Documentary and Reading x2 Combo

Ignoring the Lessons of 9/11
When I learned about this article from Jensen himself a year ago, I thought the subject and tone of it all was a bit insensitive. It didn't seem like the kind of thing to bring up at a tenth anniversary of such a traumatic event. But it's funny how our opinions change the more we're influenced by conflicting theories and mindsets over time.

Now, considering this was written ten years after the incident, I think it got a lot of negative attention that it shouldn't have been getting by that point. I understand that we often mark the tenth anniversary of anything as something we should commemorate and honor, but I don't think Jensen's article particularly went against that so much so that it warranted a public rebuffing from the president of the university and so many more around Texas. Ten years is plenty long enough to look back on something, analyze and realize what we've done right and what we've done wrong.

I think this sentence adequately frames what most journalists were afraid to realize ten years later: "But given the events of the past decade, there is no way to take the politics out of the anniversary." Jensen just wasn't and, though we initially didn't want to admit it, he was right not to be.

Framing the War on Terror

It's no surprise dissenting voices were hardly heard throughout the years directly after 9/11 There were hardly any of them at all. Perhaps the more unpopular ideas would have gotten more attention if they had been given more priority in placement on newspapers or schedules on TV broadcasts. But I think a lot of those newspapers and broadcast stations were really just frightened to put those kinds of ideas on the front page because they didn't want to lose viewers or their readership.

Should this out-weight the importance of offering the public differentiating views and being fair? It is a hard choice, yet what a cowardly thing it would be to say yes. And that is precisely why it is so hard.

Buying the War

Thinking about 9/11 is always really hard for me. I grit my teeth and set my jaw in a pathetic attempt to remain "objective" when, as a speaker in the documentary pointed out, journalists are not robots. However, there's only so much we can say or do in our own defense against remaining unattached to a powerful situation. There's always a catch. A breaking point. A limit.

Do I think journalists failed in their attempt to document the war and subsequent chain of events after 9/11? Yes, I do. As proof, I am ashamed to say that I can't even begin to explain the war to anybody without doubting every syllable that slips through my lips. I know nothing, or at least nothing I can say with any bit of certainty that is true. The media contorted what was going on overseas into an image that depicted us as world-wide saviors and when they finally realized how wrong they were about their information, it was too late to set the public straight. Thus, we can see why it is so important for a journalist to report the truth on the first try and not rely on each other to do the work for us. But, I digress.

Principally, I believe our pride blinded us. Of course we are not robots. We feel, we breathe. We bleed. But our emotions, our dedication to our country, should never override our obligation to report the truth as it is in fact, not as we wish to see it.

The Quiet Crisis

I think we've made some progress from when this essay was written to now. The essay mentions how "we should be concerned about the gaps in our education, infrastructure, and ambitions that threaten to weaken us from within" and over the past several years, I feel there has been a focus on these things. Political leaders have turned their eyes to the education of their country's youth, we're learning about how other countries view ours and our ambitions, drawing our own conclusions from what we can gather... The essay feels a little out-dated.

Creativity vs Rote Learning - Are they really all that different?

I understand that the world views the people of each group differently, at least. We each seem to have a reputation that follows us around.

Smart Power, Chinese Style

This essay was anything but objective.

It makes America look like a selfish, incompetent child in relation to other nations and then tries to make us feel better by stating during the very last few lines that we can change for the better. The latter hardly seems like the point of anything when all the while, the essay glorifies the Chinese and their steady rise to fame and fortune. Very, very rarely does the author offer America any sort of positive feedback throughout the essay, if at all.

While I can agree that a lot of times, America doesn't always seem to have the best interests of anybody other than itself in mind, the examples didn't seem to take into account the issues America was facing at the time with terrorism and war. America was under pressure. A few missed meetings sure put up a bad front, but there were other priorities at home to consider. Any other nation would have done the same to protect its people.

The quote from Stephen Johnson of the Heritage Foundation, however, well highlights how America is a tad bit paranoid with its diplomacy, making contracts and restrictions so that if anything goes wrong, it will be in a position of power to act upon it. China, being able to "bargain on the spot without a lot of caveats" sort of just tells me that China rushes into things quickly and, in a sense, leaves itself vulnerable to unfavorable circumstances when dealing with other nations.

Throughout the entire essay, China is painted as a hero while barely touching upon any of the negative qualities that run as rampant there as they do here. This can be seen when the Sino-Japanese relationship is discussed and yet still the author tries to pass the strained relationship as something bad, sure, but something that the Chinese have at least striven to keep under control for the oh, so pure purpose of inter-connectivity.

Perhaps I'm taking all of this a little too personally.

Anti-Americanism Down in Europe

I believe Wike is correct in assuming that the values gap is shrinking in some areas, especially so with the coming of age of the younger generations. I can see within my very own family how this is true. While my parents are not so accepting of same sex marriage and hold their nationality to be above all others, my siblings and I are the complete opposite. I wonder if this difference in values occurs because of the completely different ways and circumstances we were brought up in.

For example, most of my ideas and values were shaped by the things I learned in school and the things I was confronted with both in and outside of it -- which wasn't much as I grew up in a time of peace. My parents, however, grew up in times of war or immediately after where propaganda was rampant and patriotism to one's country was absolutely essential -- where the man was a "man" and the woman was a "woman."

In certain aspects discussed where Americans and Europeans differ, I am confused and at a loss. Perhaps this is the way I was simply shaped, molded out to be, but I don't understand how most Europeans can believe that "success in life is pretty much determined by forces outside our control." It doesn't make sense to me. Maybe it's because I am "American" and have been raised with the opposite mentality all of my life where success means striving for a goal and doing everything you can to obtain it, where your failure is determined by how much you alone have yet to sacrifice for your goal.

After reading Wike's article, however, I wonder if this mentality, if this particular form of individuality, is "correct" or if there is even a correct way to think in this respect at all. It has made me view myself in respect to other lands and wonder if my values and ideologies are as right as I was initially led to believe they were.

The West and the Rest

This essay highlights the many challenging aspects facing what the author believes is a frightened western world unwilling to shift into an appropriate "post-Cold War era" mindset more suited to the changing world it dealt a great hand in making. The author does this by describing how the west "has created a universe in which 'interconnectedness' will be the order of the day" and yet still "has a strong impulse to shut the doors" on the rest of the world due to a simple fear of competition.

To further illustrate this issue, the author points out several ways in which other countries have evolved to look to countries like Japan instead of the U.S. as economic examples because of the current state it has put itself in. As though to rub salt into the wound, the author also notes how the west seemingly only interacts with certain countries when it is convenient for them. I can see how this would be a common view in other countries when even here, some of us believe this is the case. While I could stand to agree with the author, it also feels that there is something missing in this argument.

The way the essay ends almost makes it feel as though it is too late for the western world or that, at the very least, it is getting uncomfortably close to that point. However, though the west might have all of the problems outlined in the essay, it is still in a position where it can do something