it's over. move to somnia.

(prev) i kiss boys (next)

 
Academic

Yesterday marked the accession of ten new countries to the European Union. I had been paying attention to the process largely as a curiosity: it’s interesting enough in itself, but as a non-European, it didn’t mean much in particular to me.* My classmates had an impromptu party at a local bar (because, hey, a celebration’s a celebration). It was only as I was congratulating three of my classmates (a Latvian, a Pole, and a Slovak) on their new EU citizenship that it struck me how much it was going to mean to them and their loved ones—they were now eligible to work in London without a visa, which for many people means they are now able to work. Silly American.

Today I finally (finally!) read Samuel Huntington’s The Clash of Civilizations—along with Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History, one of the most iconic essays of international relations in the post-Cold War era—and while I see its flaws (which tend to be more famous than the thesis itself), there is still a good amount to chew on. Basic cultural values differ across the globe and it’s hard to ignore one’s core beliefs in the interests of neighborliness.

It reminds me of a conversation I had with the Slovak (A.) and another classmate (O., a Ukrainian) as we were on our way to see a documentary about the lives of young Chilean activists during the Pinochet years.** We spotted a social realist carving on the façade of an apartment building, and A. commented on how much she hated it, how ugly it was, how much it reminded her of all the negative attributes of growing up in a communist society. (Bologna, by the way, is to this day riddled with communist sympathizers—this is one of the main reasons SAIS located its European campus here: understand and infiltrate the enemy.) O., in contrast, said that she still retained an affection for it: the idea behind the art is rather romantic and the strong, solid lines of it were beautiful in what I suggested was a vaguely Mexican-muralist aesthetic. The conversation swung from there to the bizarreness, 15 years removed, of life in communism. (“Honor to the work,” they said at the start of each day at school.) I had nothing else to offer, but it was more than enough for me just to listen. It's an old saw, but I've learned much more outside the classroom than in.


*As a student and traveler, the particular case of Cyprus was meaningful, but that’s for another essay.

**No, our lives are not wholly consumed by the topics we study. We also drink. (see above)

peachy as always, Mike at 1:12 PM