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.
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.
This one is interesting.
So much of the USSR is clouded with poor historical scholarship, especially in the west.
Michael Jabara Carley has written on this, namely 1939: The Alliance That Never Was and the Coming of World War II and Silent Conflict: A Hidden History of Early Soviet-Western Relations (both available on LibGen) and Stalin’s Gamble: The Search for Allies against Hitler, 1930-1936. He details how the rest of the Allies treated the USSR. You might be interested in any or all of them.
I wonder what your professor’s take is on this matter.
What are other lies? What happened in:
Spain (the civil war)
I’d be interested in hearing what was discussed in relation to the Spanish Civil War, if he went into any more depth on the subject.
[My textbooks] can all be found on Lilgen very easily so thankfully I didn’t have to spend a dime
Speaking of which, I put an open call out to people here if they need a hand sourcing ebooks of any kind, including textbooks, because I’m pretty handy at tracking them down even when they aren’t available on LibGen and Zlibrary. Hit me up if you’re ever trying to find an ebook.
I am most definitely interested in all those books so I’ll definitely be reading them, so thank you for sharing! One of these days I’ll have to take advantage of office hours to talk to my professor about what his perspectives are but if he’s anything like my political science teacher from first semester he’ll be hesitant to tell me his exact point of view, but maybe history professor is different and I won’t know until I try.
There’s a weird thing in liberal academia. Part of the idea is that education is for the students and that their development rests on them coming to their own conclusions. Some academics think they’ll be doing a disservice to students by stating their personal views in case it comes across as telling students what to think about politics. They don’t want to come across as ‘brain washy’. It’s not articulated very well. Sometimes it’s expressed as the need to teach ‘objectively’ and ‘objectivity’. There might also be some self preservation to it, too, as they never know whether a student will try to get them cancelled!
it doesn’t seem much but its late where I am and my back hurts.
Watch your posture. It seems like you picked a course which will require lots of typing. If you’re typing on a laptop maybe get one of those laptop stands. Or whatever works for you, but take care of your back.
I actually write my notes by hand since I find it helps me absorb information better than typing. But yes, I’ve been doing back exercises at home to help out and I try to stretch as much as I can although my professors don’t take enough breaks in their lectures to give me the chance to adjust. I try to compensate when I’m at home, though.
I’m also a hand-writer. Paper is a lot freer than a screen. With the right app, you can write prose, mind maps, notes, doodles, diagrams, etc, but with paper you can do all that on a single sheet without disrupting the flow. Try plain paper if you haven’t, and for prose/paragraphs, leave a few inches margin on both sides so you can add to it later (either new info or diagrams, pictures, etc).
I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before (your second year has come around quick) to you but it’s worth mentioning if you like pen and paper. Tony Buzan, Use Your Head was a game-changer for me. Particularly the information on the forgetting curve and on mind maps. I used an earlier edition than the latest one. An Amazon review tells me the newer edition has more stats and is drier than the older one.
He has got a book just on mind maps. I can’t say how good it is. Only that I’ve picked it up before and at a glance thought it repeated the sections from Use Your Head but in more words, so I haven’t read it. Could be good so I wouldn’t necessarily discount it.
His mind maps are a little different to what most people think by the term. IMO it’s important to follow his advice. Mind maps of the more standard variety can fail to make the most of the medium. They’re useful because they’re non-linear. Which means they stay useful if they remain non-linear. As soon as a mind map doesn’t facilitate adding new data or making connections, it’s lost it’s most useful features.
If you take linear notes about today’s lessons, then tomorrow’s lessons, etc, you end up with something like a handwritten book. If you use loose sheets, then when you come across new information later which substantiates something you learn today, you can add a new sheet into the start of your file. But unless you only write a paragraph on a page, it’s not going to ‘fit’ perfectly. It can also get unwieldy and you need a glossary to remember where everything is.
But if you get piece of plain paper, draw a box in the middle, ‘History’, you can either start a branch that covers everything you learned today, or start several branches, one for each theme/idea/argument.
Then you can start another branch for the next lesson and connect common themes with today’s lesson with arrows. Or you can add the new content from the second lesson into the ‘themed’ branches if you choose that option. If you get a new theme, start a new branch. But for the themes that continue, keep building the existing branches.
This way, all new information is added to an existing model in a way that makes most sense in terms of connections between the ideas, rather than a potentially arbitrary chronology. And as you keep having to think about where new information best fits into what you learned before, you keep returning to things you have learned before, and those things are almost impossible to forget.
(Start small, as you don’t know how big this will get – but it can be good to start again when you see new patterns, to make things neater.)
It’s hard to explain without showing you. There are examples in Buzan’s book. I’ll try to summarise the steps.
Each branch should be one word (sometimes that’s not possible). And try to only ever use the same word once on the map. If multiple branches connect to the word, it should be a stem-branch or connected by arrows, etc, to the other branches that it relates to. Write in caps. You can use colours, pictures, symbols, diagrams, etc. If you must write a sentence, each word is a branch; then it can be amended to capture more meaning – and you only need to add a branch to double-up the information presented by adding a single word. This makes them very concise.
As new information is added in one-word branches, it’s speedy. So it’s easy to maintain in a way that isn’t always possible with long prose notes when things get busy.
I have used these to learn, revise for exams, take notes, take minutes of meetings, plan projects, map out essays, and a few other things. When you get used to Buzan’s method, it can be used as a thinking tool as well as for taking notes.
