International Conflict The Origins of Global Fury Afghanistan and the Origins of Global Fury - Spring 07 Afghanistan and the Origins of Global Fury - Fall 06 Cuba and Haiti Religious Revolutions and violence Haiti and the Caribbean Contemporary Issues in International Relations Introduction to International Relations South Asia in a Global and Historical Context Politics of the Third World

Seeing "War of the Worlds": Global politics through Popular films Music of the African Diaspora Worlds of Music Musical Meaning in a Global Context Politics and Literature

Global Political Economy of Oil Understanding Capitalism Foundations in the Political Economy

Ideas and Ideology Love, Hate and Sexual Desire Under Colonialism Junior Year Honors Seminar: Cultural Encounters, 1999-2000

Afghanistan and the Origins of Global Fury:
A Third World Perspective

310-20221-01

Fall 2005
9:00-9:50, Hill 59
Office phone: 274-3028
Naeem Inayatullah (naeem@ithaca.edu)
Muller 325
Office Hours: MWF 11-1:00

1. Motivation

I suspect that some of us are bewildered by the frustration and rage being expressed by many in the Third World. In part that rage emerges from the living legacy of imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism and from how that legacy creates and sustains structures of global inequality. Since most Honors students originate in the U.S., it is unlikely that their education focused on the First world role in the creation and maintenance of the Third World. Without this familiarity our understanding of recent events, such as the attacks of 9/11, the invasion of Afghanistan, and the occupation of Iraq may remain shallow, easily manipulated, fruitlessly confusing, and inaccessible to public deliberation. The fog of war produces the fog of thought. For those who seek it an historical, ethnological, psychodynamic, and political-economic analysis of First/Third World relations may serve to re-orient their perceptions and sensitivities. Such a re-orientation can be profoundly practical; with it we can glean the fuller motivations of foreign others as well as a richer understanding of our role as global citizens.

This course does not seek to accumulate, sort, and evaluate judgments on recent world events. Rather, it is motivated by a prior question: Is it possible to uncover an overlap between, on the one side, a set of beliefs cultivated under the aegis of a super-power and, on the other side, beliefs forged through resistance to such power? More simply, under what conditions (social, pedagogical, motivational) can First and Third worlders communicate without violence but nevertheless with openness, sincerity, integrity, and passion. My public speaking experiences after 9/11 produced poor discussions and left in me doubts about whether such communication can occur. And yet, it seems clear that much depends on our willingness to keep trying.

While this may sound like a course designed for those who thrive in history, politics, economics, and sociology, it is also the case that those who intend to specialize in, for example, math, natural science, music, drama and computer science, must still project themselves as living in a world where global fury seems rampant. Indeed, perhaps it is these later students who may have had the least opportunity to engage in deliberate public discourse and would most welcome an opportunity to unknot their intuitions.

The above basically replicates the first three paragraphs of the course I offered in Fall 2003 and Spring 2004. The current course differs from that one in the following ways: First, following a decade long gradual shift in my own orientation, I want to test the idea that perhaps the best way to understand general, abstract, global patterns of social life is to observe them operating through a particular time and space. Pull a particular thread on a tapestry and you begin to sense how that thread is connected to other threads and to the overall fabric of the universe. The particular thread, in our case, is something we call “Afghanistan.” I will say more about the problems of studying a particular case below. Second, outside of two books (Lindqvist, Fanon) and a few articles, I have changed the readings. Third, the fact that this course follows 15 months in which I was able to concentrate on reading and writing gives it a wider and deeper scope. Because of this, even if this course was year long we could not hope to complete all the readings in our two-volume reader. The length of the reader does, however, provide two opportunities: the range of topics, authors, and material allows me greater scope to uncover your potential interest in these matters; and it gives you a chance to pursue these topics in the years to come.

