Penalty Blog

On-campus

I attended the Mina Nair speech that she gave at the Writer’s Voice. I found it thoroughly enjoying. Mina Nair was an insightful, interesting down to earth speaker. Her stories of her filmmaking were entertaining, and it was amazing to hear about all she’s seen and done throughout her life. I also really admire her for her open and powerful methods of breaking down walls, whether based on gender, race, class, or any other differentiating characteristic. She is definitely a powerful and confident woman who is full of life and love for the world around her. I particularly like that she gardened as a hobby. It’s nice to see that someone who has accomplished so much and who is an amazing creative and passionate individual still has relatively mundane hobbies, and can appreciate the calm of a garden. Mina Nair was all around awesome.

On-campus

This afternoon I attended a talk by the Whole Foods Market CEO, John Mackey. His Conscious Business plan is thought by many to be revolutionary because of it’s unusual strategies and it’s concern for individuals besides shareholders, including customers, employees, and suppliers. It was an interesting talk for me because while economics is an important part of political science, I don’t know nearly enough about it. I learned a great deal about the potentials of capitalism, which is a system that I typically find to be exploitative and greedy in nature, and the information given allowed me to expand alter, and reinforce various ideas that I have about the capitalist system. The potential Mackey highlighted was the ability of corporations to increase overall wealth for many varying groups and the idea that profits can be a means to the end of both helping others and increasing business success, instead of being ends themselves. I particularly appreciated and respected Mackey’s advocating of corporate philanthropy, and the Whole Foods program of micro-finance loans in poorer countries where they get many of their products. With that said, I did have a couple of problems with Mackey’s talk. First, many of his methods of implementing his business strategy are focused around love. I am all for compassionate capitalism, but his methods were a bit too cheesy for me to take seriously. If even I, a bleeding heart liberal, am unable to fully get on board with his strategies of love in the office, I doubt that many individuals in business, which is often a cutthroat and brutal profession, would be able, or would even want to follow Mackey’s strategies. I feel that he has a great business model, but his really great potential contributions to business, like helping others through philanthropy and other programs, could possibly lose credibility due to his extreme version of compassionate capitalism. Secondly, throughout the presentation, Mackey made two comments that I found somewhat offensive, involving both sexist and xenophobic content. The xenophobic comment may have been a joke, I couldn’t tell, but the sexist comment seemed completely genuine. He caught himself halfway through it, after his point was made clear, and then had the gall to say that he gets in trouble for “being honest.” As someone super interested in the feminist perspective of all areas of study, I have learned to develop a tough skin with sexism, and not get too easily offended. With that said, listening to Mackey preach about helping everyone through business, and then drop an offensively sexist comment was both shocking and saddening to me. Overall though, I enjoyed and learned a great deal from the lecture.

Off and On Campus Blog

Off-Campus

For my off-campus activity, I went to a healing workshop in Round Rock, I have been to multiple different types of meditation practices, and yoga-meditative workshops, but never anything involving healing. To be perfectly honest, it was a bit outside my preferences. It was a little more new-age-y than I’m used to and feel comfortable doing with enthusiasm. With that said, the meditation part was incredibly interesting and rewarding as it usually is. I did find though that my meditation patience was far less than it has been in the past; I think that in part, this is due to a stressful, but fun, year of change and growth. My life has not as of late held the time for extended periods of peace and serenity. In a way, I’ve really enjoyed the more hectic pace my life has been moving at, but at the same time, I do miss being able to sit in a meditation room for extended periods of time, and find that balance that has been missing lately. The one part of the healing workshop that I found particularly cheesy was the healing sessions where we all stood up around some people that were suffering from various ailments, and tried to heal them with our positive energy. I guess I’ve become a little to cynical to believe in the power of thoughts over medical care; I do believe positivity can greatly affect someone’s health but I think that it is more focused on the positive nature of the individual, rather than through healers.

