Fin.

Is it really that time of year already? That time of year when everyone starts to freak out about finals and maybe a bit about summer (and for the overachievers, about the next year). Ah, it's quite a bittersweet thing- growing up is. Part of us wants to be big, responsible adults, while another part wants to kick back as a little kid, with nothing in the world to worry about beside that Math quiz.

That time when everyone is wrapping up again is a good time to look back. It's recent enough that the turmoil and chaos of sophomore year are just about winding down, but not yet fading. As I look back, I see a very different person. In the beginning of the year, I was simply an "overgrown freshman" (in the words of the esteemed Lucas Sokolsky), with freshman-ey perspectives and outlooks, and that hint of naivette left as vestiges of the middle school days gone by. A hundred and a few score days of school later, there has been a transformation- a refinement, an aging (like a fine wine, if I do say so myself. Har har).

A good part of this growth in my personal awesomeness (Hah.) can be attributed to the blog. The casual, freeform nature of a blog allows for a more relaxed, "fun" writing style than homework written in "essay" voice. As such, I also have free reign to experiment with different writing styles and techniques in a relatively low-penalty environment (if I were to do this in, say, one of the very few essays given by most teachers, I would be...erm, in a sad place). Furthermore, there is something magical about writing something on the internet for a large audience of both peers and teachers, as opposed to the singular teacher who reads an essay. What can I say, I like attention.

Bringing it down to Earth a bit, I'd have to say that the most important thing I've learned this year is to be able to take information and interconnect it with other seemingly unrelated information. It has allowed me to take my thinking "out of the box", to be cliche. In previous History classes, or just previous classes in general, facts were of largest importance. World Religions, especially, is a larger perpetrator of this crime. Each test/quiz involved memorizing a glut of random facts about a religion (the name of a ritual, the meaning of an architectural feature, etcetera), which did not help in my endeavor to see the big picture. Thankfully, with the blog posts this year, analysis and drawing upon knowledge have allowed me to unconsciously make connections between informations (Yeah, I just made up a word. See, you can do stuff like this on a blog. Not in an essay.)

Overall, I think the more casual, less high-tension atmosphere of this class has been very conducive to learning to think differently. A high-tension, high stakes class causes most students to retreat to the common and the familiar in order to play it safe and maintain a good grade.

I'll miss this class.
Here's to one last post.

Kevin Y. Ji out.

The Methods of the Chinese Revolution

From reading the excerpts on pages 766 and 769 of the textbook, I get the impression that both situations are reflections of a greater theme of the Cultural Revolution- that of the tearing down of the old order (social hierarchy and history) in order to give the new order a place to grow and room to flourish. Although the situations (one about peasants overthrowing their leaders; the other about students destroying artifacts) appear on the surface to be distinctly unrelated, they share the same undercurrent mentioned above.

Indeed, it makes sense that the old order must go in order for the new to live. The old order of China was highly hierarchical in nature- a stark contrast from the one-for-all-and-all-for-one ideal of the Communism that was to take its place. In order for everyone to be equal, the leaders, the gentry, and the rest of the priveledged members of the old society would have to relinquish their advantages and step down to the level of everyone else.

Not only were the two situations about physically destroying the old order (peasants slapping the leaders, and the Red Guard smashing artifacts), but they were about changing the mental state of the people as well. As the textbook said in the first excerpt, "The blow jarred the ragged crowd. It was as if an electric spark had tensed every muscle. Not in living memory had any peasant ever struck an official.". The day after, the peasants were ready to go "press charges" and beat the official to a pulp. As they say, to win people, you have to win mind, body, and soul- all three of them.

The Cold War

I chose to interview my mom about her impressions of the Cold War. To summarize: She was pretty young (born in 1967) during the Cold War, and therefore had little impression of it. She did say that she believed Nixon's 1972 visit to China greatly helped ease relations between China and the US at the time, and helped pave the way for China to become what it is today. Because there was so much internal turmoil occuring in China as my mom was growing up, she said people of her age paid relatively little attention to the Cold War, preferring to turn their concentration on events such as the Tiananmen Square protests. One of her most vivid memories during that time was of my uncle- her younger brother by about 5 years. He was a college student at the time, and had gone to protest in the Square (although a few months before the famed "Massacre"), and she could remember worrying the entire day about him.