A few words on trying to study Afghanistan perhaps seem appropriate. I have taught courses on Bosnia, Cuba, Haiti, and the region of South Asia. The central pedagogical puzzle of these courses was always the same, namely, how to uncover healthy motivations for studying others elsewhere. Beyond intellectual tourism, what reason can we find for studying these places? For the U.S. student, the unintended consequence of 9/11 and recent U.S. foreign policy is that the motivation to study others has become more urgent; intellectual tourism, now mixes with righteous anger, befuddled anxiety, and charitable condescension as companion motives. However, I am unsure whether these new motives get us any closer to the ethics of studying others.

You might think: “The ethics of studying others? What does that mean? Do we need such an ethic? Why can’t we study others because we simply want to, because we think it is a good thing for each of us to do, or because doing so makes the world a better place?” Such a stance, perpetrated by educational institutions and especially Honors colleges, assumes that knowing and studying – especially others – is an innocent apolitical act. But what if how we have studied others is part of the living legacy of imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism. Consider, for example, how many Afghan anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists and ethnomusicologists the University of Kabul has sent to study U.S. culture and political economy? It sounds like a facetious question, doesn’t it? But beyond its attempted humor is a deep and dark insinuation: the study of others, the patterns of knowledge acquisition, and the institutions of learning present only the façade of liberation; secretly knowledge really serves power. Perhaps this hypothesis is no great secret after all since we are familiar with the aphorism that “knowledge is power.”

It may be that how and why we have studied others is part of Third world rage and fury. From a critical perspective, knowledge, knowing, and knowers have long served as power-full tools of imperialism, colonialism, and capitalist domination. If so -- and that is a large “if” – even before we begin we are presented with an ethical paradox: can we study others without replicating relations of domination? I don’t know; we will see. Regardless, as we read and write we can be mindful of how and why we study “Afghanistan.”
2. Readings and Viewings

• Books and a map available at the Campus Book Store:

Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth
Sven Lindquist, Exterminate All the Brutes
George Crile Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History
Jason Elliot, An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan
Svetlana Aleksievich Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War
Michael Scheuer Imperial Hubris: Why The West Is Losing The War On Terror
Ward Churchill, Pacifism as Pathology
Map: Afghanistan: Land in Crisis, [double sided map], National Geographic.

• Course Reader:

Volume 1:

Collective Trauma, Collective Denial, Collective Pathology:
Barkawi, Tarak, “On the Pedagogy of Small Wars,” International Affairs, 80, 1, 2004, pp. 19-37.
Churchill, Ward, “The Ghosts of 9-1-1: Reflections on History, Justice and Roosting Chickens,” in On the Justice of Roosting
Chickens: Reflections on the Consequences of U.S. Imperial Arrogance and Criminality, AK Press, 2003, pp. 5-37.
[Also recommended are the following of Churchill’s books:
A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas 1492 to the Present, City Lights, 1997;
Struggle for the Land: Native North American Resistance to Genocide, Ecocide and Colonization, City Lights, 2002;and
Perversions of Justice: Indigenous Peoples and Angloamerican Law, City Lights, 2003.] [See also, Williams, Robert Jr. The American Indian in western legal thought: the discourses of conquest, Oxford, 1990.]
Hage, Ghassan, “Comes a Time We Are All Enthusiasm: Understanding Palestinian Suicide Bombers in Times of Exighophobia,” Public Culture, 15, 1, pp.65-89.
Laffey, Mark, and Jutta Weldes, “US Foreign Policy, Public Memory, and Autism: Representing September 11 and May 4,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 17, 2, July 2004, pp. 355-76.
Lichtman, Richard, “The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology,” Counterpunch, July 10/12, 2004, [10 pages]: http://counterpunch.org/lichtman07102004.html
Rose, Jacqueline, “Apathy and Accountability,” in On Not Being Able to Sleep, Princeton, 2003, pp. 217-37.
Rose, Jacqueline, “In our Present-Day White Christian Culture, London Review of Books, 8 July, 2004, pp. 14-17.

