of clothing. Women do too. We wear similar clothes either implicitly or explicitly, but, in essence, we have created a specific image of what a “woman” and a “man” look like. Is this a wrong thing? Maybe not. But if we construct gender roles down to our clothing, imagine what we do in other aspects of our lives. Think parties: who has been to a "CEOs and Office Hoes" party? In this context, men hold positions of power (CEOs) while women are relegated to (literally) sexual workers. A woman becomes defined through sexual promiscuity. Yes, it's only a party, but these parties cut deep to the underlying problem. (A more detailed analysis of Lehigh’s gender issues would take more space and time available for this post.)

If you want to see gender issues in media, look no further than an Alfred Hitchcock film. [OK, lets be real here: just turn on FOXNEWS to see its understanding of what a female host looks like. Hint: they’re all blond.] He plays with the ideas of femininity and masculinity in most of his films, often challenging our conventional constructions. (He has been known to be rather nihilistic, not leaving any space for the “true”—both sexual and knowledgeable—women to occupy.) Gender roles are real; feminism uncovers these roles and questions their validity.

The interesting point, which I usually miss when considering gender roles, from Enloe’s interview is that different cultures and nations construct unique gender roles specific to local events, attitudes, morals, histories. But before analyzing feminism on the international level, I think a firm understand on a more tangible level needs to exist.

We need a new Language. [Will Brehm, Week 7, Reflective]

The Chakrabarty article brought up a good point about our (Western) education system. He describes a “Europeanization” of history: that we view the world through great power politics, balancing, Christianity, the battle for sovereignty, free market economies, etc. These terms then penetrate our thinking when trying to understand any other history/identity outside of Europe, be it African, Latin American, Asian, etc.

This idea lingered in my mind for a few days. I haven’t fully developed this, but here we go…

Have we been Europeanized to see the world in a certain way? The first approach to answer this question is to look at our education since it constructs our realities. Take Lehigh as the example: Until recently, a core requirement for graduating with an IR degree was IR-56—European history. The IR department saw the history of Europe as a core component of an education in IR. (Another core component was Eco. 1—suggesting a relationship to the free market/capitalism that prevails in our realities.) Think about this for a second. To study IR at Lehigh we need to understand Europe first. That’s definitely Europeanization of education in my book. Even scarier, the Europeanization of education starts from the core of a system.

What about this required theory course, IR105? Do we see a Europeanization of our understanding with Theory? I would argue we do. Starting a theory course with Realism, for arguments sake, centers our attention in Europe. We understand realism in terms of balancing, power, and military—all easily portrayed in Europe. (This isn’t to say that balancing, power and military have not dominated other nations relations; rather, exclusively focusing on Europe favors a particular region/ideology of the world.)  Once we understand the European theories then—and only then—do we move to theories outside (or conflicting with?) Europe. It is these theories we fight with most often because they challenge our understandings of theory. Embracing the European view, though, reveals that Postcolonial thinking really is not a theory in relation to Realism or Liberalism (an explanation why we have trouble with non-normative theories?).  Post colonialism cannot predict the future and cannot explain a path to follow to the ideal utopia of dialog and difference it so proudly champions. A “European” understanding of theory does not do justice to the thinking of post colonialism. In effect, being stuck in a European reality plagues understanding of alternative approaches because we lack an adequate vocabulary. (Could this be why Mupiddi makes so many words up?)

As a famous Austrian author said in “Youth in an Austrian Town: “No new world without a new language.” 

Struggling to Understand [Will Brehm, Week 7, Substantive]

The Chakrabarty article argues a thesis that cuts deep into Western thinking generally, American specifically: the “Europanization” of history hinders our ability to truly understand other social imaginaries—that realities other than our own actually exist. Since these “transition narrative[s]” for the Third World are defined by “development, modernization, [and] capitalism” in hopes of achieving our standard of modernity, it becomes unbelievably difficult for Westerners (Americans) to understand a problem lives precisely in the narrative alone, the root of the problem. Constructing narratives define our reality; when these realities are proven wrong, we do not want to accept we perceived wrongly. It is like the Tooth Fairy narrative many parents in America create while children loose teeth: completely fictional but totally accepted. More importantly, sometimes the realization of an imagined Tooth Fairy shocks young children; no one likes giving up ones innocence, constructed reality. The problem of creating “European” history and then pushing it around the world reinforces our narrative of the Third World, our belief systems, and the superiority of our system of governance. Additionally, this thinking creeps into the realities of the countries in question. Being told this narrative may be false will shock many into denial; many will resort back to the narrative because it is easy and well known. The question becomes how does a culture change its narrative to incorporate a move global view? 

