I thought that this was a really timely reading. I think nothing makes me feel more powerless than literally not being able to leave my home. It seems that a lot of people that are not any type of healthcare worker feel powerless because it feels like you cannot actually help anyone. Though I understand that staying home is helping to flatten the curve and protect others from coronavirus it does not have that same satisfactory feeling of directly helping somebody in need. It is more of a long term project where you will not see results for a little while and I think that is what makes it more difficult to stay motivated. Additionally, it is annoying to see people that are not abiding by quarantine rules because it makes you feel as though your staying inside ultimately won’t count because there are other people that aren’t. If they aren’t paying attention to the advice of medical professionals, why should I?

The other area I most feel this type of powerlessness in is climate change. I often do feel like we are full speed ahead towards a climate apocalypse and the end of the conditions on earth that allow for human life. I have a lot of “eco-anxiety” and I think this especially because I feel like a majority of people either do not realize where we are headed or do not care. Additionally, solving our climate crisis is an area that would require the collaboration of a lot of people. Though I can do my personal best to reduce my impact, I cannot personally shut down, for example, all animal agriculture. When you feel like you are not around other similarly motivated people it feels like your impact doesn’t matter because it is outweighed by all these actions that hurt our planet. It is, however, like what Zinn said about the supernova at the end of the reading. When whatever the end of the planet looks like does come I do want to be able to say that I did give my best effort.

I watched a Ted Talk entitled “How to overcome our biases? Walk boldly toward them” by Verna Myers. In her talk, Myers mentioned many of the unwarranted killings of young black men. She cautioned that the same stereotypes and prejudices that resulted in the deaths of those young black men are inside us all because we have all grown up learning them. Myers wanted to give people advice on how to overcome their biases and prevent another Ferguson. She gave three main pieces of advice:

The first thing she said was to stop trying to deny our implicit bias. Myers does diversity seminars and sees people all the time trying to come up to her and claim that they are good people and don’t have any biases. The truth is that we all have biases whether or not we realize them. When times get difficult we lean on those biases that we did not even know we had. Myers urged listeners to stop trying to be colorblind because the problem is not that we see color it is the way we react when we see people that are not the same color as we are. Once we realize our bias we should actively work to disconfirm it. She said that we should all stare at awesome black people to help us dissociate black and negative. We need to go looking for our biases and disconfirm them. 

Next, she said that we need to move toward young black men and not away from them. Here she is asking us to walk towards discomfort. She challenges listeners to take inventory of their social and professional circles and take not of which people are missing from those circles and seek them out. We need to expand our circles and embrace any discomfort that might come with that. 

Finally, Myers urged us to remember to say something when we see something, even to the people closest to you. Biases move from generation to generation because younger people do not see racist behavior called out, which tells them that behavior is okay. We need to shelter children from racism so they do not internalize it and act on it. We should work to create the expectation that if anyone sees racist behavior they will say something.

I watched the TedTalk “What it takes to be a great leader” by Roselinde Torres. She started the talk by saying that the image that many of us carry of a great leader is outdated. She said that many of us are thinking of “this all-know superhero who stands and commands and protects his followers.” This image is no longer relevant to the world that we are living in or will ever live in again. 

The research she did was motivated by the problem many companies are having in finding good leaders. Many companies are investing more time and resources in developing leaders, but they still fail to develop strong leaders. Torres was looking to solve this problem by answering the question: What makes a greater leader in the 21st century? She answered this question in the form of three other questions that would be asked to potential leaders.

The first question was, where are you looking to anticipate change? With this question, she is trying to emphasize that leaders should be shaping their own future not just reacting to what comes at you. She thinks that companies should be asking their potential leaders who they are spending time with, what topics they are learning about, where they are traveling, what they are reading, etc. The hope is that this will translate into an effective plan to prepare for the future.

The second question was, what is the diversity measure of your network? This question is about a leader’s ability to make connections with people that are different from them. Are they able to form connections outside of just the group they are used to and comfortable? They need to establish connections such that very different people are able to collaborate and work towards the same goals effectively. A diverse network is beneficial because it gives you a wider variety of perspectives and solutions to potential problems.

The third question was, are you courageous enough to abandon the past? Here she is saying that a good leader should not just be using strategies that have worked for them in the past. Nobody wants a leader that is unable to get out of their comfort zone because they will be unable to adapt as things change. 

http://livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1988

“Bay” was probably my favorite ad from the 1988 Presidential Election. A lot of the Bush ads were attack ads on Dukakis, so it was nice to see him fighting back against them. I especially liked this because some of the information provided said that several of the Bush’s attack ads stated incorrect information about Dukakis, which ultimately changed opinions of him and played a role in Dukakis losing the election. This made me like to see Dukakis trying to write some of those wrongs.

