Eilidh Knudsen
Social 20
35/40 well done
Final Response
Assignment One
The comics in the sources both deal with the issue of climate change and the
natural world. In the first source, we see that the gas gauge is nearing empty. This can be
interpreted to mean that the world is running out of resources, and is nearly barren.
Nations need to work together and individually to stop exploiting the Earth like how it
has been. The comic shows the Earth as a whole, with the gas gauge covering much of it,
meaning that this is an issue that does not just affect one small area of the Earth, but
reaches every corner. We need to start conserving our resources before it is too late and
we run out.
The second source is a picture of Santa Clause, completely submersed in water. A
passing fish suggests that he is in the bottom of the ocean or a large body of water. Santa
Clause lives at the North Pole, and that is where the affects of global warming are the
most severe right now. Soon enough, the Arctic may indeed be completely submersed in
water because it is just not cold enough for the ice to stay. It is all completely the fault of
the human population. (new paragraph) This is also stated in the third source. Even
though the Kyoto Protocol tried to stop global warming, many countries refused to sign it
and even more have not fulfilled their end of the deal. Nations must start working
together on stopping climate change, because it is having disastrous affects in the Arctic
and may soon be headed further south.
14/15 nicely done!
Assignment Two
Where nationalism is concerned, there is a fine line that a nation must balance on
in order not to be ultranationalistic, but still hold a comfortable amount of nationalism.
Nationalism is something that may cause hurt and war to happen, but may also give a
nation great joy and pride if it is carried out correctly. Nationalism should be carried out
only to the extent that it does not turn into unltranationalism.
The leader of a country sometimes may have very strong opinions on nationalism.
For example, the German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler believed in a fascist approach to
governing his country. This type of ultranationalism is addressed in the source. Germany
became a totalitarian state, and war was glorified. Hitler convinced his population,
through things like propaganda, that the German race was superior to all others. He
instilled fear into the citizens of his country and the countries around Germany. Hitler put
many Jewish people to death simply because he did not believe that they were part of his
superior race. He put them into falsely advertized concentration camps, and killed them
by the hundreds. This is called genocide, and is perhaps the most famous example of
genocide in history. This is an extreme form of nationalism, and should never be taken
this far. It is good to love your own country, but not so much that hate sets in for
everywhere else.
Another example of a totalitarian leader would be Joseph Stalin. He did not
believe in internationalism at all, but instead he wanted his country to have a
technological revolution. In order to get money out of the country, he confiscated the
crops of the Ukranians living there and sold them for the governments benefit. There
were many people killed during this time, mostly Ukranians, but also anyone who did not
support what he was doing and decided to voice this unhappiness. This was all because
Stalin wanted his country to prosper, and did not care about the Ukranians. He also did
not reach out for help from any other countries; he simply took away citizens resources
for his own ultranationalist benefit. (Yes, he was more about making Russia look good to
the world than the welfare of his own citizens)
Another controversial example of unltranationalism is the bombings of Nagasaki
and Hiroshima. These bombings may not have been completely necessary. These
bombings were not the result of an ultranationalistic leader, but were still considered an
ultranationalistic action. The United States was in a war against Japan, and was not sure
what to do because they thought Japan was just not going to give up. This resulted in
them taking out the big guns and setting off huge, powerful bombs as a last resort to put
an end to the war. Even though they killed many Americans and even more Japanese, it is
argued that it was necessary and more people would have ended up dead if the war had
kept going. This is outrageous because it was a seemingly compulsive act that was far too
extreme for the circumstances. America was winning over Japan anyway, but decided
that bombings would be a better end to the war than an invasion. That way, fewer
innocent people would have had their lives taken. But the country was simply too full of
unltranationalistic pride to let that happen, so they set off two massive bombs. This is an
example of a country who seemingly has a good balance of nationalism panicking and
resorting to their inner ultranationalist. (this example is debatable; the US may have had
ultranationalist motivations by wanting one-up Russia…but not sure that dropping the
bombs showed ultranationalism per se?)
Nationalism should be encouraged, but only in small amounts. Citizens should be
proud of living in their country, but should not think that they are absolutely better than
others. Countries should also not discriminate against their own citizens, and should
embrace all of the cultures within their nation. Nationalism should not be so strong as to
lead to ultranationalism or ultranationalistic actions, and should not put faith in
totalitarian leaders.
21/25 Quite a good paper, despite the somewhat debatable example above. I would have
also liked more specific reference to the source; the diploma markers next year will be
looking for that.