My mom's memories of the Cold War probably weren't helped by the fact that she emigrated to Canada around 1990.

The predominant tone of the conversation was one of detachment or confused sentimentality (if that makes sense).

Africa and the Middle East in popular culture.

I can remember having seen quite a few pieces of literature written by African and Middle Eastern creators.

Naturally, the most easily recalled are the most recent.

First, there is African author Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart (which we, as sophomores, all know and love dearly.) It chronicles the life of a superstar wrestler in an African village and how it falls apart after the arrival of the Christian missionaries. It is quite enlightening a read, and relatively easy to process, although by no means a legendary piece of literature (It is more well known among circles of those who study social interactions, cultures, and psychology, as opposed to literature.)

Then, there is the novel The Kite Runner, which I am sure most (if not all) of my sophomore comrades will remember as well. Because this was a true story, it cannot really be criticized as fiction literature, but is well written and engaging.

It is disappointing that I have so few titles to bring to the table (the metaphorical table of the internet- ooh, deep.), but I have not had much time to branch out my reading due to schoolwork.
Alas, school- alas.

Drama-rama in the Middle East

Humans like to fight- often with each other. This statement may be vastly over-generalizing things, but looking at the past few thousand years or so of recorded history, it is hard to disagree. Oil, one of the most valuable natural resources since the invention of the automobile, is a large source of strife- especially in the Middle East. Because the distribution of oil in the Middle East is so uneven, the wealth is therefore also distributed unevenly. What compounds the uneven distribution of wealth even further is the fact that very few people own the companies that own the wealth. What you get is a high concentration of money in one place, and no more money left elsewhere.

Part of the reason that oil is so unevenly distributed is gravity; Yes, I said "gravity". Gravity is the force exerted by masses that pulls other masses towards the object's center of mass (in case you didn't know. Teehee.) You might notice that the largest areas of oil reserves lie in valleys, nestled on many sides by large mountain ranges. Oil, being a liquid, seeks the lowest elevation possible, and will therefore flow into the ground at the base of valleys. Water (also a liquid) also seeks the lowest elevations possible, and this means that oil and water will often be found near each other (because they have both sought the areas of lowest elevation). Notice that the more mountainous countries in the Middle East such as Afghanistan have very little amounts of oil.

Everything goes back to physics. Yay physics.
Yes, you can blame the world's conflicts on physics.

Nigeria and Education

Although recently Nigeria has been split through racial, economic, and other tensions, it is not the classic picture of a chaotic African country that we would picture. Take, for example, education in Nigeria. The adult literacy rate is 66.8%, and the percentage of children enrolled in primary (elementary) school is 74% for males, and 60% for females. This relatively high percentage of education can be attributed partly to Nigeria's extremely vast supplies of oil and the capital gained from its sale, which allow for the infrastructure and networking required for a working education system. The HIV/AIDS infection percentage for Nigeria is around 5%, as opposed to the 7% in the rest of the African Region. The use of condoms in young people is approximately half for men, and a quarter for women. This possibly shows the effects of education regarding sex, STDs, and safe sex in general.

However, looking at the other statistics for Nigeria in the World Health Organization's factsheet, Nigeria's education levels appear contradictory in relation to figures such as the relatively high infant-mortality, high amount of people living below the poverty line, low percentages of access to improved sanitation and water supplies (in relation to the rest of the African Region).

The Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall

If you search on any website for news regarding the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall, it is unlikely that you will get more than a few results. It is somewhat understandable for it to be relatively less controlversial, seeing as it is 1. largely unopposed by the general population of China, and 2. young (for a monument, at any rate). However, one would think that there would at least be some internationally-generated controversy surrounding the monument; There isn't. One of the questions I plan to investigate for Part 1 of my research project is: "Why is there a lack of controversial stories on the news about the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall?"

