Author: Ellen Curtis

Ever since Donald Trump entered the political arena it feels like tensions between politicians and the press have been heightened. I feel like I never really noticed this before, but ever since I started paying attention to Trump it is clear that he does not get along with the media in a way that can be considered funny. This reading, however, pointed out to me that tensions between press and politicians have existed for a long time. This theme did not start with Trump, but certainly became more apparent. He criticizes the press very publicly and everyone sees it. I think the language he uses is also what makes it so clear that he may never get along with the press. Other politicians might be a little more secretive about their issues with press and use less harsh language so people don’t pick up on it in quite the same way.

To me, the article seemed to show that tension with the press has picked as our country has become more and more polarized. I wish we had never created partisan media outlets. These outlets only feed into our current problems. They also work to solidify people’s confirmation bias. Many people might be unclear on the truth of situation because they only know what members of their own party think about the issue and how it is presented in their media, rather than the actual facts.

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For his talk Yasha Levine started out by showing a video that was “A Kid’s Guide to the Internet.” He used this video to start off his talk on a positive, funny note because he knew that this topic was not lighthearted. People once viewed the internet as having a lot of promise to create a new world. Overtime, however, people have become more and more fearful of the internet and concerned about its power. Levine pointed out that the world has a lot more problems now than it did at the start of the tech era and the internet, so clearly hopes for the internet were not reality. Still, it was not until more recently that many people became more concerned about the internet. The 2016 election can be considered a turning point in fear of the internet. Levine, however, argues that this fear is based on the false perception that the 2016 election was the first time the internet had been used to sway an election or do something similar. Levine argues that there was never a moment when the internet was not a weapon.

The internet is by no means an innocent technology. Many people are not starting to realize that is has been weaponized in a way so powerful that it was even able to throw an election. Some people go so far as to call hijacking the internet a weapon of war. Levine even mentioned that one of his congressmen refers to hijacking the internet as equivalent to Pearl Harbor. The internet has always been and remains, though more powerful than people originally thought it would be, an information weapon. This is not a new phenomenon, as the internet has been used as a method of spreading propaganda and surveilling people since at least the 1990s. It even had implications before then. Levine mentioned technology and the internet’s connection to the Vietnam War, which was particularly relevant given what we discussed in class. Technology is a new kind of war that we will need to find a new way to fight against.

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I feel like I have never learned much about the Vietnam war or the protests taking place in the U.S. during that time. I had heard of some of the events mentioned in that video, such as the Kent state protests, but I never really realized how these events were connected. I had also learned that this was a war the people heavily protested and knew that some people refused to be drafted. My elementary school principal was sent to prison for refusing to be drafted, which is something I have always though about. It seems incredibly unfair that there were so many loopholes to get out of the draft. Based on what was mentioned in the video, it seems that those were most accessible for more affluent populations, such as people that could afford to go to college.

I had never thought much about the impacts that the Vietnam war would have on specific population. Previous classes have never taught me about the disproportionate number of African Americans dying the war. I found it interesting to hear comments from people representing black Americans about why they would refuse to serve, but it makes complete sense. Why would you go to war when you have an especially high change of dying? It’s even less fair than it already was. I also found MLK’s comments about the amount of money spent on the war compelling. He said that it was estimated that $322,000 dollars was spent for each person killed in Vietnam, whereas in the war on poverty, only $53 was spent on each person classified as poor. This information would make me question the priorities of my government.

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In his talk, Sean Theriault was presenting a current work in progress, which was interesting because there were still some unanswered questions and date yet to be filled in. Even so, I feel like I learned a lot about why we have so much political gridlock. This talk was about the decline of bipartisanship in Congress. He started off by telling us about how unique the senate is because it takes 60 votes to get anything done. This means that Congressmen must consult with people outside of their party in order to get anything passed. Thus, bipartisanship is required in Congress. I think this decline in bipartisanship is related to the lowering public opinion of the Senate. Only 25% of people believe that the senate is going a good job. Surveying has shown that the language used to describe Congress is almost never positive never positive. Furthermore, people said they prefer head lice, traffic jams, the country of France, and root canals to Congress. 

Party polarization has grown overtime and become a problem for our Senate. In the 1950s senators were senators before they were members of a political party. Now senators are so concerned with the wants of their political party that fewer laws are enacted because compromises cannot be made. Too much partisanship and narrow thinking does not lead to practical problem solving. Few senators are able to exercise free will because there is a lot of pressure from their party and constituents to act one way.  Theriault pointed out a couple really interesting ways we can see that people in Senate are getting along less with members of the opposite party than they used to. There is less and less participation in events like seersucker Thursday and secret santa. Previously, these used to be activities that members of both parties would participate in. 

