Final Reflections: Evaluating the Importance of Identity in Empire

I feel as though every single post I have made this quarter has been nothing but reflections on previous topics. I know that this website’s name was intended for reflective discussion, but it seems like harping on the past has become a theme in these past few posts. Maybe it’s because I might be feeling a sense of pride after completing my first year in UCI. Maybe it’s because I’m feeling sentimental after learning so much over this past year. Or maybe it’s because I just don’t have any other ideas, and I’m just sticking to whatever works. In any case, I want to revisit (yet again) to one of my favorite blogs that I have written over this year. In that blog, I started with a quote from a Shakespearean play, Romeo and Juliet, in which Juliet questions the importance of granting names to objects, since the qualities of said objects would remain the same whether or not the name has been given. A rose would still smell sweet even if it’s not called a rose. I had argued against this notion in my blog, saying that what establishes the significance of names is that they have power, a power in which empires could use to establish control upon its subjects. I then went on a brief analysis on the development on the main character of Aphra Behn’s novella, Oroonoko, Oroonoko. In short, I talked about how Oroonoko’s new name, Caesar, provided an ironic contrast in the book, since on the one hand, the name had further enhanced the fantastical portrayal of Oroonoko as this powerful, noble warrior, but on the other hand, the name had portrayed his transformation to a powerless slave, since that name’s purpose was to label Oroonoko as a British possession, because that name is more easily pronounced and recognized by the British rather than the Africans.

Digital Image of “Rose” photograph. Pinterest. <https://www.pinterest.com/explore/roses/>

It’s been four months after this blog, but now I want to try to play devil’s advocate towards the me from winter quarter. There’s an article from an online publication website called The Intercept where the author, Murtaza Hussain, reviews a novel called Misunderstanding Terrorism written by former CIA Operations Officer, Marc Sageman. In Hussain’s review, he first refers to one of Sageman’s conclusions in the novel, which was that “social identity theory” is the “primary motivating factor behind terrorist attacks”. If you want to learn more about the exact concept of social identity theory, there are a few articles (here and here) that discuss it, but the theory itself is actually similar than what we have learned from Said’s work, Orientalism. To sum it up, the idea social identity theory is that a person’s sense of one’s self is dependent on that person’s association of groups. Once that person has become accustomed to their associated groups, of which we can call “in-groups”, they would then want to improve their sense of self through the means of belittling groups whom are foreign to the ingroup, also known as “out-groups”. By belittling these groups, that person has now established an “ingroup vs. outgroup” mentality, of which said person would categorize the outgroups into generalized factions and would usually discuss about the outgroup’s faults rather than their strengths.

Handel, Steve. 2013. Digital Image. “The Us vs. Them Mentality: How Group Thinking Can Irrationally Divide Us”. The Emotion Machine. 17 April 2013 <http://www.theemotionmachine.com/the-us-vs-them-mentality-how-group-thinking-can-irrationally-divide-us/>

Now the concept behind Said’s Orientalism is that Western countries were usually guilty at labeling groups described as the Orient as an exotic, uncivilized, and barbaric kind of people. The discourse that had resulted from this belief had succeeded in strengthening national pride, as it gave the notion that the West were more superior than the East, but that discourse had later succeeded in instilling national fear, as it also gave the notion that the East’s barbaric tendencies could lead to the destruction of the West. This is where I want to return to Hussain’s article. In the article, Hussein talks about how the destructive effects of Trump’s military actions in Syria and Iran could potentially result in terrorist recruitment since those “would-be terrorists” would act out of an emotional response towards U.S. action. And as a result, more terrorists actions inflicted to the U.S. would evoke an emotional response towards Iran and Syria and result in more military action, repeating the cycle.

Gaughan, Anthony. 2016. Photograph. “Campaign of fear: Donald Trump’s battle against birthright citizenship”. Informed Comment. n.p. 30 August 2015 <http://www.juancole.com/2015/08/campaign-birthright-citizenship.html&gt;

This cycle of vengeance and hatred would continue to repeat until a scenario occurs in which both sides achieve compromise or in which both sides fall into their own ruin in their attempt to seek vengeance for the other side’s actions. If one were to ask me which scenario would be more likely to occur, I would most likely choose the latter, as that scenario demonstrates how the concept of identity could lead empire to a destiny of inevitable ruin, rather than a destiny leading to further prosperity, as the Kevin Castillo from four months would argue. There are instances in which empires can be strengthened by bolstering its sense of self via the degradation of other groups’s identities, however, said degradation would inevitably result in those groups resisting against the empire, thus creating a cycle of conflict that could eventually lead to ruin.

