Off to Europe

I am off to Europe tomorrow to begin a new chapter in my life. Hopefully this experience will help mold a new world view and allow me as an individual to see the world in a different perspective. I am very excited for this trip and have been anticipating it for months. Summer was too long this year, I'm glad its finally over. 

Over the course of this trip I hope to visit Germany, Switzerland, Hungry, Czech Republic, and Italy. I will be discussing travel plans with my friends on the long flight over to Europe. I'm sure we will come up a good idea of what we want to do during the weekends while we are there. Another aspect I am excited about is the opportunity to meet students in Europe as well as from all around the globe. Staying in an international dorm will allow me to see a variety of different cultures. It will be interesting how we will all communicate at first if they don't speak English or German. 

I will miss my family and friends while I am gone! I will be posting on this as much as possible and hopefully you will all follow me on fb and look at the pictures I post! Until next time, adios.

Summer 2011

Summer is in full swing and I've begun to think about the up coming events in my life. Currently, I have 80 days until I leave for my semester abroad in Vienna. In the meantime, summer will involve summer school, the 4th of July, my 21st birthday July 14th, Michigan July 19th, and much more I cannot list off the top of my head. Hopefully this summer is one I will remember. There aren't many more college summers I have left before the real world comes knocking on my door. Summer is beginning and I will write my thoughts of these upcoming events and what I am contemplating over these next 80 days!

Some thoughts on Political Theory

Once school let out for the summer I've thought in depth about modern political theory. Here are a few ideas I've contemplated over the past few days.

Here is my idea (while it probably has been thought of before) of the progression of the modern world in the creation of the State and economy.:

Reason-->Individual -->Veil of Ignorance--> Civil Society--> Original Position Theory--> Corporations--> government-->
                         (Discourse theory holds the Original Position, corporations, and government together)

This progression represents how our current society holds itself together based off these principles all in conjunction with one another.

1. Reason is overarching and overwhelming power created by the human mind to dictate human understanding of the natural world. It allowed humans to move from primitive hunter gathers to form civil society i.e civilization. Through this progression, rationality has evolved as human beings have evolved from small scale societies to large scale societies. Reason helps achieve cause, effect, true, false, and discourse amongst humans. As humans progressed Reason becomes corrupted by the socialization of society through various means like religion and modern science. True Reason can only be substantiated from a human who has not been influenced or communicated with other human beings. Therefore true Reason is out of reach and cannot be achieve thus disconnecting humans from original human Reason created in the Veil of Ignorance. Today's Reason is based on civil societies ideologies of what Reason is and what it dictates. Thus, today's Reason of dictating what is "right" comes from the evolution of society over human history.

Most recently, Reason has gradually moved from primitive religious ideologies to modern science and education. Throughout history Reason has been thought as being one fixed property. Now, Reason must be understood as a changing (non-fixed) property that changes from one society to another. Different educations (from different civil societies) has resulted in different uses of Reason and a changing paradigm of what Reason is. Therefore, modern Reason can only  help determine what the consensus of society has dictated "right" through public/elite discourse. Reason drives this discourse in civil society to come up with what is "right". The evolution/development of Reason over the past 200 years has allowed for the concept of "liberalism" to spring forward. Also, the society with the most power and influence has driven Reason to this course. The western ideology of the concept and use of Reason has won out amongst the world and has established itself as the pillar of what is "right" in the modern world.

We must dismiss the old recognition of Reason as a fixed property humans can derive "right" from. While it allows us to use logic and find answer to problems it is not the determinator of what is "right" in the modern world. The development and evolution of Reason through civil society has developed what is "right" therefore affirming the western conception of Reason taking hold throughout the industrialized world as the principle upholding morals, norms, rights, etc.

2. Individuals are judged theoretically based off equality provided by the Veil of Ignorance. Each individual is judged based on their human characteristics. A general sense of human equality is created through the Veil of Ignorance. This equality is based off the fundamental liberty to live your own good life. At this point however, we do not know what "your own good life" means due to the socialization aspect of civil society not being brought into play. However, equality is present at this stage of the progression. Note: General equality is disrupted/destroyed once civil society is created. Differences and societal socioeconomic and political hierarchy are established based on civil societies preconceptions of what is deemed "right" in a particular civil society. To some extent the general ideology of "what is right" is to some extent cultural relativism. But, we cannot discount Reason and its possible affect of affirming a universal "right" amongst humans.

3. Civil society is constructed through the means of the assemblage of humans coming together to solve common problems. Modern civil society is comprised of public discourse but influenced by the norms of civil society produced over the course of its existence.

Where I'm at in life/Current Middle East thoughts....

I've read several blogs recently and it has spurred my interest to begin writing beyond what I have to for school. I would like to think deeply about several subjects and evoke what I think in writing. There is an abundance of stories, ideas, information, opinions, and much more I would like to talk about. 

At this point in my life I feel it's time to actually write what I think to clearly state where I stand in life and on particular issues. As a college student I believe I should synthesize the things I learn with the experiences I have to enlighten myself and help develop solutions to problems our world faces. 

For my first topic I'd like to address the recent protest movements in the Middle East. These are revolutions based off grievances of repressed people's. Many of these authoritarian regimes disallow the very freedoms we all enjoy on a daily basis while the majority of the population lay in poverty. Sadly, the leaders in charge have been reaping the benefits of their nations resources for years. For example, if we look at the Maraburak and Kahadafi families we see extreme wealth. Each comprise fortunes of around 30 billion or more dollars. Also, if we look at Egypt in particular we see Maraburak held around 60% of all the countries assets. This distribution of wealth resulted in a variety of problems for both Libya and Egypt which was a major grievance amongst the general population. 

With this said, I'd like to state that if many of these revolutions end with the opposition winning the transition to a democratic/semi democratic system will not be easy. Think about it, there needs to be a political socialization of the population in order for democratic roots to grow within that particular society. In order to create a democratic system there must be democratic institutions being practiced over a period of time. Within these countries there has been no such institutions in place so they must build them from scratch. Let's look at how Iraq created their democratic institutions (with the help of us of course). They created a democratic government in theory, but in practice it does not get anything done and each opposition group within the government despise one another. I fear in all of these countries semi democratic governments will be established. Although, there will be two scenarios resulting from this. 1) Oligarchy (IE Russia) 2) A democratic government like Iraq that won't get anything done and will have the potential to be overthrown by another dictator. 

I hope none of these outcomes occur. I really hope a democratic system will emerge in all these cases that is successful and brings the people what they want. These people deserve freedom and economic benefits from their natural resources.