Now that I’ve left Korea, I will not be posting here – indefinitely. Stay tuned for something new!

In an essay entitled “Dogs and Monsters,” Stanley Coren outlines the process of bioengineering dogs to adapt to the current technologies and needs of their human owners. He is currently a professor and director of the Human Neuropsychology and Perception Laboratory at the University of British Columbia.

Coren’s thesis is that the genetic manipulation of dogs over the past 14,000 years demonstrates just how old and harmless an idea bioengineering really is, despite the fears prevalent in media today.

The essay goes on to explain the significant stages of development in the process of breeding dogs. Wolves and jackals initially attracted to the food scraps lying around human camps were tolerated by the inhabitants for their habit of barking when predators or strangers approached. So useful were these barking dogs, that people began breeding the loudest barkers together to produce the ultimate watchdog.

We jump ahead to the end of the fifteenth century, when dogs began being used for hunting and cross-bred for desirable characteristics. Gun technology essentially determined which canine characteristics were most useful – ‘pointers’ (pointed at prey patiently and quietly) when difficult-to-load muskets were in vogue, setters (located prey quickly and indicated its proximity by tail-wagging) as weapons technology improved, and retrievers (bred to wait and retrieve only) as hunters began simply waiting for quarry to come to them. Pointers, setters, and retrievers became known as ‘gun dogs.’

We have genetically-engineered dogs over the past 14,000 years in order to increase their usefulness to us. As Thomas writes, “typically, humans had tailored machines to suit organisms. With dogs, they began modifying an organism to fit a machine [i.e. guns].”

I liked this essay – especially its title, ‘Dogs and Monsters.’ It draws attention to the stark contrast between the reality and perception of bioengineering (whether it’s food, animals, or people), something that needs to be done really. However, I’d be curious to know whether genetic engineering and selective breeding are really the same thing. Although Dr. Coren’s field isn’t genetics, his point is well-taken and refreshing. We need more scientists speaking up in defense of this issue to counter the ignorance that is being spread in the media, by the likes of Prince Charles (quoted as saying that genetic engineering “takes us into areas that should be left to God”) and other persons completely unqualified to give opinions on scientific matters.

Dogs and Monsters – Rhetorical Strategies

Coren unifies the introduction and conclusion of his essay in a way that enforces his thesis. The first line of the essay is “Today’s headlines routinely raise fears about genetic engineering,” but he finishes with the statement that 14,000 years of genetic manipulation of dogs has resulted in a “little white beast who is right now gently snoring with his head resting against my foot.” The danger and novelty of genetic engineering is effectively downplayed.

In this short essay, physician Lewis Thomas explains how we can profit from our mistakes – especially if we trust human nature. Perhaps someday, he says, we can apply this same principle to the computer and magnify the advantages of these errors.

Thomas begins by contrasting the supposed infallibility of computers with the human propensity for error. Computers, while modeled on the human brain, do not ‘think’ or ‘dream’ in a human fashion. They are designed to be perfect – to compute. However, as we know from personal experience, computers do make mistakes. Thomas speculates that computer errors provide the same rich opportunites for learning that human errors do.

The expression “trial and error” is used to describe one way, the most important way according to Thomas, in which people learn. The essay draws an apt analogy between a laboratory and a computer – both are designed to run flawlessly and under strict controls, but often real discovery comes when a small error occurs. Unforeseen lines of thought open, and the human ‘faculty of wrongness’ pays off. Thomas goes so far as to label this “the highest of human endowments…if we were not provided with the knack of being wrong, we could never get anything useful done.” When faced with a problem, our mind’s freedom to explore any myriad of possibilities, from the slighly wrong to the ridiculous, lifts us to new ground.

Animals (Thomas writes “the lower animals”) lack this freedom. Most animals are “limited to absolute infallibility.”  Fish, cats, and dogs rarely make mistakes – they act according to their nature. Thomas’ implicit suggestion is that this ‘infallibility’ accounts for the substantial gap between the problem-solving skills of humans and animals. I feel he is leaving too much unsaid. A more interesting and complete argument might explicitly hypothesize that a propensity for error increases in relation to a creature’s level of reasoning, with man’s obviously being the highest.  However, Thomas’s essay does clearly demonstrate the value of errors.

