The passage by Goska hit me deeply, especially the line “The problem is not that we have so little power. The problem is that we don’t use the power that we have.” This is kinda bizarre, but this immediately made me think of my journey with my diet.

We as people are empowered in the decisions we make, and I think sometimes people forget that even in the mundane purchases of clothing, random goods, and FOOD, we are using our influence and power to put money into an industry or company. Ever since I learned of it at the age of 16, I’ve wanted to be vegan, and eat less animal products, due to the immense amount of cruelty and suffering animals go through in the factory farming process. There is also incredible benefits for the environment by choosing to lessen the meat/dairy industry.

I’ll admit, even though it’s 4 years later, my journey to reaching that diet/lifestyle hasn’t been easy. But these readings reminded me that we cannot rob ourselves of the power we do hold. Many of us have the ability to at least control what items we choose to purchase, how much waste we produce, etc., and even those choices can feel incredibly empowering. Overall, I just now feel even more excited to continue living my life according to my values, and making the decisions necessary to support those causes.

Our buddy, our good pal, Mayhem. He is played by Dean Winters, an actor for Allstate Home Insurance commercials. He is the embodiment of Mayhem, and in each commercial, he  represents a rather common, but often forgettable event/person that can cause damage to our your home. He’s been a cat, an aspiring beauty blogger, a bad cleaning lady, overly confident dog walker, and everyone’s favorite, a teenage girl.

The opening line is always ” I’m a ______” and the commercial ends with “keep yourself protected from mayhem … like me” Truly iconic. Every commercial is a surreal comedy, with violent, dry, and deadpan humor, with a grown man acting out these absurd skits. For the teenage girl commercial in particular, there was a wonderfully done balance of some accuracy to teenage girl speech/thoughts, but also a detached commentary on how absurd it is. A masterpiece, truly. The common phrases and hilarity burns the commercial, and the company Allstate, into our minds. I feel like we as humans also just adore characters in general, with their dynamic nature. In a similar way, we love Flo from Progressive. These characters gain a life of their own and gain a “fanbase,” but unlike celebrities, they are inherently bound to the companies they represent.

No matter the absurdity, however, there rings a deep kernel of truth in everything. What if some unforeseen event really does dame our homes or cars? It’s a constant fear that we often choose to conveniently forget. And so, overall, Allstate really does succeed. It reminds us consumers of these fears/wants, and then Allstate is here to say “we can offer you these services.” Well done, for sure. And its cut its own place into the culture of people my age.

Reading Bezio’s piece was so intriguing, as I haven’t reflected on the relationship between leaders in fiction and in real life for a while now. Going through all my leadership classes this semester and 102 last semester, I was deeply grounded into the reality of leadership, and maybe some sprinkles of normative stuff. However, when the reading went over the historical context of Shakespeare’s Pericles with Brexit, I was brought back to my LDST 101 brain over a year ago.

The fictional leader that I most remember was from All the King’s Men, Willie Stark. He added color and complexity to the concept of populism, whether one should represent the people or work hard to be of a superior morality to the masses. We also explored Machiavelli, Utopia by Thomas More, Major Barbara, and so on. While it was such a riveting class, I definitely see how over time, some of what I learned will naturally diffuse, as I now have to deal with the complexities of modern leaders.

But this reading reminded me that a healthy balance can be met. You can appreciate literary leaders and their traits, but it must be kept within the historical place of their literary world, and we as people have to recognize how our modern issues and conflicts might not correlate in a super meaningful way to these literary works.

It feels like throughout my classes this semester, including with my 210 class with Dr. Coetsee, I’m always learning more of the atrocities committed by Americans, for the sake of itself and its comforts. I was appalled at the details of how indigenous people were treated by Columbus and other colonizers, it was disgusting how dehumanizing it was. Earlier this semester, at a museum trip with my 210 class, we also learned more about black slaves during the trans Atlantic slave trade. There was an old layout of how slaves were stacked and kept in like domino pieces on the ships … and it was difficult to look at.

But it doesn’t stop there! Throughout modern times, the American government has sabotaged nations in Latin America, with covert operations taking place to ensure America remains a dominant force in these nation’s economies, even if at the result of civil war and lives lost. Even very close to home, as a Bangladeshi-American, America offered weapons and money to Pakistan during our Independence War, despite Pakistan being the one to massacre Bangladeshis and our educated. Why? So that America could build a connection with China, who Pakistan was in good terms with at the time.

With all this information on our minds, how can we say that we are proud to be Americans? In our 210 class, we spoke of sentimentalism vs. cynicism in regards to our national identity. On one hand, we cannot create a fantasy of what our nation is built on and who is has served. However, if we completely become cynical and remove ourselves from our American pride, we lose all the good the community can offer us. The power we can hold as a united national community of citizens to defend each other. The balance isn’t easy, and working through these readings, it becomes harder and harder.

When I learned that the reading by Goethals & Allison was about “mystery,” my mind immediately went to its implications in terms of attractions, especially what makes men attractive. I thought of a girl going “wowww, he’s just … sooo mysterious! Like … what is he even thinking???”

