I saw this on tiktok and just had to share

Today is going to be weird to post about as most of what was talked about in my history class was not interesting enough to write about here. I reread my notes just to be certain. Didn’t miss anything that I could potentially mention but for the most part nothing stood out. We honestly only talked about what a act is, how facts relate to the study of history, how they’re applied, the system used to study history, and a tiny bit about Napoleon. If you’re curious about the Napoleon discussion it was only brought up in reference to Lynn Hunt herself and how her main focus as a historian is how women were treated during the French Revolution and Napoleon’s rule.

Facts - Coherence - Completeness

That’s the method in which all historians around the world use to to do their research and make conclusions to whatever questions they’re trying to answer. I don’t think this is truly worth writing about here but if someone is curious I am willing to discuss it more in the comments.

I’m writing this segment during my break so maybe my Political Science class will be more interesting. Then again, my classes are interesting but, like today, not every day is going to have good content to write about on Lemmygrad. Unless the class content itself or the professor makes comments related to or about Marxism I’m not going to write about it. Which probably doesn’t track well with my posts as I tend to ramble a lot but I’m going to try and cut back on that as much as possible. I would hate for anyone to get bored or frustrated reading my posts.

So class started and wouldn’t you know, we talked about Marxism! You bet your asses I add little hearts around anything to do with it too. So in this class we went over what explain political behaviour, who rules, and where and why. Interests, beliefs, and structures are the three main things that explain political behaviour. I mention this because we dove into beliefs which led to what modernists are, and in relation to modernists my professor told as that Mexico was deemed as some sort of authoritarian system compared to Western European nations. He mentioned the book The Civic Culture 1963 by Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba in which they said just that. For what its worth my professor didn’t really take that claim seriously and only talked about it to lead into criticisms of modernism such as its tendency towards Anglo-American ethnocentrism. Next, of course, was postmodernism with a reference to Ronald Inglehart:

Cultures are sets of symbols subject to interpretation; focus on political discourse; challenge to modernist assumption on one clear, fixed, homogenous culture.

Political correctness and anti-PC; woke and anti-woke campaigns. The culture war fits here.

Critics of postmodernism: can interpretation explain something?

Symbols don’t have a monopoly. The colour red, for example, is the colour of the Labour Party but is also used by many conservatives in the USA.

Each ideology has its own idea for a good and just society. Im sure most of you know who Antonio Gramsci but he was discussed in class, so here’s what I managed to write down when my professor was talking:

He was a Marxist theorist that was arrested and unfortunately died in prison.

He never wrote a book himself but his works were saved and compiled by his friends.

He expanded on Hegemony.

Ideology is justification of rule.

The ruling class try to not only rule altogether but to convince the masses of their legitimacy.

After that we moved on to structures which opened up with Marxism. I wont write about my notes on Marxism but I want to talk about how my professor spoke about it. Of course we went over Base and Superstructure and how every society has both and in capitalism the bourgeoisie exercise power over every part of society. He admitted that the definition and discussion of Marxism in our class was the dogmatic version and that its a very orthodox ideology. His tone is almost kind, not dismissive or mocking, as if he recognizes Marxism as legitimate. If anyone remembers my last semester posts Marxism was brushed over in class, but even during the recorded lecture where my professor had more time he didn’t seem to take it seriously which saddened me but whatever.

Institutionalize was next but nothing too interesting was taught so I’ll skip it and go to “who rules.” So with this one there are two theories: pluralists and elites. With pluralists you got power dispersed equally among various political groups, no group has complete/permanent power. With the elite theory its self explanatory and Marxist traditions explain it well, yes my professor said this. My professor made sure to mention that in the Soviet Union, contrary to popular beliefs, it had factions and worked more like pluralists and he made this remark in regards to the criticism that pluralists cannot explain authoritarian regimes. He didn’t talk about the USSR with any contempt, and I feel like that’s important to mention. I wonder if any of the other political science professors here has the same view. With the elite theory section and citing Marxism as a school of thought that explain it well, a guy in my class asked if it was accurate to say that even in bourgeoisie societies its more pluralist as they too have factions. My professor answered this in the pluralist perspective there’s production bourgeoisie vs some other type of bourgeoisie that I couldn’t quite catch but that hardly matters.

