General Overview: I devoted my work to the subject of Political Philosophy. I sense that I have reached a new level in my education this quarter, part of this is my awareness of a greater proficiency at literary assimilation. I believe that I have begun to touch upon, and become aware of the fourth level of competent learning and interdisciplinary expertness: The levels being: Information, Analysis, Synthesis, Judgment.
My learning objectives: How imperialism & its related origins characterized American culture & polity imbuing indifference toward social contract & adhesion & toward individual suffering creating a heritage of great & long-term criminal acts against beings, their rights and needs, & leaving a preponderance of personally unexamined lives. How covert, dubious, brutal foreign policy undermines domestic policy, culture, constitutionality, law; quality of life, & atomizes & alienates individual. What objectives I have accomplished are detailed in the section below titled: Seeking answers to my questions, learning and synthesis
Activities under this contract:
MY CONSUMPTION; THE INPUT I CHOSE: (reading, background reading to support my comprehension of the primary books, research, watching videos, watching alternative political Cable TV programming regularly, Keynote speeches by prominent current activists and democratic thinkers, asking questions): I have read even more than I had projected in my contract. Along with the books listed below, I have read over 120 articles on wikipedia (documented in my digital portfolio) and some other articles on other websites pertaining to my studies. I have looked up almost every word that I did not know in all of the books I have read, and in many of the articles on wikipedia.I have also downloaded and listened to the Project Gutenberg’s audio recordings of the readings of the following seminal political documents and works (www.gutenberg.org):
- “The Bill of Rights”
- Other Constitutional Amendments
- “The Declaration of Independence”
- “The Federalist Papers” by Alexander Hamilton
- “The Essays of Francis Bacon”
- “The Magna Carta”
- Henry David Thoreau’s “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience”
- Machiavelli’s “The Prince”
- Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”
These are the books I read (The primary insights I felt the book gave is in the final sentence of each listing):
- “Imperialism: Part two of the Origins of Totalitarianism”, by Hannah Arendt. Imperialism undermines the domestic life of a nation, firstly by encouraging and promoting an environment of speculation and dangerous, detrimental risk taking abroad both financially(economically) and politically, and secondly by invariably bringing the true practices of both bureaucracy (as in India and Egypt with England’s Lord Cromer) and a racism and militarism which violates and removes human rights (as in South Africa with the dehumanization of both the slave natives and the loss of economic/capitalistic motivation and humanitarian standards in the new ruling class as it sought to control the slave class under Cecil Rhodes) back to the domestic politics, thirdly by embedding a ‘game’ and culture of secrecy which is detrimental to politics in any arena, fourthly by presupposing and promulgating unconcern for domestic issues and needs, subjugating them to the overarching importance and promised panacea that imperialistic expansion is promised to bring, and finally, basing the purpose on the lie that it is possible to bring democracy to another country (it has to arise spontaneously from within), it not only fails, but colors and obfuscates the true essence of democracy, and perverts it within the country of origin.
