Destroying The Social Fabric Of Our Planet By Robert D. Kaplan

The video shown in class “Lagos/Koolhas” really brings to light a major problem that is affecting the majority of the population. With the cities rapid development a majority of the population is forced to live in some of the worst slums that been highlighted in our course. These people are doing anything to survive, mostly working in the informal sector, selling whatever they can. Much like many other growing cities in developing countries a majority of Lagos has been developed with very little planning, which leads to the development of the slums that a majority of individuals are living in. These slums are built with whatever material is available at the time, and not suitable for humans to live in. They are crowded, dirty and unlike

While Pinker does an efficient job substantiating these claims with abstract examples of our “bloody history” drawn from sources like the Old Testament and feudal lifestyles, his argument rests upon a narrow denotation of violence that only looks at human death and no other manifestation of aggression. Though Pinker organizes his argument to prove each development process’s impact on peace, he fails to acknowledge the price society has paid in ways like global warming, diplomatic inadequacy and weak national governments. The data Pinker uses to prove his point obscures the collateral damage social change has generated by creating new forms of violence that are as destructive as wars but disproportionately affected certain communities.

Jared Diamond is a world renowned scientist, author, Pulitzer Prize winner, and currently a geography professor at UCLA. Of his six books published, we will be looking at the last chapter of his fourth book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. In this book Diamond utilizes the comparative method to find resemblance in past societal collapses with our current society. In the chapter entitled, "The World as Polder: What Does it Mean to Us Today," Diamond points out that there are indeed many parallels between past and present societies and that our modern day society is currently on a path of self destruction , through examples such as globalization and the interdependency of each country.

Ikechi Mgbeoji’s book, Collective Insecurity examines the hidden causes of West Africa’s civil wars and addresses an important question: “Why has the U.N. system not worked to protect people and to enhance their welfare, as intended, in Africa and elsewhere?” In his book, Mgbeoji proposes, “the solution to African political instability lies in a structural rearrangement of the African polity for the purpose of legitimate governance of African peoples.”

Buy and read the assigned chapters ofthe book. o Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (Paperback) o Author: Jared Diamond, Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (April 1999)

Paul Rusesabagina, a man with good intentions was married to a Tutsi woman called Tatiana in 1987. He didn’t pertain to ethnic differences and aided hisr wife in escaping ethnic prejudices at her workplace. Tatiana adopted his two children into their family and they had a child of their own. “Character makes trust possible. And trust makes leadership possible. That is the Law of Solid Ground.”(Maxwell,2007, p.64). Due to his affiliation to a Tutsi woman, bearing a Tutsi child, Paul Rusessabagina was exposed to completely clashing divides. After invasion of his neighborhood by the Interhamwe and increasing slaughters, Paul offered his home to 30 neighbor Tutsis.

The author Mike Davis has done countless research on the topic of urban poverty. In his studies he collects and receives his information from other sources. Perhaps this is the reason why he has a negative view on slums. This is illustrated in his piece “Planet of Slums” as he discusses the politics, urban development, and methods within the slums population. According to Davis, slums and urban poverty have and will continue to significantly increase. While doing so, the gap in exclusion and inequality will grow. As a result, this will weaken urban elites in their work to utilize cities as engines of growth. Slums and slum population are classified as those who are living below the poverty lines, all while, being associated with overcrowding, having poor or informal housing, inadequate access to safe water and sanitation, and insecurity of tenure. This is being recognized as an international phenomenon. To emphasis this phenomenon, approximately half of the slum population in most

In the novel This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, author Naomi Klein argues that climate change is an inevitable crisis leading toward disaster. She discusses the urgent need to shift towards renewable energy and the need to move away from a "savagely unjust economic system,” that has led our economy towards to extractivism(15).

Due to their lackluster education and social standing it results in a poor childhood which eventually lends to the idea of “street culture”. According to Bourgois in his introduction he states that street culture emerges out of a personal search for dignity, rejection of racism and subjugation, and that it eventually becomes an active agent in personal degradation and community ruin. Since street culture in that region is typically involved in crime, most of the children there have experienced or caused crime at one point in their lives and as a result they develop a sort of social identity based around it.