After this the class ended and I went home. That’s really all I have for today, and for once I posted it on time.

Technically my second day was yesterday but I couldn’t post until today due to life getting in the way. I’m sure you all understand.

So in order of classes I will begin with my History course; as a quick reminder this is a level 100 introductory course so its not going to be super specific but we’ve already touched on interesting topics that I must share with all of you. Honestly I think its less about the content of the course and more so about comments made by my professors and how the course navigates leftism.

So far I’ve had to get three books for History while my Political Science class only required one textbook. I will list the three of them here and they can all be found on Lilgen very easily so thankfully I didn’t have to spend a dime:

First book: Lynn Hunt’s History Why it Matters

Second Book: Tatiana Seijas and Stuart B. Schwartz’s Victors and Vanquished Spanish and Nahua Views of the Fall of the Mexica Empire 2nd Edition

Third Book: Mairi Cowan and William Kelleher Storey’s Writing History A Guide for Canadian Students 5th Edition

This class we only covered the first book by Lynn Hunt and wont be diving into the others for a few weeks.

According to my professor historian research methods are very different compared to psychologist and sociologist methods. For starters historians use Chicago style formatting while the other two use APA. He finds the latter incredibly frustrating as with the type of research psychologists and sociologists do there is a high level of confidentiality and secrecy which leaves room for falsification. With Chicago style it brings you straight to the proper documentation, if that makes sense. This might not sound very interesting to you but I found their discussion entertaining and it gave me insight into my professor’s personality, but I can’t be certain just yet.

Being a historian is like being Agatha Christie, whatever that means. They’re problem solvers that need to watch out for confirmation bias as they may miss critical details and context as to why an event carried out the way it did. I was relieved to hear him say this as with the weirdos I’ve come across on the internet they frequently leave out the very real conditions that led to certain outcomes. If anyone recalls I made a post asking about debunking misinformation and the guy and article I linked reeked of bias.

The craft of history provides more data than any other practice out there and States have incentive to help archive history; he added a picture of the National Archives Building to illustrate this point. History is both a social science and humanities. It seeks out to understand the response to events that happen.

The first chapter of Lynn Hunt’s book details why politicians and people in general lie about history. With this slight intro my professor asked if any of us read 1984 and if we did what was one of the first things the government did in the book. Well they rewrote books. Then he used Stalin as another example of a leader rewriting history, Stalin rewrote about the USSR’s role in WWII and how the rest of the allies treated the Soviets. I couldn’t get every little detail of his statement as he speaks so fast and I can’t keep up, but his tone was mocking if that helps. In the book, Lynn Hunt talks Trump’s lies about Obama’s citizenship.

So why lie? Cynicism is a big one, and my professor self identificasse a cynic. People lie because they believe their goals are important enough to accelerate even if that means fabrications, in essence the ends justify the means.

Monuments are a hot topic, are they good or bad? This led to talking about Métis people. They’re unique because they’re the only ones in the world with such a unique identity. Compare the Métis to people in Mexico, according to my professor everyone in Mexico at this point are mestizo, but Métis are a legitimate “category” if that makes sense. Please do not shoot the messenger. Anyway, while looking at an image of the torn down and defaced statue of John A. MacDonald my professors explained that it was removed because of how horrible the man was to Indigenous people with residential schools but in contrast “respected” Lous Riel’s demands for his people, which led to the “creation” of Métis, then again that was more so due to Louis Riel demanding his people be respected rather than MacDonald’s graciousness. What about Laurier? He was arguably worse to the Indigenous peoples of Canada but he apparently also did really great things for Canada as a whole, so how do we decide who is celebrated? Well that’s for our generation to decide, according to my professor.

