Obama.
I was watching Obama the whole morning until the end of the official ceremony. Then I went back to engage in MCAT until I again forgot to send all the emails that I should send. One of which I have dragged for 6 days already. I ought to kill myself.Obama's inaugural address wasn't as epic as it should be. We are kind of used to him already I guess. However, the important thing is not whether he can talk, but - he can eventually deliver his promises, lead America out of this self-created hellhole, bring jobs and health care back to the people, and concrete support for R&D aimed at improving the human condition and delaying (again self-created) doomsday. He addressed all these in his inaugural address.
Whether he can actually bring about the change he promised - well, what kind of change are we actually expecting? I mean, as long as we do not have the Bush people around, there will be change - because any American administration is likely to be smarter than Bush's. What the government do will start to make sense. But - Obama pledges a larger and more fundamental change, a change that is supposed to make America a more responsible nation and Americans more responsible people - I am not quite sure an administration can actually do that.
Obama might inspire the college student to be more aware of people around them and be less self-important. If this is something that can be sustained and be carried forth, it is definitely a positive societal force. However, do you genuinely believe that Obama can actually change Wall Street? Alter business practices? Fundamentally change the attitude of Americans who are stakeholders? Get the Jews who are Democrats to stop supporting a Zionist right-wing Israeli government?
We won't see America fundamentally change. All we might see is, America will join the Kyoto protocol, stop labelling people as the 'Axis of Evil', stop raging wars that are unnecessary, have more regulatory presence in the financial market, reduce the prominence of ideology in all practical fields, etc. - things that make intellectual sense. To fundamentally change America, it will take more than one generation and a fundamental change in the global power structure.
My prediction is - Obama's era would be a time where America would start to actively re-establish their reputation and leadership in the world, people will have less reasons to hate America, and they would begin to start actually doing something to solve the internal problems that have been bugging them but are being conveniently (or might even be actively) ignored.
Obama's era will be a satisfying era for people like us who are left-wing moderates. There will be significantly less idiotic things coming out of Washington DC (the NPR has been lamenting - they have NO MORE BUSH to make fun of!!). However, if you are expecting fundamental change - I am sorry, that is something you won't see. Probably you might have more hope looking at China change.
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MCAT writing sample - done it in around 30 minutes. Please comment!
An understanding of the past is necessary for solving the problems of the present.
There are significant problems that the world faces now that require politicians around the world to put forth immediate and decisive action. A current example of such a scale would be the economic crisis that started in America as the sub-prime mortgage crisis and subsequently affected every country around the globe. As we look back into history, this is not the first time that the world is being confronted with such a significant economic crisis. The Great Depression in the 1930s is one which can arguably surpass this current crisis in terms of scale and impact. More recently, the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2001 and the Asian financial crisis of 1997 are also examples which had significant impacts on global economy.
In this sense, when there are precedents to the current problems that we are facing, understanding the past will definitely help in solving the problems of the present. There have been a lot of parallels drawn in the media between the current crisis and the Great Depression in the 1930s, and economists have also spoken to draw on the similarities and differences between the two crises to see if we can learn anything from the way Franklin Roosevelt brought the country out of the previous crisis. Banks and governments around the world have also done the same, tapping into their experiences in dealing with previous crises to devise strategies to bring their countries out of the problems they are facing now. There have also been reports suggesting that the experience gathered and the reforms that had been in place in the Asian economies have prepared them a lot better compared to the crises they faced in 1997.
However, a lot of the problems that we face in modern times do not have parallels in the past. Issues such as global warming and the controversies surrounding stem cell research, for example, do not have precedents in the past. In this case, we are faced with a problem - even though understanding the past would be useful in helping us solve present problems, there is no direct 'past' for us to look into when we deal with these issues. This will thus form a situation in which it is impossible for us to look to the past for solutions even if we want to.
Does that mean that we will not be able to solve these problems satisfactorily? The answer is no. Other than looking directly to seek an understanding of the past, we are also capable of coming with novel solutions with no precedents in history. To avoid the ethical controversies surrounding stem cell research, scientists in Japan and Wisconsin have devised a new way of obtaining those controversial embryonic stem cells - they manipulated the genes of some normal body cells from an adult animal and turned them into cells which closely resembles embryonic stem cells. With their research, we can potentially obtain stem cells without having to 'murder' embryos - which have always been the point of contention surrounding stem cell research. In this case, scientists have solved an unprecedented problem using innovation which did not involve an understanding of history.
In short, it is not always necessary to have an understanding of the past before one can solve problems of the present. In the example of the financial crisis, knowing how we have dealt with similar problems in the past would definitely help to solve the problem, and people are indeed doing that now. However, in situations where there is no precedent for the current problem, that might not even be possible and thus an understanding of the past would definitely not be necessary. In fact, in situations like this, innovation and creativity might even be more important compared to an understanding of the past. The stem cell research example clearly illustrates that.
Labels: Policy and Politics