Self/Other in everyday practice [Will Brehm, Week 6, Reflective]

If constructivists define the world at large through identities (The Self/Other concept), then it becomes important to see if this works in everyday life (IR in everyday practice).

I’m currently involved in a new social justice peer education group on campus named Kaleidoscope. One topic we facilitate conversations on is privilege –the root cause of many of the injustices that happen unconsciously today. Privilege reinforces the Self/Other concepts constructivists abide by. If one group is privileged in one respect, than the Other lacks that privilege; it is a simple binary system that is created and reinforced. (Think: Male = strong, conscious, law, Oedipal, symbolic; while Female = weak, unconscious, pre-linguistic, pre-Oedipal, imaginary. A binary system I believe is false yet permeates through American society.) This does not mean, necessarily, that the Other should aim to achieve the Self’s level of privilege, or even that the Self recognizes that privilege. However, this separation into a dichotomous binary –The Self is privileged, the Other is not –creates a unique way of thinking, usually unconscious, in that everything must fall neatly into one of the two categories. For example, white male privilege abounds in the American society. Can a white male (or female) walk into a drug store and know that he (or she) can buy a band-aid that matches his (or her) skin color? One need not look to far into the past to see this repeated: in the late 80s and early 90s, Crayola carried a “Flesh” color crayon. “Flesh,” of course” was white (with a hint of pink). Now look at the highest paid CEOs in America: a pattern quickly emerges of all white men. Some define success through paycheck; therefore, implicitly some strive to become the top CEOs –a white male. Conscious or not, we live and enforce a society that gives white males the title of Self and everyone else the label of Other.

White male privilege is everywhere in our society. How does this work within the Self/Other debate? Well, it works on different levels. In American society, the Self is the White male and the Other are females and non-whites. The Self understands their prestige in terms of the Other. (I have privilege because I’m not female and not non-white.) Translate this to the world: the Self is the North, dominated by white men, while the Other is the South, men usually of darker skin. I don’t want to go into how the North treats the South, but it shouldn’t be of surprise to know that it is not good.

So, if one way of making American society more just is to reveal the hidden privilege implicit for white males, then one way of making the world more just is to reveal the privilege Northern nations have. This, in effect, will change the way we understand the Self/Other. I define myself differently now that I understand the Other more clearly. To understand the Other then, in a cliché, is to walk in another man’s shoes.

The Hills are alive... [Will Brehm, Week 5, Reflective]

Defining a sovereign “state” requires a shared identity of the individuals living within, often reinforced through norms, history, and socialization. But what happens when a state is created out of an empire? Living in Austria last year, I learned about just that: The sovereign state known as Austria was assembled after WWI. Previously, the idea of “Austria” permeated much of Eastern Europe: from Italy to the Netherlands and from Poland to the Balkans. It wasn’t a “state,” it was rather an empire with many norms, histories, and peoples. Splitting the empire up into multiple countries usually happened through shared identities (national self-determination); but what shared identity did Austria (as we currently know it) have in common? It was a German-speaking region on the border of southern Germany. If states should consist of shared identities, Austria, as we know it today, should have been lumped into Germany. However, the borders of Austria were defined by “what ever was left over” after the other new nations took their share of he empire. Needless to say, because of this a large push occurred within Austria to join Germany. The international system, however, did not allow Austria to join with Germany in fear that Germany would become too powerful.

