Bigger than Your Body

I didn't have a terribly exciting week (this upcoming week will be, I promise), but I did get accepted to staff a G-8 (Group of Eight) meeting at the State Department in the end of this month! I won't be meeting really important people, but I will be interacting with delegates!

On Monday I went to the Israeli embassy. It was a really cool experience and we heard from a seasoned political officer. Taking things with a grain of salt, his lecture was informative and was interesting to hear issues from an Israeli point of view. Not saying I agreed with all things he said, or that some things weren't hypocritical, but a great time nonetheless.
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So, instead of talking about my week, I am going going to touch on a different topic. I know this blog is filled with foreign policy and political issues, but I am going to talk about you. The power that you possess in you; the power of the individual.

I first want you to look at the quote to your left, the one under my "About Me". It's a quote attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci, arguably the smartest human ever to walk this Earth. It is an astute observation, and a correct one at that. Those who make things happen control the conversation, realize their dreams, and solve problems. Those "go-getters" don't take a back seat to events, they make events happen. Its something that strongly resonates with me.

Humans have done incredible things. We have built cities, bridges, buildings, roads, technology, medicines, and continue to do things we think are impossible. However things didn't get the way they are by sitting back and watching. No, those who have left a lasting impact, those who have changed their own lives, are the ones that made things happen.

If you know me, you know I was not someone who was spoon fed everything. I, as well as many others who I look up to, worked our butts off to get things and become the people we strive to be. Granted some things just happen, but most of the time you have to be the one who wants it. I have seen far too many people be helpless about their current situations; whether it be economic, social, emotional or other. Yes, a divine power may or may not have done it for a reason, but I am a firm believer that if one wants something to change, you have to make it change. If there is something you want, go out an take it.

I am a strong believer in human excellence and the human potential. Whether it is the will to beat cancer, the will to change our situations in life, or the will to stop wars - we all have the potential to do it. Now this takes determination, perseverance, and patience. You make yourself who you are and how you portray yourself to others, and the responsibility lies within no one but oneself. Humans made this world, and humans continue to shape it.

So go out and be the force which makes your dreams a reality; sitting on the couch and hoping for it served to you on a silver platter is unrealistic. If you want your life to change, be the change that people respond to, not the responder. If you're ever feeling helpless, just take a good look inside of yourself and know that's where the true power lies. You're the strongest force in your life, and don't waste that potential.

Take the Reins, and Be the Change.

MH

P.S. Thanks for reading that, here are some pictures of spring in DC as your reward:

The Defense of Identity; A Common Cause

Sneek peek at thoughts from my second paper...

I am going to start off this post with the comments my good friend Matt wrote on my previous post on Identity in India: "Think about your high school football games. It is a rare time when all the students, parents, and teachers come together from their separate cliches and groups to cheer for their collective high school team and against the rival school. The students are part of their individual groups (seniors, juniors, jocks, nerds, etc) primarily but in battle (at the football stadium) the groups are united. This is another situation where Religion parallels sports in the US."

I really liked this comment and between this and the Hindu chapter we read, it got me thinking on identity. How do people of diverse backgrounds come together under a common identity?

Globalization has played a big part in increasing identity awareness. Just has Hindus have been able to rally around a national identity based upon religion, people rally around their own when they feel threatened. As Rithambra said in Kakar, the Hindu's are "fighting for the preservation of a civilization, for his Indianness, for national consciousness, for the recognition of his true nature" (157). A somewhat familiar theme here. The notion of defense has come up with our class before. It is in defense of a religion that people find it easier to validate violent actions.

However, it is also an important  idea to talk about. When people feel threatened by an out-groups entrance into their sphere of power - by a foreign force, foreign ideas, foreign competition, or perhaps a rival high school - the "dimensions of ethnicity stand out in sharp relief and the individual becomes painfully or exhilaratingly aware of certain aspects of one's cultural identity" (150). The defense of one's culture, convictions, and inner-self is certainly enough to encourage community with others who feel the same way. It is the inherent attack on someone's sovereignty as an individual which goes down to the basic level of human survival.

If you are no longer yourself, are you yourself anymore?

Thus to defend against a common enemy helps one keep who they are. Though in sport this individual sovereignty is not under threat as in other cases, it serves to highlight how being in a community can define your identity thus create the conditions for intense communal defense against "the others".