On-campus

I attended a lecture held by the political science department, featuring political scientist Jack Goldstone. As a poli sci major, I found his talk incredibly enlightening and super relevant to the work I’m doing in all my classes, but most directly to my International Security class. The speech was focused around Democracies around the world, state stability, and a variety of other statistical measurements of the state. It was exciting to see the ‘scientist’ part of political scientist because most undergraduate political science work is focused on the general concepts rather than information, statistical findings, and subsequent political predictions. His talk focused around an index that he had developed with some of his colleagues which measured various factors of states to determine state stability, democracy measures, and a variety of other aspects of the state which allow him and others to draw conclusions and highlight patterns. One of the most interesting patterns that they highlighted was that since the end of the Cold War, intrastate wars (wars that happen within states, i.e. civil wars) have dramatically increased; this is due to the lack of the superpower control of their respective spheres. It was interesting that the overarching threat of a huge conflict kept in check a multitude of smaller conflict.

End of Semester Blog

This semester has been the beginning of a yearlong process to get myself ready for the real world. Because of this, I have not been able to experience, as fully as I would like, the intellectual ideas that I really enjoy exploring. Paideia has been incredibly helpful in filling that void. I’ve enjoyed thoroughly the varied topics of discussion, and continuing my liberal arts education even while I gear up to leave that process. I like that everyone in the group was able to offer something they find interesting, capstone-related or not, to the rest of us, and that we were almost always able to have meaningful discussions on a multitude of important issues. I don’t think I can really pinpoint a specific discussion that I enjoyed more than the rest. The spectrum of our topics, from feminism to introversion to animal cruelty, were all so interesting that I appreciated each one as much as the last. I definitely learned things that I didn’t know before, and was exposed to a variety of new opinions and perspectives.

As for my creative project, I have not yet really addressed it, nor will I until next semester and capstone. I have furthered my own academic progress in some exciting ways, including rediscovering my love for International Relations, and realizing that it is the branch of international relations that I am truly passionate about. It has reaffirmed my desire to go to grad school and continue the process of learning.

Mid-term Blog

I have really enjoyed our discussions throughout this semester. One common theme that I have noticed is the ways in which we differentiate between groups and the resultant value judgements that we place on these groups. Two perfect examples are the male/female division in the art world as well as in the perception of the art itself, and the ways in which introverts and extroverts are appreciated or undervalued in our societies. I think these distinctions are important to discuss, because only through thorough evaluation can we begin to see the root of these divisions, and decide whether they are justifiably needed, or whether they are the remnants of old, dilapidated prejudices. These ideas are incredibly related to my research project: I plan on, for my capstone, examining liberal democracy and it's ideals, and the way it immediately includes certain individuals based on these sort of distinctions, and how it alienates the individuals who fall on the other side of these same distinctions. It should be interesting to examine these established inequalities as a part of the system of ideologies that parades a facade of equality and justice for ALL.

First Paideia Blog

My goals for Paideia this semester are fairly simple: continuing the engaging discussions, and learning interesting things and perspectives from my cohort. I have already achieved my intercultural experience when I went to Dublin in the fall of 2009, and I would say that I learned a great deal there, and I am so grateful for the opportunity. Our civic engagement we accomplished as a group working with the Boys and Girls Club of Georgetown, which was an incredibly rewarding and eye-opening experience.

As for my creative work or project, I am planning on using my capstone thesis as my requirement for that. I am taking Liberalism and it's discontents with Dr. Mariotti, and I am thrilled to do an extensive study of the idea of liberalism from the perspective of those less enchanted with the concept. Specifically, I would like to focus of discontent from the perspective of a women, and study the gender hierarchy within and perhaps inherent to the concept of Liberalism.

End of Semester Blog

So this has certainly been an interesting year, in and out of Paideia.

Studying abroad in the Fall was truly one of the most memorable experiences I have ever had. I thought it was going to be a blast, but it actuality, it was one of the most challenging things I have ever undertaken. Being separated from family and friends was really, really difficult. The separation was difficult, but even more so was that when I needed a face from home, I could only access them through Skype. Regardless, I think that my study abroad experience taught me more about life and myself than anything I have ever done. When one travels abroad, all the ties one has are severed, and all facets of identity are either eliminated, or reduced. In that respect, it was both revealing and terrifying. Stripped of all identities I associated with myself, I became in-tuned with a very real, version of myself. Sometimes shit got a little too real, but I made it through, and for that, I am grateful and stronger. I really feel that in losing my identities, I was able to more solidly grasp me.

