Synopsis: Plays with the interrelated notions of expanding vision through the entrails of race as it informs international aid and development, neuroscience, post-colonial studies, and our present decisions and actions as informed by the many remnants of the Enlightenment period. Some Questions Posed: What if our vision is based on partial, collective, networked fragments (photons)? What if this vision informs our brains of how to conceive of ourselves in the world, our sense of memory and history? What if in formulating such ideas, we act only to have objects act back upon us through reflections of visible light (i.e. I see an apple, conceive of an apple, think to pick up the apple but in looking at it again, the light (fragmentary, partial and visible photons) act upon my eyes)? Objects act upon us. What work does this do? © JK Fowler, roaminghills.com, and jkfowler.com 2009-2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material on any page associated with JK Fowler, roaminghills.com, or jkfowler.com without express and written permission from this website’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to JK Fowler, roaminghills.com and jkfowler.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. Synopsis: The developmental stories of Mauritius and Madagascar (the Great Island) are replete with the makings of an international crime thriller: pirates, slave trading, vanilla cartels, and sugar barons. Located off the southeastern coast of Africa, these two island nations tell a story of sordid convergence through the externally-imposed slave trades which brought businessmen from as far away as New York to as close as the shores of modern-day Cape Town, South Africa. But this period of convergence would not last long and the two countries diverged dramatically down two different paths, Madagascar’s replete with stagnant-to-no growth, political turmoil and corruption, a number of poor governmental economic and social policies and a sordid history of ethnic clashes largely empowered through the history of colonialism and Mauritius’ filled with a mix of fairly successful hetero/orthodox policy decisions, relatively stable government, and access to largely protectionist sugar (and later textile) trade agreements. To catch the flavor and essence of these two diverging nations, I will map out condensed histories of both nations followed by an economic and social policy-based exploration of each nation’s primary and manufactured goods from 1961-2007. Synopsis: The complexities of identity and identity formation are seemingly endless. Many of us go through our lives with a general sense of who we are, which groups (religious, race, class, gender, sexuality, etc) we belong to, and what possibilities or restrictions we are allotted in the United States given pre-existing discriminatory practices related to race, gender, class, sexuality and a multiplicity of other ‘definers’. There are those that are conscious of such allotments given their restrictions from particular areas of society or the realm of the ‘possible’ and there are those that are not conscious of their identities because quite plainly, they do not need to be in order to be successful or renowned in this country. John Rawls, in writing of the abstract individual in a Theory of Justice (1971), reveals himself to be a man lacking in racial and class awareness. In fact, it will be my argument that only an upper class, white male would be able to speak as Rawls does of abstract individualism through his conceptions of the original position, the veil of ignorance, the liberty principle and the difference principle. Synopsis: A multitude of books, papers and lectures have been created concerning John Stuart Mill and his conception of freedom of opinion and expression as written in Chapter II: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion in On Liberty. The classical interpretation of Mill’s outline for freedom of expression can be clearly stated in the following three points: 1) One may have a truth but due to the fact that society is not yet willing to listen to that truth, it may be suppressed as a falsity (Mill 77); 2) Truth, once grasped, runs the chance of becoming hard, cold and meaningless (‘dead dogma’, Mill 97) if not reconsidered, rejuvenated, rethought or “freely and openly canvassed” within a society (Mill 96); and 3) Truth can find itself in a precarious situation whereby the “conflicting doctrines…share the truth between them” and as yin and yang when placed together, the two parts make a more complete truth (Mill 108). After a brief discussion of the aforementioned points, an understanding of Mill’s classical interpretation shall be illustrated. Thereafter, qualms concerning Mill’s aforementioned points will be elucidated upon. Synopsis: Madagascar, particularly during the early years of the military dictatorship in the 1970’s, was run under a socialist economy and unfortunately lends itself to many of the neoclassical arguments against state intervention. The Great Island goes largely against Chang’s claim that many LDCs that have used “bad” policies have encountered strong growth. With largely stagnant GDP growth throughout the 1970–2007 period, the GDP grew at a mere 1% in the 1970’s compared to a long term average of 2.26%. Government economic and social policies have largely been distorted in favor of the urban populations and during the state interventionist period of the 1970’s, Madagascar departed from the Franc Zone and the pegging of the Malagasy Franc to a currency basket (with foreign exchange restrictions) and this contributed to economic underperformance. Further intervention, rent-seeking and corruption marked the 70’s and export taxation plagued farmers who received less that 8% of vanilla’s price at times. An export tax in the mid-70’s drove the nominal rates of assistance to -70% and heavy taxation on the producers was worsened. These “bad” policies (traditionally looked down on by neoclassicals) may have, in fact, been bad. This is where Rodrik steps in. Hazy Localities: Corporate Structures of Sentiment (Version 1) Synopsis: This paper is about tracing this sadness, anger and resignation through a specific location and time. The institution in which I worked, Three World Financial Center in the financial district of New York City, bespeaks of heavily managed and maintained physical and sentimental structures, constantly in negotiation between the physical spaces of the office building and the workers within, as well as between the individuals themselves. Hazy Localities: Corporate Structures of Sentiment (Cubicle) (Version 2) Synopsis: This paper is about tracing the complex sentiments of alienation and anger (as well as their partner emotions) through a specific location and time. This is not a sequential tracing, not intended to imply that one sentiment leads to another. They are such complex sentiments precisely because so often they are experienced simultaneously. The organization in which I worked within the Three World Financial Center in the financial district of New York City from 2007-2009 bespeaks of heavily-managed and maintained physical and sentimental structures, constantly in negotiation between the physical spaces of the office building and the workers within, as well as between the individuals themselves. My approach will be to trace these sentiments through the physically and historically-sedimented layers of a cubicle on the 32nd floor of Three Word Financial Center. New Media Warfare: Tweeting on the Front Lines Synopsis: firstly, it will outline the ways in which the U.S. military has begun utilizing social media to put a more human face on its divisions as well as open up communications between soldiers, families, and friends. Secondly, it will outline how the military has come to perceive new media as a weapon to be used in, as British military expert John McKinley dubs it, the “virtual arena of war”, and information operations as essential to winning the “war of ideas” which the Global War on Terrorism has become. Lastly, this paper shall explore the ways in which the “insurgencies” have begun utilizing new media to fight the lumbering bureaucracies of Western powers, pulling primarily on the cases of the Israeli-Hezbollah war of 2006, the Battle of Jenin in 2002, as well as the ever-expanding presence of the “insurgency” across the web. This paper will conclude by stating that while the U.S. military is attempting to adapt to the guerilla warfare of the new media “insurgencies”, its long-standing culture of rigid hierarchies and vertical lines of power structures will have to speedily give way to the horizontal fluidity of its aggressors or it will find itself quickly defeated and madly outpaced in the “war of ideas”. Nomadic Trajectories: Traversing Through Conceptions of Places Fragmentally, Presently Past Madagascar and Mauritius: Sugar, Vanilla and the Tale of Divergence Rawlsian Justice: A Hypothetical Through the Looking Glass of a Privileged, White Hope John Stuart Mill: A Conception of Truth Falls Short Ha-Joon Chang and Dani Rodrik: Applications to Mauritius and Madagascar By JK Fowler Home Home