- “The Origins of Capitalism”, by Jean Baechler, 1975 ECONOMIC HISTORY, CAPITALISM–HISTORY. He seeks to disprove almost all popular theories on the cause of the origins and ongoing existence of CAPITALISM, and simply states that conditions, whatever they actually were, favored this economic system. Not a matter of a great central or duplicity of deterministic or conspiratorial causes, but simply the non-intentional, left over, defaulting of history to this as the most natural occurrence. He curtly knocks off one theory after another. I felt that the author was just trying to shoot down popularly conceived (or pigeon-hole) rationals for alternative economic/political systems (such as socialism or even feudalism) without actually going deep enough into the complexities of history. It struck me as a cheap Americanism or pseudo-intellectual knee-jerk American patriotism. I guess, even though I don’t minimize the complexity of life, even more complicated when observed in the past (history), or the insatiable tendency man has to explain, theorize, find laws, and attach meaning to the past in order to deal with the future, however, I am spoiled by working through authors like Hannah Arendt who was truly capable of being a critic and judge of the deepest philosophical, cultural, artistic and political works, theories, and movements in history. There is no one magic answer, but you must do the work to begin to have a workable understanding of life in order to become more useful in the really complex real world (or else there would be no such thing as the value of an education, For the flip side of this, see my reading of “The Education of Henry Adams”)
- “Russia and Freedom”, by G. Fedotov in: The Review of Politics, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Jan., 1946), pp. 12-36 Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1403970, FOUND THRU JSTOR About the two parts of Russia (one geographic region with Moscow as the capital, and the other as Novgorod as the capital, the former being heavily orientally and asiatically influenced, and the latter, primarily Occidentally influenced [Western, Northern and Southern Europe, including Greek, greater Mediterranean and Netherlands), their unique military, political & social histories and the consequent differing development and experience of the people with regard to freedom (as they saw it and as they experienced it), protection, religion, political outlook, and unconquerability of their community connectedness; the uniqueness of the vastness of Russia and the consequent lack of efforts to centralize authority in either region resulting in a historically unique power and happiness residing in the people themselves; it is said that the Russians have been the happiest people in the history of the world, and that they allowed totalitarianism because of their ability to see through the promise of politicians (as we Americans are eternally prone to fall for because of the latent promise and goodness of democracy) to the extent that they let politicians do whatever they want to do while resting and living in the anonymity of the hugeness of Russia; Russia can never be autocratically centralized.
- "The Other Kingdom, Understand and explain the concentration camp phenomenon; a new chapter in human experience. ", by David Rousset, 1974 Ramon Guthrie, 1982 HowardFertig,Inc. The formal and informal political hierarchy in the camps and its effects on the unspeakable ordeal and untransmittable reality; A revealing look at human nature.
- "Crises in the Republic", by Hannah Arendt, Political essays on Vietnam, Nixon and his administration, and how our country got to the state it was in, and how bad the state really was from a democratic perspective (put into historical context).
- "Reflections on Literature and Culture, Collected Essays of Hannah Arendt", Werner Hamacher Ed. The importance of art and literature for culture and society in safe-guarding us, and giving a home to the political as it is meant to be (a public space without coercion and free of conflicts of interest); political choice and cultural judgement are two mutually necessary and mutually essential experiences in a healthy society; just as political freedom is not freedom if one does not or can not freely choose and act individually or in a group, individuals and groups must be free to exercise taste and judgement in the cultural, artistic and literary realm, both in the creation and in the enjoyment of this more permanent, home-giving artifice, juxtaposed to the varying transience of man-made utilitarian works (technology, tools, artisan objects) nature, the political speaking and acting (which also are highly transient, and, importantly, need the permanence of a human home), and our most impermanent human existence.
- "The Education of Henry Adams, an autobiography", Henry Adams, 1918, He was the grandson of the President John Quincy Adams and great-grandson of President and Founding Father John Adams . From the highest to the lowest position or situation, in politics, education and science, we really know almost nothing, and very seldom get actual education in life, most unlikely from an institution of higher education. He developed a new theory of dynamic history (to parallel dynamic physics). With his personal access to politicians domestically and abroad, he reveals during many pivotal moments of American Political history how almost all of the time, no one, including presidents, really had a clue about what was going on or what to do. As a personal friend of Darwin's closest colleague, Sir Charles Lyell, he makes a great, in-depth, and humorous argument against Darwinism. This book was nominated as the best book of the twentieth century by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.