How Empirical Cultural Relations Change: Interview (& Other) Reflections

I’d like to start off this blog by going back (again) to the very first blog I made on this website. The blog was merely a comparison of “Romanization” and American assimilation, and how those two practices integrated the colonized into the empirical culture, with the former being very direct and coercive with its “assimilate or perish” approach and the latter being not as coercive with its parental approach. In the blog, I referred to an excerpt in an autobiography I read in high school called “Hunger of Memory” by Richard Rodriguez. In the excerpt, the author begins to assimilate into American culture by improving his English in his Catholic school, but then becomes disconnected from his family, since by making the decision to improve his English and further assimilating himself into American society, he has decided to break away from his Spanish roots. In the winter quarter, we saw instances of civilizations trying to resist against empirical assimilation in order to prevent that disconnect that Rodriguez experienced. For instance, the Inca had worn their “mascapaycha “ and “uncu” attires decades, and perhaps centuries after the Spanish had colonized the Inca in order to maintain their culture.

This is where I want to talk about my interview. To keep the details brief, my interview subject is an 80-year old man born from Iraq and came to the U.S. at the age of 35. He is now retired and has three children who are leading very successful lives. This subject was one where I had to find in a short amount of time. That was because my subject I had originally planned for informed me that they were not able to go with the interview due to plans that came up, leaving me with about a week to find a new subject. I was fortunate enough to find my subject in about a few days, but it didn’t leave me with enough time to research my subject or the state of his country Iraq 40 years prior. All I knew about this guy was that brief description I put earlier along with that fact that he was my mom’s friend (that’s how I found the guy in the first place). However, I was still feeling confident going into this interview, since one of the topics I wanted to generally focus on for my project was the topic of immigrant assimilation. I thought that as long as I had their basic information (such as where they came from), I can make little tweaks to my questions and ask these questions to any immigrant. Going into this interview, I assumed that as long as I’m working with an immigrant, they would have stories of their struggles to tell for me to work with. But that was naïve of me.

Now even though my subject was an Iraqian immigrant, he did not provide me any stories containing struggles, and did not display any resistance to American culture. He was able to speak perfect English, was very passionate about American holidays such as the Fourth of July, and was passionate about American movies such as the 1960s film Spartacus. It was as if I was talking to just another American citizen. At first I was left confused and disappointed, and had considered calling my original subject again for the interview. But then it hit me. Perhaps there might be immigrants who had wanted to assimilate to American culture even before coming to America in the first place. My subject told me that he came to the U.S. during a time of political and military instability, of which I assume could be the time during Saddam Hussien’s reign as president of Iraq. Perhaps there might be immigrants who had wanted to assimilate as fast as possible, learning English in their hometown and preparing themselves to adjust to American life.

This is where I want to come back to Rodriguez’s “Hunger of Memory”. Times have certainly changed as it relates to the level of resistance American immigrants have displayed in response to assimilation. Nowadays, there are immigrants who want to retain the traditions that they practices and the languages that they speak. But things weren’t the same about 40 years ago. So now I ask this: what prompts the need to resist or accept another tradition entirely?

Who Rules Empire?

Digital Image. Screenshot of The Last of Us Gameplay. 2013. Wikia. Pittsburgh (chapter). Web. 12 Nov 2016. <http://thelastofus.wikia.com/wiki/Pittsburgh_(chapter)&gt;

Another quarter, another round of empire-related, thought-provoking, speculatory blogs coming to you in three-week intervals. Now to start off this quarter, I want to share something I’ve done over in the fall quarter, partly because I feel like reminiscing on my past projects to see how far I’ve come, but also because those past projects can spark interesting ideas as it relates to projects approaching in the not-so-distant future. The digital image above is a screenshot of a video game called The Last of Us, an action-adventure survival horror game where you play as a survivor in a post-pandemic United States. This is the image I used during the visual analysis project in the fall quarter, in which we were required to argue how the features of the chosen image “represent an imagined perspective of empire”. In that essay, one of the key topics I discussed was the domineering presence of nature throughout that image as it not only symbolized the ruin of an American empire, but also symbolized nature taking empire back from the American civilization. The latter portion of that argument is what I want to talk about in this blog post. Throughout the quarter, we were discussing about humans establishing control over their empires, humans expanding their empirical control to other empires and justifying their expansion, and humans resisting the control of human-regulated empires. However, can we assume that humans are the sole owners of empire? There are other entities that can assume control over the Earth in the empirical scale, and perhaps exceed that scale, one of these entities being nature itself.

Digital Image. Joyce DiDonato as Sycorax from Shakespare’s “The Tempest.”.  KPBS.  <http://www.kpbs.org/photos/2012/jun/14/17391/&gt;

Now although the majority of the course has been centered around human-controlled empires, this blog post isn’t the first time the notion of humans owning empires has come into question. One of the readings from the winter quarter, Namjoshi’s poem, “Sycorax”, approaches this topic, albeit from a slightly different angle. The poem’s setting takes place after the events of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, but with a few different circumstances, the main one being Sycorax, a character who was presumed to be dead before the events of the play, and was thus only mentioned once in the play, makes an appearance, alive but severely ill, and grants her own perspective of the characters and herself after Prospero leaves the island she once inhabited. One of the things she says in that poem was that the island Prospero once took from her was “my property (as much as it was anyone else’s)”. Now it was already established that Sycorax had previously inhabited the island before Prospero had marooned on the island with his daughter, but the fact that she says, “as much as it was anyone else’s” raises some interesting questions. What other entities have claimed ownership of the island, or perhaps the entire world for that manner? Were there other entities that have assumed control of the world as if it is its own empire? And if so, do humans have the right to appropriate the world’s land and claim that it’s there’s, since those other entities have claimed the land before it? This is where the entity known as “nature” comes in. The presence of nature has been vital in sustaining human life and allowing said life to reproduce, so it can be argued that nature has preceded human beings it had provided that support. Thus, nature itself can be considered as the “true owner” of empire, as it has claimed the Earth epochs prior to the creation of human beings with its many resources in the form of living organisms of all shapes and sizes.

