Karl Marx

After reading about Marx's background and what circumstances he grew up under it was easy to see why he stood by the views he did. Since he grew up in the middle of the british industrial revolution class struggle and inequality was a part of his everyday life and shaped his political opinions accordingly. His idea of the oppressor and the oppressed is directly related to his early years and the difficulties he had to watch and face while growing up. He felt that capitalism was not effective because private property, competition and class structure did no allow the proper distribution of economics to the workers as well as the owners. Which is why in his model it is an extremely evenly distributed society with everyone doing there own part. His philosophy is, in my opinion, a much better system then reality and although it did not flourish i think that it is a possible society to obtain. In the end it would create a much more equal world that benefits ALL of us, even if the lucky like us must downgrade.

wing yangmin

Wing Yangmin argued that truth and moral knowledge were a privilege that was only received by those who earned it. That if knowledge was not obtained by a person it is simpler to experience a life of virtue without consequence. In my opinion, Yangmin's idea was basically similar to the saying, "ignorance is bliss". I felt that this statement(along with yangmins's idea) is true to some extent. but on the other hand i do not believe that knowledge make you miserable because you are informed. I thought that it was interesting because it is impossible to compare two backgrounds that are so different. For instance a philosopher and an uneducated house servant.

Kaozheng

India and China did not face the same changes that occurred in European culture. Although religious and cultural changes occurred in both areas, China's was less dramatic compared to Europe. I think that this was because of the different approach each culture followed regarding religion and science. The idea of kaozheng (research based on evidence or seeking fact from truth) played a large role in keeping china more religiously stable. Since the Confucian philosophy did not challenge the religion it was a lot easier for Hindus and Confucius followers to believe only what they had verification and rigorous analysis for. Also another positive side of Kaozheng was that it produced many experiments which brought about numerous breakthroughs in agriculture, medicine, and many other useful techniques. The scientific approach that principled Kaozheng worked so well because it did not challenge religion and at the same time allowed the culture to explore different aspects of innovation.

Hawaii: unfairly annexed

the united states has a history of taking over lands because of their desirable qualities without any regards to the people who live there. i think that the way the united states treated the hawaiian nation was unfair. Even though hawaii as been part of the united states for years now they seem to have kept their distance from the rest of the nation and not fully assimilated to the mainland culture. I do not blame them...

What i found most ridiculous about the annexation of hawaii was the constitution written for the island in 1852. The first article states, "God hath created all men free and equal, and endowed them with certain inalienable rights; among which are life and liberty, the right of acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and of pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness." This contradicts everything that the authors are doing and had previously been doing. In my opinion it is truly say one thing and doing the opposite. Acts like this put a burden to the history of our nation, it is important that we as a nation be conscience of the actions we make in the present in order to not repeat our mistakes.

Social Darwinism

Chapter 19 covered a period spanning from 1800-1914 and although there were several topics in the chapter the one i found most interesting was the idea of social darwinism. Social darwinism is basically a myth. Europeans realized that many animals had been affected by darwinism aka evolution. So darwinism was applied to the human creature. For the most part the social chain started with the white man at the top, followed by an Asian, then an Native American, then a Indian, then a black man, and lastly a monkey. I felt that this was a very ignorant hypothesis. Im also confident that the fellow who thought it up was a white man and considered himself intelligent. However, it is not a surprise that this was an idea, after all europeans founds most other races extremely weaker and felt they had a superior white race. This also ties into europeans reasoning in there "duty to civilize" other races, which i feel could be related to the united states in present day. Social darwinism was basically biology and evolution being confused, and although there may be some truth to humans evolving from monkeys this is an over analyzation in my opinion.

industrialization

my prior knowledge about industrialization was limited to that of the united states. I figured that it was the first area to organize industry. I did not know that nearly a century before the U.S. had industry great Britain and the rest of europe were already underway with their own industrial revolution. The next question that arose, why was the U.S. so successful? It turns out that it was a huge advantage to have a basically virgin land full of resources available to everyone. This began to make sense after i realized the U.S. was the only country with such an advantage. Nevertheless I was surprised to find out that democracies were not the only successful governments leading their country through a industry boom. Russia had a very different and interesting system. However even though they were not quite as up to date i feel that hardships were caused by war rather then a flaw in the system. Also when the southern americas come to mind, i felt as if they could have been a industry powerhouse if their resources were not striped from them and sent back to europe with basically no reimbursement towards southern america.

sugar

For the most part i did not know the role sugar played in the 1600s. What i learned about it was that it was one of the most difficult and time consuming products to make. The colonist had a easy time making a lot of money off of this product. This is because they had free labor. African slaves and indigenous that were enslaved and taken advantage of. What i found interesting about the subject is the fact that the colonists would have the audacity to take people from other parts of the world and enslave them in unknown parts all for a luxury item. Not to mention that fact that the indigenous were run out of their home and/or forced to join the slaves. Sugar was the perfect product for such a feat because of the ability to mass market it. Although colonist say they weren't making away with a lot of riches i feel as if it would only be logical to make a killing off of this process. In conclusion sugar(and other plantation products) transformed the Americas forever. Although the exploitation of African and indigenous slaves may be a disgusting thought, i believe it is one of the main reasons the Americas are so advanced.