“Bay” was largely about environmental issues and basically stated that Dukakis was the better candidate on environmental issues. It also listed a bunch of ways that Bush had worked to support policies that harmed the environment. To me, environmental issues are really important and I think this ad gave Dukakis a huge edge over Bush in that arena, especially considering Bush said nothing in any of his ads about helping the environment.

http://livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1988

I also liked the ad “On Your Side.” It fought back against some of the rumors Bush was spreading about Dukakis. It also clearly outlined where Dukakis stands on a variety of issues. I also liked that some of these issues were issues that Bush never touched on, so it gave us a look at how Dukakis will work on a wide variety of issues. The only reason this was not my favorite ad was because it was a little long at 4 minutes and 20 seconds. That really would not hold my attention and there is no chance I would watch the whole thing, but I do understand that in 1988 people might have been watching more commercials than people now can tolerate.

One of my favorite ads is the Steve Carell, Lil Jon and Cardi B Pepsi ad from the 2019 Superbowl. After doing the reading for Monday it is pretty clear why this ad caught my attention. First of all, it has several celebrities in it which we know will make it more favorable. Steve Carell is probably my all-time favorite actor, so that is what drew my attention. I think that for a commercial, Steve Carell is pretty funny in it. I actually remember that the first time I saw it I went back and watched it again (which is weird to do with a commercial normally I wouldn’t pay attention the first time I saw it). Additionally, the ad is fast-paced and has a lot going on visually, so the viewer is never really bored. Right at the beginning of the commercial Steve Carell compares a Pepsi to a puppy, a shooting star, and a child’s laughter. Right off the bat, we have comparisons between Pepsi and several things that make most people happy. Additionally, it has the endorsement of several notable celebrities and if they like it why wouldn’t I?

Another one of my favorite commercials is a David Pastrnak (a hockey player for the Boston Bruins) commercial for Dunkin. One of the primary reasons I like this ad is again because it has a celebrity (at least a celebrity among hockey fanatics) that I am a huge fan of. Not only is David Pastrnak my favorite hockey player, but I also grew up watching and playing hockey so everything in the commercial appeals to me. There are a couple of subtle hockey jokes that I find funny because I understand the game. The only time I remember seeing this ad aired was during Bruins games, so most people that watch the ad will likely be attracted to it in the same way that I am.

I do not, however, feel like these commercials really encouraged me to buy the product. I do not drink soda frequently and if I do I am much more likely to drink Coke over Pepsi despite this commercial. I already go to Dunkin sometimes and this ad did not make me increases that frequency. Maybe they somehow have subconsciously but based on my current consumption habits that seems unlikely. I think these were more just commercials that I could tolerate watching, but they did not do much to change the way I think about the brand.

Before spring break I went to talk in the Law School by Trish O’Dell entitled “Should Nature Have Legal Rights.” This talk was centered around the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, which I have previously learned only a little bit about in my Environmental Law and Policy class. A group of citizens wanted to give Lake Erie a Bill of Rights because it is a really crucial resource that is not being protected adequately. Though this Bill of Rights was later overturned, it still made a big impact on the way we think about natural resources because it allowed a much wider audience to be exposed to the idea of rights of nature. 

The Lake Erie Bill of Rights illustrated that we need more than just a law when it comes to changing how we care for nature, we need a culture change. Right now we are so stuck in the mindset that we have the right to use any part of nature that we want to. But the reality is, we have no right to harm nature, certainly not at the rate that we are currently. This comes down to an issue of the tragedy of the commons, which we talked about a couple of weeks ago. We have all been using nature to benefit ourselves close to as much as we want for so long without truly considering the longterm impacts of that behavior. Soon we will be left with an earth that is no longer inhabitable.

O’Dell also pointed out how our leaders are failing us on the environmental front. There are have been almost no environmental regulations since the 1970s and 1980s. They are so hard to get passed because our country is polarized and so divided that people cannot agree on what to pass. Even though we do have some environmental regulation, things are worse now than ever before despite these regulations. The current system of environmental protection is based on a regulatory fallacy. We are only regulating the harm that continues to happen, we are not actually doing anything to stop it. We are only trying to mitigate the impacts of continued harm. It is disappointing that our leaders do not make better decisions for the environment. It feels like a failure to the people they represent because if we don’t protect that natural world we do not have a future. O’Dell emphasized the power of the people to advocate for what we want and think is right and the power to vote and shift who has power.

In the beginning of the Harvey article, it was really made clear how many different disciplines leadership studies encapsulates. I am struggling to think of many situations in which there is no leader, in school, we have professors, in clubs we have presidents, in sports, we have a captain, etc. Leadership studies is really formed by looking at a variety of other disciplines and putting together what you can learn about ethical leadership from them, which I think is really cool because it provides us the opportunity to focus on such a variety of areas.

