The Prosperity of Nations

Have you ever wondered how Japan is one, if not the only asian country to be considered a developed first world nation. Some might argue that the assistance of the USA after World War II was the primary factor. On the contrary, the only reason was the open mind’s the Japanese had to new change during Europe’s colonization period. When foreigner’s arrived at their shores in 1543, the Japanese eventually “threw the doors open.”However with the rise of christianity, the Japanese ended relations with Europe and closed the country, but not 250 years after, witnessing and being victim to the awesome industrial power of the new USA, the country was once again opened up. “The Japanese turned out to be the best students in all the history of the world” and “learnt all that Europe could teach them about machines for war and for peace,” before being able to level on the same playing field as the Europeans and develop their nation in nearly every aspect of society. This example is significant because it shows us that being open to change is beneficial for every nation and society. The societies that will thrive in terms of growth, prosperity and development in different aspects of society and make their mark on the world would appear at first glance to be the most powerful, influential, biggest and wealthiest societies. While this may be true in certain situations in history, these factors alone are not enough. They are the societies most open to change and different thinking in most if not all aspects of their society. This can be showed in different situations including the Pre/Early Hellenic Age in Greece, the rise of the Roman Empire and the Rise of Agriculture and Settlements.

Nations can thrive with influence and wealth, by ‘learning from other societies’.We shall start, by looking at the Greeks, about 2500 years ago. The Greeks were truly a society that “almost every year they came up with something new” as explained in E.H Gombrich’s award winning book, A Little History of the World. The author states that a prime example of Greek style change came in 594 BC, with the introduction of Direct Democracy in the city of Athens. The first example of practice of democracy, Athenian society and politics was completely altered with this new policy, leading to multiple political reforms and one of the most advanced forms of debating the world had ever seen. The Greeks were also unique in their practice of reflection “on what the world was actually made of, and what might be the cause of all events and experiences. This sort of reflection is what we call philosophy.” This debating and philosophy helped the greeks become the true intellectuals and scholars of the world and to think about topics well beyond their time.

However the Greeks weren’t just changing the culture and politics of their society. They were constantly looking to expand their horizons and that was just what happened. With new advancement in naval technology they colonized and expanded their influence beyond the Greek peninsula. However Gombrich goes on to explain that, another civilization called the Phoenicians, a maritime trade nation, heard about these Greeks and sailed to trade in the new colonies. In due time, the Greeks “learnt so much from the Phoenicians that they, too, sailed onwards.” With the new naval technology and policy of expansion and influence the Phoenicians have as well as their use of writing, another new revolutionary concept, the Greeks expanded their influence and culture just as it was changing. “It was at this point that history started to progress” as change became more common, with the Greeks “constantly changing,” that lead to them creating a thriving culture and society that spread from India to Spain. The Greeks would cease to be the learners in the future and become a model for other nations, ‘the teachers.’

Sure the nations that were the biggest and most powerful thrived but they had stronger contenders in the first place in their enemies and themselves. While Greece was starting a period of change and prosperity during the expansion of greek culture with Alexander the Great, one of the many peoples in Italy was also commencing a period of correlated change and expansion. The Romans, a small “tribe of stubborn and unruly peasants” that changed the course of history by conquering most of ‘the known world’. However “as all stories go, they had to start somewhere”. The Romans by the time of the birth of Jesus thrived in terms of their power, influence splendour and culture through multiple political, social, cultural and militaristic changes. “They loved their native city and its soil and would do anything and everything to increase its prosperity and power,” which was their own way of thriving as a society. However, to achieve power and prosperity came with multiple reforms in all aspects of their society as they grew bigger and faced new problems and dilemmas. First and foremost residing in their enemies, who many of which were stronger, bigger, wealthier and influential.