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Both of these stories were pretty shocking. I remember reading The Lottery in an english class and high school, but I was still equally interested reading it for the second time because the ending is so unexpected. This story has always kind of reminded me of The Hunger Games, which I think has a very similar premise to both of these stories.

I think both stories were good illustrations of groupthink. It was clear that people in both of these towns understood that what they were doing was wrong. In fact there are people in both stories that either try to suggest that there are other better ways to live that do not require such brutality, or that simply cannot take learning of what is going on in the town and leave. These ideas, however, are called crazy and shut down. The idea of not having a lottery each year seemed foolish to some members of the town. These people shutting down the idea of cancelling the lottery are acting as mind guards and keeping out new ideas. It seems easier for these people to live with their current situation than to actually do something about it. Also, nobody wants to be the first person to seriously propose a change.

Both of these stories were kind of illustrating that there is no such thing as a perfect society. Even the happiest of societies have some flaw that is allowing them to be that way. The stories suggested that not everyone can be happy. Some person is always going to end up unhappy, but one person being unhappy is worth it if it makes the rest of society happy. Having this one example of an unhappy person seems to be a way of maintain control over society. It shows people how they could end up if they don’t conform to the societal norms that allow people to operate the way they do. The stories, however, also suggest to me that having on person imprisoned, or otherwise harmed, leaves everyone else imprisoned to a certain extent because they know they must conform and they know that everything is not perfect.

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I found both of these readings to be interesting tellings of history that I had heard a little about before, but probably did not know the full story of. It was not until this year that I learned that Abraham Lincoln was a racist. I think he typically has a good reputation because he is remembered for emancipating slaves, but this is not something that he did willingly. He basically just did whatever was in his political favor. When slavery was not as profitable as it had once been he decided that it was then time to emancipate the slaves. It is annoying to watch out politicians do what is in their best interests for gaining power, rather than what is morally right. I saw this repeated through both chapters. I was so annoyed reading about Truman claiming he was going to do something when he was not taking advantage of his powers as president and using legislation that was already enacted.

I think both chapters illustrated how much power the people have. Even if legislation is passed on something, if the majority of people do not agree with it or do not abide by it then it really does not matter. For example, even when there were civil rights laws on the books that should have made violence against black Americans illegal, if the general population still has animosity toward black people these laws will not mean much and not truly be enforced. Another situation of laws existing, but doing nothing  occurs right after slavery was ending. Though all slaves were technically free citizens now, there was no way for them to be successful in America because they were entering a society built on their backs, but not built for them. There was no way for them to acquire land and they ended up being tied to white men by working on their land yet again.

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I think that this article really illustrated the idea of “power to the people.” If you can motivate a lot of people to care about an issue you can make a lot of progress. Many of the instances of rebellion described in the reading were situations of the poor being upset about wealth disparity in the colonies. This was not the most powerful group in society by any means. The poor, however were able to get a large group of people together to illustrate how they felt about the issue and that was impactful. It was a real case of strength in numbers. If you are able to get the masses upset enough about an issue, actions will be taken.

I found the part of the reading that talked about “the myth of the Revolution– that it was on behalf of a unified people,” to be very interesting. The Revolution was being caused by a large group of colonists, many of which wanted different things. Despite them all wanting different things, they all had a similar end goal that they thought would further their cause. I think that this goes to show that it is still possible to lead a group that is motivated by different things, to a common goal. The leader just needs to understand the different motivations and target them.

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The Miller reading really made it clear to me how much we are all missing out on by having these systems of domination and subordination. In this system the dominant group misses out on anything the subordinate group could teach them. Anything that the subordinate group does differently, thought they might be doing it better, is considered outside the norm and never accepted. This seems like such a detriment to people, especially in a country like the U.S. that is considered “a melting pot” with such a wide variety of people and cultures to learn from. Miller also mentioned that the subordinate group misses out on learning about themselves because they are always working on learning about the people dominating them in order to please them. This system is doing a disservice to both the subordinated and the dominate.

When Miller was talking about temporary inequality I was thinking a lot about how useful the power that comes along with the abilities of the superior if they are unable to effectively teach this ability to another person. Yes, they might technically have the upper hand in this relationship, but they likely gain little respect from the people that are supposedly inferior to them. The example I was thinking about was if I had a teacher that was just terrible at communicating the material they were supposed to. In my experience they gain little respect from the class and are generally looked down upon because they are unable to do their job, the thing they are supposed to be good at. Though, in this instance students cannot overtly do anything to challenge the teacher there are smaller acts of resistance that undermine their power. In this situation I think the lesser people do have a little more power than they may typically be given credit for because they have the ability to undermine the power of the superior and that can really reduce their effectiveness.