Another question I have regarding the Memorial Hall is: "What is the current situation regarding the Memorial Hall? Is there renovation, or popular culture, or other goings-on featuring the Hall?" My reasoning behind this question is that since the monument has been up for around 25 years now, and no major renovations, news stories, etc. have occured. Is the monument simply sitting "dormant", and not dynamic like other monuments?

A third question I have (which is one of the ones I am more interested in) is: "Why was the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall built so late (1985) after the end of World War II?" My preliminary research informs me that around 1985, Japanese politicians were attempting to rewrite the Nanjing Massacre in Japanese textbooks as a minor "incident", and to downplay its importance in the war. This would lead the Chinese government to create the memorial to remind the rest of the world that "We're still here, don't forget about us!", and to try to prevent other countries from following the actions of those Japanese politicians. Also, another sub-question relating to this question is: "Who exactly was behind the birth of the idea to create the Memorial Hall?"

The Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall

The Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall (also known as the "Memorial for compatriots killed in the Nanjing Massacre by Japanese Forces of Aggression), built in 1985 by the municipal government of the city of Nanjing, does what its name suggests. It is a memorial for the estimated 300,000 people (estimation by government of China including civilians; the Japanese government estimates around the range of 200,000 all-military deaths- note the nationalistic bias) who died in the Nanjing Massacre during World War II.

Although the memorial itself is not at the center of such conflicts, the Nanjing Massacre is a source of tension and controversy- especially between China and Japan. One reason the Memorial Hall was created was due to the trend in the 1980s of Japanese politicians and writers attempting to alter Japanese historical textbooks and write the Massacre off as a minor incident; The Chinese government wanted to remind its people and the rest of the world of the event, and that such happenings would not be tolerated.

Visitors to the Memorial Hall often remark that the mood of the Hall is very somber and silent. One such experience is referenced here in a blog-post by a traveller who visited the Memorial Hall. The poster also subtly (and perhaps unconsciously) argues that the previous attempts by Japanese politicians to play down the event were bad (for lack of a better-fitting term), and agrees with the Chinese government's reasons for creating the memorial.

Recently, the Japanese government has begun to offer compensation to those who were directly affected by the Nanjing Massacre. One woman (80 years old) named Xia Shuqin won 4.55 million Yen from the Japanese government in compensation (read about her story and the rest of this story here).

Also recently, a Chinese director named Lu Chuan has started to create a film called The City of Life and Death (also known as Nanjing! Nanjing!) that will document the Massacre from many different historical perspectives (with both fictional and non-fictional characters) and attempt to further explain the struggle of the those living in the city during the Massacre. (Somewhat Off-topic: I found this quote from the article quite amusing:

" The director believes there are three ways to solve China-Japanese relationship problems.

'First, we destroy Japan. Second, Japan destroys us,' he says. 'Or the third way is we try really hard to understand each other.'

'I think we should choose the third way.' "

Seeing as this is a somewhat-recently-constructed memorial (as far as memorials go, at any rate...), there has not been much time for controversial stories to come out about it (as a quick Google-search will show). However, the issue itself- the Nanjing Massacre- is much more controversial than the memorial, and holds more potential for the fluidity of opinions.

According to Mr. D'Souza, the real threat to America is at home.

On the night of January 16, 2007, well-known, somewhat inflammatory conservative Dinesh D'Souza appeared on the Colbert Report expecting to advertise (in a serious manner) his book, The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11. This being the Colbert Report, Colbert was trying more for comedic effect through exaggerating D'Souza's claims. D'Souza however, kept on rolling with the punches and retained a semblance of seriousness with Colbert.