The reading definitely touched on it, calling mystery “essentially erotic” at times, and I thought it funny how David Gergen, regarding Ronald Reagan, “writes almost as if he is in love [with] Reagan.” That made me giggle. It really does seem that if a man is conventionally attractive and has a degree of stoicism, we instinctively fill them in as “heroes.” We are even fed this in the media, with many male love interests or protagonists holding this schema. It also makes total sense as to why this can further be extended to leaders, since society loves them being attractive males as well.

However, it seems like we have taken steps to reverse these stereotypes? Within romantic/sexual attraction, it is known that attractive men can use their “mysterious” charms to endanger women. Still … I am skeptical that we have made as many steps forward in regards to our leaders. The danger is that political leaders especially hold so much authority, that their villain-like behavior cane be disguised, censored, and so on. A cruel lover tends to be easier to spot and  be held liable than a cruel leader …

From the very beginning, I was intrigued by Von Rueden’s and van Vugt’s article, as I have had others sprinkle in “evolutionary psychology” quite often, but now I have some cold hard facts. My older brother has a PhD in school psychology, so I guess he’s reliable, but he’s still my brother …

From the get-go, it was a good reminder that “LSSs with extensive bureaucracies emerged only ~10,000 years ago” while we have lived “in SSSs for ~200,000 years, and our hominid ancestors for several millions of years.” It’s goes back to our lizard brains, and how we have a massssssive amount of years of evolutionary processes that have equipped us with patterns and instincts that simply do not serve us nowadays. I wanted to speak of one lizard brain factor in particular that the reading touches on a lot, but I continue to wonder how important it is to modern times.

The recurring factor/drive is that of reproductive success/sex/mating strategies. Ultimately, “the currency in evolution is reproductive success, i.e. representation of genes in subsequent generations.” In SSSs, this manifests in how leaders in SSSs would find a means of benefit from being a leader, and “mating strategies” is an evolutionary reason as to why women are less likely to be in leadership positions than men. While I don’t think this is mentioned explicitly in the text, it also seems like the perfect archetype for a leader in SSSs also correlate to the depiction of the most attractive type of man: masculine, physically fit, tall, broad, etc. I can definitely see how our lizard brain still manifests this in LSSs, but I do want to comment on how deeply mismatched this has become.

In our modern times, so much of our daily lives has mindfully made one independent, away from having children. Having a child has steadily become more and more difficult/detrimental for parents who want to devote themselves to their career. In addition, even when we reflect on sex, we now can compartmentalize the role of dating/sex in our lives to dating apps or our weekend nights out. It really is archaic to believe now that our purpose as humans is to reproduce, so it frustrates me that attractiveness, especially MALE attractiveness, still binds us when we make decisions on our leaders. This is nothing mind-blowing, but this rant of mine came about because of how this reading once again shed light on how our lizard brain perceives leadership and how fueled it is on physical survival and attraction.

Like others have mentioned, the prisoner’s dilemma and other dilemmas manifest themselves in a million+ fields and disciplines. The most impactful way I learned about the Tragedy of the Commons and Freeloading was in relation to international environmental policies. Given the limited and shared resource of oil, let’s say, it would be ideal for the planet if all nations decide to cut down. However, if one more nations don’t cut down, and instead reap benefits and take even MORE of the limited resource, we are left with the limited resource being just as diminished, and the good nations with environmental policies are suffering economically with no ultimate benefit for the planet. It is deeply frustrating, and this reading only made me reminded of it.

This was such an interesting read, as I have never found the lack of self-medication to be any sort of issue. While it was fascinating hearing her arguments, especially the example with the difference between a diabetic person wanting diet/exercise vs. insulin, there was still certain itching questions I couldn’t let go.

For one, in her championing of autonomy, it still seems like Flanigan supports being informed, in that patients will still have information readily available to them. However, she says individuals can “opt-out” from relevant information … huh? The prescription system makes sense to me because doctors spend years and years of studying to understand how drugs work for the body, but with self-medication … an average joe can just choose to be ignorant? Weird.

I am also skeptical that this self-medication will only stay within one’s self. What about accidents? I suppose accidents occur no matter what, but I just find the consequentalist framework more valuable for this issue than deontic.

Prior to this test, I have taken one or two other IATs, and I have learned about them in-depth in Dr. Hoyt’s 102 class. I was proud of my first IAT, as I was found to have no bias on any side. However, for this test, I received a slight bias towards the more societally “better” group. I expected as such, but I do feel frustrated that I hold this within me. But, considering that I felt like I knew I would have some bias, I can’t help but wonder if I came into the IAT with an explicit, self-fulfilling prophecy type thing. Either way, I know that I need to do better.

Learning about stereotype threats and how those in minority groups often under-perform when reminded of their status was frustrating for me, since even minority individuals themselves seem to allows the prejudice around them to hurt them. However, it also made me wonder … what can be said of minorities when they “ironically” joke about their identities? If they perpetuate their own group’s stereotypes through ironic jokes to their fellow community … is there any implications of this? I see this often within some friends in the past, and I never know how to feel about it …