Intimidated

To be very honest, I was more than a little intimidated in class this past Friday. Although the discussion was interesting and heated, I felt that I had little to contribute compared to some of my fellow classmates. Each argument triggered my own personal opinions to constantly pop up in my mind, however, I rarely wanted to vocalize these thoughts since they seemed so juvenile compared to the likes of Perry’s, Nate’s, and Adam’s extensive responses. As they would list historical facts about Hamas, I would try and figure out what exactly Hamas was… Please don’t laugh. I know I’m really putting myself out there by being this honest about what I don’t know yet, but I figure it’s better to be honest then risk sounding ignorant. I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable when it comes to world politics, but, after Friday’s class, I’m beginning to seriously doubt that assumption. I have complete confidence in the validity of my own opinions, but I fear that, at least in this genre, they are based more on emotion than cold hard facts

Additionally, I felt that class was spent answering two similar, but very different, questions: “What is world politics?” and “What is the biggest issue in world politics?” The conversation would constantly switch back and forth between proclaiming something as the “biggest issue” and then questioning, “but is that even world politics?” If we don’t even know what world politics is then how can we state that one issue is more important than the next?  I would have liked to say in class that, “I think it’s all relative,” but I refrained for I feel as though most would have rejected the theory as too broad, philosophical, or hard to tackle. I attempted to explain myself in my first blog entry by noting that “the biggest issue” in world politics is not a singular issue for it is affected by hundreds of other world problems as well. For instance, how can the poor worry about global warming when they are dying of dehydration and hunger? Surprisingly I feel that the class discussion proved my theory right. Even though Professor Jackson had already said that there was no one right answer to this question, students felt passionate in that their answer was best and most appropriate. Isn’t that the precise reason we have world politics in the first place? No one can agree on which world issue is most legitimate and of more importance, thus we encounter conflict. I guess that’s why I had so little to say in class, for I didn’t have any one specific answer as to which problem was above the rest and I never felt that anyone’s opinion was outright wrong.