Monday, September 27, 2010

Week 5 - Reflection

Higher Authority in control
As we discussed about PTJ's authority and what actually gives him or makes him lose his authority, my brain got almost overloaded with too much thinking and processing, trying to figure out the concept. When PTJ asked us what would make us lose respect to his authority, and many of our class said if he hadn't been in class for so long or he had acted abnormally out of boundaries and what not, and I all agree with them generally but I also thought that if a being in higher authority, that even PTJ had to submit to, existed and dismissed PTJ from his authority, I would lose a sense of respect to his authority. I always thought that every real life situation, even in the realm of World Politics, we need someone or whatever in control that can direct, keep the order and mediate. I don't think we human can peacefully and harmonically live without a higher authority in control.

Bottom Line - Stability and security
Our Thursday discussion was about what kind of advice we would give the President in relation to IR theories when a outerspace space ship launched a little shuttle and it's on its way to land in the Whitle House Lawn. We've discussed and learned about three basic IR theories, and personally I thought realism was the most outdated because #1, it's the oldest theory, and #2 the world is now so different from then so it's not very applicable to today's world. However, when it came to this kind of extremely threatening situation like our scenario here, everything came down to one thing regardless of whatever the theory is up-to-date: stability and security. Our group said that we will declare DefCon 1, which is the very highest level of defense condition, get ready for the worst that could happen, evacuate the city and the white house and block the media for the sake of citizens not to freak out. Whatever theory one might have agreed with the most, but on this scenario, it proves that realism might be ourdated for being here around for awhile, and definitely the one that explains very core and basic of how a society works. Also when the globe was to meet this crisis again, the whole world sets aside their own individual desire and identity, whether it identifies itself again by its responsibility and expectations for it in the situation. It kind of brings the idea of constructivism into the picture but I am not sure I fully got the relation between the crisis scenario activity and constructivism. But I look forward to finding out the unfolded link between them two and learning more.

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