Roots of War Seminar Reflection
1) During the seminar, when we were talking about the author’s motives for putting in a statement about past attempts of abolishing war, and their ineffectiveness, there were thoughts circulating that it was impossible to abolish war, when the comment was made that it might be possible to abolish war. This comment stuck out to me because I’ve always associated human conflict with war. After thinking about it though, I realized this wasn’t the case and that smaller conflicts between smaller groups are impossible to control, so to an extent I agree with this comment. Although it is established that human conflict is a reoccurring thing that may not always be associated with war, human conflict has in past been associated with war several times, so many times, in fact, that originally I had been lead to believe that human conflict always resulted in war. This comment caught me by surprise, when I realized that I had made an automatic association with something that wasn’t necessarily correct, which only lead me to wonder how many other things I connect together without fully realizing it.
2) This topic made me change my thinking about the motives of war. It wasn’t necessarily comments that made me change my thinking, but my own thoughts, that made me think that war wasn’t entirely internal or external, but maybe even unavoidable. In philosophy, we recently discussed the difference between free will and determinism. The ground soldiers obviously don’t have any free will, as commanders order them around, but at the root of it all, I think that determinism comes into play. I think that war is kind of predestined in the sense that a nation’s governmental decision may give another nation reason to oppose it, and as more and more decisions like the previous are made, things only escalate and end up in chaotic results. Because there is never a decision that can be made without an opposition, essentially, a disagreement could pre determine a war.
3) Obviously, one of my connections in this class was with the free will vs. determinism debate in philosophy. Another connection I made though was an idea I developed a while ago, which was that when somebody is exposed to something constantly at a young age, the subject would do one of two things, continue the action regularly, or be able to restrain themselves from the temptation if the action is undesirable. This connection had to do with violent behavior and how exposure to violence at an early age affects the person, although usually the latter is seen less commonly in the specific topic of violence.
4) I think I was strongest in this particular seminar in the area of clarification, because I was constantly clarifying comments, asking questions, and assisting the group to understand a certain concept. Unfortunately, I feel like because there was so much to clarify, I monopolized the conversation, which has always been a problem with me. I intend to fix this by waiting at least 3 seconds to see if somebody has asked a question that the group is obviously having trouble answering, and then try to clarify it for the group myself.
2) This topic made me change my thinking about the motives of war. It wasn’t necessarily comments that made me change my thinking, but my own thoughts, that made me think that war wasn’t entirely internal or external, but maybe even unavoidable. In philosophy, we recently discussed the difference between free will and determinism. The ground soldiers obviously don’t have any free will, as commanders order them around, but at the root of it all, I think that determinism comes into play. I think that war is kind of predestined in the sense that a nation’s governmental decision may give another nation reason to oppose it, and as more and more decisions like the previous are made, things only escalate and end up in chaotic results. Because there is never a decision that can be made without an opposition, essentially, a disagreement could pre determine a war.
3) Obviously, one of my connections in this class was with the free will vs. determinism debate in philosophy. Another connection I made though was an idea I developed a while ago, which was that when somebody is exposed to something constantly at a young age, the subject would do one of two things, continue the action regularly, or be able to restrain themselves from the temptation if the action is undesirable. This connection had to do with violent behavior and how exposure to violence at an early age affects the person, although usually the latter is seen less commonly in the specific topic of violence.
4) I think I was strongest in this particular seminar in the area of clarification, because I was constantly clarifying comments, asking questions, and assisting the group to understand a certain concept. Unfortunately, I feel like because there was so much to clarify, I monopolized the conversation, which has always been a problem with me. I intend to fix this by waiting at least 3 seconds to see if somebody has asked a question that the group is obviously having trouble answering, and then try to clarify it for the group myself.