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Raymond Arsenault, the featured speaker at this Marshall Center Lecture, described the life of Arthur Ashe, which he learned so much about when he wrote his book Arthur Ashe: A Life. Ashe is a well known tennis player and probably the most famous person to come out of Richmond. Growing up in Richmond was not easy, as Ashe had to grow up under the Jim Crow laws. In high school Ashe moved to St. Louis, a more liberal city. Tennis is a predominantly and breaking into it as a black man was no easy feet. I was really shocked when Arsenault talked about a coach Ashe had, who told him that if a ball a white person hit was out, but close to the line he should hit to avoid any conflict. To me, that story really illustrated how difficult it was for him to be a black athlete breaking into a predominantly white sport. Furthermore, he was doing this with the backdrop of the civil rights movement, which is father asked him not to get involved in.

The focus of this lecture, however, was on how Ashe was a greater human being than he was an athlete. Arsenault made a point to illustrate that Ashe transcends the world of sports and was an example of civility with courage. Arsenault talked about what an intellectual Ashe was and that he was engaged with the world in every way. His best trait was what a good listener he is. He always wanted to hear what other people had to say, even if it wasn’t something he agreed with and this is the essence of civility. Ashe also seemed to give so much. He created the National Junior Tennis League and used Tennis as a method to teach inner city kids life skills. Ashe was constantly asked to give workshops to kids and he never said no even when he had so many obligations. Even better, he never asked for a penny for it. Ashe’s aim was to give as much of himself to these kids as he could. He was not looking to take credit, he was looking for anyway to help others.

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I found the section in the Bass article about leader-member exchange (LMX) to be interesting. Bass says that LMX can be perceived as both transactional and transformational leadership. It takes place in stages through which trust, loyalty and respect between the leader and follower can develop. At the start LMX is transactional, but by the end it is transformational. This idea made sense to me. It seems hard to jump right into a transformational leadership relationship without developing some trust between followers and leaders. If followers are reliable in doing what is asked of them by the leader, then eventually they can develop the relationship where there can be more give and take between the leader and follower. This seemed like a good halfway point between transactional and transformational leadership.

I was also interested by the sections of the Bass article that discussed women. Women are typically seen as more transformational leaders, rather than transactional. Being more transformational leaders means that women are likely more effective leaders. This is interesting because are implicit bias often tells us that women would not be as strong of leaders. In reality, however, they might be better equipped then men to be leaders because they trend towards transformation leadership. I assume that women that are often disliked in the workplace are those that practice more transactional leadership because they might not have the typical “feminine” qualities that supposedly make women better transformational leaders.

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I really enjoyed the way this reading was written. I thought it communicated the information in a way that was easy to read and understand. I also felt like I learned a lot from the examples provided that I had never learned in history classes I’ve taken throughout my education. This reminded me of the what we have talked about in class about the way history is taught to American youth and the way it should be. I think it would be beneficial for children to learn more about what made certain figures good leaders and others bad leaders. It would be better for them to know why people were able to be successful rather than just what they were successful in.

I had never thought about how important it was for a leader to realize that they are not infallible. In hindsight it makes sense because we have set up a system with checks and balances because we know that our leaders have faults and make mistakes. If a leader knows they are fallible they will be less afraid to admit when they make mistakes and thus more easily able to fix mistakes. I also feel like this can help prevent the leader’s rosy halo and humanize leaders. By admitting that they have faults, leaders will be put up on less of a pedestal and followers will be more likely to be unafraid to question their actions and keep them in check with the values of the people people.

This article further reenforced in my mind that we are in uncertain times under the Trump administration. We are on uncertain ground by having a leader that seems to have no humility. He see himself as perfect, which is dangerous for a president who has real power to make the lives of millions more difficult.

 

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I found these readings to be really timely given the climate strike taking place on Friday. I think people today frequently forget that individual and community actions can go farther than they think. We have come to rely so heavily on our leaders to create change for us when that simply is not always going to be the most effective way to get things done. It is important that we remeber to take it upon ourselves to create change. In terms of the environmental movement, it feels like people often rely on the President and Congress to make changes to improve the health of our environment, but forget that their actions, even if they are small, will accrue and can cause change. With the political gridlock we have in D.C. it is unlikely for serious changes to be made, especially considering that there has been no environmental legislation passed since 1990, unless we demand it. We need to take responsibility for our earth and each do what we can to help save the planet. We all need to be advocates for the movements like this that we believe in. 

It was also interesting to read the “Leader’s and Followers” section during a time where the U.S. is so politically polarized. The Trump Administration is incredibly controversial and people that do not agree with his politics can feel helpless or powerless. It is important to remebers that followers do not need to be submissive to the whims of their leaders and have more power than they believe. The President is still deeply influenced by the wants and needs of the people he leads. Even if Trump has a political ideology opposite yours, we still have the ability to influence his decision making by demonstrating our expectations and demanding action.