Re-immersing myself in Southwestern was super difficult; it was a chance to find out who were really my friends. I lost some people from my life that I thought were some of my closest friends, but on the upside, those to whom I remained friends, I am even closer, and I met a couple of really amazing new people who are now some of the most important people in my life. I think its really just a perfect example of how life can completely be turned upside down, but as long as I stay true to me, as long as I continue to have dignity and respect for myself and those I care about, I can emerge from any situation with hard earned knowledge and of course, some scars, but scars are what makes life worth living. Without pain, we cannot truly know our own depths or our highest heights; pain shapes people more than joy, but in the end, surviving pain is the most beautiful thing one can hope to do.

This is a super depressing post thus far, which is silly, because I did have fun in Ireland, and this has been one of the coolest and most interesting semesters. I feel though, that the lessons I learned most fully in Ireland were the difficult ones; with that said, I think that those difficult lessons are the reason I am so happy and content right now- I have realized that with life you have to pick your battles, and sometimes its just best to let your troubles roll by, because honestly, life is way too beautiful to be bogged down.

As for Paideia, I think it was one of my favorite classes this semester- the discussions we have are always a ton more thought provoking that the one's I have in some of my less exciting classes. And I think we have such a varied set of interests in our group, so any topic we explore is approached from a myriad of different perspectives, which is cool as hell. I really liked the discussions on homosexuality, gender differences, and also the soda discussion on the mall. I enjoyed discussing my topic on gender difference in the brain (even though I was half asleep) because gender is one of the most defining aspects of identity in our culture, and is so intrinsically tied to our social constructions that to approach the issue from an egalitarian way, focused on differences as equal, was super awesome. Side note: I think there are some really strong, smart women in or Paideia group which made this discussion, and the entire experience so much more enriching and empowering.

So that's that,

Cait

On Campus Blog 2

I attended the Make Peace event, hosted by Student Peace Alliance last week. I know we are supposed to do an event that is a stretch for us, but this event was so powerful for me personally, that I feel I should write about it for my on campus event. The event was in memory of Rob, and man you could feel his presence everywhere that night; it was incredibly powerful and really, really awesome. There were a multitude of musical acts that night, as well as other types of performances, but one in particular shook me to the core. An SU student, I believe a sophomore, composed an orchestral piece the night of Rob’s death, and it was performed by during the event by an orchestra (I think- I’m not really sure what an orchestra consists of) and the choir. I cannot even express how moving the piece was on a personal level; it was as though the spirit of Rob was in that piece. And anyone that knew Rob knows how beautiful his spirit is; he was one of the kindest, most compassionate, incredible souls I have ever encountered- honestly, there is no way to put into words how amazing of a person he was. Fortunately though, someone was able to put it into music. It was as though that composition took a snapshot of a smiling Rob, with his arms open to the world, and transformed it into a piece of music that touched everyone’s hearts in a way that only Rob could. I cried again that night for Rob, as did others, but it was a good cry. I think we all felt something that night; I can’t really explain what it was, but it was peaceful. It was essentially, in my very subjective opinion at least, the embodiment of the beauty and meaning of life. The atmosphere in that room was so perfect; it was constructive, caring, creative, impassioned, and incredibly, incredibly peaceful. We read Hannah Arendt in my political theory class, and she says that individuals must create their own meanings by creating their own worlds, and that night a beautiful world was created, one that Rob would have been so ecstatic to witness, and even more ecstatic to have inspired. I don’t believe in heaven in the traditional sense, but I do believe that wherever Rob’s spirit is, it was smiling his ridiculously bright, optimistc, beautiful smile, and for at least a night, I think all of us really experienced the compassion and peace that was Rob’s life.