Reflections of week # 9, Hugo & Yates

Victor's hugo's mentioning, "The one will kill the other." gave me a basic insight of understanding the impact of printing press, diminishing role of architecture as a tool of expression, and Hugo's interpretations of this historical event by dealing with church of Notre Dame.

As we can see from the picture of cathedral of Notre Dame, it has the facade of divided into three, which means 'holy father, holy son, and holy spirit' and has many statues, sculptures, and drawings which represents the stories of the bible. It's such a paradime shift to me, from the paper or screen book to the building as a book.

Definitely, the people must have been overwhelmed by the huge scale and sacred envrionment of building and made them absorb the content of the building, the story of God. When they walked inside of the church, they received the knowledge of the God and tried to remember what they saw, connecting the parts of the building into the story. ( When we think about mnemonic devices for remembering, using building, order, and image, it really makes sense to me in a way. Like by the image in a certain place, people can remember some contents. - My mother is visiting here from Korea and doesn't know English almost at all, but she can remember all the places , reminded by some landmark buildings, and can drive and go anyplace, not reading English signs.)

As there came out a lot of things to remember more specific Christian doctrines, or things to do or not to do, the building was not enough to hold and convey all those things to remember. Then, here comes Gutenberg, inventor of printing press. It is such a cost saving product, which could save time, money, and space, comparing to the expense of constructing a building.

People must've felt thrilled by experiencing their own individual reading, holding the book and meditating some contents and kept reading, and even transferring the content to somebody else just as a book.

If we think about ' the damage of religious unity or degrading status of church of Notre dame, I can understand why Hugo mentions, "The one will kill the other". He may have felt some negative emotion of what was happening at that time, but did he expect by his literature, 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame', there was huge revival movement of Gothic architecture? Also, did he expect as the tool of communication was changed, printing press brought us a totally unexpected new world?

Currently, many people are worried about the negative impact of new technology as a way of communication, like the people in the cave blame all tough process to the outside of the cave, but I think there have always been frontiers who can see the future and has led most people into new world. The important thing is that how much the frontier can persuade or educate common people to follow them and we should be alert about the side effect of new technology and try to improve it to better world.

Joohee

Reflections of week # 8, Virgil

Aeneid by Virgil

As we've discussed in the class, of the educational meaning of 'Aeneid by Virgil' is that, I think, it's quite educationally effective.

From the Aeneid, there are continuous dialectic discussions between characters, which makes Aeneas think and separate between soul and body. It seems like really educational, asking learner's reflection, which is quite different from Homer's, which is possible only through God.

At the same time, it' makes me think of current education, especially in Korea. Aren't we going back to Homer's period? Because there is quite one way transmitting knowledge to the students in Korea, which makes them hard to 'THINK'. We don't have many questions and answers during the class.
Another interesting point is that 'using the object which is familar to that period', like 'shield' seems very innovative. Aren't our kids used to 'visualized image' during this generation? I am the person who clicks 'visualized image' everyday for the communication with my 'Blackberry' phone.

Reflections of week #7, Latour

Comparing to Plato who seems to have more extreme position of allegory of the cave with tough and narrow path between two worlds, I think, Latour suggests a little bit more accessibly connected allegory of cave with more wide path between two worlds, Truth and Social world. He says, with the introduction of more sizable budget and huge business, the path became more wide, which means there is less struggling commute between two worlds for scientist even though there's an obstacle caused by double rupture (p. 10 - 11).

And Latour adds some current interpretation of allegory cave. 'There are two worlds composed of Science and Politics and only a few genius people can go back and forth, which seems make democracy impossible' (p14).

Here are my questions which I have from Latour.
1. What is his position, absolute or more flexible about 'Science'?
If the sciences are more related to daily lives and Science is more about the absolute truth, is he mentioning that Science needs that kind of unquestionable position not to be chaos and to put an order in the society?

2. Then, what is Latour's position of the relationship between Science and Democracy?
What is his definition of democracy which is used in his theory?

