anne's dispatches from sydney

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Last Friday, I gave a presentation in class on the topic of "globalisation", and making ethical judgements in regards to the manifestations of these policies. I saw my task as to clarify the controversies that have been bundled together under this vague word- to restore its political meaning. [Luckily I did not have to clarify "No. the issue is not the amount of phone calls around the world..."]

I was quite surprised at how traumatised I felt in researching this old topic of mine again. Reading articles on the internet often made me cry my eyes out. Also, the responsibility of educating fellow class mates made me feel like a bearer of bad news. But I did it, and people responded well, saying they had learnt a lot.

Perhaps I found it so hard because for the first time, I was judging institutions and policies relative to positive ideals of achieving human potential- whereas before, I would educate people about the WTO, whilst taking a cynical world view for granted. My task made the ethical frameworks redundant- because the WTO and WB/IMF policies didn't just 'not measure up' to standards but are counterproductive in an absolute sense.

I divided the controversies into two main parts, that I called 'vectors'.

1. Structural Adjustment Programs of the World Bank and IMF since 1980
2. International trade agreements since 1994.

posted by: anneinchaosland at 17:44 | link | comments |

Amid the gusts of swirling leaves
he sweeps the garden edges.

(on my walk to uni this morning)
Can you imagine what kind of person would do this?
What age is he?

posted by: anneinchaosland at 16:51 | link | comments |

I look on the news in Australia websites, and I read emails from home, and I feel like Australia is full of a rising hysteria- and I am here in this land of complacency.

posted by: anneinchaosland at 15:41 | link | comments |

I just did an exam this morning, on International Political Economy- in which I had to understand  'realism'...

I remember the rage I felt, the time I  first heard the theory of Realism spoken of in an international politics class at Sydney University. I remember how the lecturer spoke complacently about the 'balance of power' theory to rationalise the buildup of nuclear warheads between nations. I couldn't believe how he spoke of it as if it was a normal way to think. I was sitting in my seat bristling with anger and wanting to interrupt his speech. But I didn't.

Instead, I grumbled to the person next to me after the lecture, and never again came back to the class. Not a very powerful response- rather it was a copout- exercising my consumer preferences rather than confronting the issue.

This for me was one experience of what Hannah Arendt calls 'the banality of evil'. The way that some ideas can be rationalised in everyday scholarship and everyday actions. In realism this is particularly endemic, because the school of thought is a mirror of the moral landscape of the present- and prescribes policy according to that moral landscape.

Now, today, I can understand why they rationalise teaching neo-realism- since it is such a common school of thought in think tanks and global policy institutes- effectively guiding the current Bush Administration in the US. Similarly, I now see the methodology of 'Realpolitik' in many situations.  Now I even distribute the literature of neo-cons to friends so that we can understand this cold and calculating frame of mind- that can hardly be classified as that of humanity.

posted by: anneinchaosland at 00:50 | link | comments |