Digital Image. Photo of Ants Eating Fruit. 2009. Wikimedia. File:Ants eating fruit.jpg.  <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ants_eating_fruit.jpg&gt;

Now the entity classified as “nature” can be quite vague. So far it could be inferred that this “nature” entity I’m referring to can be an agricultural entity, such as the trees and plants, since those “natural” entities can only be seen in the first image. However, nature shouldn’t be classified as merely trees or plants. An article from Live Science shows a few examples on how nature is the true ruler of empire. The article refers to certain professors such as human development professor Robert J. Sternberg from Cornell University, who argues “Humans only imagine they dominate the Earth. Bacteria dominate the Earth. There are infinitely more of them…than there are of us…They reproduce faster and they mutate faster. They have been around far longer than we have been and they will be around after we are gone.”, and Smithsonian Institution entomologist Mark W. Moffett, who argues, “Ants already control the planet. They just do it under our feet… there are many more ants than there are humans, and their total weight, or biomass, equals or exceeds that of humans. They also use traditional military rules of engagement to wage war. For instance, they rely on “shock and awe,” in essence swarming their enemies with sheer numbers to overcome them. “ These two quotes establish that although it may seem that humans are in control of the world with its vast empires, there are organisms within nature that can establish an empirical degree of control over the world with numbers that are vastly superior to the global human population and with a respectable degree of intelligence compared to humans.

Digital Image. Photo of Cordyceps fungus. BBC. Cordyceps. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Cordyceps&gt;

I now want to end this post by returning to The Last of Us. Now the game does take place in a post-pandemic world, but the actual cause of this pandemic was inspired by a BBC Planet Earth video talking about the Cordyceps fungi, in which the infection within The Last of Us was named after. In an interview with Game Informer, the creative director of Naughty Dog, the company that made The Last of Us, Nick Druckmann, talked about one of the lines from the video he was particularly interested in, “[The narrator] ends with this awesome line, ‘The more numerous a species, the more likely it falls victim to the Cordyceps fungus.’… We’re getting pretty numerous on this planet and we’re screwing sh*t up. What if this jumps on us?”. One of the things that The Last of Us demonstrated was that despite the advancements human beings have made throughout centuries of empirical rule, another empire with vastly superior numbers and biological weaponry could end humanity’s reign over empire in an instant. Now of course, that does not mean that discussion towards human-regulated empires is insignificant future, and certain lessons can be taken from learning the history of those empires, but this insight could potentially provide a bigger picture on who is really in control of the general empire.

An Overarching Theme in Resisting Empire

“The very ink with which all history is written is merely fluid prejudice.”

– Mark Twain

Well, the end of the winter quarter is steadily approaching us, but before we start to have that glorious feeling of anticipation, it’s nice to have a moment of reflection before we start to drown ourselves in the piles of papers or text files filled with notes to review for that upcoming final. Not so excited about the end now, huh?

A photograph of a pen and paper. Physics World. http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2011/nov/22/physics-of-writing-is-derived-at-last

In any case, the winter course in Humanities Core has gone through a similar lecture style compared to last quarter, providing a plethora of information spreading across multiple centuries and spanning through multiple empires, but focusing on a few key empire-related concepts. In this quarter, one certain topic had peeked my interest over the course of this quarter. Throughout all of the course material that was distributed, there was one empire-related concept in which most of the readings had in common, and that was the notion of resistance. This resistance would usually be directed towards a more powerful and/or superior entity that represented the concept of empire. For instance, there were groups such as the indigenous Andeans and 19^th-20^th century (British) Indians who had rebelled against actual administrative entities such as the Spanish and British empires, while there were other figures that had symbolized the notion of rebellion, such as Shakespeare’s (but more so Cesairè’s) Caliban in The Tempest (Uné Tempete) resisting against Prospero’s authority. I started thinking about all of these rebellious entities upon the grand scheme of this whole course, and asked myself this: “What made these groups so rebellious?”. Of course, one can simply answer that it’s to take back what was lost after the empire’s conquest. The Andeans and Indians would want to regain their land after the Spanish and British took it away from them, and the same can be said for Caliban, as he wanted to take back his island and his freedom after Prospero stripped those away from him. However, I started to recall a few cases in which the empire’s inhabitants, specifically the colonized, had benefitted from empirical conquest. For instance, the Andean kurakahuna in the Andes had prospered in wealth and education during Spanish rule. Not only that, but if you recall the Roman Empire lectures in the last quarter, any citizen of the Roman Empire was granted the necessary accommodations for survival as well as equal citizenship and participation as long as they adhered to the Roman way of life. If that was the case, then what compelled some of these groups to resist empirical rule?