In Support of the Pax Americana:
Boot, Max, Savage Wars of Peace, Basic, 2002.
Chapter 14, “In the Shadow of Vietnam,” pp. 318-335;
Chapter 15, “In Defense of Pax Americana,” pp. 336-352.
Cohen, Elliot, “World War IV,” Wall Street Journal, Nov 20, 2001, pg. A.18.
Cooper, Robert, “The Post-Modern State,” in Mark Leonard, Re-Ordering the World, 2002, pp. 11-20.
Ferguson, Niall, “America as Empire, Now and in the Future,” [17 July 2003]
http://www.inthenationalinterest.com/Articles/Vol2Issue29/Vol2Issue29Ferguson.html
Ignatieff, Michael, “The Challenge of American Imperial Power,” Naval War College Review, Spring 2003, 56, 2, pp.53-63.
Kagan, Robert, “Power and Weakness, Policy Review, June/July 2002; 113, pp. 3-28. [skim pp. 15-21]
Kaplan, Robert D., “Supremacy by Stealth: Ten Rules for Managing the World,” Atlantic Monthly, July/August 2003, pp. 66-83.

Inside/Outside:
Baudrillard, Jean “L’Esprit du Terrorism,” Harper’s, February 2002, pp. 13-18.
Lapham, Lewis, “Drums Along the Potomac: New wars, old music,” Harper’s, November 2001, 35-41.
Lapham, Lewis, “Mythography” Harper’s, February 2002, pp. 6-9. [responds to “Defending Civilization…”]
Martin, Jerry L. and Anne D. Neal, “Defending Civilization: How Our Universities are Failing America and What Can Be Done About It,” American Council of Trustees and Alumni, November 2001. [38 pages] http://www.goacta.org/publications/reports.html
Przybylowicz, Donna and Abdul JanMohamed, “Introduction: The Economy of Moral Capital in the Gulf War,” Cultural Critique, 19, autumn, 1991, pp. 5-13.
Will, George, “Literary Politics,” Newsweek, 4/22/1991, vol. 117, 16. (2 pages)

Prior U.S. Involvement in Afghanistan:
Truman, Harry, “Truman’s Inaugural Address,” January 20, 1949, http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/50yr_archive/inagural20jan1949.html
Cullather, Nick, “Damming Afghanistan: Modernization in a Buffer State,” The Journal of American History, Sep 2002, 89, 2, pp. 512-37.

U. S. Covert Activity in Afghanistan:
Coll, Steve, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to the September 10, 2001, Penguin, 2004:
-“Lenin Taught Us,” chapter 2, pp. 38-52. [Afghanistan’s Cold War context]
-“Don't Make It Our War,” chapter 5, pp. 89-106. [William Casey]
-“The Terrorists Will Own the World,” chapter 7, pp. 125-46. [*The Great Blurring]
-“Serious Risks,” chapter 10, pp. 189-204. [*Overlaps: Hekmetyar and Masood]
- “You Are to Capture Him Alive,” chapter 21, pp. 371-96. [Clinton target bin Laden]
Cooley, John, “Introduction,” and chapter 1: “”Carter and Brezhnev in the Valley of Decision,” in Unholy Wars, Pluto, 2000, pp. 1-8; 9-28.
Yousaf, Mohammad and Mark Adkin, “The Role of the CIA,” chapter 5 of Afghanistan the Bear Trap, Leo Cooper, 1992, pp. 78-96.