D'Souza's main point in his more or less 7 minutes of airtime was that depraved liberal culture (homosexuality, promiscuity, maggot-eating, etcetera) is responsible for the rest of the world's relatively negative view of America. He goes on to explain that this insane, excessive, glam America (The America of movies and Hollywood) is something we know is not "really" America, but that for the rest of the world it is all they are presented with, and all they know. In this I would have to agree; American media (with a few exceptions) is largely biased towards the liberal viewpoint, and this becomes reflected in what people from other countries hear about America from their own media. According to D'Souza, the rest of the world only knows the depraved liberal America.

Naturally, an America of homosexuals, out-of-control sex, non-traditional-ness (not a real word), rapists, pillagers, plunderers, capitalists, and atheists (oh, those evil atheists...) is not well received among people of more traditional cultures and values. In this, I agree with D'Souza.

However, that is where my agreement with him ends. In his book, D'Souza conveniently misconstrues or picks and chooses certain facts to further his arguments (and conveniently ignores others in the process). One person who reviewed the book on Amazon (Scoff not- there are a surprising number of very intellectual reviewers there) made one of my points as clear as it could be: "He attempts to explain away American torture and rendition claiming that PFC Lindie England was acting out her "blue state moral depravity" when she was abusing and humiliating prisoners at Abu Ghraib with unusual cruelty. This has all the logic of a psychoanalytic diagnosis made under the influence of a jug of white lightning rather than an insightful probe of the collective unconscious. He fails to mention the FACT that there is a higher rate of divorce, murder, illegitimacy, and teenage births in red states than in the morally depraved blue ones, that "traditional Muslims" in Brooklyn and neighboring New Jersey enclaves were warbling in celebration at the destruction on 9/11, or that American flags were adorning most homes and modes of transportation here in decadent New York City. " (Edwin C. Pauzer of New York City: Post linked here )

As such, I do not think that The Enemy At Home is a book that contains purely truths, but is merely a stepping stone on a journey to truth (as corny as that sounds). We analyze history not by seeing one source and taking it as the truth, but by taking in as many sources as possible to see the big picture.

Women of the World Wars Worked

In general, the roles of women were the same in both World War I and World War II. Many went off to work so as to fill in spots vacated by men, while some remained at home and took care of the family.

Women in both World Wars served mainly in factories, where large numbers of men had previously worked. They also took on such jobs as nursing and care.

In World War II however, women took on an even larger variety of jobs that were originally "men-only". Some, especially in the Soviet Union, joined front-line-combat divisions of the military, while others did skilled labor in the factories (as opposed to being barred from operating the more complex machinery).

In summary, the role of women in World War II was similar in that women took jobs to replace the men, and that some left once the men (who survived...) returned. However, their roles between World War I and II differ in that women in World War II had a much larger variety of jobs and were allowed to take on the more traditionally male jobs. This led eventually to women's suffrage.

Total war is just as the name suggests. It is a war that totally involves the nation (that sentence sounded very "surfer-brah"-like. Ugh.) and relies on everyone to help support the war efforts. Total war's pull was powerful enough to break down the previously male-dominated structure of society- if only temporarily.

World War II in Popular Culture

In the past few years, I have seen many a movie set in the battlefields of World War II. Most, if not all of them, were quite good from a historical, videographical, or other point of view.

A few of movies that have made an impression on me are as follows:

Saving Private Ryan (1998): Saving Private Ryan has a relatively straightforward plot, but is well-written, well-filmed, and powerfully acted. To put it simply, a specially-formed group of Rangers is assigned to rescue a Private (James Ryan) from behind enemy lines in Normandy. Awesomeness ensues.

Flags of Our Fathers (2006): Flags of Our Fathers follows the behind-the-scenes political action behind the soldiers who raised the American flag on Mt. Suribachi on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima (this is a famous picture, you should probably have seen it before). It questions propaganda and the twisting of truth for the purposes of converting the public to the government's side. Philosophically interesting, but not nearly as exciting to watch as the other movies that are listed here.

