Post #8
The two lectures that stood out to me most were Soren Larson’s and Peter Mueser’s.
Larsen’s lecture was less of a traditional lecture and more of a storytelling experience, I left feeling as if I had just listened in live to a TED talk. I felt like I got to peer into his life and into the lives of a nation of people I had never heard of, and it opened my eyes to ways of living so foreign to my understanding as well as the abuse of government on vulnerable people and the direct and personal effects on the people. I found the relationship the Cheslatta had with “place” to be very compelling. In geography, “place” is one of the five themes of the discipline. Place describes the human and physical characteristics of a location. Physical characteristics include mountains, rivers, animal life and plant life, weather, climate, and fertility. Human characteristics are the cultural features of a place, including land use, religious practices, political systems, common foods, transportation, and methods of communication. The Cheslatta lived in balance with the natural, physical aspects of their location—their land was not just the ground and physical confines of their living spaces, but land also encompassed all living beings existing on it. Place to them is not just a location or a list of characteristics, but an integral part of their culture, having significant history and spiritual meaning. They believe that their ancestors came from the lake, as did all other fauna. As they share the same origin, and the same place, the Cheslatta regard nature with the utmost respect and claim no greater share of resources than any other living being. Instead of the capitalist mindset of always growing and improving, they wish that when they die to leave the land for their children exactly as they recieved it. They see the land as a bountiful and giving entity which they live intimately with, and that perspective really shook my own capitalist perception of the earth.
Mueser’s lecture really stood out to me in that it was like a hot take on what our society sees as moral. His claim that sweatshops are justified is a controversial one, one that if I had heard it prior to his lecture vehemently denied any reasoning, but I am glad I got to hear his explanation. Today, you hear many people encouraging “buy local” or “buy American”, whether it is in support of American workers or as a protest against poor working conditions in foreign factories. Mueser argued that buying the foreign-made products was the more ethical decision, as it was supporting the foreign workers who need it most. His argument was presented in a very logical, mathematical way: listing off those involved in the clothing trade as a list (including American workers and buyers, sweatshop workers, and African buyers of used clothes) and calculating who gained and who lost as points and then tallying up whether it is a positive or negative to have sweatshops. Mueser also said that sweatshops really aren’t that bad and are the only option for many people, the better alternative to sifting through massive and toxic piles of trash. He states that their low wages are simply due to the factories being less productive and therefore less profitable, and for governments to force the factories to pay a higher wage would only decrease the amount of workers a factory is able to hire and leave some people unemployed, as well as stunt the natural progression of sweatshops as a means for poorer countries to enter the global market and slowly move into a wealthier economy. While I do not wholly agree with Mueser’s argument, it was very interesting to see his reasoning explained and understand why these systems are in place and agreed upon by many economists.
I enjoyed learning about Uruguay. I knew very little about the country, but I discovered a lot about it as well as its relations with neighboring countries. It is a relatively wealthy and prosperous country, with a smaller population than Missouri. I knew that Latin America had a lot of instability, a lot of which was due to U.S. intervention and support in coups, but Uruguay stood out as a country that escaped an extensive history of coups and revolutions and dictatorships. Although it was briefly led by an oppressive dictator in the 70’s and 80’s (after a U.S. backed coup) it quickly disposed of that system and returned to democracy afterward and the country learned from it. I also learned about its ethnic history, as a country mostly consisting of white immigrants who early on betrayed and killed or assimilated native peoples, similar to the United States. Though it is highly regarded as a model nation in Latin America with a homogenous population, it has a dark history not formally acknowledged by the government.
South America 