What are other lies? What happened in:

Spain (the civil war) Iraq (WMD) Japan (its role in WWII) Indonesia (mass killings of communists) Armenia (the genocide)

No one wants to talk about the bad when trying to build a nation, and that’s why Turkey denies genocide accusations because at the time it didn’t exist.

We proceeded to talk about the TRC in South Africa, how it failed, and its application here in Canada. I’ve already wrote a lot on my history class so if you want more details I can continue in a comment. But to conclude the class he ended with the statement “The world is moving very fast and changing just as quickly.”

I had to wait my two hours until Political Science and I forgot to pack food again so I reluctantly bought snacks from the vending machine. It was not worth it.

I am going to tell you right now that this class was very dry and even my professor admitted to it, but its important for us to learn but not enough for me to write about in detail. I apologize to anyone who was interested in what I would be learning but that may take a few more classes. This class was focused on learning about the scientific method, which I’m already familiar with as I’m a psychology student, but whatever. Lets go through this rapid fire:

Internal vs External validity

Qualitative vs Quantitative analysis

Single Case Study

Comparative Methods - MSSD vs MDSD

Quantitative Statistical Techniques do not allow for complexities, especially with regards to identity; example given was a Catholic worker, would they vote for the worker party that supports abortion or would they vote for the Christian Democratic Party that opposes abortion but is probably not great for workers.

Core activity in all Political Science explains political behaviour

Political Actor - person/group engaged in political behaviour, can be motivated by a variety of factors; women in Iran still participate/protest despite violence.

Rational Choice Theory - bring self-defined preferences into political arena. Group Behaviour is the collective action of rational individual actors in the group in a particular context. Problems is that it is unable to predict political behaviour in advance and is unable to explain different behaviours seen around the world. For example the white apartheid regime worked against their own interests, Engels (I drew a bunch of hearts around his name) went against his own self interest, the women against suffrage, and the great divide between Green Parties; “so called environmentalists” supporting nuclear energy. I am quoting my professor, not my own personal opinions, just to be very abundantly clear.

Psychological Theories

And of course, beliefs.

This was very messy, I know, but this class was more focused on the scientific method and I saved you from all of that. My notes are also structured in a way that reflects best what I had to deal with, I only shared the interesting tidbits that my professor gave and the needed context as to why he would say the things he did. Same goes for my history professor.

The textbook for this class is Stephen Orvis and Carol Ann Drogus’ Introducing Comparative Politics Concepts and Cases in Context 5th Edition

I hope this wasn’t as exhausting to read as it was for me to write. It doesn’t seem much but its late where I am and my back hurts. Please make as many comments as you’d like an to ask as many questions you have, I love engaging with everyone here. I’ll be back to write about my third day very soon!

Quick edit: I will be back in the morning to correct my typing mistakes, please give me a little bit of a break, sometimes my fingers move to quickly.

Second edit: I have come back to correct multiple mistakes (I have no idea if I got them all) and I’m so embarrassed there’s so many.

I just finished my first day of my second semester yesterday and here is how it went:

As some of you may know I’ve been going to university to get an undergraduate degree in Psychology and Political Science with hopes of getting my PhD soon after. I chronicled my first semester Political Science 101 class experience here as I thought it would be beneficial to me as a student and for those who were curious as to what goes on in the classroom. This, of course, was way back in January but now I’m back for my second semester which means a level up in Political Science.

This semester is a bit different than my first as I’m taking a introductory History course after having completed Statistics (it is unfortunately required for a psych degree). So instead of just posting about what happens in my Political Science classes I figured I’d write about my History class too. This may be the only History course I have for my undergrad as after this semester I’ll be blasting through the required courses for my major and minor which will end up taking up all of my class slots. I’m considering doing a double major but I don’t know if its worth it, if anyone with experience can weigh in I’d appreciate it so much.