Letters from Iwo Jima (2006): Perhaps one of the most touching and unique WWII movies I have seen, Letters from Iwo Jima follows the action of the American landing and assault of the Japanese-held island of Iwo Jima, but from the Japanese persective. It allows the viewers a peek into the thoughts and feelings of the soldiers of the Japanese army, painting them as people and not the crazy kamikaze-bombers and suicide-committers that they are often oversimplified as. If you have the time, you should watch this movie above all of the other movies that are listed here- it's just that beautiful.

Valkyrie (2008): This movie is yet another one about an alternative perspective of World War II- specifically that of a group of German soldiers who attempted to assassinate Hitler, take over the German government, and surrender to the Allies to avoid further destruction. It is very action-packed, and (I would say) it has more of a focus on the action than on making any subtle philosophical point. But it's awesome. Very awesome.

All of these are worth watching (although I'm not so much a fan of Flags of Our Fathers, but it's still good stuff).

The British Home Guard: Holding down the fort.

The British "Home Guard" was originally established in 1940 as the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV). The LDV consisted of middle-aged men (40-65) who were considered too old to fight on the front lines, but volunteered for military service. They were a very loosely-organized and loosely-supported group, originally having no uniforms, and only enough weapons for one out of every ten men. Because of this, men in the LDV resorted to arming themselves with common tools such as pickaxes, spears, crowbars, and even dummy rifles. Men in the LDV were stationed along the coast of Britain in order to defend against a supposedly impending sea-based invasion by Germany, and also at munition factories and other such locations of military importance.

Adolf Hitler referred to the Home Guard as "murder bands", denouncing their legitimacy and attempting to highlight their rag-tag nature. He threatened that the German army would immediately execute any member of the Home Guard who attacked the German forces.

Luckily for the members of the ill-equipped Home Guard, the German invasion never came.
____________________________________
In retrospect, there are a few things the British government could have done a few things differently in handling the defense of their homeland.

1. Training of the members of the Home Guard was left up to the individual regional commanders. This left the Home Guard extremely incoherent in style and level of preparation, and therefore extremely easy to break down.

2. Since the Home Guard served as Britain's primary defense (because the army was away in other lands fighting for world freedom and such.), it would have made sense to arm them to the teeth. If they were to fall to an invasion, Britain would be done, because in the time that it would take to ship the army back, the German troops would have stomped the British Isles flat.

3. The Home Guard consisted only of men- no women. In retrospect, as bad as it sounds, this was probably a good idea. If all of the interested men and women went off to various parts of the country to defend their homes, tensions and apprehension at home would rise, and morale would plummet soon after. I'm sure you'd freak out if all of your neighbors suddenly went to the nearest military base to defend the Bay Area against an invasion.

_____________________________
* For more on the defense of the British home front, see Rebecca's post on stationary defense hot air balloons and Christophe's post on air raid sirens.

Winners are created by creating losers.

210,000. That's a big number isn't it? You could fill up a classroom with 210,000 pennies. You could buy a mansion in Texas with $210,000. You could buy (not counting tax) 42,000 five-...five-dollar-footlongs. You could fill up three or four good-sized football stadiums with 210,000 people.

You could kill 210,000 innocents to end a war. It's quite a mind-boggling number- two hundred ten thousand is. But alas, the United States of America did just that in 1945.

It is understandable- somewhat, at least- to bomb locations of specific military affiliations (army bases, etcetera), but to vaporize 210,000 innocent, unsuspecting in the name of reducing the number of military casualties is... well, there are no words.

Just to put this into perspective, you may remember hearing in the video about what appeared to be a elementary or middle school that was "affected" (I use this term very loosely) by the bomb. By affected, I mean that four hundred kids went to school that morning, expecting to come home, and never made it back. Their parents probably were in no position to know that either, seeing as they were kind of...y'know...dead. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, one student somehow survived the cataclysmic blast, and lived with the knowledge that, in less than one second, four hundred of his classmates were gone. Poof. Bye-bye.

