Friday, September 24, 2010

Reflection #5

Later, after Thursday’s class, a group of us were sitting around and we inevitably got onto the topic of our class discussion: how would and should we react if a spacecraft landed in front of the White House? We began by reviewing what was discussed and how probable each course of action might be. But as the conversation evolved, we got onto the topic of our planet Earth in comparison to the rest of the universe. Our world is so minute in relation to the rest of the galaxies and planets that it really puts the concepts of international relations into perspective. What if, we speculated, these ET’s come from a universe where these theories of international relations are much grander, broader and have a greater impact? If you think about it, world politics on planet Earth is essentially the interactions between microscopic organisms on blotches of land (This is not to say that the theories of IR are unimportant here; I am merely putting our physical planet into perspective). How would we look and how would these visitors react if we were to mobilize our forces but then at once see that what they have to combat us is proportionally greater? It really puts things into perspective for me to think that our interactions are drastically different from that elsewhere. Furthermore, it is mind-boggling to contemplate what other theories of interaction are being implicated elsewhere. What other communication capabilities are being used? It seems that we have so much more to learn and reflect than what we originally thought was the case.

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