Though through multiple changes in military, they were able to ‘rise to the challenge’ as seen with their conflict against the wealthy Carthaginians, offspring of the far-ranging Phoenicians whose naval power was already advanced and powerful on it’s own. “But one day a Carthaginian ship ran aground off Italy. Using it as a model, and working in furious haste, the Romans managed to build a whole fleet of identical ships within two months.” By learning from their foes and changing, the Romans turned out to be the victors and at the same time their navy became a force to be reckoned with. The changes in military that took place throughout the span of Rome made it the most powerful and influential army force in the known world. Another major change for the Romans happened twice, concerning their government and political system. During the beginning of Rome in 509BC, the political system was a kingdom, run by kings, but with many political and social issues facing the system, Rome was reformed by the people and made into the first Republic in the world. This allowed social and public stability. Other changes came including the gained rights of the common people of Rome, the professional military reform all of which lead eventually to the transformation of the Republic to an Empire, as the growing society and borders demanded. Through these changes, Rome lasted for over 1500 years and influenced the culture and society of Europe even until today. Growing from the change they underwent and experienced, the Romans met every challenge they faced and eventually, they would be the biggest and strongest of societies.

Nevertheless, big change can bring about big growth and prosperity. Change in almost every single aspect of society. If you were to look at Europe, many would attribute the word to power, wealth and privilege. Many would argue that this is only because of their intelligent minds and superior culture, or because of their ability to learn from nations including China and the Arabs. While this may be true, what Jared Diamond thinks, in his book Guns, Germs and Steel is that is was only because of their open minds to change sooner rather than later back before permanent shelters even existed when it came to the introduction of agricultural based societies. Societies in China, Europe and the Middle East when they were still hunter gatherers altered their system of acquiring food with the idea of agriculture anywhere from 10,000 BC to 7,000 BC, for most early agricultural communities. With this in mind, the author states that “by selecting and growing those few species of plants and animals that we can eat,” agricultural communities then “can feed many more herders and farmers- typically, 10 to 100 times more- than hunter gatherer tribes.” This lead to population booms in many societies that opened up to this change. This is also elaborated on in John Green’s crash course video on the agricultural revolution which explicitly divulges the fact that complex society including jobs in commerce like merchants and political roles like officials and monarchs, cities and settlements as well as culture and entertainment would not be possible if the agricultural revolution did not take place. The increased efficiency of food production meant people could do other jobs as stated above. This preaches the benefits to those who opened to the change of the agricultural revolution, as many others did not for a long time, because they gained the ability to focus on anything else besides survival and instinct.

With the importance of crops in new agricultural society also came the importance of livestock and animals. By opening up to agriculture, you also experience the change of animal domestication which has its own advantages.“In addition, the largest domestic mammals interacted with domestic plants to increase food production by pulling plows” among many other farming uses. Also “Big domestic mammals further revolutionized human society by becoming our main means of land transport until the development of railroads in the 19th century. The advantages of opening up to the new change the agricultural revolution and the domestication of animals brought lead to the thriving of many peoples in political, social, economic and cultural aspects of society and gave these communities the ‘head start’ that lead them to advance and grow far beyond and before the rest of the world. These new systems of food production lead to world wide development, with whole societies changing and evolving in “machines for peace and machines for war.”

In many of the most famous nations and powerful nations in terms of either wealth, influence, power and size, you can view societies that were open to change and development. They might be the most powerful, influential, biggest and wealthiest societies until you consider that they had to start somewhere and face many challenges to get there. Being the most powerful isn’t enough. Societies that grow and evolve, thrive and prosper are the societies most open to change and different thinking in most if not all aspects of their society. Overall, societies that can change in their given circumstance tend to thrive into the future. However, of late I have been thinking about how long a powerful society that has developed and grown due to change it has experienced might last. Also, when thinking about modern societies, our current situations when it comes to topics like climate change, limited stock resources, pollution and poverty also urge me to consider a few things. These historical examples of societies that have thrived due to experienced new change in their different aspects of society prompts the questions of how we could adapt more change into our modern world. As the Romans did, we should confront the challenges we face stated above by opening and implementing change and adapting to our situation. Instead of thriving for a short period like so many historical societies did, we want to extend and expand the lifespan of our modern society, not just prosper. The solution is in our hands. Implementing things such as sustainable policies and infrastructure with worldwide co-operation might just be the answer to our problems and help us move forward in progress, to thrive as a society. We need to embrace change to face our challenges, not for society but for all humanity.

