Paper Deadline -- FYI

Hi -- I decided to extend the paper deadline for PLSC 432 to Wednesday at noon. If you have any questions, please email me!

Also, Carmen asked about the possibility of posting everyone's paper on the blog. If you're interested, let me know.

Thanks!
Dr. Hsueh

The pros and cons of photography

I found this article while taking a break from finishing up my paper today. It is an interesting look at how a famous photo affected the life of the subject. I know this photo came up a lot in class and I thought you all might be interested in taking a look at this.

http://news.yahoo.com/ap-napalm-girl-photo-vietnam-war-turns-40-210339788.html

Understanding "Others"

           I thought that the Narayan piece was very interesting and it really triggered the question for how we understand these foreign cultures. It was interesting that she had a hard time gaining acceptance from American women when comparing dowry-murders to domestic violence. When she first said that even I thought that it seemed like a strange comparison but after she went into more explanation it seemed to be a really good example. One thing that really stood out to me was the idea that because these women are killed by a fire our culture has a hard time finding that relatable since guns seem to be the method of choice. But both these deaths comes from domestic violence. However, because Americans don't understand the Indian culture the deaths by fire tend to be looked at in a more exotic nature.

          I also find that the way women look at domestic violence and the way Indian women look at domestic violence to be very interesting. In America the domestic violence that leads to death tends not to be look at as much as it is in Indian culture. Both having their main focus for solutions in different places as well. In America we have the shelters and other programs to help women, but I found it fascinating that Indian women explained that their State doesn't help women in the same way. While women from here suggest that they just start shelters or have more welfare just shows how much ignorance there is about the other world cultures.

We can take this ignorance and expand it from the issue of women's rights to just other international issues, problems, policy, cultures and how little we know and understand these cultures can have a drastic effect on our foreign policy or support issues. For example the Kony 2012 was a movement because of a video seen around the internet but yet this was not a new issue, nor was the video exactly telling the truth. There is a very lazy and complacent attitude about understanding "others".

Are we better?

What I love about political theory is that it is constantly giving me new perspectives on how to look at almost everything in our past, present and future.  For me, Narayan's article offered just that. I found that I couldn't help but agree with almost all her arguments and the evidence she supported them with was done very well. It made me think (once again here I am going back to my paper) about my paper, Okin and many of the things we touched on in class that day on multiculturalism. We see ourselves in Western societies as setting the example for other countries, particularly in the form of women's rights and protection. Our culture is more humanitarian, better developed, superior. Sometimes I have to wonder, especially after reading her piece, do we really have that much more? "Death by domestic violence in the US seems to be numerically as significant a social problem as dowry murders in India." As Narayan argues, Western societies see acts like dowry murder as horrifying and nothing like we see here in the US. "Burning a woman to death in the Indian context is no more exotic than shooting her to death in the US context." I feel like her argument is right, we are really just often times doing the same thing to women here in the US as they do in countries in India but just under different contexts. Women are dying from domestic violence in all countries, including the US. Are these cultures really in different than ours? Narayan does not believe so, and I can't help but kind of agree with her.

Dowry Murder

I was really struck by the Narayan article, which essentially explains how domestic violence in the United States and dowry-related burnings in India are not easily reconciled. This if for several reasons, but the one that suprised me the most was that women (or more broadly society in general) assign a certain cultural significance to the matter in which the act was carried out. Dowry murder is for some reason more easily explained as "death by culture", as women in the United States do not understand it as fatal domestic violence. Although the author points out that these types of murder are generally preceded by events that Americans would more typically define as domestic violence, the fact that they die by burning is somehow viewed as exotic. Fire, however, is not chosen as a culturally specific weapon but for its abillity to conceal forensics. Claiming the use of fire is culturally specific would be the equivalent of stating that fatal shootings in domestic violence are a uniquely American phenomenon, and as such can be explained away by "culture". I appreciated the article, because I had never thought of the ways in which violence towards women is justified (for lack of a better word) by culture when it more closely aligned with patriarchy. Which is almost universal. Therefore, we should be less focused on the ways in which women are abused and killed than on the social institutions that more or less allow it to occur under the cover of culture.

One of the ideas that was touched upon was in the Sontag article about the "culture of spectacle." (pg. 265) Sontag discusses in her article that it is quite possible that our "culture of spectacle" has numbed us to images of violence and we react with detachment and apathy. Though Sontag doesn't fully outline the "culture of spectacle," I extracted that this is the way in which our culture has saturated itself with constant violent images and stories through the news media as well as the way in which violence is used as a form of entertainment. Sontag talked about how we are drawn to such spectacles, yet we are also repulsed by this desire (pg. 264). This is an interesting thought because of the increasing popularity of violent entertainment that include movies (Saw, Hostel, anything Quentin Tarantino) and video games. If anything, I would say that Sontag is incorrect for the most part in saying that images of violence make us feel more compelled to take action. I think that in most cases, people are detached: They don't know the people and to care about every single instance of violence one hears or reads about in the news would be an extremely heavy burden to carry. I understand that Sontag is trying to defend those who make these images and she is trying to stress how important these images are, and I agree that they are important but this "culture of spectacle" has made us feel apathetic to violence. I am not sure if most people allow themselves to be "haunted" by these images. Violence as entertainment may be a large part of why a "culture of spectacle" exists, but it is alongside these very real images of violence around the world. It is becoming increasingly difficult for me to distinguish what is entertainment in the news and what part of it is genuinely trying to get people to care about these cases of violence. Often, it seems as though the news media capitalizes on the fact that people are drawn by violence--and the most extreme of cases--to sell papers or entice viewers. I am not thinking that we should immerse ourselves in solving every issue of violence we hear about, I am only suggesting that it is highly disturbing that we have turned human suffering into something we entertain ourselves with and respond to lightly in many cases. On page 272, Sontag says "we now have a vast repository of images that make it harder to maintain this kind of moral defectiveness." I would argue that this has forced most to become more detached. It also seems that there is much more evidence to say that our moral defectiveness has increased because of our use of violence as entertainment. 

Just FYI -- World Issues Forum: "Is Internet a vector of freedom or an instrument of repression? Lessons from the Arab Spring, China, Mexico, the USA"

Shirley Osterhaus Sent: Friday, May 18, 2012 7:25 AM To: ; Attachments: 5-23.pdf‎ (238 KB‎)[Open as Web Page]

We are delighted to have Delphine Halgand, Washington DC Director of Reporters without Border, as our final speaker for the Spring World Issues Forum.  Please help spread the word on this important topic: “Is internet a vector of freedom or an instrument of repression? Lessons from the Arab Spring, China, Mexico, the USA.” Wednesday, May 23, Noon-1:20pm, Fairhaven College Auditorium                                      7:00-9:00 AW 210 (Sponsored by AS Social Issues Resource Center) The fight for online freedom of expression is more essential than ever. The Arab Spring has clearly shown that the Internet is a vehicle for freedom. In countries where the traditional media are controlled by the government, the only independent news and information are to be found on the Internet, which has become a forum for discussion and a refuge for those who want to express their views freely. However, governments are realizing this and are trying to control the Internet and stepping up surveillance of Internet users. Netizens are being targeted by government reprisals. More than 120 of them are currently detained for expressing their views freely online, mainly in China, Iran and Vietnam. (Co-sponsors:  Fairhaven College and Reporters without Borders)