496 words about Globalization, Individualism, and "counter cosmopolitans"

The change Appiah is referring to is the natural change, i feel, or the way history and life has progressed before the advent of our western information culture. The change Appiah is referring to is the one of ideas and culture, for example the way the way the people of Kumasi would get their Kente cloths was through trade with the Europeans, produced by Asians. Coupled with the choices of globalization, such as access to information, access to news about the world and the individuals society at large, the individual is impacted in a way that they are free to make a choice, and at the same time almost ‘forced’ into a position where they have to communicate with others from different places in the world, taking us back to Appiahs example of the Kente cloth.

The way in which the people of Kumasi would get this cloth was through communicating, through trade, through sharing. They didn’t just decide to make everything ‘in house’ and shut themselves from the world and its ideas. As an individual, we have to live our lives, morally, and still be able to assimilate with others because we are not our own ‘one stop shop’. To futher that, I mean that we have an obligation to be open and exercise the fact that we have to tap into different communities in order to live like the individuals we strive to be.

I feel an individual can impact this kind of change. Someone with a lot of charisma, someone who appears confident and can create a movement of sorts can change the way a society, culture, or mass feels about a certain thing, or how they live their lives. An example of this would be the fashion choices of music artists and how it influences cultures and spreads quickly [ to be frank ]

The access to the information is an important matter as well. Without it, you may not be affected as quickly by it, but it doesn’t mean you are immune to it, it just may come to you in another form. But through the access to information, one is constantly adding pieces to their wall of ‘individualism’ where there is no clear cut rubric as to what gets places on that ‘wall’, but rather the constant inner workings of an individual making the choice of what to put.

I think Appiah is right when speaking about authenticity. Who are we to stop someone from making a choice that goes against their ‘history’ or ‘way of living’ if to them it feels like the next logical step in their life, or would actually help make their lives easier. Should we hold people to farming with oxen and cattle, where here in the west we are using the latest machine, just for the sake of preserving tradition an containing ‘cultural imperialim’? I don’t think we as an outside individual have the right to make that choice for another individual, or group.

I-GOT-PROSE

The last time I made an intellectual mistake, was the last time I forgot to put myself into someone else’s shoes, not for just one unique incident, but actually throughout the course of my day and my experiences, with mistakes occurring with family, friends, the general public, and basically anyone I would encounter. I feel its my error in ‘thinking too much’ about things, or at them, and not just ‘experiencing them’ or looking Through them.

Admittedly, with my ex-girlfriend especially, there would be times, usually in argument, that I would say things just to put a spin on it and it would end up coming out totally wrong, and usually getting a very confused reaction, or just more anger. That isn’t the best example either, but another example would be when speaking publicly, especially in class sometimes, people are so caught up in the moment and with what they are trying to say, that sometimes the word choices that they come up with, or the phrasing, just isn’t right, or ‘Thought-out’, because they were saying one thing and meaning another.

The second example would be further amplified by someone who doesn’t have a firm grasp on a new language, especially one as intricate as English, where one word can have several meanings, or can fit into several contexts. Stepping into those people’s shoes is something that I have to do all the time (and admittedly remind myself, too), and perhaps if people generally would do this, then we might actually begin to really understand each other and listen more intently. The reason for why we even do this in the first place, is something that can be lectured and debated for hours, but our inability to step into other people’s shoes has to do with social, psychological, and even factors that are within our sub-conscious, which are all affected by the News we take in and our daily encounters and ‘cultures’ that we tap into.

The misuse of language would affect an audience in a number of ways. Firstly, you can, and you have to try really hard, or say something really off the wall, but you can actually lose a significant amount of credibility as to the way people ‘percieve you’. Another consequence would be confusion, or just something that halts the flow of whatever was being said to the audience (audience being from one person to 1 million people), think of those moments on television where a record scratches and everyone goes silent, something like that, you might even get a “What the F*ck?” out of someone. Thirdly, it can be funny, this is always the best way to ‘fall’, if you will, and can brighten up the mood, and even someone’s day, but misusing language in a way that can engage your audience is a real treat, especially when done intentionally.

This same misunderstanding has plagued our world since the beginning of time. This isn’t something that just began with the industrialized era, or our ‘modern’ era. It has existed since we’ve had individual languages and not just one universal one, except for music, though even then that is spoken differently throughout the world as well. It truly is our failure to stop, think, and put ourselves into the other persons shoes, or the other groups, or the other cultures shoes and even for a second, try and see things the way they would. Admittedly, I fail at this, but I don’t neglect it, and I try my hardest to do it, especially when taking in the news, or going to a new city or public location, where I am to encounter new individuals.

