Popular Sovereignty

Just finished a small write-up about the analogy between individuals and states from the Renaissance to the 18th century as well as an analysis of what this means for contemporary international relations. It's pretty messy - I may repost a cleaner final version someday.

Brauhn - Popular Sovereignty

Motrin and Such

The last day or so has featured a flurry of Motrin (yes, the pain reliever)-related activity on the Twittertubes. I was working at the library most of yesterday, so I avoided keeping up with the madness. I didn't know what was happening, and I figured that I'd savor that and wait to find out today. And so I did, by following through to Thinkjose's post about Motrin's Twitter Headache. He does an awesome job of explaining the evolution of the damn thing, and it's well worth the visit. Apparently, the hubbub was about this video:



Yeah, I agree. Pretty silly. I do like the wordart stuff, though. The entire fiasco is another example of how different things are these days. Gives me more fodder for my upcoming Magnum Opus, which will be a research project involving social media, democracy, and international relations. Gotta think big, you know.

Technorati Tags: social media, motrin, technology

Why We Can't Stand Still

My instructor in my Modern Political Theory class was discussing how political theory, like any good idea, is generally applied retrospectively to a given situation. We aren't usually able to see patterns until after the fact. Not that this makes theory worthless, of course; we gain a greater appreciation of what has happened, and we can certainly learn about possible future occurrences of that given situation.

My instructor did point out the need for theory to be as proactive as it possibly could though, by positing this thought-experiment: "What if, tomorrow, science proves that I'm actually standing on the other side of the room?" It was a ridiculous idea, but not outside the realm of possibility.

We already know that time is relative, perhaps even more so than we would like to admit. It is, as I've long held, a social construct more than an empirical thing (I still show up early to everything, though). We can, if we like, view time as everything happening all at once, since there's no feasible end or beginning point for what we call "time." Even more disturbing/inspiring is quantum mechanics, which allows us to think really, REALLY big by looking at things that are very, very small. I offer the following easy explanation of superposition theory:



By this reasoning, my instructor most certainly could have been on the other side of the room, at the exact same time that he was where we perceived him to be. Using the aforementioned notion of time as relative, he could have been inhabiting both positions at different times as well. Whew. We can't stand still because, depending how you look at it, we are everywhere at once.

I love this stuff, but you can't think deeply about it for too long or your brain will explode.

Technorati Tags: time, quantum

Sharia and the State

I've finished up a review of Noah Feldman's The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State. It's not actually all review - there's analysis, too. It definitely would not fit here, so it's been published through GoogleDocs. Take a peek, eh?

Brauhn - Feldman and Sharia and the State

Technorati Tags: islam, sharia, democracy

Obama and the Weather

Eboo Patel has a new one up at the WaPo's Faith Divide: Obama and the Weather

It's a very keen metaphor that he employs. Forecast calls for SWEET.

Bloggers United for Refugees

UPDATE: EarthlyExplorations blogs about refugees and displaced people in the Philippines.

Today is Bloggers Unite/Refugees United Day, so I'm getting involved! It occurs to me that our conception of refugees or refugee status can be conceived of in a few different ways, owing largely to the different definitions of state, nation, and country.

1. Statelessness - Being stateless means that your group (however you conceive of it) lacks a territorially-defined, internationally-recognized place. The Kurds, for instance, number in the millions but still lack a state of their own.

2. Nationlessness - OK, that one got underlined so it's probably made-up. Still, lacking a nation is where being a refugee becomes a bit odd. Nationless people could very well be a part of a state, physically speaking, but being disconnected from people of your own group or even feeling apart from your own people is tough.

3. Countrylessness - That one didn't get underlined; must be real. I used to view countrylessness as some romantic notion of the "world citizen;" beholden to no government and floating throught he world on the wind. Probably OK for some, but when it's not by choice...

On a day like today, when thousands of bloggers are talking about the rights of refugees, helping them to find their families, and to reunite them with their homes, it's important to remember just how complex all these issues really are. They are seldom as simple as we would wish them to be, and international law can only do so much. It may be up to ordinary people to take the necessary steps to promote justice for those who have no home.

Ambiguity

If we follow the "behind the scenes" campaign reporting now that the election has been decided, the person of Barack Obama becomes increasingly ambiguous. He said it himself in regards to the campaign; I can't find the article but will attempt to.

This guy is picking up a mighty burden. Reforming the whole of everything. Making government accountable and transparent. Listening to diverse viewpoints. You know, all the bits that make a textbook democracy.

But we all know that he is inheriting a difficult situation, and that he has already reneged on many of his campaign promises. As a pragmatist, I can understand this. I'm left wondering what effect his ambiguity and such could have on the presidency. If things go badly (which I'm sure we can all agree is possible), what kind of a reaction should we have? If I were a betting man, I would say that at this point, even if President-Elect Obama screws up royally, most people will still be behind him.

And I think that is awesome. Technorati Tags: obama, politics, feelings