Flowers for Katniss

People want to be loved, people want to be looked after. At the bare minimum we all deserve to be treated as equals. “Flowers for algernon” by Daniel Keyes is a book about Charlie Gordon, a mentally retarded 32 year old man, is chosen by a team of scientists to undergo an experimental surgery designed to boost his intelligence. Algernon, rat with a high IQ that scientists had done surgery to improve his intelligence, starts to deteriorate. Charlie remembers his past and comes to the realization that life is now what he thought it was like, and that not everyone will accept him. The entire narrative of Flowers for Algernon is composed of the “progress reports” that Charlie writes.

Suzanne Collins future dystopian story ‘The Hunger Games’ takes place in Panem (North America). In Panem there are 12 districts, each providing resources for the capitol and the people of Panem. The actual hunger games takes place in an arena inside the capitol. Primrose Everdeen, a 12 year old girl from district 12, gets chosen for the 74th Hunger games. Katniss Everdeen (Prim’s sister) volunteers herself to take Prim's place in the hunger games and now has to fight for her life in the arena with 23 other tributes. In “Flowers for Algernon” and “The Hunger Games” we see two characters being controlled and manipulated, they are being treated as animals, something less than. Collins and Keyes show how Carlie’s and Katniss’s identity’s change and what makes them realize that they are not being treated fairly.

At the very start of “Flowers for Algernon” Charlie Gordon is being treated as if he was below the scientists “If only Nemour would look at me as a human being” Charlie is never treated as a human being, he is always being treated like an animal, no matter how much intelligence he gains or how much he tries to change himself he is never accepted. He feels trapped, in a way the scientists take away his happiness, his innocence. A more extreme version of this would be in “The Hunger Games” “after the war, the capitol destroyed all the [tracker jacker] nests surrounding the city, but the ones near the districts were left untouched. Another reason to keep inside the fence of district 12” The capitol is keeping the people who live in the districts behind fences and bars, almost like a cage. They are unable to escape their never ending starvation and sadness. The title the hunger games could possibly show how desperate the people of panem are. Putting their children's names in a ballot. If the child gets picked he or she will have to fight to the death in an arena with gamemakers moving the children around like chess pieces, all in exchange just for food.

Before “I was determined to feed us. I stole eggs from nests, caught fish in nets, sometimes manages to shoot a squirrel or rabbit for stew and gathered various plants that sprung up beneath my feet. I kept us alive.” Before katniss volunteered to take part in the hunger games her whole life revolved around her family and keeping them alive, so far in her life that was all she knows and the way she saw herself.

In Progress Report 7, Charlie thinks about what life will be like when he's smart, and he says he'll never be lonely again. Before charlie had an average IQ he thought that he had a lot of friends, although his relationship with his family was rough he got by on a day to day basis and was generally happy. He saw himself as happy, he had goals but was willing to work towards them. After he became smart, so smart that his knowledge bypassed the scientists charlie realizes that he was being treated unfairly, who he thought were his friends never actually liked him, instead they made fun of him. Now that he realizes this he becomes sad, depressed no longer innocent (no longer innocent meaning that he has come to the realization that life is hard and is not easy, that being happy takes work) 

Charlie gordon starts to surrender and accept that he feels inferior to the scientists and lets them keep him from being happy “The lines and boxes are too straight and I thought you’d join me in erasing them” Charlie is letting the scientists put him down and he is trying to cope with not being happy. Only later in the book charlie “wanted to get up and show everyone what a fool he was, to shout at him: I'm a human being, a person — with parents and memories and a history — and I was before you ever wheeled me into that operating room!” It’s only later when charlie finally understands that he is more than what others think of him, he is more than an experiment.

In “The Hunger Games” Katniss starts to rebel back against the capitol “I want to do something, right here, right now, to show them, to make them accountable, to show the capitol that whatever they do or force us to do that there is a part of every tribute that they can’t own. “ Katniss is fighting back against the capitol and the game makers. She is showing the people of panem that she is more than “a piece in their games”.

Collins and Keyes have shown through their work that everyone isn’t just what others think of them, everyone is unique and should embrace that. No one should have to change themselves for anyone else. Whether it’s to show the capitol why you should win the Hunger Games, whether it’s to impress some scientists so they can use you as an experiment or if if its for some new people you want to make a good impression on. Everyone should embrace who they are, if the people do not like who you are, they just are unable to see how special you are.