Fast forward to post WWII Austria, where Austria regained independence for a second time in 40 years (It joined the 3rd Reich in 1938). Austria had serious identity issues: what does it mean to be Austrian? Not allowed to be Germans (again), Austrians had to create a history of their own. Many pushed for what retrospectively become known as “the Sound-of-Music” thinking: Austria was a civil society filled with wonderful music (Austria had a waltz for every occasion) and should be seen as the historic center of the Habsburg empire.

Many thought defining Austria in these terms was wrong; Austria, in this sense, neglects to understand its terrible –yet ever important –past: supporting the two losing sides in both world wars. Ingrid Bachmann, a famous Austrian post-WWII writer, proclaimed: “no new world without a new language.” By this she meant that Austria needed to figure out how to define its past before creating a new identity. For Austria defining it self as a sovereign state has been harder than just recognition by the international community. Austrians still struggle with understanding their past. The people of a state must have these shared identities to make that state legitimate.

Thoughts on the Political [Will Brehm, Week 5, Substantive]

Reading about constructivism, it seems that this theory does not paint a very clear picture of how the world should look/act like that of the realist or liberal theories. It is, in a sense, a much more abstract theory. Constructivism seems more open in the sense that each actor will act (or react) according to different legitimations as Jackson detailed.

It seems these theories have progressed when the latter could no long adequately explain the present international makeup. Walker writes about this: the beginnings and ends. The theories may not have exact moments in time for completion, but there definitely seem to transition as time advances. Just as constructivism reacts to internalization and social learning, so to do the actual theories of IR: each theory advances until a reaction to that theory grows, creating new norms and a new socialization process for the followers. Just as Walker explained at the end of his piece, “to try to work through any of these questions, or even to try to ask them in a plausible fashion…is to realize just how fragile modern accounts of the location and character of the political have become.”: it seems changing theories of the political will undoubtedly happen, but in which direction the current thinking cannot suggest. Retrospectively, theorists can try to understand the movements in IR.

The English Student in Me [Will Brehm, Week 4, Reflective]

After reading the two articles and thinking over the four discussion questions in class, I realized this: wow, the discourse for developing international integration strategies is very difficult. It’s a little harder than just the “do what’s right for me” or “I can’t trust anyone, so I must have a huge military” thinking of liberals and realists, respectively.

Attempting to answer how International organizations now, in 2007, should respond to crises is a lot different than it would have been in, say, 1970 when Haas wrote “The Study of Regional Integration.” I found that a lot of our group discussion was over how existing organizations, like the EU or UN, handle these issues, and if we could mirror (copy?) them for all crises. Even though this theory is quite new and still developing, norms seemed to already have been rooted, which we already wanted to copy. We seem to be trapped in a certain way of thinking (because this “stuff” is too hard?). But I propose we need to step outside of the box, think deeply about these issues, and try not to conform to the preexisting standards set by the EU and UN. Can we make there standards better?

The other reason the discourse on international integration seems difficult is because of the ambiguous terms used. For example, in the questions words like “crises,” “peace,” and “just” were used. But what makes a crisis a crisis? Not knowing what to wear in the morning can be a crisis for one person, but not another. What about peace? Can we empirically define peace? If x wars are being fought, let’s say, then we are at peace; but if x+3 wars are being fought, then we are not at peace. Can we really have a definition of what peace is? And “just” seems to be the most vague of all. What does it mean to be “just” and is it universal? Is it just to tell another country “you aren’t being peaceful!”? See the terms change meaning between individuals, states, and organizations. This makes the discourse so damn hard.

This realization really makes me appreciate organizations like the EU and UN, and allows me to understand why a lot of problems arise. Sometimes my five-person family disagrees to, what seems like, the point of no return. Disagreements can splitter a family (or friends, or colleagues, etc.). Now move these disagreements to include 193 states with multiple individuals. See how hard this gets?