Well that leads me to this blog’s introductory quote. This quote is from a travelogue called Following the Equator. It’s an account of Twain’s travels around the British Empire in 1895, but more importantly, it’s a social commentary regarding racism towards Blacks and indigenous groups, as well as imperialism within the British Empire. Now I didn’t read the book in its entirety, but Twain’s description of history as “fluid prejudice” made me think about the groups that resisted. Perhaps those groups rebelled against empire in response to those prejudices. For instance, the revolutionary figure in the Andes, Tupac Amaru, instilled the notion of revolution, because of the Bourban Spanish Empire’s policy against Creoles, or people of mixed Andean and Spanish descent. In Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Caliban rebelled against Prospero’s authority since he was treated as an inferior being despite having authority prior to his enslavement. Sarvarkar incites the notion of revolution in his own work, The Indian War of Independence, during his discussion on how the British massacred a large number of Indians in a revolt, in which the Brtish deemed that revolt as a mere mutiny. By responding to these prejudices, these groups are essentially fighting back against the notion of their authorities treating their identities as if they are inferior, and in turn, create a new identity for themselves that would be seen throughout history.

History Book Clipart. Clipart Kid. http://www.clipartkid.com/history-book-cliparts/

In one of my earlier blogs, I mentioned that one of the concepts from last quarter that stuck with me was the notion that “History is written by the winners”. Looking back on it now, I would still agree to that quote to a certain extent, because I think that the “winners” do have a certain level of control of the records that are passed down to future generations. One can simply grasp the idea of the ever-growing popularity of the English language to see that that is the case. However, that does not necessarily mean that the winners have complete control over the kinds of records that are written down, as we’ve seen works that have went against the notion of empire such as Cesairè’s Uné Tempete and Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj. I do recall Prof. Lewis’s and Prof. Chaturvedi’s claims about language and/or history being a partner and a detractor to empire. So perhaps what enables these groups to effectively resist in the first place is the knowledge granted to them from empire. From there, they can use that knowledge to comprehend their prejudices towards empire and thus communicate with their empire and establish comprehensible dialogues that can be used to potentially shape the records of history or at the very least, our perception of history.

“What’s in a Name?” A Cornerstone to Empire

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose/ By any other name would smell as sweet.” (2.2.45-6)

Digital Image of a “HELLO MY NAME IS” Tag. Pinterest. www.pinterest.com/enugrohoputro/hello-my-name/

It’s been a while since I wrote my last blog, and what better way to start off than a quote from the man whose play we read only a couple weeks ago, Shakespeare? But before that, I’ll apologize if this quote might seem misleading to some. For those who don’t know, I’m quoting from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, which is a tale of a romantic tragedy between two “star-crossed” (meaning destined) lovers. It might be weird for me to quote from such a play given that we read one of Shakespeare’s later plays, The Tempest, which had romantic elements, but didn’t necessarily result in a tragic nor comedic ending, however, Shakespeare’s works as a whole allow scholars to continue to debate about the notions, concepts, and meanings behind those works, given that they are usually open to interpretation. In this case, the notion that I’m concerned about when looking at this quote is the concept of identity and how it can be a supportive agent to empires.

This introductory quote was spoken by Juliet in Shakespeare’s romantic tragedy, who concluded that a name is merely an arbitrary notion for identification. A rose would still smell sweet even if it’s not called a rose. But is that really the case? If I were to introduce myself to you right now, reader, I would grant you my name and give you a firm handshake.  Names are important. They have power. That power can be used to define individuals to even empires through the means of identification, and those definitions can either strengthen or undermine depending on how that power is used.

Digital Image of “Oroonoko” Book Cover. Goodreads. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51190.Oroonoko

Halfway throughout Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko, we find the prince of Coramatien, Oroonoko was kidnapped by an English captain and transported to the English colony known as Surinam, where he would live the rest of his life as a slave. During his time there, he was given a new name: Caesar. At first glance, it may seem like that name may be appraising the African prince in some manner, since that name once belonged to a renowned Roman emperor, however, the act of erasing one’s name and replacing it with one you did not grant consent with deprives that person of their identity entirely, thus strips them power to power to define themselves. In that sense, when Oroonoko was captured by the British and then sold into slavery, not only did was he stripped of his royal title as the prince of Coramatien, he was stripped of his identity as a proud African, and was thus reduced to a mere slave whose name can easily be recognized and thus pronounced by those who are treating him as mere property. This also shows how the act of renaming can strengthen certain groups since the act of granting a name in which only the grantors are satisfied with forces them to assimilate to their own cultures, thus strengthening those groups’ influence.

With all of that in mind, I would like to ask you a few questions: Were you ever given a name that was entirely different from your own? What did you think that name meant? How did you feel when you were called that name? Empowered? Depressing? How did the others feel when they gave you that name? Now if you me to continue with these barrage of questions, then perhaps you can try applying these questions to other individuals, groups of people, or perhaps civilizations as well. How does the African-American feel when he or she is addressed as a “nigger”? How did the indigenous people in the Andes feel when they were treated as barbarians by the Peruvians? Did the American colonizers feel empowered when they referred the Native Americans as “savages”?