What I understood from Latour's 'Laboratory' theory(from wiki) is that there are so many small cases or experiments in the lab which are thrown away just because they are different from the main theory which has a power in that moment. For me, his theory is swirling to me whose brain is not very genius like him and maybe that's his intention, which is not implied to be understood by most common people, like me. If I consider his family background, from very famous wine family in France, he may prefer justifiable absolute status of Science and of himself, I think.

Joohee

Response to Reading #6, Plato & Havelock

From the ‘ Republic’ by Plato, what made me most interesting is that the ‘allegory of cave’ gives me some insights of basics of ‘education’ itself.

The people were sitting in the cave, looking at only shadow and believing it’s real, but some of them started to pass through ‘rough, steep, and upward path’ (p.209) and realized there is real sun and came to know they were just watching the shadows before.

My first question is “ What made some people in the cave try to look and walk out of the cave?”
In my opinion, it seems that there is inborn curiosity or cognitive ability to try to think. And some of them definitely have more cognitive ability and most of them take it for granted about the current situation. These a few special people think that there might be something else outside of this world. And they try new world and they try to transmit what they’ve seen and known already.
So by the way of the ‘education’, most people are educated by using their own cognitive ability.
I think there are always some leaders who stand on the border line between the present and the future and they see them first and educate most of us.

Second question is about ‘the embarrassment of the person who experienced going out of the cave and coming back to the cave’. From page 211, Socrates says, “they may be confused in two ways.” Yes, definitely, physically getting used to the big difference between darkness and brightness must take time. But, what makes me agree more with Plato is the ‘mental confusion’. If a person gets out of the cave first, surely, he must be shocked of the fact the thing he thought as true was just a shadow. But it seems like very positive and more constructive confusing. It must be something good, like inner satisfaction. But of second confuse, if other people in the cave may laugh at him and don’t even try to think differently, he must be really frustrated.

I think, if I’m not wrong, I have a similar experience. When I finished my master degree of TESOL(Teaching English to Speakers of Other Language) and came back to Korea, I was really excited of ‘teaching differently’ (not only grammar, which was prevalent teaching content in Korea) and I wanted to teach ‘whole language’, using various advanced knowledge and methods. But when I had to face barriers from the people, (like my boss said, “No, that’s a just theory. It’s not appropriate to Korean condition.”), I felt really frustrated of the fact that most people take for granted of what they were used to and it takes TIME to apply new experience to the current situation.

Also, Socrates mentions of the attitude of the person who already knows the truth (p.212) and he says “education is not what some people boastfully declare it to be. They presumably say the can put knowledge into souls what lack it”. Isn’t it wonderful he already knew the proper attitude of the educators even since 500 B.C.?

Also, Socrates says, “depending on the way it is turned, the person who has wisdom could use it usefully and beneficially or uselessly and harmfully” (p212). If we think of the criminals from the news who is very clever and has a high IQ, though, he used his smart to the wrong way. I think two possible factors could work here, genetic and environmental factors. They may have received more violent genes from their parents or experienced more negative situations in the past. I think from his ‘allegory of the cave’, when they pass through ‘tough and narrow’ routes, some people think positively, but others may complain of the experience. Then, my question is here, “Isn’t there any more portions of education here? What can education change this kind of person?

Reflections of reading week # 5

What I understood from the articles about three different people, Homer, Heraclitus, and Protagoras is here;

1. Viewpoint of 'soul'
Homer - There seems no soul, means no genuine reflection, just there is interference from God.
So human being doesn't have dialogue of the soul and there's no self-awareness.
Heraclitus - Human being has 'reasoning', which is born from divine logos, means principle.
Soul could be compared to 'fire' which has both meaning, equilibrium and constant change.

Protagoras - human being has already intellectual ability and basics of education should be available to all individual with this ability.

2. Senses
Homer - language and visual art can not grasp body as a unit.
Heraclitus - divine logos, principle, is for those with senses, but he had a view of scepticism of senses.
Protagoras - rhetorical skill, speech, was a key factor for successful political career.
It means words were used for object of thought. But he says there are contradictory argument about everything.