"Why don't you and I combine?" [Will Brehm, Week 4, Substantive]

Haas’ essay on regional integration proved taxing at best –lamentable at worst. The lists of generalizations did not define what regional integration is; rather, they merely displayed the flawed idea of empirically categorizing theories that do not have roots in hard science. (How can propositions be formed without having the possibility of being discredited by myriad events around the world?) Haas’ problem revolves around too many independent variables and the search for dependent variables: how are we to narrow our search down to truly define the regional integration theory the logic goes. There are too many events, though, that may not fit into a nice theory. (Haas does point out that regional integration theory cannot “fully meet any of [his] criteria,” suggesting that theory has flaws.) Alternatively, with hard science it’s easy to look at a theory and conclude one is the best theory, at least until proven otherwise. (Gravity is only a theory –but one that hasn’t been discredited by new findings.) Looking at the interaction of states leaves the opening for many theories to define one situation. That, I believe, is how theory works in the soft sciences. I suggest we just call each “theory” a new “lens.” This way when looking at particular events we can switch our lens to view the event differently, to bring out new, important factors missed earlier. Anyway, Haas suggests we need to keep working on defining regional integration (with computers!), leaving the interpretation open of what exactly it is.

I don’t think actors are concerned with defining regional integration; they just act within the system, influenced for various reasons. It is more of an evolution: actors see what happened before and try to change or copy the outcome according to what they define as their current target goal. So over time the evolution of norms and thinking has changed from power politics, balancing a multi-polar world, to a world where integration, the globalized world, seems more valuable. However, there are, of course, those actors who do no believe this. Evolution takes place but at different times. (This is the reason it is so hard to pin down a clear theory.) Why this evolution takes place would be a neat study.

The Culture of Liberal Democracy [Will Brehm, Week 3, Reflective]

I believe in Liberalism more than I do Realism for reasons I do not wish to go into here. This statement acts as a caveat for the rest of the post. So to does the assumption that when I write democracy I mean a true democracy, not a jaded version found in some states.

Liberalism’s first tenet, liberal democracy, makes me wonder about states that don’t have a liberal democracy. What does a liberal democracy bring that makes it so successful as a form of government? It’s not power, or military strength –many states, like the Soviet Union, prove this. No, it’s rationality that liberal democracy allows --even demands. Fantastic (or fanatic) ideas filter out in a democracy, which doesn’t always happen in non-democratic states.

I came across a great example in my other IR class, Politics of Oil, that shows how non-rational thoughts plague a state. The pacific war brought a second front to the West’s war against Germany. Though America had a more powerful Navy than Japan, Japan simply did not give up. Even when the war looked lost, they simply refused to surrender; all rationality left the pacific theater, resulting in millions of deaths and two nuclear bombs exploded. I understand that a cultural difference exists between the West and the East that can explain why the Japanese kept fighting, but eventually a point has to be reached where rationality wins over.?

But then I read some of the philosophy of John Dewey. Dewey believes democracy is a process not just a system. This means the whole society has to follow democratic ideas and principles --basically, a democratic culture. In Japan they had a completely different culture, founded on different principles. Looking at Liberal Democracy in this light gives the first tenet of Liberalism more complexity than just a form of government.

It's the culture that makes democracy succeed, which in turn rewards rationality.

Neoliberalism and Peace [Will Brehm, Week 3, Substantive]

Sea Kay makes a few good points on Neoliberalism’s success and failures. I believe that the failure of NATO in Kosovo arises precisely because during times of crisis actors do not wish to compromise authority. The military’s structure, a basic hierarchy, does not work well with a bureaucratic, “red tape” filled system. Soldiers follow the command of their superior; the chain of command goes up until it reaches a single point, the President (or Commander in Chief) in America’s case. When the top commander is a group of nations –all with different foreign policies and national interests –the decision-making process stalls. What America wants in times of crisis (read war) does not translate well with the goals of Turkey or even Britain. Understanding this concept gives new meaning to NATO’s, or any alliance in Neoliberalist thinking, purpose: during times of war, rigid alliances do not work. During times of peace, however, alliances do benefit. Kay states, “A critical course correction for NATO,” then “would be to take NATO out of the war fighting business and instead prioritize postcrsis peace support operations.” (Kay, 72) Fighting for peace, in a symbolic sense, does not have the same chain of command as fighting in (for?) war. In this case, NATO acts as a tool where large states cannot dominate, giving a voice to the many smaller, weaker states. Cooperation becomes easier in times of peace because time is not of the essence as it is in war.