Fast Thinking Discrimination Is Destroying Our Society

A girl sits alone in her room, late on a wednesday evening studying, wishing and hoping she has done enough to live up to the racial stereotyping implemented from her family that she has to be smart and get good grades because she’s Indian.

“I am expected to get high grades by both my peers and parents” Says an Indian Grade 8 MS student “I have to push myself to the limit to prove to live up to expectations and stereotypes” Says a Asian MS student.

Underlying these words is the issue that racial stereotypes still exist in our everyday life. In this day and age especially in developed countries such as Singapore we believe there is no racism. We've eradicated slavery and racial segregation, but in truth According to A harvard online test most people show some sort of Racial Bias. This affects how we treat people of all colours.

According to Psychologist Daniel Kahneman We think both fast and slow, We weigh very few factors deliberately and the hundreds of other factors on intuitive judgement. Our intuitive judgement is called fast thinking. Our fast judgement relies on accustoms we have. “Mainly from Fictional Television shows to news reports” Says a New york Times article. These platforms rely on stereotypes both accurate and inaccurate. The key to “Fast thinking” discrimination is that we all share it.

Fast thinking discrimination doesn't only affect people of Majority Groups. Mahzarin Banaji as a woman and a member of a minority group had felt the firsthand sting of discrimination, yet she showed a very strong racial preference. She said “it was a truly disconcerting experience” As a psychologist she was one of the first person to label what is now known as fast thinking as “Automatic and Implicit stereotyping”.

Our ability to categorize and recognize is a vital part of our survival, but we have taken stereotyping too far. “When we stereotype we take gender, the age, and the colour of skin of the person before us, now our minds respond with messages that say hostile, stupid, slow and weak, these qualities aren't in our environment, they don't reflect reality” says Dr.John Borough, of New York University. And so it becomes even more clear that our mind will match general things such as gender, age and skin colour with hostile words because society has taught us to label people in such a way. Furthermore this ostracizes people from groups and leads to societies creating and grouping with people of similar race, skin colour and gender.

A study conducted in 2003 by the University of Chicago proved that employers with job openings were 50% more likely to callback the person if they had a white name. The girl who spends hours studying in school to help her get a good job will face trouble getting work because she has a “black” name but another girl who may not have worked as hard or be adequate for the job will have an arbitrary advantage because her parents decided to give her a “white” name.

A study conducted in 2009 by Harvard Research Institution in 2009 found that African- American applications with no criminal record were offered the job at a rate as low as white applicants with criminal records. How would you feel if you didn't get a job that you were highly qualified for but instead a white male with a objectionable criminal record did. Why should a qualified black male man have to suffer because our society has stereotyped him to be dangerous and incompetent.

How can we combat “fast thinking discrimination”? We can train ourselves to not hold implicit biases on race, gender, sexuality, class or any form of identity. The change is not going to be instant as these stereotypes have been put into place over hundreds of years. And it will take another hundred years to remove these stereotypes from our society. It will take generations before our brain change and stops relating negative words with people of specific people,cultures, genders and skin colours. It will take personal as well as united perseverance to change long-held and stereotypical ideas of race, gender, sexuality and ability.

Wouldn’t you want to live in world where everyone was treated equally and fairly. Where young girls are not staying up till late and night to live up to stereotypical expectations, where everyone has a chance to be equal and weren't discriminated against based on things they can't change.

By Anisha Sullivan

Unrealistic Beauty Standards In The Media

Unrealistic beauty standards have resulted in a number of young girls and women to develop eating disorders, mental and physical health problems.

With almost all magazines and media photoshopping their models to have thigh gaps and fixing all their ‘flaws’ These outrageous beauty standards in the media affect almost all children, especially young girls and teens. Showing them that this is what society expects them to look like and if they have ‘flaws’ or don’t fit into a certain weight category it will effect them in a negative way. With a lot of dangerous diets and ‘cleanses claiming that this will make you look 100 times better, ’ there is a result in a number of young girls and women developing some mental and physical health problems. Within the last couple of years society has supported the idea that the ‘thigh gap’ since then there have been a number of dangerous diets to try to achieve the thigh gap.