Finally The Allegory of the Cave was interesting to learn about during a time when people are asking for so much change. It illustrated to me that we can not accept the world as it is, but instead strive for something better. Though we will never live in a perfect world we can always be making progress. We should not just sit back and accept the problems that we see in the world but actually get up and do something about them and prove that the world can be better.

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I would say that King Charles did not deserve to be executed. It is important, however, to note that a large part of my answer is because I could not live with another person’s blood on my hands. Morally, I cannot accept sentencing another person to death. This might not be exactly what the question is looking for as a response, but it is a significant part of my reasoning. 

I found the arguments on both sides of the issue to be compelling. I can see how the country would not be able to operate at all if they are constantly in fear of their leader undermining them and acting in his own best interest intead of the interests of his people. It is impossible to have a monarchy last very long if your ruler cannot be trusted. Furthermore, the harm he did to the country and his people was significant and cannot be overlooked. I can understand why it would be difficult to remain loyal to a king that devastates your country and potentially, more personally, your family. That is someone I would want gone immediately. I still do not, however, believe that he needs to be beheaded, but I can see that in those times that would be the realistic way of getting rid of a monarch.

To me, it was very telling that the process of his trial was hardly democratic and that few of the men nominated to the High Court of Justice actually attended the proceedings. It was difficult to get enough men to attend the proceedings and actually vote for him to be executed. Furthermore, the reaction of the crowd when he was beheaded was not that of people who viewed him as a traitor and the fact that people committed suicide because they felt so guily about sentencing him to execution speaks volumes. Though I think King Charles had proven a danger to his country, I do not believe the solution was a beheading

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At first glance, I believe Tyrannicide is impossible to justify morally. However, the readings we did this weak illustrated how and why people have been able to justify it in the past. From a utilitarian perspective I would argue that tyrannicide does, in fact, make sense. If killing a tyrant leader will free the most people and increase the overall happiness of the world, then it is the best possible option. However, that is purely hypothetical and in practice tyrannicide seems much more complicated. For example, you do not know who will take over following the death of the current tyrant leader. It could be someone that takes advantage of an unsure time to become a tyrant leader themself and then the population are surely no better off than before. Furthermore, what if that society is not equipped to move from one leader to the next and does not have enough government structure in place for an easy transition. In theory tyrannicide sounds like it could be effective, but in practice would be far more complex than the utilitarian view makes it out to be. Furthermore, it is morally hard for me to sit with the idea that somebody had to die for the benefit of others.

Throughout George’s article there were a variety of explanations for how tyrannicide and terrorism are similar and differ. There were so many provided that I could see the validity in that I am unsure if I think of terrorism and tyrannicide as the same or different. One strong argument for terrorism and tyrannicide being different was how targets are chosen. In a terrorist event, there is almost nothing that the victim or victims could have done to prevent themselves from being targeted. Tyrannicide, on the other hand, is highly predicatable and there are a limited number of potential victims. In tyrannicide it is far more clear who the victim will be and why there are being targeted. One strong argument for terrorism and tyrannicide being similar is that in both situations the person committing the act views what they are doing as right. They believe that their actions will be a net gain for the world. Though it seems that in terroism this more of a niche belief and not necessarily believed to be true by the majority of the population. The motivation behind killing the victim, however, does appear to be the same. There are many ways that tyrannicide and terrorism could be thought of as similar or different, mkaing it difficult to decide if I believe they are more similar or more different.

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Before doing this week’s reading I had never given much thought to how I would define charisma. It was definitely a word I used, but not one that I had a definition for. It is something easily identifiable in a person, but much more difficult for me to define in general terms. Social scientists have multiple ways of defining charisma, that ultimately all overlap in one way or another. The traits commonly found in charismatic people did not come as a shock to me. Charismatic people are typically emotionally expressive, enthusiastic, drive, eloquent, visionary, responsive and self-confident. Most of these characteristics have to do with a person’s ability to communicate well with others. Being well spoken around others is just as important  Charismatic people draw others to them easily because they know how to communicate well.

I found it very interesting that charismatic leadership involves more than just a charismatic leader. The followers’ relationship to the leader as well as situational characteristics are also important. When all three of these aspects interact correctly, charismatic leadership can take place. It is not just about the charismatic leader or the devoted followers, but also the situation this relationship takes place in is what is most conducive to  a charismatic leadership situation. 

Throughout the reading I was wondering if the traits that make somebody charismatic could be trained and this was touched on a little bit towards the end of the article. There has been little research done on the possibility of increasing charisma, but theoretically it appears to be possible because many of the components of charisma could be trained. For example, in a project conducted at the University of California Riverside that focused on improving both verbal and nonverbal communication skills, the participants that went through some training were said to be improved in several traits that help make up charisma. Thinking back to our conversation on Wednesday, this leads me to believe that leaders are often made not born.

 

 

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Hero

Leader

Role Model (Right)

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