Anyway, lets talk about my first day back. My classes start at ten and I begin the day with my psychology class; its the first day so all we did was go over the syllabus. If anyone remembers I did mention a psych class in my previous posts during my first semester and nothing of note was worthy writing about so I’m going to assume its about to be the same with this one. After psych was done I headed off to my History class.

I was honestly prepared for the same syllabus schpiel but I got some interesting tidbits from my professor. Before the class started he tried making some casual conversation with the class asking if we liked to read, this didn’t work out in his favour really as nobody seemed to put their hands up or answer his question which shocked him. He then went on to talk about a Dilbert comic, I think, that made fun of modern students not knowing how to read/just hating reading in general.

To be honest, I would’ve put my hand up had I been paying attention but at the time I was focused on loading up the syllabus, emailing it to myself, and looking at what books I needed for the class (I can say which books if anyone asks). So that put me off a little bit but whatever. He told us about himself, which province he’s originally from and his background; a military man but not a hardened veteran if that makes sense. Once the class officially started at 11 he detailed what topics we would cover which I’ll list as I think you’ll find it interesting:

1. What is History

2. How History has value

3. How we should’ve learned from History (re the pandemic)

4. The European invasion of the Americas (I want to note the language he uses when talking about colonialism, so far he seems fairly respectful and explicitly states the brutality of what happened. This was brief, of course, but I think it matters.)

5. Slavery (how it was legitimate until the 19th century, so what happened to change attitudes?)

6. Spanish massacres (I think we will be focused on Cortés and the Cholula massacre. he mentioned a woman who collaborated with Cortés, I unfortunately don’t remember what she was called as my professor speaks very fast but there is a lot of debate with her apparently; a quick google search says her name is La Malinche but I may have the wrong lady.)

7. Navigating how to write properly

8. Watching the movie”Rabbit-Proof Fence”

After all that he asked the class a question: what is history? He got several answers such as events from the past, recorded/documented, influences the future, life changing, memorable, tradition, then and now, perspective, and accomplishments. When “traditions” were mentioned he brought up 23 and Me, and how many Germans who were from Ukraine migrated to Canada. He went on to explain what history was not. I wont list it all here but the first thing was about how history was not a chronicle of the past, rather its built on a sequence, if that makes sense. Monks, back in the day, chronicled events religiously, literally as they believed it had something to do with God. With this Monk information he then brought up Marx and his class warfare! Mind you, he did not do into detail at all but seemed to have mentioned Marx as a bit of a contrast I think. Im not completely sure as, again, he talks very fast and did not give me much information, not even a tone shift really. History is not just written records, but also art; futurists vs the Industrial Revolution. Apparently professional history didn’t become a thing until the 1830s-1860s as Germany at the was fragmented and trying really hard to create a unified German identity. He also told us that a majority of historians are actually Americans and that they outnumber the rest of the world. The last meaning of history he gave was History is a story intended to be true, with some reference to J. H. Hector, its an analysis of the past: cause and effect, continuity and change.

After this was why History is important, this post is getting long enough without the political science class discussion so I’ll skip some parts. When talking about memory in relation to history my professor brought up the strange phenomenon of people idealizing the past, specifically the 50s, and how the people who tend to have a fondness for the 50s tend to b white as back in the day only middle class white people had happy lives in the 50s, anyone else was screwed. I found this comment refreshing as I haven’t encountered an educator say these things before. Next we talked about how History teaches lessons and with that he used the Iraq war as an example! He compared it to when the British and French went to war against an Arab Socialist, I don’t know hat event he was talking about specifically but it was significant enough that we should’ve learned from that experience and not replicate it in Iraq.

Anyway after his he briefly brought up Trudeau complaining about the Harper government a lot to I guess excuse his current actions and the class ended. At this point in the day I have a two hour empty period until my last class of the day: Political Science. Nothing really happened in that time except me looking up what books I needed and watching Hunter x Hunter.