Preserving Identity

With a new quarter begins a new set of empire-related topics, ripe with plenty of information to reflect on a whole new set of empire-related blogs. At my first seminar meeting of this winter quarter, Professor Hermann introduced us to a few concepts in which the Humanities Core course will be directed towards, one of them being how some civilizations had resisted conquests from superior empires, and were able to preserve their identities in the aftermath of said conquests. Professor O’Toole had already discussed about this topic in the first couple of lectures, referring to historical records of Incan military resistance to Spanish colonial rule, as well as discussing about how some aspects of Incan culture such as their native language, Quechua, remains existent in the modern world, centuries after the Spanish colonized Incan territory. Now what was interesting about this topic was that although this is the first time we’re exploring this concept in-depth, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen the preservation of identity after conquest take place. In fact, one can find a similar instance in a reading from the last quarter, The Aeneid.

 

Lupo. Inca-Spanish confrontation in Cajamarca; there is Emperor Atahuallpa. Wikimedia Commons. Wikipedia. 20 March 2005. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Inca-Spanish_confrontation.JPG

In The Aeneid, a group of Trojans invade the home of the Latins in Italy in order to claim their territory as Trojans’ new home. The Trojans were soon met with resistance, and conflict ensues, only to be influenced by the divine will of the gods. The king of the gods, Jupiter, has already determined the Trojans to be the victor of that conflict, since he already decreed that the leader of the Trojans, Aeneas, will fulfill his destiny and claim Latin territory as the Trojans’ new home. However, another god by the name of Juno pleads with Jupiter to “never command the Latins…to change their old name…alter their language, change their style of dress. Let Latium endure.” (Virgil, Aeneid. 12. 954-9) Even though the Latin civilization has been destined to fall in the hands of the Trojans, she asks that their language, culture, and identity do not meet the same fate. Jupiter complies with that request, saying that “Their name till now is the name that shall endure.” (12. 968) What’s interesting about this is that in The Aeneid, the Trojans were portrayed as the descendants of the Roman Empire, so it might seem as if the Romans had spared the Latins and allowed them to continue speaking their language, but I remember learning in the previous quarter that when the Romans had conquered their enemies, they would either become solely Roman or cease to exist, which contradicts what happens in The Aeneid, and leaves me curious.

mcinernl. “Eimmart: Fight Between the Latins and the Trojans” Dickenson College Commentaries. Dickenson College 03 August 2016. http://dcc.dickinson.edu/eimmart-fight-between-latins-and-trojans

From time to time, I remember hearing the phrase, “History is written by the winners” sometimes. That notion stuck to me in the previous quarter when I heard that groups such as the Romans and Americans eliminating foreign cultural identities during their proactive expansion and imperialism by offering their enemies assimilation or extinction after securing their territory militarily. The reason why that phrase made sense to me was that since groups such as Romans and Americans were able to overcome their enemies, their cultural influence and assimilation tactics would then overshadow the enemies’ cultural identities into nonexistence, thus creating a history that would label the dominant as incredible, praiseworthy and such, leaving the defeated parties forgotten in history, under the label “barbarian”. But if that was the case, then that leaves me puzzled. If history were to follow the same pattern, then that would mean that Incan and Latin languages, traditions, and cultures would be forgotten, and those groups would be labeled as “barbarians” who have fallen under the weight of the mighty. But they’re not. There are populations that continue to speak Quechua in the modern world, and the Latin language has remained in several modern speaking languages such as Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, etc. So then, how is that the case? How are the Inca and Latins, two groups that had fallen under the weight of a more dominant entity did not become a victim of empirical assimilation and were able to preserve their identities? Was it because of their resistance? If so, what kind of resistance was it? How was it that some groups were able to preserve their cultures, while others remain forgotten due to assimilation?

How far has American Morality come?: Comparing DAPL to Previous American Dialogues

Now originally, I wasn’t intending to write about the pipeline mainly because I wasn’t interested. When I heard how the people of the Standing Rock reservation had been protesting the construction of the pipeline for eight months, the event caught my attention, but it wasn’t enough. I figured that I could talk about how the construction of the pipeline parallels U.S. imperialism in a territorial or racial sense or perhaps a parallel to American exceptionalism, but for me, the event felt dull because there wasn’t anything thought-provoking for me to speculate on. That was the case until I saw Professor Lazo show a CBS news report of this current event on our last lecture. This renewed my interest on the subject not only because I felt sympathy for the thousands of Standing Rock protesters who are undergoing life-threatening conditions due to the oncoming winter season creating temperatures below the freezing point, but also because it made me think about what could’ve happened around 200 years ago. If the old America were to conduct projects similar to the Dakota Access Pipeline, which would result in the decimation of native sacred sites, they would not give the natives a moment’s notice, and would thus not hesitate in destroying those precious sites, justifying themselves that it is for the sake of “fulfilling the will of God” and “sanctifying the natives’ impurities”. But things are different this time. Not only are we seeing the natives mobilizing at much larger scales, but we’re also seeing instances in which the natives’ right to mobilize is being respected, unlike the old America. So that made me wonder: “How far has America progressed as it relates to its ethical standards?”