“I wish that I had a thigh gap” “Have you seen this model's flat stomach? I wish I had a flat stomach” “I hate my body” A young girl, who will remain nameless (age 9) Her mother responded “I think that it's heart breaking that young girls and women hate their own bodies because the media has brainwashed them into thinking that they need to look a certain way”

Unrealistic Beauty Standards In The Media

What shapes our perception of beauty? When we answer that question we tend to think about models with unattainable standards of perfection. Why is that?

Earlier this month 19 year old australian model Essena O’Neill had released a video called “Why I REALLY Quit Social Media” In the video she talks about how all the photos in her instagram are not ‘candid’ and how it was not real life. She goes on to talk about how she had an unhealthy obsession with looking perfect and ‘beautiful’ when the beauty standards in the media are so unrealistic. “I was measuring my self worth by the number of likes and followers I had, I was measuring my own self worth on someone else's opinion” She said in the video.

Young adults and the media are obsessed with looking a certain way or being a certain weight to be considered beautiful or pretty. This is unhealthy and pressures people, especially young girls to look like all the unrealistic beauty standards. The media tells us that this is what an average girl should look like.

This impacts a lot of young girls self esteem and feeling of self worth. Lexie Cohen, only 9 years old would ask on a daily basis “What’s wrong with me? Am I too fat? Am I too skinny? She is easily influenced and not very confident. It’s heart breaking because she is only 9 years old and she is already obsessed with what others think of her. When we were 9 years old we would go play outside all day and hang out with our friends, we were not always behind a screen looking at models and movie stars that have ‘perfect bodies’ and think to ourselves ‘why don’t I look like that?”

Every day we see ads and models on magazines that have been photoshopped or had gone through hours of hair and makeup to look the way they look. Kids are being affected by social media at very young ages. Society makes you think that you must look like models to be confident and love yourself.

“Unrealistic beauty standards are getting out of control, they are pressuring girls everywhere to be a certain weight or to fit a certain size.” says Kimaya Shahi grade 8 student at UWC east, she continues to say “This is unhealthy because some girls are going on dangerous diets or starve themselves to be ‘pretty’” Over the past couple years, a new beauty trend has been to have a thigh gap. Media has claimed that if you have a thigh gap you are healthy and fit, but this is not actually the case.

There have been a lot of extremely dangerous diets circulating that claim that these diets will help you lose a lot of weight in a short period of time. A lot of people that have tried these diets have been hospitalized because they were starving themselves and/or over exercised, Just two examples of these diets are ‘Purging’ and the ‘K-E diet’.

Purging includes making yourself vomit, chewing food and spitting it out, and abusing laxatives. “These unhealthy and unsafe behaviors are not uncommon on college campuses, pose serious health problems, and are the first step in the development of eating disorders,” says Connie Diekman, RD, the director of nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis, where she also counsels students who have eating disorders. Regular vomiting or abuse of laxatives also causes fluid loss that can cause serious dehydration.

One of the more physically repulsive diets that has become popular recently is the ‘K-E diet’. This diet involves sticking a tube up your nose and ingesting your food through the tube. The fluid drip that must be left for 10 days to work and has protein, fat and water. It constantly drips through the nose. These are a lot of dangers with this outrageous diet, having no physical energy, kidney troubles and sometimes kidney failure, in serious cases this diet has caused death. But anything to lose a few pounds, right?

Sadly there are a lot of people that do go on these stupidly dangerous diets just to shed pounds. Is losing weight that important to risk your life?

A shocking example the unrealistic standards of beauty is Abercrombie and fitch CEO Michael Jeffries, he had said that he only wants ‘cool and popular kids’ to shop at his stores, which is why he refused to stock anything above an AU size 14. Imagine being a young kid going into a store and not being able to buy anything because you are ‘too big’. That would hurt your self esteem and make you feel like you have to be a certain weight or size to be able to fit in or love yourself and how you look?

“There are always going to be people that judge you and everyone will have to deal with it in life all the time so there is no point in obsessing about what others think of you, you will be a lot happier if you learn to love yourself and be happy with who you are.” says 13 year old Jee Jee, a grade 8 student at UWC

The media is emphasizing that to be happy you need others approval, because that's all that matters, not your happiness, not your personality, but the number that tells you if you are worth it or not.