In light of the Washington Navy Yard shooting last Monday on the 16th various questions about governmental responsibility have been raised. These have most frequently revolved around the protocol and processes involved to get government clearance in certain jobs. Since that doesn't directly apply to anyone reading this blog I'd prefer to focus on something more relevant to a wider array of United States citizens. Two hot-button issues in US politics are about guns and healthcare. In both cases it seems like no one even wants to bring either subject up. However, both of these issues, and specifically the gun control and mental health care debates, can be tied into a larger issue about how governments and their coffers work.
The safety of a society is dependent on many variables but almost all of them can be traced back to the amount of money being spent to support programs. It seems that the various authors we've been reading in class differ as to what they believe money should be spent on or what should be manipulated in the market. On one side, Smith outlines three manipulations of the market and determines how or if they benefit society. On the other side, Marx doesn't seem to really analyze where money is coming from to fund society but rather suggests that everything involving personal finances be abolished and consolidated in the hands of the state.
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Do societies have a moral obligation to intervene in foreign affairs even when the risks are high?
That's right. I'm talking about Syria. The economy has been (almost) completely destroyed since the Arab Spring and the beginning of Syria's internal violence. Assad's government is relying on aid mostly from its allies Russia and China. Did I mention that the Assad family has been in power for fifty years? The Baath party took over when France relinquished its hold on the colony in the mid 1960's. The problem is that Syria is run by a minority group that comprises less than 12 percent of the Syrian population. (Something tells me this government might not relate to its population well). As if things weren't bad enough economically and socially, the two year long civil war has made Syria the world's 2nd largest
producer of refugees with two million displaced Syrian citizens seeking
asylum in neighboring countries. According to the New York Times, there are an additional four and a half million Syrian citizens who are internally displaced.
Oh! And now this stuff about chemical weapons used on Syrian citizens by their own government. According to Le Monde, sarin gas was used on the Free Syrian Army as early as May of 2013. The United States is more interested in an attack that occured on August 21st. In this attack chemical weapons were used on thousands of Syrian civilians. Now a red line has been crossed and U.S. President Obama is calling for action.
But does the United States, or any foreign government for that matter, have any moral obligation to intervene in Syria?
According to Gram Slattery, the United States all too often attempts to dump a ready made batch of republican democracy on struggling governments' heads expecting an ideal self-representation-based society to form in a couple of months. Slattery analyzes John Stuart Mill's interpretations of government and government-making in relation to the United States eminent actions in foreign policy. "To put his ideas crudely, Mill claimed that many societies were fit for representative government, but others, in their present state, were not; those peoples truly bent on self-rule, he claimed, would successfully fight for and achieve it", (Slattery, paragraph 2).
So, does the world simply wait and watch as rebels fight to achieve self-representation?
Do international organizations simply establish relief funds for affected groups but steer clear of the source of these groups' problems?
Can foreign governments even afford to look further than their own backyard when determining foreign policy?
What is, or should be, the moral obligation for observers as Syria spirals ever out of control?
(Will you ever forgive me for this slew of rhetorical questions?)
It may not be the economically "smart" way to think about this conflict, but I believe there should be something done. It is grandiose to assume that by sweeping into the rescue about 2 1/2 years after a complex conflict's outbreak that a fifty year old (corrupt) governmental order will about-face overnight. Slattery puts it lightly by calling it over-ambitious. But surely something can be done to lower the ridiculous numbers of victims in this war.
To close, here is a quote from Mill, ironically found in A Few Words on Non-Intervention:
"[The] only test … of a people’s having become fit for popular institutions is that they or a sufficient portion of them prevail in the contest, and are willing to brave danger and labor for their liberation."
I think the Syrian people have proved themselves willing to brave danger and labor, don't you?
And to keep this light and educational, here's a vlog from Hank Green to his brother John.
Oh! And now this stuff about chemical weapons used on Syrian citizens by their own government. According to Le Monde, sarin gas was used on the Free Syrian Army as early as May of 2013. The United States is more interested in an attack that occured on August 21st. In this attack chemical weapons were used on thousands of Syrian civilians. Now a red line has been crossed and U.S. President Obama is calling for action.
But does the United States, or any foreign government for that matter, have any moral obligation to intervene in Syria?
According to Gram Slattery, the United States all too often attempts to dump a ready made batch of republican democracy on struggling governments' heads expecting an ideal self-representation-based society to form in a couple of months. Slattery analyzes John Stuart Mill's interpretations of government and government-making in relation to the United States eminent actions in foreign policy. "To put his ideas crudely, Mill claimed that many societies were fit for representative government, but others, in their present state, were not; those peoples truly bent on self-rule, he claimed, would successfully fight for and achieve it", (Slattery, paragraph 2).
So, does the world simply wait and watch as rebels fight to achieve self-representation?
Do international organizations simply establish relief funds for affected groups but steer clear of the source of these groups' problems?
Can foreign governments even afford to look further than their own backyard when determining foreign policy?
