Monday, February 16, 2009
Blog # 9 The Tribe
The concept of tribe has always been an important idea in Arabian and Islamic history. While they have many positive features to them, unfortunately they also come with problems. Some of those include the too stron of a reliance on the leader. For example after Muhammad's death most of the alliences broke, along with Islamic peace. The problem was that the people of the tribe relied too much on their leader, and when the leader collapsed, so did the people's stability.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Blog #8 Religious History of India
I think that the religious history of India influenced India's tradion of non-violence in many ways. It's leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a big believer of non-violence, and peace. Growing up in a home with strong belief in Vaishnavism (worship of Hindu God Vishnu) and Jainism influence as well, which had non violent beliefs, and thought that everything in the world was eternal. Another example is how the idea of reincarnation came up in Indian history which was the belief that what you do in your current life effects where you will be in your next life. So if you were to act violent and causing wars, your would most likely be something bad in your next life. Also Hindus were said to be vegatarians which is a very peaceful lifestyle, including not causing any violence to animals.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Blog # 7 Migration
Yes migration has positive impacts on all the people involved in it. That being said it also has negative impacts. It impacts the people living in the land that people are migrating to positively, because along with people come new ideas and ways to function in society that they hadn't discovered before or figured out yet. But it can also effect those people negatively because they're land is being taken over by outsiders who are using all of their resources causing them to have less to use for themselves. It affects the people migrating positively because they get to apply all their ways of producing and functioning in society on new land, and then from that being able to learn better ways to harvest and to function so they can become the best they can be. But a negative aspect for the people migrating to new lands would be that they wouldn't be adjusted to the new land, and all things tying together with that such as climate and the people there etc. If they couldn't cooperate with all the new variables in the way of them thriving to be the best that they could, most likely their society would crash and burn.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Blog Entry # 6
2. Justice to Plato was "whatever the strongest decide it is, and that the strong decide that whatever is in their best interest is just." Socrates proved this argument to be false, by proving that the strong rarely figure out what is in their best interest, and this can't be just since justice is a good thing. I do not agree with what Plato thinks Justice. I think that Justice is the right thing that helps the most amount of people possible and causes no intentional harm.
3. I think that Plato's ideal republic had many positive and negative qualities in it. The positive were that Plato's ideal republic real being aristocracy, they would always rule by the best, and try to produce as much productive work as possible. A negative I saw in this ideal republic was that a state may be be intemperate if any of the lower groups do not obey one of the higher groups. I don't really agree with that, I think that everyone and every group should be treated equally.
4. My vision of an ideal state or republic would be one that could stand the test of time for being so flawless. It would have one main leader, who is justified that is in Charge of being the ultimate decision maker. Not as if they could make any irrational choices. They would have a whole group of advisers and supporting government to make sure there wouldn't be any unjustified actions. People would all have the same rights. I'm a big believer in equality.
5. This means that sometimes we get so caught up in how we see things, or how we think things are, when we don't take the time to step back for a moment and realize that not everything works the way that we see it. After we do this we can reach the knowledge.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Sparta vs. Athens Blog Entry #5
2. I would rather live in Sparta if I was a slave. In Athens slaves had no rights and an owner could kill the slave. In Sparta Helots which were the equivalents of slaves but they got to use land (not own it) and all they had to do was give half of their produce to the Spartiate citizens who owned the actual land. I would much rather this than to be murdered one day if my owner is in a bad mood and decides to take it out on me.
3. If I was a boy of the citizen class I would rather live in Athens. In Sparta you could either be a Military professional and own land, a Helots and be the equivalent of slave, or a woman with few rights. In Athens freemen were all male citizens and in the middle rank small farmers. I would choose to be a small farmer over being a Helot any day. I would get more rights and not be treated as a slave.
4. If I was a young soldier I would rather live in Sparta. They considered Military professionals to be their highest social ranking earning a lot of respect from the people. And Sparta has a strong army with the best and most feared fighters on land, while Athens is more specialized in the Navy. Being a soldier in Sparta would give me the skills of warfare as well because at age seven all boys are taken from their parents to begin training in the art of warfare. I would much rather be a soldier in Sparta, because they give more respect to the position and that I would be more prepared in battle.
5. If I was a wealthy person of the citizen class, I would much rather live In Athens. While in Sparta the highest social ranking was Military professionals, in Athens it was an aristocrat who could own large estates and had voting rights. If I was wealthy and was going to pick a place to live out of the two it would definitely be Athens because I could use my wealth more to my advantage and use more of it for pleasure based purchases.
6. While both Athens and Sparta have their negative and positive aspects to them I would have to say that I would rather live in Sparta. The highly trained and fearful military system would make me feel safe and secure with my city-state while Athens marine system isn't quite as impressive. As a woman if I would want to leave the house in Athens it would only be if I was a prostitute which I'm not a big supporter of. But in Sparta I could get an education become physically healthy, and even own and control property. I wouldn't be able to do any of those things if I lived in Athens.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Blog Entry # 4 Changes
Monday, September 15, 2008
Blog Entry #3 Signifigant Changes
I agree that population growth was the most significant development of the Classical period to some extent. I think that it was more the consequences that were a result of the population growth. For example, there was deforestation in order to provide enough resources for the new population quantity. Also, more big cities were created to support the new population quantity as well. But, an advantage that was made was that with new population increases came the increase of collective learning as well. A few of the reasons behind the population surge were the use of farming and breeding animals to do things humans normally couldn't, or could but then would have time for other labor. As well as the invention of iron, which provided the iron plow, and weapons. And as well as better crops were produced that had more calories in it, and larger quantity of food was being grown. So no, I don't believe that population growth was the biggest change in the classical period. I believe it's because of the reasons behind it, and the consequences of it.