Notes on News Blackout - (to be edited)

**simply put, actionable information for example, from the weather, is information that gives me insight and allows me to be decide what actions need to be taken. Do I dress heavy, is a jacket ok, do i go light? All this is determined from the news, weather, mere digits on my toolbar.

Actionable Intelligence: Having the necessary information immediately available in order to deal with the situation at hand. With regard to call centers, it refers to agents having customer history and related product data available on screen before the call is taken.

Computers do this for us, and provide us with the weather and can even give a history of the weather.

W:the news is important because it is actionable information that helps us survive better and provide us with insight that's otherwise impossible without such a system in place.

H:the news is important is by informing you about hundreds of 'texts' or 'communities' that exist in our world today. With news, we can stay informed on just about anything. And this information shapes our very beliefs, attitude, and most importantly your perception of the world around you.

News is: tv news, cable news, NY times, iphone apps to news sites, radio, website news, weather forecasts, espn, sports stories.

Humans are news mediums themselves. people talk news, they tell you whats going on with them, or a particular thing. Gossip is a form of news... News is information that is the very fabric of our Digital Information Culture. It would be difficult to not come across any of these mediums for over 48 unless you lived in complete isolation or somewhere less populated where life is slow. People are constantly sharing news, stories, experiences.

Through this ability to digest news (has to be in your language, clear, concise, etc), we can access realtime information

I found myself pretty anxious, and perhaps even unable to really complete the assignment where i admittedly failed.... It was very hard to do, and something i would consider doing again, but this first time, i failed and maybe lasted for a little over 24 hours.

News is definitely an intrusion of our solitude but more importance should be placed on how it is a necessary intrusion as the news is what we look to to guide us through life in this Digital age or Digital information society. People use more an less news than others might, but its still news, its still the digestion of information and the 'excretion' of action where it is psysical action, thought action, or mental action.


BLACKOUT -
parents watching news monday morning
 
eating at subway and sat next to newspaper, couldnt look
 
went on by mistake to usual website, saw news, and ran.
 
 
radio alarm clock had news, news is inevitable. we are surrounded by it at all times.
 
cant even read reddit

Aristotle, Plato, and You

When we think about our constitution, the same constitution in which we are presently fighting to preserve, we seldom - and i'm speaking for myself at least - associate the creation of it with the names of Aristotle and Plato.

But indeed, they did play a significant role in influencing the American constitution and through Aristotle you had the actual inception of a constitution, or the difference between ordinary law and constitutional law.

This is to be continued... come back soon!

Why do we write things down, anyway?

To start, I would say I do because I can. Then I will tell you because I was made to remember 7 +/- 2 items that would remain in my short term memory, and if lucky, could get into my long term memory. I would also dare say because I was created with the ability to hold and use a pen, or type on a keyboard, and was also created with eyes and the mental capacity to decipher the symbols I put down as well as the ability to recall them, understand them, and internalize them at any time I feel the need to.

Going beyond my ability – or limited ability – I would say that there is a deeper desire for “Man” to write things down in a way as to preserve, or capture the images and thoughts that run through the minds eye. As a human, we can only store and retain so much information before certain things become ‘hazy’, therefore we write them down as a way of preservation and a way to make that thought ‘stick’.

We write because it is our primal innate characteristic to communicate. What is communicated are thoughts, ideas, and emotions across time and space. Since we can’t communicate from the future, we express ourselves in the present through oral, and visual means. Oral being spoken and/or, if we were to go there, unspoken in the form of melody, harmony, and rhythm (as represented in music); Visual, through the use of symbols, which over time, formed into a writing system, which created letters that when put together conveyed thoughts, ideas, and emotions. What I am getting at is that writing is a preservation of language and an extension thereof as well the conveyance of meaning and information.

I would even go as far to say that although we are limited to time and space when writing, we write because there are endless possibilities of things that can be conveyed within a writing system. Limited to language of course, and expressed differently for every language, we write for many reasons, for example: recording. With writing, one can record laws, contracts, history, events, thoughts, ideas and just about anything that can be extracted from thought, or consciousness. We extend communication far beyond the distance our voices can travel.

Today, we write for similar reasons that people did thousands of years ago, but through the advent of blogs, and twitter, we can now write with the opportunity that our ‘voice’ can be instantly read by thousands. That wasn’t exactly the case in the times of Christopher Columbus, as messages then took months to travel from one continent to the other. A blog can become just about anything anyone wants it to be, just like writing was designed for. If you want to share thoughts, feelings, and ideas, you can do so through a blog with the new twist being placed upon the vast audience that can be reached, instantly.