Une Nouveau Raison D'etre

This blog began as an assignment for a college political science class by the same name as this blog's title (Modern Political Thought). Originally, my professor asked students to start a blog to comment on reading assignments to prove that we had read the assigned selections. The class was interesting with a mix of modern philosophic works pertaining to a variety of topics which help establish a theoretical framework for political science. Each post was read and graded by the professor based on content. Now that the class has ended over several months ago, its original use has long since been exhausted. Having had to create a blogger account for this class, I recently decided to continue bloging even without a professor's provoke.

I am not quite sure what will appear here or if I will even have the long term commitment, time, and interest to continue much beyond this point in the future. But the basic plan is to journal my thoughts and to share the insights of others about politics, the 2008 election, current events, and all the related ideas that may pop up in my head from time to time. I hope to add interesting thoughts and commentary that tries to capture the complex nature of the world from a variety of standpoints. If nothing else, at least this won’t just be a forgotten empty blog that I had to create for an old class. I guess I figured that since I had began the work creating this and posting on it, I might as well preserve it rather than delete it or simply forget about it. I welcome comments and suggestions and from there we will see.

Frantz Fanon: Conclusion, Critique of "The Wretched of the Earth"

I think Frantz Fanon is a very thoughtful and intelligent writer whose book, "The Wretched of the Earth", is not an easy work to critique without first admiring it. Throughout this book he applies detailed thoughtful analysis of the political struggles of decolonization. He describes in depth the division within colonized states and against colonial powers. He also discusses national identity and culture, nationalist government, and how the effects of colonialism shape the present and future of these states. In his conclusion, he builds on his previous chapters with a call to forge a new identity, separate from European influence. He talks about Europe's accomplishments and the tragedy of that same "progress". Fanon calls for a the Third World to "start over a new history of man which takes into account not only occasional prodigious theses maintained by Europe but also its crimes". (p. 238)
I think however that, in following this pattern, you are still being shaped by Europe. Perhaps he would even agree with this: that if you use a European example of what not to do, you are still in that paradigm. I think that since the peoples of Europe, Asia, and Africa have been influencing each other for generations before colonialism, it would be a mistake to not think that an identity completely separate from each other would be impossible. I also question those that think that there is no natural human state (as would someone like Foucault). If there are many natural human characteristics and behaviors, then whether in African or Europe or South America societies would have many strong similarities because their people are essentially similar.

Colonialism and Class Division

In Frantz Fanon's "The Wretched of the Earth" a new sets of political divisions are discussed that haven't garnered nearly any attention in by our other authors. Their is a strong class like division seen between the rural masses and the urban colonized intellectuals that Fanon describes. Although they seemingly should both be together in their strong opposition to Western colonial power, Fanon describes a division between the two. A distrust between tribal divisions is played upon by colonial powers to protect their strength as is the division between the urban proletariat and bourgeoisie and the rural peasantry. Those colonized who have rubbed shoulders and worked the colonial system to their advantaged are not trusted by the rural masses nor do they trust them either. (p.67) Although the sponteniety of a violent revoult by the rural masses is cheered by the urban colonized, they have made little effort to work them into a political framework or to honor traditional authority. They have themselves become simular in ideology and in class to the colonist. These divisions spillover into to a post-colonial liberation. I think that the political divisions of which Fanon speaks are interesting yet tragic because you can see the damaged left in African because of them today.

Shame and Gender

Reading Sandra Lee Bartky's essay on shame and gender, I was confronted with a number of social aspects which interested me. The unassertive nature before the "other" that many women have is seen as a result of society standard of normalcy. A societal normative standard is set and all that do not fit within the threshold of normalcy are put to shame. That many women would feel inadequate in many setting because of this is a result of a sexist society. I think that Barky's classroom examples of men being more assertive, women talking in "women's language", and the difference in the confidences of both groups does paint an interesting picture of the gender shame consciousness gap. I wonder however if this same phenomenon is still as prevalent today. I remember reading many news articles about young boys falling behind in academic performance while many girls and rising in standard. Does this lead to a a change in confidence or is it completely unrelated to performance and is more socially created as Bartky implies? Still I think society is definitely changing. Social controls are is not uniform in their ability to use identity transforming power.