MY PRODUCTION; THE OUTPUT I OFFERED: (Discussions with friends who, in the true tradition of having a public space, supported my education by lending me their ear and responding with their thoughts, other students, and my Sponsor; my final Presentation, Blogging my thoughts and a final version of my evaluation, at "http://www2.evergreen.edu/blogs/students/hoorob24)
Seeking answers to my questions, learning and synthesis (My learning objectives):
I have had at least three major breakthroughs of synthesis between different concepts that I have found in my readings regarding my question, why aren't people in America inclined to help other people and animals? 1.) Our underlying Western Civilizations origins in Platonism with its inescapable polarization of all aspects of life and existence (causing us to fall into black and white, good and evil mentalities), its hierarchical prioritization of the philosopher as leader and knowledge as source of action (rather than arising from community) at its worst predilecting us to ideologies in religion such as the crusades, Catholicism, the religious right; ideologies in politics, such as totalitarianism, and lopsided inhuman economic systems, such as Capitalism and Socialism, sisters in their actual expropriation of ownership from people and desensitizing us to the banality of chronically unfullfilling transactions and consumption. We have been deeply and unconsciously prejudiced against and blinded to reality (empiricism) itself. 2.) All of my reading and studying of Hannah Arendt's books and essays, and my corresponding research on-line to understand her history and concepts finally led me to the amazing discovery that she actually had the same underlying urge and knowingness about the vacuum of connectedness and indifference that pervades Western civilization and American society in particular. This was a great encouragement to me and deepening of my conviction, enhancement of my ability to communicate this concept, and purifying of my dichotomy of personalizing and blaming of society and others. 3.) We are all on equally shaky ground no matter how noble our station, how inspiring our credentials, how intimidating our demeanor, how intelligent our mind, how gifted our creativity. The world is much bigger than we have the capability of answering. So we should come together as equals, humble, and do what we can to minimize hurting and helping one another, society, and the world. One additional idea that I sense is the idea of the synthesis of traditional immanence (i.e. God in all of nature) and the new empirical immanence, "Immanence means to remain in the boundaries of possible experience." Kantian Philosophy. I sense that the modern philosophers were trying to express the importance of staying grounded in the real world. I personally believe that this requires a totality of openness to perceiving and connecting to God, the real world and the pursuit of knowledge.
I have had numerous conversations to express the ideas that I have found and connected to with other people.
A most enjoyable result of my quest this quarter has been the new view I have at the new point I have gotten to on my path at the end of the quarter; that is, the books I have been led to through the books I have read this quarter (e.g., "This is not Sufficient, An Essay on Animality and Human Nature in Derrida", by Leonard Lawlor and "The Human Condition", by Hannah Arendt).
In the book "The Human Condition", I have found an amazing parallel to my quest. I discovered that Hannah Arendt also saw American society lacking social connectivity and individuals not having concern for one another. She goes through philosophical, political and social history, starting with ancient Greece, and through to present day, in order to understand the underpinnings and presuppositions that she sees at the root of our limitations and resistance to having a caring public space. This happens to be the exact question that has driven me for the past three years during and up to the end of my undergraduate work. What a find! I had read two of her books, and been amazed by the difficulty and depth of her writing before my circumspection and research on her writings on the Internet led me to a synopsis of this book "The Human Condition" (including a synopsis of all her books). Incidentally, the third part of her last three part work entitled "The Life of the mind", was on judgement and is taken from her "Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy". Her theories and thoughts answered some fundamental questions I have had about the injustices of the justice system, especially the hypocrisy of judges themselves, not to mention my viewing of Kafka's film, "The Trial").
I watched the five part video series, The Century of the Self", by Adam Curtis, twice. This series uncovers the origins of the negative approach and perspective (man is evil) of the consortium and milieu of the psychological and clinical counseling industry, social services, criminal justice system, and the medical industry, especially the pharmaceutical medication sector This deals with political and business control of the masses via Freudian psychological theories interjected into American society beginning in the early 50's. Public relations--starting from propaganda learned during war in WWI--was used to control the unconscious urges and desires of the American public and enrich corporations starting in the 1920's. Bernase was the leading consultant on marketing; his uncle was Freud. It is interesting to my thesis question, and to the premise of this video series that Hitler and socialists promoted that Democracy unleashes a selfish individualism but does not have a means to control it -- their proof --the America economic collapse of the free market in the 1930's. Democracy leads to chaos and unemployment. This also reveals the discrepancy between the clever and penetrating intelligence of Hitler and the typification of emotionalism's simple-minded evil despots, dictators and totalitarians (I hate bigots 
). (My synthesis--Consumerism, a fallacious goal of meeting desires eliminates grounded connection to your own true needs and submerges others needs). Is psycho-analysis powerful in America because it benefits individuals or because it is a form of constraint in the interest of social order. The "man is evil" consortium has the premise that "...suffering is a mistake, or a sign of weakness, or even a sign of illness, when in fact, possibly the greatest truths we know have come out of people's suffering" ,Arthur Miller, third husband of Marilyn Monroe, "...that the problem is not to undo suffering or wipe it off the face of the earth, but to make it inform our lives." No more medication that slowly kills people physically, mentally and emotionally, no more criminalization based on medication based diagnoses; "...stop trying to cure ourselves of suffering and avoid anything but that lobotomized sense of happiness." IBID.
