I agree with Garton Ash’s point of view that is in line with Fukuyama’s regarding the end of history. However, I want to think of this in light of our own class discussion on the individual level. It seems that, given time, democratization, the influence and technology, and other factors, we will end up with the everyone-on-a-phone-in-the-coffee-shop dynamic: a bunch of people all shut into their own universes, losing their individuality through individualism, to quote Rory.

As I said, this seems inevitable. In all western nations, these circumstances are becoming increasingly the norm. Then, based off of Fukuyama’s thesis, to which we could not find an alternative, most nations are headed along that route. What happens when the entire world has this loss of individuality? Where will our sense of community come from? I think that, because of these two processes, there’s an increasingly real chance that community and a sense of community will come through internet communities. These will extend beyond borders and likely decrease nationalism and the potential for it. At this point, questions are raised regarding the nation-state – if people are no longer loyal to their state as a community (taking my argument to its extreme), what happens in the event of war or some other event that mobilizes a traditional state? I don’t have an answer…

There is no “best” or “right” way to handle past injustices in a fledgling democracy. On the one hand, people, everyday citizens, committed heinous atrocities to other citizens. On the other, removing these people, who often hold positions of power, could result in the collapse of the a new, unstable democracy.

With this tradeoff in mind, I think it should be clear that removing said individuals immediately after the new democracy is formed is not the optimal strategy. Doing so would have a higher likelihood of bringing down that new democracy than waiting. Unfortunately, this leaves many citizens unsatisfied. However, it must be made clear to them that they would be considerably worse off in a failed state (again).

Instead, countries should, in the short term, make a concerted effort to publicize and remember their past atrocities. They cannot be protected and kept from the public – a strong state brandishes their past failures so that they are part of a history, a history to never be repeated. This can be done through memorial days centered around these injustices and direct compensation to affected families of such injustices.

Although it is not clear when this point would be or, frankly, how to recognize it, once the new state is strong enough, then remaining public figures that were part of the past atrocities should be removed. No life time positions (a la Pinochet) should ever be granted. Once removed, higher up individuals, not the “foot soldiers” following orders, should be prosecuted and punished. By doing this, more citizens can feel indirect catharsis and fewer people from the past regime, now part of the new society, can continue living.

“Please Vote for Me” was definitely an example of democracy, although not in its purest forms. Its key elements – an election, direct voting, multiple candidates – make it qualify as democracy in action. However, it was certainly “tinged” in many ways. For one, the candidates were not chosen by a prior vote, but instead were chosen by the teacher. These students seemed excited about the idea, but may not have volunteered under their own volition. In this way, it was not democracy in its purest form. Additionally, a further critique is that a majority was not required. In many democratic systems with more than two candidates, the winner needs a majority in order to win. For this election to have been more “pure” in terms of democracy, it would have required a majority to win and might have incurred a second vote in order to achieve this.

The election was easily tampered with. This occurs in many true states with real elections, but maybe not with this degree of separation. In this election, the candidates, namely the largest boy whose name escapes me, were able to directly influence their votes through shady tactics. Again, this often occurs in real life, a la Egypt, Russia, etc.

Lastly, as is also the case in many true states, there was no oversight to prevent such shady practices from going on. Our current president’s administration is seeing this dynamic play out in front of them – they potentially acted “shadily” and are being investigated for it. In a “purer system,” the intimidation and manipulation that occurred could have prevented the aforementioned boy from even being considered in the final vote.

Power, who holds it, how it is exercised, and its other various dynamics are impacted by modernization, as was shown by The Grocer and the Chief. It seemed to me that modernization itself, back when the Grocer was first interviewed, was en route to undermine the power of the Chief. Now, the Chief’s power was rooted seemingly only in the traditional. If you ignore the quite literal power transfer that occurred as the Ankara government annexed the town, the act of slowly modernizing, the course the village was on before said annexation, itself would have achieved a similar (quite smaller, as it would not have been as quick or as clean of a power switch) effect of undermining the Chief (apologies for that ridiculous sentence as well). This is clear because modernizing inherently reduces the power of a traditional power figure.

There is also an interesting Havel-ian dynamic occurring here that I do not fully understand. The Grocer is not necessarily outright resisting the authority of the Chief like Havel’s grocer could, but he is certainly opposed in spirit and in practice to the Chief and traditional dynamics. Is he operating within the system, like Havel suggests, because he is embracing the forthcoming “system” of modernizing? Or is he outside of the “system”, which in this case is the traditional, by embracing the modern?

To begin, I fundamentally disagree with Gessen’s idea that, “Russians are dying for a lack of hope.” She does not build on this previous claim, but mentions anecdotally that her friend described the situation as being a civil war. I fundamentally disagree with this as well. I understand the case of high Russian mortality rates as being a function of not a failed state, but a failing state. Gessen lists multiple causes of higher mortality – fatty diet, alcohol consumption, mental health issues, etc. In laying out these causes, which she does thoroughly and accurately, it becomes clear that the state, whether after conscious thought or not, deemed these issues as secondary to whatever they deemed primary (oil extraction/price management, regional dominance, or potentially just the maintenance of Putin in power). This represents a failing state which cannot meet the health/security demands of its people, which as previously mentioned, are valid. Obviously, this is not the situation of a fully failed state in which there would be no government, no administrative capacities, no nothing like a Libya or a South Sudan formerly were/may still be (I apologize for not knowing precisely).

Additionally, this is certainly not a civil war. A civil war demands war – actual fighting, actual loss of life at the hands of others through direct, intentional means, This is to say that negligence and inability, two characteristics of the modern Russian state, do not constitute malicious intent, which characterizes a civil war

In Shooting an Elephant, Orwell argues that he was forced by the performative roles of dominator and dominated within the British colonial system to kill the elephant that was formerly mad. He nearly quotes Havel and others with his references to the mask that began fitting his face and the fact that he was really a puppet, not a lead actor, that was being pushed by all of the Burmese’s desires. He even takes this notion far enough to generalize it across all colonialism when he says, “I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys.”

I would like to challenge this idea. I do agree with Orwell that some performative, second/third dimension aspects of power were, knowingly or otherwise, being used on him by the Burmese. However, Orwell thoroughly dominates every Burmese person in this crowd with physical, literal power, both individually (white, having a gun) and by being British. But here is the counterfactual – had he demanded that people in the town watch the elephant until the mahout’s return, would they not have done as he said because of colonialism’s power dynamics? Or, slightly differently, I disagree that doing the above would have been some display of weakness. If it were, I believe it would have been so minor as to be corrected with an equally small display of British strength.

I think it is both important to recognize the inherent benefits of schooling while simultaneously recognizing its flaws/drawbacks. To say that schooling is not necessarily important to our success or helpful to our daily life would be incorrect, especially in today’s world. Gatto’s examples are certainly valid, and other ones like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates would serve his claim. But in today’s world, schooling is certainly still very relevant and important to one’s success, as are the non-school related activities Gatto would support.

It is important that I clarify my definition of “success.” I look at it more along Havel’s lines – not in some monetary or status-based fashion but instead in terms of personal growth, satisfaction, and personal development. As such, as I’ve already said, school is still crucially important. It is one’s foundation. It opens doors to new pathways, to new topics, and to people. However, much like Havel’s essay towards the end, human development and general knowledge is just as important to one’s own success. This sort of knowledge does not come from school and does come from explicitly non-academic arenas, including but not limited to clubs, sports, arts, business/entrepreneurship, etc. As such, I will finish by saying both school and literal extra-curricular are equally important to success as I so define it.