Peterson, Anne Helen. “Here’s What It’s Like At The Standing Rock Pipeline Protest In North Dakota”. 9 Sept. 2016. BuzzFeedNewsReader. Web. 1 Dec. 2016 <https://www.buzzfeed.com/annehelenpetersen/heres-what-its-like-at-the-north-dakota-pipeline-protest-in?utm_term=.fnzvqmrx4#.aedL2dR8z&gt;

Prior to Standing Rock, there were instances in which non-Native Americans protested against American imperialist action. For instance, there were figures such as Henry David Thoreau who enacted civil disobedience against the American government due to his opposition against the Mexican-American War, however their efforts did not provide an immediate effect in preventing said actions. For centuries, the notion of “Manifest Destiny” has instilled the notion that America has already been deemed by God’s will as the proprietor of the “inferior” peoples’ territory, and have thus undergone a series of conquests to assume those territories. Over time, the native Americans were able to partake in demonstrations in order to oppose this notion, such as the 1973 demonstration in Wounded Knee, but Standing Rock is different from these mobilizations. As of this moment, there are over a thousand Standing Rock protesters who have settled down at the DAPL construction site, which exceeds the Wounded Knee demonstration five-fold. Furthermore, but there have been American environmentalist and activist groups such as Black Lives Matter and Code Pink who have offered their support, which shows that there are some Americans who have rejected the ideal that their ancestors have glorified centuries ago. Not only that, but the CBS news story I heard during lecture stated that “Despite the evacuation orders, the Army Corps of Engineers and the local sheriff department said they will not forcibly remove any of the protesters from the camps.”, which contrasts the intrusive nature exerted throughout U.S. imperialist expansion.  Given these points, it would seem that America has improved in its ethical merit, since the American people are treating people from different groups with respect, rather than labeling them as “inferiors”.

Wolf, Rowan. “Standing Rock Sioux Chairman: Dakota Access Pipeline “Is Threatening the Lives of My Tribe”. The Greenville Post. Web. 1 Dec. 2016 <http://www.greanvillepost.com/2016/08/27/standing-rock-sioux-chairman-dakota-access-pipeline-is-threatening-the-lives-of-my-tribe/&gt;

Now I realize that this blog post can be seen as too optimistic and I understand that. After all, I’m only referring to a demonstration undertaken by a measly 1,000 Native Americans in order to indicate American moral progress, even though someone can refer to the 2016 presidential election, undertaken by over 100,000,000 American citizens of various races, to suggest the complete opposite. However, I would suggest to consider this: Not only has the early Americans labeled foreign groups as inferior via theological and “scientific” justification, but have also gone their way to strip some of those “inferior” people of their freedom and subject them to slavery. With that in mind, do you think America has gone through a progression or regression as it relates to ethics?

Paternalism Along With U.S. Imperialism: “The White Man’s Burden”

Well…it’s that time of the quarter. You know what I mean. That time where you’re either putting down that big stack of papers or opening up that one folder in your laptop filled with notes taken from ten whole weeks filled with lectures and seminar discussions and start making a series of reflections and connections about the material. In my case, I was going through my notebook, going through the concept of Manifest Destiny and looking through the racial and hierarchical classification as well as the religious and nationalist exceptionalism associated with the imperialist mindset until I started to recall a passage that I read before taking Hum Core that can actually relate to some of the lectures talking about this subject. This passage was a poem called “The White Man’s Burden” written by a British author named Rudyard Kipling. Kipling’s poem served as a sign of encouragement for U.S. imperialism, utilizing the developed racial hierarchy used to the divide between the superior and inferior races, bolstering the “Manifest Destiny” ideal, and instilling a paternalist perception for the American people towards those “inferior” races.

Political Cartoon. “Civilization & Barbarism: “The White Man’s Burden” (1898–1902)”. 6 July 2015. Global Research. Web. 28 Nov. 2016 <http://www.globalresearch.ca/civilization-barbarism-the-white-mans-burden-1898-1902/5461424&gt;

“The White Man’s Burden” was written as a response to some of the events after the Spanish-American War, specifically the annexation of the Philippines. Kipling felt that the Filipino conquest would be America’s first imperial action (since it’s their first international conquest). He felt that America would soon be stepping into the shoes of his home nation, Great Britain, a nation that has undergone similar imperialist activity in India and China, and decided to relay a message to the American people: “Take up the white man’s burden”.  Now Kipling doesn’t explicitly state the burden in his poem but he talks about certain elements about this burden.