I believe and see more clearly that verbal output is minimized and written output is prioritized in our history and society of today; and that actually, to give only a couple of examples, in respect to the importance of theory to practice, of community as a basis for the political, the economic and the social, verbal output would be more in line with action (as opposed to written and ontological/epistemology) and sustainable development. From my beginning reading in "This is not sufficient...", referred above, I see that Derrida's deconstruction and reversal of Platonism which created hierarchies of importance with written over spoken, knowledge over action (passion), and good over evil, makes obvious that we might have an underlying prejudice that does not serve us best and support life in a full truth and reality. Also, written separates the signifier from the meaning that is being signified,whereas verbal communication is auto-affectionately in its natural element (Community, people, animals, passions, voice, current living issues).
I have created a digital portfolio of my work this quarter. This includes additional research and reading and verbal output of what I have learned and synthesized.
I had frequent communications with my sponsor, Raul Nakasone. I did a presentation at the final meeting of Raul's class at the Farm House at the Evergreen Organic Farm on Tuesday, June 4th, 2009
I am beginning my third year in my creation and ongoing development and learning experience through my help people and animals/save the world rental which has six people. I am continuing to strive to create and support a helpful and mutually responsible environment. I have gotten good feedback from both neighbors and people living in the house. It seems to be working out better in a number of ways over the standard impersonal legal/monetarily based rental scenario most common in our American society.
I have continued to have challenging and positive learning and endearing experiences playing and working with older courageously accepting, physical challenged friends.
I have continued to connect and help Camp Quixote, a tent city for homeless people, and have hosted another night at the overflow shelter.
I continue to put lots of love and energy into my five dogs. They continue to be happily connected and mutually involved in our home. Persius, the cat I rescued a year ago, is almost completely physically well, and is displaying a deep comfort and unique expression of love.
I have only made minimal progress on helping the chronically neglected neighbor dogs (Bee and BaBee and the Pomeranian). I have discussed them with a new neighbor and have found out that other neighbors one block over have come around asking about their barking (which is a common problem with dogs that are locked up and separated from interaction almost always). I have asked the new neighbor to make eye contact with the dogs since the common mistake is to avoid contact thinking that it will escalate their aggression. Instead, it may be the only interaction they get for days on end. This could keep them from going mad; very sad. I have also researched a new law in King County, Washington (Seattle is usually a leader in new humane legislation), that finally makes it illegal to neglect dogs for more than a couple of hours at a time using any sort of restraint (such as a chain) in any location, including personal residential yards. I am hoping that I can support this law being passed in Thurston County. This law indirectly addresses dog's need for companionship and exercise and to be a part of the human/animal pack. Without these elements dogs suffer physical and emotional pain.
My only progress on getting my dog-son, Fox, back from my ex-wife is my insight that even though Marina called the police and reported him stolen from her by me, since I was the one who nurtured Fox, I was actually his parent and she stole him from me. This was turned around for me when I came across the line "you cannot become a father [parent] by stealing a child.” (”The Devil’s Share, An Essay on the Diabolic in Modern Society, by Denis De Rougemont, page31) Upon contemplation, I realized the one thing that one can accomplish, and she succeeded in doing is taking a parent away from a child.
My work on this contract, and my imminent graduation, have led me to the idea, as well, that I ought to pursue promoting a Master Degree program at Evergreen in the tradition of Raul Nakasone’s self-guided learning model.I have discussed this idea with the founder of “The Flaming Eggplant”, Daniel Bolduc, who has accomplished creating a new experience at Evergreen.
I must say that I affectionately feel my birthing book to be Hannah Arendt’s “The Origins of Totalitarianism” and I want to testify to this. I want to thank Evergreen and Raul Nakasone, once again, for the opportunity to learn within the environment they have created. Thank you.
“No poem (evaluation) is ever finished, it is just abandoned.” Paul Valery