With the two hours completed my Political Science class started. We begin by going around introducing ourselves which I’ve never been fond of but I guess it can be considered some type of exposure therapy. If you remember from my last posts, my first Political Science class was an introductory course, this one however is about the concepts, methods and substance of Comparative Politics. We will study a select amount of countries: the US and others not specified. 10% of my grade will be based on attendance and participation which made me want to cry. Im great with attending all my classes but participating is difficult for me. In my previous class I was pretty great at speaking up and even somewhat challenging my professor, which he told me he enjoyed, but I don’t know why I was anxious this time. Our research paper is supposed to be about contrast: an example he gave was about regime changes in Russia re socialism and China’s transition from socialism to capitalism, the contrast being speed of transition. If this sounds confusing please forgive me, I can only write so quickly when my professors are speaking.

In this class we will be learning about what comparative politics is and anything related. he brought up Steven Lukes’ 3 dimensions of power and Harold Laswell. In regards to the 3rd dimension, making people vote against their own interests, he gave an example about how minimum wages are in the interest of the working class but the ruling classes are them vote against their own interests via propaganda so they can remain powerful. I found the terminology and tone he used to be kind of cool, as if he took the plights of the working class seriously rather than it being a joke. It’s the bare minimum but still. Next we learned, briefly since its the first day, about thee difference between International Relations and Comparative Politics, how the EU falls under both, and how the boundary between the two studies is blurring. Why do we study comparative politics? No reason is important enough to write down here unless anyone asks. At some point my professor brought up UBI, how it was experimented in a few places including Ontario, and how every one of those experiments failed, but its still debated fiercely. Then he made comments about populous parties being on the rise, normative theory vs empirical theory, and needed with a quote by Immanuel Kant: “Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.”

That concludes my first day of second semester and I apologize for how bad this reads, I tend to ramble a lot and I was running on fumes when I originally wrote this. I do hope it was interesting though! All comments are appreciated and welcome, and if you have any questions please let me know, I’m also willing to discuss the syllabi (in regards to course topics) if its asked for. I will literally answer any and all questions you have so please don’t hold back!

I’m anxious to see how this year goes and I can wait to share more with all of you.

I’ve only caught clips of it and I’m not strong enough to watch in full so I ask how any of you felt about it if you watched it.

Portuguese news went over it briefly but I can only understand bits and pieces, from what I’ve gathered the whole thing was a shit show.

I just found out about it today from twitter and tiktok and so far it seems incredibly unorganized. From my brief understanding I guess it’s supposed to be a nationwide strike against paying rent and bills. Some believe this strike is a psyop as one of the organizers is using odd and even coded language that may suggest they’re a conservative/right-wing in general. It also feels like it came out of nowhere, to me for a strike like this to work there must be months and months of planning and setting up mutual aid because without that the strikers will suffer immensely especially those with disabilities.

Anyway I just wanted to know your thoughts and if you’ve even heard about all this.

Edit: here is the website for the strike!

Is that the fucking black sun?

When Danny Haiphong shared this on twitter his replies were flooded with NAFO losers and imperialist apologists. Danny did an amazing job and yet so many refuse to listen, they’d rather post vulgar memes and reaction images in his replies, tagging and therefore sending NAFO after him. While they aren’t a real threat they are incredibly annoying and exhausting to deal with.

Danny Haiphong is an inspiration and I hope one day I can be like him.

And I’m genuinely hurt by this.

Someone in a tiktok comment section was talking about anarchists hiding cultural-conservatives but because tiktok comments are limited I didn’t really understand what they were talking about so I asked if there was a book or article I could read to learn more about this particular event. They then stated “do anarchist sock puppets read books now?” And I feel like shit. I don’t know what I said to provoke this hostility.

I know I’m overly sensitive but I actually am tearing up because of this. I hate the thought of being perceived as an enemy. I don’t know what to say to let them know I’m not a sock puppet…

Their comments mentioned something about the Chinese communists and the IWW.