Political Cartoon. “Civilization & Barbarism: “The White Man’s Burden” (1898–1902)”. 6 July 2015. Global Research. Web. 28 Nov. 2016 <http://www.globalresearch.ca/civilization-barbarism-the-white-mans-burden-1898-1902/5461424&gt;

Now the first stanza of the poem says that the white man should “serve the captives’ need”, but it doesn’t specify about that need. Afterwards, he starts discussing about the burden itself, such as how this burden requires the “patience to abide”, how the bearer must be “done with childish days” in order to take this burden, and how the bearer will only receive “the blame of those ye better” and “the hate of those ye guard” for taking on this cumbersome burden.  In other words, Kipling says that if America were to walk on the same imperialist road that Great Britain is walking on and colonize the Philippines, they should first civilize the natives, although that task may prove difficult. He says that if the American people were to grant the natives a proper education of the American ideology and lifestyle, they would initially be met with bickering rebellion from the lowly natives that they are providing guidance and protection to. For that reason, he says that the American people should have the patience to endure the tedious task of managing the natives properly, to the point where they must sacrifice their merry lives in order to purify the native mindset with American ideology.

Political Cartoon. “School and the History of Injustice”. n.d. The Learning Generalist. Web Nov. 28 2016

In that sense, it would seem that the “burden” Kipling repeatedly mentions in his poem is similar to the parent’s burden of raising a child, since parents would also have to sacrifice their free-spirited lives in order to dedicate their time in raising their children. Sometimes the children will rebel against their parents, however, they will endure the pain they will feel when the children rise against the figures whom have granted them guidance and protection if they still wish to raise that child into greatness. With that in mind, it would seem that Kipling’s poem not only create a hierarchical divide between the Americans and the Filipino natives by comparing them to parents and children, but also made the Americans feel as if it is their responsibility to educate the natives in the ideology of their betters. An essay written by MIT professor Ellen Sebring further discusses this paternalistic view and how it “recast the invasion of [the natives’] lands as an altruistic service to humankind.” This means that the American people felt that by taking on “the white man’s burden”, they would not only be fulfilling a service to the natives by purifying their barbaric mentalities, but also be fulfilling a service to mankind by improving a portion of the human population.

When I started to remember Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden”, it made me think of a few other things outside of Manifest Destiny. For instance, it made me think of my first blog post, which compared Romanization to American assimilation. Compared to the Romans, who told their captives that their kind will be spared if they decide to follow their customs, the Americans were less coercive and more paternal, who told their captives to follow their customs because it’s better for them, which leads me to my next thought. Isn’t it strange when parents would give vague explanations such as, “Because I told you so.” or “It’s good for you.” whenever they’re directing their children? Why shouldn’t the children have the freedom to whatever suits them? Why should the children remain subject to the parent’s authority?  Now, of course, those questions might seem immature, but they do raise questions about level of freedom native groups should have, if one were to follow the paternalist dialogue, as well as the notions of what is truly superior and inferior?

Fear in Politics

A week ago, we made a transition to yet another lecturer and another empire-related discipline once again. Going into these new lectures, we were required to read a few selections, one of them being Orientalism by Said. Looking at these selections, there were a particular notion that caught my eye. This was the idea that some groups could label stereotypes to other groups due to a lack of understanding. After realizing this, I started thinking about how this can apply to a certain election in which a particular candidate achieved one of the most powerful positions of the United States of America by utilizing stereotypes throughout his campaign. After some thought, I was thinking about how people would choose to support that candidate because of their belief of those stereotypes and the fear that it could result in.

Said’s notion of “Orientialism” in his novel talks about how Americans and the Europeans labeled the Orient as an exotic and ambiguous landscape due to their lack of understanding of the East’s culture. This perception lead to the notion that the West is superior to the East because the East’s values deviated from the values that the West acquired through the academics. President Trump’s campaign took this notion from a different angle. Whenever he talked about Mexicans, Muslims, or any foreign immigrant for that matter, he usually considers them as a frightening threat. Now although this statement might appear as quite broad, terrorist incidents such as the Paris attacks occurred during Trump’s campaign, giving the sole impression that foreigners should not be allowed within America’s borders because they’re all dangerous, which exploits a lack of understanding about immigrants. Nevertheless, the perceived danger that immigrants could bring can cause people to develop fear for those immigrants, which Trump can then exploit. Molly Ball from The Atlantic wrote an article about this manipulation saying, “This is the way fear works, according to social scientists: It makes people hold more tightly to what they have and regard the unfamiliar more warily. It makes them want to be protected. The fear reaction is a universal one to which everyone is susceptible. It might even be the only way Trump could win.” In that sense, one could say that one of the reasons why Trump was able to gain an extraordinary amount of support from the American people is because they feel like they have the need for someone who can protect them from the “dangerous people” that lie beyond their borders.