War is a sad thing. I believe that NBC chose to show this video in 1995 in order to remind us of this fact. As society approached the new millenium, technology advanced in leaps and bounds. Technology such as nuclear weapons, which had by then reached nearly-apocalyptic power. The video served as a reminder that, quite simply put, nuclear weapons are terrible terrible things, and that war only creates losers. Even if you win, you had to have lost something (usually your morals or dignity).

In war, even the winners are losers.

Distilling nearly two decades into two hours of reading.

Think about it. People who organize and write history textbooks have quite a difficult job. History is not merely the study of exactly when things happened and who was involved. History as a sequential series of events is quite easy to follow, but when you attempt to organize those events by some sort of category, the task becomes rather daunting.

Of course, this means that World War II is especially difficult for writers. Being a "world" war, there is no neatly packaged sequence of events happening in one or even two countries. There were actions occurring all around the world, with multiple interactions between many countries. If one were to organize the textbook in pure chronological form, the textbook would be, quite simply, anarchy.

Yes, anarchy. In the timeline there would be an event about the buildup up Japan's colonies, followed by German aggression upon its neighbors, followed by Soviet communist reforms, and everything else that occurred. The most effective way to cleanly categorize World War II's happenings for a reader is as our textbook has done- by grouping events by regions (or "theaters" of action). However, some events- such as relations between Japan and Germany- spill over into two areas. The Holocaust section is a particularly notable example of this. Some aspects of the Holocaust are explained in the section about Germany's "Nazi-i-zation", while some others are explained in France's section, and while the rest are explained in the "Holocaust" section in the back of the chapter. Alas, the Holocaust section is very, very brief and provides no inkling of the breadth and depth of the Holocaust. The Holocaust section (in relation to the textbook) is written in a way that it feels like a dangling appendix- a half-hearted attempt at something that doesn't really do much in the grand scheme of things.

However- as sad as it is- from the perspective of textbook-writing, the Holocaust simply cannot take up an entire chapter in a World History book spanning a thousand-someodd years. Alas, the Holocaust section could have been better done, but still must stay at its position as a "subchapter".

In general, I would have to agree with the scheme of the textbook writers' ideas. Organize by geographical location, or events from all over the place will cohese into one huge ball (-Gamer Reference Alert-: Katamari!) of dates and random times and places. In a few places, some categorizations could have been better done, but overall, our textbook is quite well organized.

My middle school History teacher's father. (what a mouthful.)

My middle school History teacher's father fought as a member of the Army in World War II. This teacher was one of those teacher who would often deviate from the lesson plan for the day to tell stories of his adventures (he scuba dives, does underwater photography, rides a motorcycle, is a Boy Scout something-master, was a cop, etcetera.). He would sometimes tell us stories of his father (who had passed away a few years ago) during class.

His father earned two purple hearts, one for getting shot in the head, and one for getting shot in the butt. My teacher then went on to tell us that his father received more money in compensation for the wound to his posterior than to his head. Quite an interesting thought.

He told us that his father had joined the Army because he said he felt a need to do something about what was happening around the world, and that he felt a need to serve his country and give back to it. Seems to me to be quite a common reason for many people to join the military. That, or economics (ie: $$$).

What to do, what to do?

Appeasement, as has been seen in the months leading up to World War II, is usually quite ineffective. One side gives the other side what they want in hopes that conflict will not break out, but this puts the side that gives in an extremely vulnerable situation (which often goads the receiving side into pressing for more concessions).

As I'm sure many of you can relate, more or less every day we must concede something we want in the name of the greater good, or simply to avoid conflict over something deemed unnecessary. Perhaps one of the more relevant examples of this for me is my dad.

Currently, he has this obsession with me joining Mock Trial, although I have expressed no interest in it, nor do I have any. Of course, like many dads (why is it so often dads?) he quite frankly doesn't give a'. He drops me off at the train station in the morning, so half of the time, he will pester me with a "Go join Mock Trial today." And I will sort of "Mmm" in acknowledgment. Of course, I won't actually do it, because...y'know...I don't give a sh't either. And of course, I don't bother to try and say "I don't want to," because he will go on and on about how I have to make something of myself, and that I need to speak up more.