Globalization has been bringing up these intense battles over identity. All around the globe, people fear of their own connection to land, and culture will be diminished by foreign entities. As in the case of Anders Breivik, he identified with a Christian Europe, and to not act, would be failing himself.

...End paper preview

The Enemy with No Face

I was reading Juergensmeyer and I came to the bit he was talking about primary and secondary enemies. His portrayal of the secondary and collective enemies is really what caught my attention; maybe because it helped me understand religious violence towards government and innocent people. The concept is that the secondary enemy can be a moderate force, something which disrupts the dichotomy of good an evil in the view of a religious actor. The secondary enemy belittles the notion of cosmic war, in the view of the actor. People whom abide by the system (in the outgroup) are part of the collective identity of the system itself. Willing or unwillingly, they support the system and the immoralities that religious actors disdain.

Juergensmeyer states that "it is relatively easy to kill someone who is unknown" (178). I believe this notion is extremely true. There are no individual faces to these victims; only association that they are the enemy. This factor can, at times, exacerbate violence. If one does not know a person in another group, it is very easy to make judgements and even perform acts of violence. There is no bond or association with these groups of people. Thus if one performs an act of violence, they may feel less regret. They are known as the collective enemy.

Collective enemies are just another aspect of the way actors dehumanize other human beings. Grouping all into the same group as the enemy deprives them of human features. They are not seen as singular beings, but a force of evil that must be destroyed. They lack emotion, passion, intelligence and other human qualities. In essence, one can deem them as not human of non-existent.

This reminds me of the phrase: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" If another human dies in the opposite side of the world, does it matter to you? An even bigger meta-physical question: how do you know if they even existed? This absolute disconnect provides an easier moral justification for violence. If you didn't know them, how can it affect you? Aren't they all apart of the greater evil?

There are around 7 billion people on this planet. It would be impossible to learn every other human being. However, this is why exchange programs are so crucial. It exposes people to others. If one has a personal connection with someone in another outgroup, it may be harder for one to perform violence against the said group.

Ready for this? Putting a face on a person can make all the difference. Secondary enemies now have an individual quality to them. No longer are they some evil force, but another human being. I am not saying this will stop violence, but increased inter-group interaction forms relationships that can hinder group-on-group violence. If it is how we act and form relationships with other humans that guide all our interactions, I think it would be pretty important to establish the best relationships you can with others.

Put a face to another group, and it may make all the difference in how you view them.

Why the Sociology Theory of Religion helps give an Insight to Politics

After reading Chapter 1 of Peter Berger's The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion, I was pretty impressed. As a political science major and working towards a security studies certificate, I haven't been exposed to much sociological theory. However Berger's piece made complete sense in my mind, and it served to do more than just tell me about the creation of society.

Society gives mankind three things; externalization, objectivation, and internalization. I am not going to go over them since we talked about them in class today, but they do provide a common basis on which to start the analysis of how someone formulates their views, and consequently, lives their lives by them. I took these three pillars as being the key to understanding the lens the individual uses to make religion their own. The personalization of religion, morals, and truths; the cornerstone to understanding why a person does a specific thing. Pretty powerful if you're looking for reasons of a decision...or trying to manipulate them.

I also took these three pillars as the process of the transfer of ideas. Essentially how ideas are developed and transmitted to another person. Each generation has a different way of transferring ideas, but it all goes through these three processes. It almost reminds me of the movie "Inception".

These three processes are relevant for politics. If one is analyzing leaders of certain states, non-state actors, or movements, learning their truths - how they perceive the world to be - is an immensely important factor. There is an age old saying of "put yourself in their shoes." That's entirely true. However, you also have to walk around in those shoes. To understand the decision-making process of certain people, you need to understand their truths and how they were brought up. You need to understand how they underwent the transfer of ideas. Why are they acting like this? Why do they support something different than I do? How can I understand their point of view in order to have a sustained dialogue?

One can try to look into a person's upbringing, but sometimes its just not possible. The broader picture that I am trying to pitch is that, in politics, leaders are guided by using their worldview in a specific context. This is the constructivist concept of international relations, in a sense. But what this process shows is the root of ideas. If one can successfully understand the other side, they could potentially communicate more efficiently to advance policy goals...or solve religious conflicts.