U.S. Overseas Bases:
Blaker, James R. United States Overseas Basing, Praeger, 1990; chapter 2, “Today’s Overseas Basing System, pp. 57-95.
Brooke, James, “Looking for Friendly Overseas Base, Pentagon Finds It Already Has One,” New York Times, Apr 7, 2004. pg. A.17.
Collins, John M. chapter 12, “Military Bases,” in Military Geography for Professionals and the Public, National Defense University Press, 1998. [11 pages + maps] Available on line at: http://www.ndu.edu/inss/press/NDUPress_Books_Authors.htm
Engelhardt, Tom, “It’s a Pentagon World and Welcome to It: Bases, Bases Everywhere,” June 1, 2005. [12 pages]: at http://www.tomdispatch.com/
Johnson, Chalmers, “America’s Empire of Bases,” January 15, 2004. [5 pages] http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0115-08.htm
Magdoff, Harry, et al. “U.S. Military Bases and Empire,” Monthly Review, 53, 10, 2002, [12 pages]: http://www.monthlyreview.org/0302editr.htm
Schmitt, Eric and James Dao, “Busy Skies Over Asia Controlled from U.S s,” New York Times, Oct. 14, 2001, pg. 1B.7. (2 pages)
Shanker, Thom and C.J. Shivers, “Crackdown in Uzbekistan Reopens Longstanding Debate on U.S. Military Aid,” New York Times, July 13, 2005. pg. A.12. (2 pages).
Shanker, Thom and Eric Schmitt, “Pentagon Expects Long-Term Access to Key Iraq Bases,” New York Times, Apr. 20, 2003, pg.A.1. (3 pages)

USSR and Afghanistan:
Bechtel, Marilyn, “Afghanistan the Proud Revolution,” New World Review, 49, 1, 1981, pp. 6-17.
Dobrynin, Anatoly, “Afghanistan,” in his In Confidence: Moscow’s Ambassador to America’s Six Cold War Presidents (1962-1986), Random House, 1995. Chapter IV: pp. 434-54.
Garthhoff, Raymond, “Afghanistan: Soviet Intervention and the American Reach, 1978-80,” chapter 26 in his, Détente and Confrontation: American-Soviet Relations from Nixon to Reagan, Brookings, 1985, pp. 887-965
Kuzio, Taras, “Opposition in the USSR to the Occupation of Afghanistan,” Central Asian Survey, 6, 1, 1987, pp. 99-117.
Roy, Olivier, “Lessons from the Soviet-Afghan War,” Adelphi Papers, vol. 259, 1, 1991, pp.45-55.

Modern Colonial Empires:
Debray, Regis, “The Indispensable Nation,” Harper’s January 2004, pp. 15-21.
Hanke, Lewis, “The ‘Requerimiento’ and Its Interpreters,” Revista de Historia de Amaerica, 1, 1, 1938, pp. 25-34.
Meyer, Karl E. “Forty Years in the Sand: What happened last time freedom marched on Iraq,” Harper’s, June 2005, pp. 69. [8 pages] [For further reading his Meyer’s The Dust of Empire: The race for mastery in the Asian heartland, Century Foundation, 2004.]
Misra, Maria, “Heart of Smugness,” The Guardian, Tuesday July 23, 2002, (2 pages).
Volume 2:

Afghan Women and their Deployment:
Ahmed, Leila, “The Women of Islam,” Transition, 83, v9n3, 2000, pp. 78-96.
Dupree, Louis, “The Burqa Comes Off,” American University Field Staff Report, LD 2 – 1959, pp. 1-4.
Dupree, Nancy Hatch
“Behind the Veil in Afghanistan,” Asia, 1, 2, July/August 1978, pp.10-15.
“Revolutionary Rhetoric and Afghan Women,” in M. Nazir Shahrani and Robert L. Canfield, Revolutions and Rebellions in Afghanistan: Anthropological Perspectives, Institute of International Studies, Research Series No. 57, University of California, 1984, pp. 306-340.
“Victoriana comes to the Haremserai in Afghanistan, Bauen und Wohen am Hindukush, 1988, pp. 111-49.
“Women as Symbols: Trends and Reactions,” Writers Union of Afghanistan (WUFA), 5, 2, 1990, pp. 30-41.
“A Socio-Cultural Dimension: Afghan women refugees in Pakistan,” in Ewan W. Anderson and Nancy Hatch Dupree’s Cultural Basis of Afghan Nationalism, Pinter, 1990, pp. 121-33.
“Afghan Women Under the Taliban,” in William Maley’s Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban, New York University Press, 1998, pp. 145-66.
Moghhadam, Valentine M., “Patriarchy, the Taliban, and the Politics of Public Space in Afghanistan,” Women’s Studies International Forum, 25, 1, 2002, pp.19-31.
Newman, Cathy, “She Remembers the Moment: The Photographer took her picture,” National Geographic, April 2002. [five or so pages; N.B.:hand out color copies of cover and first page.]
Pratt, Minnie Bruce, “Women’s Liberation and the ‘Endless War,’” manuscript, August, 2004, pp. 1-20.

