Blog Entry #5

   This week I was really intrigued by how our ideals and culture in the developed world affect the less developed world and how capitalism facilitates the exchange. As we have moved towards a globalized and capitalistic planet, we see cultural ideals exchanged rapidly. Western images of female beauty are readily available underdeveloped countries. This can be psychologically damaging to individuals, especially as we see typically "western" diseases such as anorexia spread to other regions. I think this is a huge danger that globalization brings. It is important that we as a human race value other standards of beauty, so that other cultures do not feel like they are less beautiful. More importantly, we need to teach people that their value as a human is not based on their beauty.

   The film we began watching on Friday, "Killing Us Softly 4", illustrated the un-achievable standard of beauty the West has created. People living in slums do not have the education or knowledge to understand that these images are completely unrealistic and should not be seen as healthy bodily standards. It is sad to me that people who already have very difficult lives feel badly about themselves because they cannot embody the perfect body image in advertising. It almost feels morally wrong to use edited images in advertising - it isn't a truthful way of representing the human body and human beauty. However, as we have seen throughout this course, the economic opportunities seem to outweigh the moral or health issues. It is unfortunate that capitalism seems to disregard human psychological health.

   I would like to know more about the advertising industry. It would be interesting to see to what extent does modifying images in advertisements actually increase sales revenue. If given unlimited resources, I would create an advertising/awareness campaign to show people - especially those in underdeveloped countries - how unrealistic and fake the images we see are. Maybe then we would begin to see a decrease in sales on products promoted by these fake images, and in turn, advertisers would not be as apt to use them. Ideally, we could promote the beauty and acceptance of real people, not fake images. It would also be important to promote other ethnicities as being equally beautiful and attractive.

Blog entry 4

This week I primarily was intrigued by the video The Empathic Civilization. I thought it was interesting how over the course of human history, we have grouped ourselves into empathetic groups based on various things, Culture, religion, language, and ethnicity have all provided reasons for the human race to show empathy to one another. They have also given us reason for conflict, differences in beliefs can, often irrationally, lead to war. The video was closed related to our discussion of what a nation-state is and how they play a role in international relations currently. Following the Cold War era, many states formed began to break up due to cultural differences as their citizens began to seek meaningful representation. Everyone wants to belong to empathetic group that will keep their best interests in mind when dealing with public policy. 

I think it is natural for people to want to find nation-states to belong to to represent their interests. However I think as the world becomes increasingly globalized it is important that we begin to see ourselves as one global nation state -- a nation of humans residing in one global state. Our everyday decisions affect one another. This also ties into our ongoing discussion of human rights vs. cultural rights. Each nation-state will define their own rights, but at some point, as one global body, we need to define basic human rights to protect anyone who may be taken advantage of. I found comfort in the example the video gave of Haiti. As a race, we are inherently empathetic. After the earthquake, the entire globe began to raise relief funds - within hours. We need to channel that empathy into a global discussion on human rights. 

With unlimited resources, I would hope to lobby celebrities and other important figures in society to encourage an empathetic attitude towards other cultures. I think it would also be helpful for people to travel and experience other cultures - and realize that other people aren't quite so different. The video mentioned the biological "Adam and Eve", to whom every person's DNA can be traced back to. We all descend from the same ancestors and inherently posses empathy - we just need to begin to think of ourselves as one human race and express our empathetic nature.