This morning was quite possibly even worse. "I want you to go join Mock Trial today. I've been "asking" (read: forcing.) you to do this for two damn years. I don't care if you have to skip lunch to do this; by the end of today, I want you to be part of Mock Trial."

I think a good half of the people in this school would respond with a "F'ck your couch, dad." The other half, myself included, simply roll with the punches and try to avoid escalating an unnecessary conflict, hoping that it will blow over.

Appeasement is not healthy nor fun, but it works. Sometimes. Sort of.

Not really.

The Allies learned this the hard way, and- it seems- so am I.
___________________________________

P.S. : Apologies. That was more of a rant than an analysis. But still, I felt it quite fitting, especially considering the concept we are discussing.

Hitler liked money- a lot.

Apparently, as has been revealed by a new German television documentary called "Hitler's Money", Hitler liked money. The author of the New York Times article says that Hitler had a large amount of wealth at the time of his death, much of it from income generated through his writing and photographs. Although he appeared to be very thrifty and penny-wise publically, in private, he loved money's power a good deal. Money, as he said, could be used to get almost anything one wanted in this world- a concept that is still well-understood some 60 years later. That is, in essence, all that the article says.

Although I did not know Hitler had such a deep, profound love for money (due to our held belief that Hitler was very frugal, etc.), I do not find it surprising. When one such as Hitler reaches such a high level of power that the very treasury of a nation is open to them, it is expected that human greed will kick in, and cause them to take advantage of their power and position.

Humans are funny things, ne?

P.S.: Forgive me for the short post. It's 11:30PM.

"Are you a man, or are you a mouse?

It is easy, when sitting in the comfort of your cushy armchair or in a beautifully maintained classroom, to proclaim that you would do the "right thing" if faced with two morally difficult choices. Sadly, the "right thing" is more often than not the least practical option to take. Unconvinced?

Paint a picture in your mind, for a moment. You are no older than 40. You are sitting in jail, convicted of a death-penalty felony (pick a card, any card.), and are scheduled to be executed tomorrow. This is a twisted society- peace officers, government officials, and people of that nature are allowed to do as they will. A particularly twisted judge offers you a decision: You can kill an innocent on the street and get out of jail with a clean record- free to partake in the sweet freedom of life again, or you can refuse... upon penalty of your death and the death of every member of your immediate family.

What would you do? This is only a hypothetical situation, but pretend for a moment that it is true. Would you sacrifice one innocent to protect those who are close to you, or would you sacrifice yourself and your entire family for one innocent? So I ask again: What would you do?

Indeed, in Maus, one must sympathize with the mouse who gives away Vladek's location to the Nazi's. He did it perhaps to protect himself, or his family. A part of this is not because the mouse was of low morals, or was a crook only looking to make a quick buck. It is because we, as animals, have an instinct of self-preservation- of survival. We prioritize survival in social circles that increase in size. There is oneself, then there is one's family, then there is one's close relations, and et-cetera.

Now, I am not trying to convince you that moral failings are totally acceptable; at this point in our evolution, morals and ethics have become so ingrained in our mental makeup that they can compete with our natural instinct of survival.

I just want you to keep in mind that when judging people based on their actions, consider that people think and act differently under stressing conditions than they would at peace. Things in the world are not definite black and white. They are various, multitudinous shades of grey. We are only human, and to err is human. In times of war, such as Maus, we err quite often.

Things are all relative- relative to place, time, situation, emotions, other things (which, too, are relative).

* * *

". . . Grant me the Serenity

to accept the things that I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
...and Wisdom to know the difference."

Indeed, there are things that we must do quite often that we detest, yet there are no other choices. This we must understand.

~ ~ ~

With that final parting note, I bid you so long, and good night.

~Kevin Ji

P.S.: The movie Valkyrie is an interesting twist. Klaus von Stauffenberg, a Colonel in the German military, plans to kill Hitler to "do the right thing" and save Germany from destruction.