General:
David, Mike, “Planet of Slums,” Harper’s, June 2004, pp. 17-25.
Hersh, Seymour M. “The Coming Wars: What the Pentagon can now do in secret,” New Yorker, 1/24/2005, 80, 44. [9 pages: this piece is on the plans to invade Iran.]
Hyman, Anthony, “Arab Involvement in the Afghan War,” The Beirut Review, Spring 1994, 7, pp. 73-89.
Mitchell, Timothy, “McJihad: Islam in the U.S. Global Order,” Social Text, 20, 4, Winter 2002, pp. 1-18.
Roy, Olivier, Afghanistan: From Holy War to Civil War, Darwin, 1995.
- “Introduction,” pp. 11-15
- Chapter 1: “Islam and Society in Afghanistan: An Overview,” pp. 19-25.
- Chapter 2: “From Fundamentalism to Islamism,” pp. 29-40.
- Chapter 5: “Afghanistan and the World Islamic Revival,” pp. 79-102.
Rubin, Barnett R., “The Political Economy of War and Peace in Afghanistan,” World Development, 28, 10, pp. 1789-1803.
Weaver, Mary Anne, and “Children of the Jihad,” in her A Portrait of Egypt: A Journey Through the World of Militant Islam, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999, pp. 169-215.
Weaver, Mary Anne, “This was Pakistan” chapter 2 in her Pakistan: In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002, pp. 45-85.
Weaver, Mary Anne, “Déjà vu,” chapter 6 in her Pakistan: In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002, pp. 214-48.

Iraq:
Davidson, Adam, “Out of Iraq: The Rise and Fall of One Man’s Occupation,” Harper’s, February, 2005. (10 pages)
[see also Meyer, Karl, listed under “Modern Colonial Empires.”]
Peaceful Tomorrows, “Household Survey Sees 100,000 Iraqi Deaths,” Associated Press, October 29th, 2004. http://peacefultomorrows.org/article.php?id=415

Afghan Deaths:
Dunden, Mark, “Revulsion and Pathos: Covering the War in Afghanistan,” Afterimage, March 2002, 29, 5. (9 pages)
Golden, Tim, “Brutal Deaths of 2 Afghan Inmate’s Deaths,” New York Times, May 20, 2005, pg. A1. (11 pages)
Golden, Time, “Army Faltered in Investigating Detainee Abuse,” New York Times, May 22, 2005. pg. 1.1. (5 pages)
Peaceful Tomorrows [Full Name: September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows], “Afghan Portraits of Grief: The Civilian/Innocent Victims of U.S. Bombing in Afghanistan,” September 2002. [16 pages] http://www.peacefultomorrows.org/downloads/apogreport.pdf

Legal Perspectives:
Megret, Frederic, “‘War’? Legal Semantics and the Move to Violence, European Journal of International Law, 13, 2, 2002, pp. 361-99.
Reisman, W. Michael, “In Defense of World Public Order,” American Journal of International Law, 95, 4, Oct. 2001, pp. 833-835.
Charney, Jonathan I., “The Use of Force against Terrorism and International Law, American Journal of International Law, 95, 4, Oct. 2001, pp. 835-39.
Frank, Thomas M., “Terrorism and the Right of Self-Defense,” American Journal of International Law, 95, 4, Oct. 2001, pp 839-43.
Vagts, Detlev F., “Hegemonic International Law,” American Journal of International Law, 95, 4, Oct. 2001, pp 843-48.
Kurta, Aziz, “Dubious Legality of Afghan Bombing, Dawn, November 13, 2001. [4 pages]
Mandel, “This War is Illegal,” Counterpunch, October 9, 2001. [3 pages]
Paust, Jordan, J. “There is No Need to Revise the Laws of War in Light of September 11th,” American Society of International Law. November 2002. [12 pages]. http://www.asil.org/resources/terrorism.html