In the prologue of “Collapse”, Jared Diamond claims that his previous book “Guns, Germs, and Steel” focused on the buildup of societies over the last 13,000 years and his present book ‘Collapse” focuses on the factors that cause failure and survival in civilizations all across the world2.” Diamond analyzes the breakdown of all societies through a unique scale called the five-point framework. This framework considers environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors, friendly trade partners, and most importantly society’s response to its environmental problems. Every society he studies he applies this framework to determine a possible flaw in the collapse of the society. The novel starts with Montana’s current environmental problems and evaluates societies as ancient as the Mayans and as recent as Modern China.

Mike Davis, author of Planet of Slums, predicts the direction in which the world’s cities are headed, and how the changes in living conditions are only going to deteriorate if certain trends continue. The title of his book explains Davis’s vision for the future of cities as he feels there is enough evidence pointing towards an exponential rise in slum populations across the world’s largest cities. Additionally, he expresses his opinion on many issues regarding the rapid rise in developing cities’ slum populations, although he offers very one-sided arguments geared towards those who feel the current system is causing more problems rather than improving current conditions. This causes Davis to overlook the problems of slums as resolvable through different modes of assistance such as international aid programs. Instead, he views aid programs as the root cause of imbalance created during industrialization. Throughout the book, Davis presents information that confirms his preconceptions towards the slums. Therefore, all the evidence that is presented by him portrays confirmation bias as Davis fails to mention anything about the resolution of the problem of the growing number of slums and instead sees this problem as unavoidable. Particularly, Davis’ writing, although intended for the general population, is more geared towards critics who have similar ideas. Instead of providing the means through which the economy could be improved and the problem of slums could be resolved, it is

The thesis essentially implies that certain parts of the world, mainly the Global South, “are populated by irrationally violent and uncivilized peoples” (Bau 2010, 23). The ‘New Barbarism’ thesis is exemplified in Robert Kaplan’s “The Coming Anarchy.” Contrastingly, Paul Richards’ Fighting for the Rainforest sought to undermine the arguments behind both “The Coming Anarchy” and the ‘New Barbarism’ thesis. The dominant representations of conflicts in Africa are found through Western media coverage, which have simplified and distorted complex situations by reducing the cause of conflicts to ethnic antagonisms. “Mainstream media often report African wars in terms of a reversion to an earlier state of development” (Ellis 2003, 39). In doing so, conflicts in Africa, such as those in Rwanda and Sudan, are presented under the false premise of conforming to ‘New Barbarism,’ leading to international actors addressing the wrong problems or simply loosing hope in Africa altogether

Ordinary Citizens in any situation can make a difference, if their will is great enough and their situation desperate enough. In America 's past, insubordination and uprising have been how this country is shaped: whether it be revolting against Britain, demanding the end of slavery as a part of the Civil War, or even gaining women 's rights by marching in New York’s streets. Uprising, even by a single individual, against social and governmental norms has changed the course of history for thousands of others. Rachel Carson is one of those citizens whose actions have altered the lives of millions of Americans. Carson, a women raised in a typical early twentieth century american household, went on to become a female enviromental scientist who published a revolutionary book about organochlorine pesticides that began the environmental movement in the United States. Her book, and her advocation for the environment, has lead to the changing of health and safety laws for american citizens that still impact us today.

History is a dynamic topic due to the innumerable factors that define its outcome. To understand how history is shaped, it is important to look at both the advantageous and disadvantageous aspects of the theme relating to the interaction between humans and the environment relating to demography and disease, and technology. The theme relating to the formation of political entities is important in history because a political entity shows ideological and technological innovation. Political entities form various political structures and forms of governance that led to conflicts that illustrated the human capacity for violence. Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel details the human interaction with the environment through the extensive detail

Political scientist Samuel Huntington in his article, ‘The Clash of Civilisations ', argues a new concept predicting the primary origin of future conflicts. His hypothesis follows the idea that the cause of conflict will fundamentally begin due to the clash of people 's cultural and religious identities. Written from a post cold war perspective in 1993, Huntington discusses how future wars will follow a similar pattern. He focuses especially on the impact of the ‘dominant civilization ' of the West against the world 's contrasting civilizations. Huntington 's primary focus of the West as a dominating force against the rest is one critique of his argument. In addition, Huntington 's definition of a civilization is also very open-ended and takes an idealistic approach to what a civilization is. His single-minded hypothesis often ignores evidence of past conflicts and takes a very black and white approach to ‘us versus them '. However, ignorance fueled acts towards different cultures have caused conflicts, and Huntington does hold merit in terms of conflict being caused by clashing cultures in his argument.