What is, or should be, the moral obligation for observers as Syria spirals ever out of control?
(Will you ever forgive me for this slew of rhetorical questions?)
It may not be the economically "smart" way to think about this conflict, but I believe there should be something done. It is grandiose to assume that by sweeping into the rescue about 2 1/2 years after a complex conflict's outbreak that a fifty year old (corrupt) governmental order will about-face overnight. Slattery puts it lightly by calling it over-ambitious. But surely something can be done to lower the ridiculous numbers of victims in this war.
To close, here is a quote from Mill, ironically found in A Few Words on Non-Intervention:
"[The] only test … of a people’s having become fit for popular institutions is that they or a sufficient portion of them prevail in the contest, and are willing to brave danger and labor for their liberation."
I think the Syrian people have proved themselves willing to brave danger and labor, don't you?
And to keep this light and educational, here's a vlog from Hank Green to his brother John.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
Does imagination inherently lead to self-centeredness?
When reading Of Sympathy from Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments one particular quote from a favorite author of mine kept popping in my head:
“Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to
envision that which is not ... in its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is
the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have
never shared ... Unlike any
other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having
experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places. Of course, this is a power ... that is
morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just
as much as to understand or sympathise."
This quote is from "The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination", J. K. Rowling's Commencement Speech to the Harvard class of 2008. While Mrs. Rowling emphasizes the positive aspects of imagination as it applies to empathy, Mr. Smith questions the motives behind our sympathizing with others. Smith argues that "it is by the imagination only that we can
form any conception of what are his sensations ... It is the impressions of our
own senses only, not those of his, which our imaginations copy", (Smith, paragraph 2). When we sympathize with others we seem to transpose our own pre-conceived notions and our own opinions on their experience. Additionally, the other person's experience only matters to us as individuals once we imagine ourselves in it, "when we have thus adopted [his/her feelings] and made them our
own", (Smith, paragraph 2).
What about the power of imagination used for evil ends?
As Smith puts it, "sympathy does not arise so much from the view of the passion [of another], as from that of the situation which excites it. We sometimes feel for another, a passion of which he himself seems to be altogether incapable; because, when we put ourselves in his case, that passion arises in our breast from the imagination, though it does not in his from the reality", (paragraph 10). We could use a false sense of how another person should feel according to our imagined sympathy to manipulate how we think they should respond. For (a rather personal) example, the way my dad talks to me about college and my freshman year at a liberal arts university:
My dad: "Amanda, this is the time of your life! You should just read Shakespeare and Dickens and sit under trees and soak everything in and let the rest take care of itself!"
Me: "But Dad, I want to be a scientific journalist. I love books, but I need to learn Chemistry and Physics and do labs. And I don't want to drown in student loan debt like my big brother.."
My dad: "But college is the best time ever! You should just read for fun for four years!"
I'll stop there. My dad and I see college very differently; his desire to, apparently, go back to the glory years overshadows his ability to understand how I am approaching a major turning point in my life. His imagination of how I should act manipulates the reality of how I will act. I think you get the idea. This is what it's like for sympathy to be situational or imagination gone too far in one's own perspective. This can lead to manipulation and can reflect self-centeredness.
To this extent, with situational sympathy, we can clearly see self-centeredness in imagination.
But is this always the case? What do you think?
PS- Is self-centeredness even a word? If so, AWESOME! If not, it seems like an effective way of communicating what I want to communicate, so I'm not changing it!
What about the power of imagination used for evil ends?
As Smith puts it, "sympathy does not arise so much from the view of the passion [of another], as from that of the situation which excites it. We sometimes feel for another, a passion of which he himself seems to be altogether incapable; because, when we put ourselves in his case, that passion arises in our breast from the imagination, though it does not in his from the reality", (paragraph 10). We could use a false sense of how another person should feel according to our imagined sympathy to manipulate how we think they should respond. For (a rather personal) example, the way my dad talks to me about college and my freshman year at a liberal arts university:
My dad: "Amanda, this is the time of your life! You should just read Shakespeare and Dickens and sit under trees and soak everything in and let the rest take care of itself!"
Me: "But Dad, I want to be a scientific journalist. I love books, but I need to learn Chemistry and Physics and do labs. And I don't want to drown in student loan debt like my big brother.."
My dad: "But college is the best time ever! You should just read for fun for four years!"
I'll stop there. My dad and I see college very differently; his desire to, apparently, go back to the glory years overshadows his ability to understand how I am approaching a major turning point in my life. His imagination of how I should act manipulates the reality of how I will act. I think you get the idea. This is what it's like for sympathy to be situational or imagination gone too far in one's own perspective. This can lead to manipulation and can reflect self-centeredness.
To this extent, with situational sympathy, we can clearly see self-centeredness in imagination.
But is this always the case? What do you think?
PS- Is self-centeredness even a word? If so, AWESOME! If not, it seems like an effective way of communicating what I want to communicate, so I'm not changing it!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)