• Films:
- The Fog of War: eleven lessons from the life of Robert S. McNamara, Errol Morris, DVD 1177, 107 minutes, 2004.
- Battle of Algiers, DVD 1041,125 minutes, 1965.
- Panama Deception, video 3383, 93 minutes, 2000.
- Search for Freedom, Munizae Jahangir, video 54 minutes, 2003.
- Afghanistan Unveiled, Brigitte Brault & Aina Women Filming Group, video 52 minutes, 2003.

3. Design of the Course:

I think of the design of a course as similar to a style of music. Most courses follow “classical (European) music” in design. That is, the audience hears music pre-determined by the score. The music may change slightly from performance to performance but this change is not usually a part of the design of classical music. In contrast, jazz and classical Indian music combine the structure of the tune, the interpretative skill of the players, and the response of the listeners to create a specific structured improvisation. Accordingly, I have designed this course to change from experience to experience according to the interaction of students, instructor, and the reading materials. Thus no two classes or experiences should be the same because the interaction of the three differs on each occasion. This design embraces the necessity of collective improvisation.

A Jazz design has consequences for our sense of time in the course. To some the course will feel less structured and slower than what they might expect. The good news is that the course may also feel like something we create together.

4. Evaluation

I will determine your grade by evaluating the following components.

60% will come from two essays of 8-10 pages, due on 9:00 AM, Monday, October 3 and 9:00 AM, Monday, November 14. Please see my “writing suggestions for essays” (section 6, page 4) on how I would like you to write these essays.
35% of your grade will be derived from a take-home final essay, due 9:00 AM Friday, December 9, 2005. I would like to see a comprehensive and retrospective essay. I will provide further details in class. Please see my “writing suggestions for essays” (section 6, page 4) on how I would like you to write these essays. Essay topics will synthesize reading materials, lectures, and discussions
5 % of your grade comes from the mapping exercise.
An “entry paper” and an “exit paper” are required but not graded.
Note Well: If you are unclear about these expectations or feel that they do not suit your style of learning, please see me in my office. I will do everything I can to accommodate you. However, please see me by Friday, September 16. After this date, I will assume that you agree to the above arrangement.

Entry paper: due 9:00 AM, Wednesday, August 31.
Maps: due 900 AM, Wednesday, September 9.
First essay: 9:00 AM, Monday, October 3.
Second essay: 9:00 AM, Monday, November 14.
Final essay: due 9:00 AM, Friday, December 9.
Exit paper: due by Noon on Friday, December 12.
5. My Perspective on the Purpose of Writing

You might be bewildered that different college professors ask you to write in different styles. We can make this less perplexing if we consider that writing styles are directed towards varying purposes. In trying to influence your writing my purpose is getting you to observe and extend the overlap between writing well and living life well. This does not mean that I am unconcerned with technique, grammar, spelling, organization, clarity, and the logical structure of your presentation. As you will see, I focus sharply on just such details. However, I am interested in more than this. Too often writing is seen as if it were similar to learning how to type without errors. While writing is certainly a skill that requires a certain mastery of technique, I see it also as an engagement with the very fabric of life. Indeed, I have come to believe that developing a rich and meaningful life can be facilitated by an engagement with writing. How is this so?