I thought that Harvey’s seven questions were an interesting way of thinking about leadership. My main takeaway from the article was how useful it is to be charismatic (something we talked a lot about in 101) and, related to that, the importance of communication. Towards the end of the article, Harvey really stressed how important it is for leaders to be able to clearly communicate identity, where they currently stand, where they are going, etc. It is important to be able to communicate this clearly for people to trust you as a leader and believe in the group’s plan. This reminded me of charisma because so much of charisma is related to your ability to communicate on a deep, emotional level with people. A charismatic would definitely be able to communicate well and that would help them be a good leader. I saw some of these same ideas in the Bezio article when she talked about the importance of a united people and a people that like their leader. A lot of this affection for a leader will come from their ability to communicate effectively.

Both of these readings made me think about how frequently we oversimplify history. If you think about the version you hear about the stories in today’s readings they paint a much different picture than the reality of history. It is so much easier to teach children an oversimplified version of history than the whole story, which makes sense but becomes problematic down the line. A lot of people do not bother to reconsider the stories they have learned and educate themselves more later on. The Zinn reading, in particular, emphasized the fact that there are so many different ways to tell history and it becomes difficult to actually get simply the facts of what happened because every historian comes with a different perspective. When he said, “the historian’s distortion is more than technical, it is ideological; it is released into a world of contending interests, where any chosen emphasis supports (whether the historian means to or not) some kind of interest, whether economic or political or national or sexual” it really summed up the issue of different tellings of history. The details you choose to include or exclude do serve a purpose and represent a different ideology.

These readings also reminded me a lot of what we’ve been talking about in my Justice and Civil Society class. The other day in class we talked about patriotism and what that means in terms of accepting American history. There are a lot of negative points throughout American history, so much to the point that it is easy, at least for me, to look at all of it as negative. We talked about how in remembering history it is, from some people’s point of view, important to walk the line between cynicism and sentimentality, meaning it is important to remember not only all the bad parts and not only all the good parts. These readings really made me consider these ideas because they did bring up a lot of the bad parts of American history. It is easy for me to only think about the negatives, which I think you could argue are more important to consider and remember, and view every part of our history is tainted by a negative it is somehow connected to.

During the beginning of the Mystery and Meaning reading, I was thinking about how people always say how important it is to make a good first impression. The first part of this article proved why that is actually so important. People take the first information that is given about you to make other assumptions about you that will round out who you are and help them to better understand you, though those assumptions might actually be very incorrect. This makes sense to me because we do not like to have unanswered questions lingering in our minds, but it is also really annoying because the first impression you make on somebody might not be representative of who you are as a person. Maybe you are having a bad day and are in a really bad mood when you meet someone for the first time and they hold onto this image of you that is not accurate because it is based on that one experience. I was reminded about a scene in The Office in which Dwight is talking about Pam and says that the first time they met he did not like her and ever since then she’s been lovely and easy to work with, but he still hates her regardless. I wonder to what extent that could actually be true for someone. After that section of the reading, I am wondering how long that first impression actually lasts/if you can ever get rid of it completely.

Also throughout the Mystery and Meaning reading, I was thinking about what it means for female leaders. It was talking a lot about how if we do not have the full story on someone or something we fill in some of that information based on what we have seen in the past. But, in the past, we have had very few females leaders so it would probably be harder to just fill in some of this missing information. I was thinking about implicit leadership theories and the prototype matching hypothesis, which both have historically negative impacts on female leaders because women do not match what most people are used to seeing in the past and thus make it more difficult for them to hold leadership positions.

Every time I read about the Stanford Prison Experiment I find it to be really scary. It illustrates that you can never truly know how you will act in any given situation that you have not encountered before. It is always easiest to think that you will always do the right thing, but that is by no means ever guaranteed. Though you might have a strong moral compass, you can still be pushed to extremes that cause you to act in a manner outside of those morals. It’s scary to think that, despite how well you think you know yourself, you cannot even truly predict your own behavior.

I thought that the Methods of Gathering Scientific Evidence helped me start to see what Dr. Bezio mentioned very briefly, the way that statistics can be problematic. There are so many different types of studies and methods of gathering evidence that all come with their different pros and cons. These different methods all show certain information and leave out other information. People that are unaware of the ways that different types of studies fall short could fall into different traps. For example, if people just read a one-sentence summary or a statistic that comes of out of correlational research they might mistake it for causation and take it to mean more than it actually does.

I thought that the second article gave a pretty good summary of the many different aspects of leadership you look at in 101 and 102. The sections on leadership in large-scale societies reminded me a lot of what we talked about last week with implicit biases. It seems like in small-scale societies they made better decisions about who should be a leader because they did not make as many decisions based on implicit biases. Though leadership in small-scale and large-scale societies has flaws, I feel like the main reason certain groups cannot become leaders in large-scale societies is because of these implicit biases that many people hold. Certain groups do not fit the image of traditional leaders we have had in the past and thus they have more difficulty becoming a leader.