Is My GPA Salvageable?

After [accidently] blowing off the first online quiz for my Intro. to Global Studies class, I got a bit worried that I had permanently screwed myself. Especially consider that at the time, I thought that I needed a minimum of a B for the class to count towards my major (I just looked it up, and the minimum for anything to count towards your major is a C, phew).

The second online quiz was an essay one, which I just got back: 49/50 points. Glowing praise in the comments section.

Aww. Yes, I would definitely recommend Peyi Soyinka-Airewele if your looking for a decent politics prof.

The actual class however, I’m still not too sure of. It’s a general education lecture class, so… I’m surrounded by people who talk, etc., during the entire class. I’m not necessarily complaining, but… Well, I am kind of complaining, aren’t I?

Regardless, I decided I might as well post two of the quasi-essays that I wrote. They are quite good, considing I only spent an hour and a half writing four of them, while multi-tasking on AIM, etc.

Only going to do spelling errors, I don’t have the stamina currently to edit more thoroughly.

To create a functional state, the government leaders must integrate the entire populace into the society as seamlessly as possible. This is done through a variety of ways.

Firstly, the state must exercise it’s dominance over the populace. One main purpose of the state is to eliminate violence among the population, leaving violence as a tool of the state, so that it may be used to domesticate the populace. Thus the state must have a monopoly over violence in any society, to retain proper authority.

Another tool wielded by the state is xenophobia. To unite the populace, the government might create an ‘outside force’ with which to rail against. This is an effective way of uniting the populace under a common banner: coming together to defeat a common enemy. Examples of this can be seen throughout history; Spain during the Spanish Inquisition, Germany (during unification, against Austria, and also the alienation of Jews during the 30′s and 40′s), and even today, in America, against the Muslim religion.

To unite the people, however, there must also be something that makes them associate themselves with the state, to see the entire population as being a member of the state, and not of a cultural or geographical group. The easiest way for this to be instituted, is by standardizing the language, bureaucracy (law), and education. Robbins uses the example of France, which I’ll continue upon.

Even after France had been a united state for some time, much of the rural population still identified themselves as part of a smaller sub-group — not many would have called themselves “French.” To alleviate this, the state instituted a standardized language: French. It was essential that the younger generations learned and embraced this standardized language. Then they would all have something in common.

Secondly, the government had to seep into every rural area of France. Without constant contact with the government, the rural populace would not feel nationalistic, and would not join the military, or pay taxes, or identify themselves as French. Thus the state built roads, railroads, homogenized the markets, etc.

Finally, the most crucial part, is education. The state must indoctrinate the young pupils with the ideologies of the state. Uniform, mandatory education is an easy way to achieve this. And within several generations, it was wildly successful in France.

And the other decent one:

State sovereignty is a hinderance when looking to protect the rights of individuals and groups. According to the reigning beliefs of state sovereignty, it describes a state which is free from interference from other, seperate states. Accordingly then, there is no fundamental right to interfere in another state’s domestic policies, for any purpose whatsoever.

Absolutes are extremely dangerous. While state sovereignty might seem like a beneficial ideal most of the time (especially for weak or minority states), the idea of no interference whatsoever comes into direct conflict with basic human compassion where human rights abuses are concerned.

History is ripe with examples of when state sovereignty should of been ignored, and humanity embraced. Although it’s like beating a dead horse, Nazi Germany immediately springs to mind. Outside nations knew what Hitler was advocating, from the very point when he was elected in the thirties. Although the general consensus is that no one knew how badly things had gotten until foreign troops were marching through Germany after the war, I find this to be unlikely at best. The ability of foreign governments to be ignorant of the full extent of Nazi atrocities would be surprising; their ability to ignore the information and to not disseminate it to the public, would not surprise me nearly as much. I see state sovereignty as part of an explanation as to why Germany was allowed to do as they did.

The Armenian Genocide is another example of state sovereignty used as an excuse to ignore the systematic execution of fellow human beings.

As far as I know, there was also no international outcry as the American government systematically destroyed an entire culture, while methodically continuing the business of buying and selling humans on another front. I’m sure state sovereignity was used to defend the newly formed American state, and the reason to ignore such human rights abuses must of been swiftly embraced.

I can think of no better way of securing the rights of groups and societies, than by the creation of an international body dedicated to justice, peace and human rights; an organization that is prepared to subjugate powerful, rogue nations. An international ruling body which is ignored by those who deem their state a higher authority than the international agency, whom decide to lay down the law of the land regardless of international sentiment; such a ruling body is weak and ultimately ineffective.