Gaughan, Anthony. 2016. Photograph. “Campaign of fear: Donald Trump’s battle against birthright citizenship”. Informed Comment. n.p. 30 August 2015 <http://www.juancole.com/2015/08/campaign-birthright-citizenship.html&gt;

I’m pretty sure that there were many Americans who were shocked from the results of the election. But if were to be honest, what had happened after the course of the electoral voting didn’t surprise me at all. Going into this election, I had the notion that anything could happen in this election, and the results that were displayed fulfilled a few of the possibilities that I expected: that the election was a tight race, and that the electoral map will be turned on its head. Prior to the election, one of my friends asked me how can I see any possibility of Trump winning the election given his background and his campaign statements. If I were to leave any negative facts about Clinton aside, I would have to say that he’s good at manipulating. He’s good at manipulating the media to the extent that he has developed himself as a popular internet meme, he’s good at manipulating the angst of those who are frustrated at the corrupt nature of the establishment, but most importantly, he’s good at manipulating the fear developed from the notion that there are people beyond American borders who will eventually inflict harm on Americans without them even expecting it. Because of that fear, the people need a figure to look up to for safety and security. And as a result, there are some people who choose to side with the man who said that he will “make America safe again” and in turn, “Make America Great Again”. Looking back at this election, I too, have harbored feelings of fear, but this anxiety is for the future of this country, and this anxiety has been with me since the moment where I found out that the 2016 election was the Clinton-Trump show. But if I have to say just one thing after all of this, I want to say, “Don’t be afraid.” Even though the future may look dark and grim, it’s up to you to take that first step forward, or you will soon fall behind.

What Causes Ruin?

In our most recent lecture, we were introduced to a new lecturer named Professor Steintrager, marking the course’s transition from a discussion of the Roman Empire to the Enlightenment. One of the things that intrigued me from that lecture was when he introduced us to English artist Joseph Gandy. He received a request from English architect John Soane to collaborate with him on the construction of the Bank of England, England’s central financial institution. While working on that project, Gandy painted an imaginative view of the Bank of England in ruins before the building was complete. Although it might seem offensive that Gandy would depict his partner’s project in a devastated state, Soane was pleased with Gandy’s work, which begs a few questions: Why would Gandy depict an important building in a decayed state prior to its emergence and why would the architect himself be satisfied to see his work in that manner?

Gandy, Joseph. Bank of England as a Ruin. 1830. Painting. Soane Museum. London.

My initial impression was that they might be intrigued of the notion that nothing lasts forever; even important buildings such as the Bank of England might fall eventually. But then I thought to myself, “If that’s the case, then how do civilizations fall?” A simple answer can be that these civilizations had succumbed under the brink of war. An example of this can be the Mayan civilization collapsing due to the invasion of Spanish conquistadors. However, I remember Steintrager telling us to consider the Greeks, Egyptians, and Romans. All of whom had vast empires during their prime, all of whom came into eventual collapse. After lecture was over, I thought to myself:

“Why is that? These civilizations had a great military at some point, right?”

“Then if there wasn’t anything wrong outside, then how about inside? After all, if their government became unstable, then perhaps their society would─”

And that’s where it hit me. While it’s true that some civilizations fall due to their enemy having superior military tactics, these civilizations could also fall due to political disarray. For instance, the lack of an effective succession system in the Roman empire can cause civil wars to take place, but the idea of political conflict still got me thinking:

“What causes conflict? Why do people have to fight and argue in the first place?”

“Maybe it’s because people just disagree with each other certain issues.”

“But why do they disagree with each other?”

“Maybe it’s because they just think about those issues in different ways.”

“But why do they have to think differently? Maybe all of us should think the same way? That way we can get along!”

“Perhaps. But if we were to think that way, will that still make us human?”

Digital Image. Free Download Emoji Icons in PNG. Emoji Island. 2016. <https://emojiisland.com/pages/free-download-emoji-icons-png>

After going through this internal Socratic dialogue, the gears started turning. One of the things that does make us human is that we all have different opinions when it comes to complicated issues. For instance, a British sociologist named Anthony Giddens describes how politicians and scientists have disputed over the notion of climate change, which remains a prevalent issue today after his paper was published 7 years ago. We all view this world through a certain set of lens, however, it might be frustrating for some if they see others who do not see the same color, which can cause conflict as well as potential instability.

Cadwell, Leigh. 2016. Photograph. NBC. New York City. 5 Major Takeaways from the Third and Final Presidential Debate. <http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/2016-presidential-debates/5-major-takeaways-third-final-presidential-debate-n669831>

Now of course, the idea that humans will always argue isn’t always a bad thing. After all, the Founding Fathers created a Constitution that remained mostly consistent for over 200 years due to argument and compromise. However, there are instances where a controversial topic can spark internal conflict, for instance, the issue of slavery instilling a civil war. Recently, we have seen three official debates between two American presidential candidates arguing over several controversial issues. And in a few months, we’ll see one of those candidates speak the oath, of which some of people would disagree with. With that in mind, which candidate would you disagree with? Perhaps you disagree with Hillary Clinton and her support for establishing a no-fly zone in Syria (which can potentially lead America into war). Perhaps you disagree with Donald Trump and his extreme plan to build a divisive wall surrounding America’s borders. Perhaps you, fellow reader, can decide to avoid this question and disagree with everything I said so far, since these series of speculations originated from the bold assertion that “Nothing lasts forever.” But even if you do decide to disagree with this notion, then I would like to ask. Why did Gandy paint the Bank of England in ruins, and why do civilizations, big and small, eventually fall?