3. Role of communication

I think the technology of defining abstract concepts were developed by the development of ways of communication. Also, I believe from the history that human beings had part of inborn cognitive endowment. ( I want to say from God!) And it interacted with cultural invention, not depended on it. It's good to be proved from the history, which seems more objective, not only from the Bible.

Reflections and questions of reading week #4

I think this week was a great experience for me to meet Three genius, Homer, Plato and Havelock.

Of Homer's Iliad, when we think of historic period, BC 800, when there was not prevalent reading culture, it' s so amazing work. Its main themes seem to be focused on human's basic instincts, like putting the priority to the woman's beauty (the standard would be different from now, though), power game between men, hardship of making a decision at a certain moment.
I could understand more about that period of time's background, like established independent many 'police', or identifying themselves as descendents from God, Helen.

With using drawing or symbols, we could communicate each other, but it must be very simple message. The length and depth of story in Iliad makes me reminds of like the Bible at that time.

After about 400 years later, Plato attacks the role of poets in Homer's period, like " There were not sufficient in conveying the truth. It just shows the content by means of directly represented action by poets, which is just a 'Mimesis'.

And currently, Havelock, who says 'medium afftecs society' and suggests 'the importance of oral culture', gives a negative look to educational role of the poets during Homer's period. When the poets perform, means convey the message of epic, the audience must have been engaged too much and totally identified with the roles of characters or messages. It's more difficult than just passive learning. The people on that time period may have reacted as they heard, without thinking.

But, considering several factors of those period of time, like poet's directly delivering message only with spoken language, limited by time and space, people's way of thinking must have been very simple and could be absorbed a lot without learner's constructing knowledge, which is not good from current point of view. But isn't it true also that Homer's Iliad upgraded, means more possible abstract and complicated thinking of people and let them know how to do in a certain situation, it's a mono way, though, they could have learned about more strong identity as a Greek people or could have talked about it as a new agenda with their friends and families. Just I've thought about that.

Summary and Reflection on Globalization, week #3

Summary and reflection

“Globalization: A Very Short Introduction” by Manfred B. Steger

At first, I was wondering why he put the title, like “Very Short Introduction” because it doesn’t look short at all from the length of the article, but I came to realize that the amount Globalization covers through time and space is so huge, so he seems to focus on the tremendous scale of the topic, I think.

As he mentions, “Globalization refers to expansion and intensification of social relations and
consciousness across world time and world space.”, Globalization is not a new phenomenon at all, but started even since the prehistoric period. Especially, the invention of writing and wheel and role of Chinese Empire as a geographical bridge in Premodern Period (3500 BC – 1500BC), and spread of ‘liberal’ ideas of individualism, rise of the power of European metropolitan center and merchants, and religious warfare in Early Modern Period ( 1500 – 1750) were the main factors for globalization in the period.

And, what appealed to me most as global factors in Modern Period (1750-1970) were more significant involvement of Australia and Pacific islands into European-dominated network, popular use of public transportation (railways, shipping, or air transport) possible by communication technology, like telegraph, telephone, wireless radio, film, etc. Also population growth provided USA, Canada, Australia with a lot of benefit, caused by their immigration and a lot of global companies, like Coca-Cola, Campbell soup, Remington type writer came to the markets over the world.

Also, of ideologies of globalization, Steger provided three criteria, which are market globalism, justice globalism, and jihadist globalism. Market globalism reminds me of ‘Capitalism’, representing concept of ‘Free market’ and Justice globalism makes me think of ‘Against market globalism’, with similar concepts to ‘Communism’, not exactly same though, which represents global redistribution of wealth and power. But also, justice globalism insists a lot of ‘our responsibility’ for worldly issues.

One of the interesting views of Steger is the third criteria, jihadist globalism which represents violent fundamentalists in the West who seek to turn the whole world into a ‘Christian empire’. Especially, after 9/11 attack in manhattan from Al caeda, their ideology has been a big issue. But is that a kind of serious ideology which can be considered as a third ideas and beliefs shared by worldly people? Then, Why Christian globalism is missing here? I’m just wondering…

Joohee