Learning to write can be as difficult and as rewarding as life itself. While in one sense it is merely one aspect of life, writing can be seen to address, simulate, and work out life’s central concerns. Let me provide two illustrations:

Consider one of the assumptions that logically precede writing: As a writer I must have the need to say something. It follows that this something cannot already be explicit and obvious to me because if it were I would have already formulated it. My need to articulate it in written form would be limited to copying already completed work. At the same time, that something that I need to write must be something that I think I can articulate. If it weren’t I would not waste my time by trying. So, writing lies in the tension between the need to say something that remains vague and unclear to me and the feeling that, if I try, I can clarify that something. But does not this creative tension occupy the center of most other aspects of life? For example, if I have a need to create a specific type of music it must be that I am trying to create something I need to express but do not know how. I may not even know what it is that I am trying to express. And yet, my efforts to create that music suggest that I believe I can produce it. Or, for example, in an intense conversation, I am trying to articulate something that is trying to be born but has yet to come out in either form or content. But I keep trying even as my stumbling words both do and do not approach what I am trying to express. If I am correct, then learning to write is not unlike learning how to do anything else in life; it’s a matter of struggling through a process that strives to turn the implicit into the explicit, the potential into the actual.
At first, as I try to say that something, I am almost exclusively focused on my need to say it. I am locked into the very difficult process of creating words that will help my thought to emerge. And as I find those words my thoughts do in fact begin to emerge. And yet, so often, what in that moment feels like a true and productive engagement with the process of articulation turns out later to be far less coherent to me. It’s as if I am split two people: the one who is caught up in exhilaration of creating the words and thoughts; and later the one who reads my own words and thinks, “What was I trying to say? I am not sure I understand my own writing!” This self-separation is crucial for it brings us to the logical difference between my self as creator and my self as my own audience. In a way, I am split into two: I am the writer and I am the reader. Having accepted my frustration, I return to the process of writing (re-writing) with aim of reformulating the prose so that the reader-me has some chance of understanding my original work. I might be satisfied with the re-write just as I was before. Or, a day later I might find I am still having trouble understanding my re-written prose. And so the process of re-writing goes on as a chain of writing-editing-rewriting-reediting- and so on. And perhaps it’s a chain that never ends.

Between the links of the chain my excitement at creating something “new” is matched by the frustration of feeling like I did not fully say what I meant. This frustration can be overwhelming. But it needn’t be if we place that it in the broader context of life. Consider one formulation of what is going on here: Before critical learning takes place each of us assumes that the world operates according to the categories we have been given or have created; we act as if the world works or should work exactly as we expect it to. Eventually though we come across others who challenge our view of the world. If we are lucky, we learn something true about the world from their vision. We may even allow ourselves to learn something about the shallowness and narrowness of our own assumptions.

Is this not similar to the process of writing-editing-rewriting-reediting? With the help of critical others we re-write and re-edit our understanding of the world and of ourselves. We might think that the difference between life and writing is that we write alone whereas life requires us to be with and listen to others. Certainly, there is a way in which this statement is true. Yet, the differences are not as great as we might first imagine. As I said before, the editor is really a sort of an internal other. Indeed, my internal editor might be a composite of outside others – friends, family, teachers, and even other texts. If others are with us when we write perhaps we do not always need their physical presence to challenge us. Thus, we can reformulate our worldviews not merely through the challenge of outside others but also by allowing some part of our inner self challenge other parts. In this way external others and internal others can come to represent each other. (And, as it turns out, this is nothing new for internal and external others do represent each other.)
Like life, writing requires nothing less than the risk of submitting our unique vision of the world to others while presenting that vision so that others will understand and appreciate its value. Doing this, however, requires understanding and appreciating the value of other’s visions. We are asked not only to see the world but also to envision how the world sees us; to be both subject and object to ourselves. As I formulate it, this coming to be both a subject and object to ourselves, that is becoming self-conscious, may be seen as one of the deeper purposes of both life and of writing.

6. Writing Suggestions for the Essays

I hesitate to present a set of suggestions on writing essays because they may stifle your style. In addition you may be tempted to follow my suggestions to the letter thereby missing the larger point which has more to do with the attitude you bring to the writing and the tone you create. Nevertheless, I offer these suggestions because you may need and appreciate a certain amount of direction. Also, I wish to emphasize a particular style of writing that I hope you will add to your repertoire of skills - the style of an essay. Please take these instructions as “suggestive” and make your own decision on whether you wish to follow them. I would like to register a warning: While this style of writing may have great personal benefits it is not usually favored. The academy stresses a much more certain and assertive style.