How could we use computers to magnify this value? Perhaps we need to program computers to make an infinite variation of mistakes on any given number of problems, and then comb the results for interesting and fruitful conclusions. We need to endow computers with an exploration process, which could only be modeled after human fallibility. Thomas writes that “if we had only a single center in our brains, capable of responding only when a correct decision was to be made (i.e. where computers are now), instead of the jumble of different, credulous, easily conned clusters of neurones that provide for being flung off into blind alleys, up trees, down dead ends, out into blue sky, along wrong turnings, around bends, we could only stay the way we are today, stuck fast.”

“To Err is Human”: Rhetorical Strategies

Thomas begins his essay with a list of experiences most of us have had at one time or another, with regard to computer errors. I found this to be an effective beginning because it inspires a sense of agreement with the writer right off the bat. Also, whenever a writer touches upon a pressing issue that affects us every day but about which we rarely talk (e.g. computer errors, traffic, etc.) we begin to feel a relationship with that writer, and to anticipate other thoughts or ideas we may have in common. This is a great way to control a reader’s feelings.

The points Thomas develops in the most detail are:

- Learning comes from being wrong.
- Being wrong comes from what we might call ‘exploration.’
- Through computers, we may be able to magnify the benefits of being wrong.

Central to his main idea, he develops these points most thoroughly.

The failure of South Korean companies to firmly establish long-term commerical investments in North Korea exposes some limitations of globalization. From this particular case, we could hypothesize that an integration of political processes is prerequisite to that of economic processes. The ideology by which the DPRK continues to guide itself, ‘Juche’ (self-reliance), is an isolationist ideal. As inspiring as it was during the recovery from a long and cruel Japanese occupation, it doesn’t seem the least bit conducive to international commerce. Nor does the complete absence of individual rights bode well for the reception of capitalist ideals.

Other contemporary examples, such as Venezuela’s nationalization of its oil industry, suggest the same consequences of an economic ideal, capitalism, outpacing its political precondition, a guarantee of individual freedoms.

Furthermore, whereas globalization has increasingly transferred political authority to international bodies, such as the United Nations, we see none of that in North Korea. The DPRK retains complete control over the social, political, and economic sphere within North Korea, and makes no pretense at subscribing to globally-recognized standards of liberal democracy.

This week’s blatant expropriation of South Korean assets highlights the extent to which North Korea’s political processes fall outside of what we now come to take for granted.

Landes defines political violence as “violence related to government and politics whose aim is to alter the pattern and results of the political process by non-legitimate means” (Landes 34).

Political violence is usually initiated by individuals or groups that regard a government as illegitimate, with the intention of either intimidating or making demands on that government. However, political violence also includes any (non-legitimate) force used by government itself.

Ongoing terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan is a contemporary example of political violence, as are most contemporary acts of terrorism.

Authority and Its Basis: Legitimacy

Authority may be defined as “the right to exercise the power and influence of a particular position that comes from having been placed in that position according to regular, known, and widely accepted procedures” (Lawson 1985: 33).

When a community accepts someone’s influence as being legitimate, we can say that individual has authority.

Max Weber offers a a typology to classify the means for legitimating influence: traditional, legal-rational, and charismatic modes of authority.

• A traditional basis of authority legitimizes influence by claiming that “the simple fact that things have been done a certain way in the past is reason enough that they should be continued in the same manner in the future” (Landes 32).
• A legal-rational basis of authority justifies the distribution of of influence according to the procedures that were adhered to in its acquisition. Authority resides with offices, not individuals.
• A charismatic authority is based on a community’s faith in the extraordinary qualities of an individual. Hitler’s rise to power comes to mind.

These bases are present, to varying degrees, in all of today’s political systems.

To the question of why political systems endeavor to legitimate their distribution of influence through these means, Robert Dahl offers a reasonable answer.

“Authority is a highly efficient form of influence. It is not only more reliable and durable than naked coercion, but it also enables a ruler to govern with a minimum of political resources” (Dahl, 1984: 54).

The Difference Between Legitimacy and Authority

Dahl’s comment gives us a clue about how legitimacy and authority differ. It is much easier to illustrate this difference through example, rather than definition.

Occasionally, political leaders, for whatever reason (e.g. ineptitude) may lack legitimacy while still possessing authority. I think we can all come up with pertinent examples. For me, I think of how, repeatedly, illegitimate and genocidal governments have assumed power and wielded authority in African countries over the past few decades.

Politics: A Definition

Landes offers us the following definition of politics:

“The exercise of power and influence concerning the establishment, maintenance, and breakdown of order in the community”(Landes 22).

Government isn’t the only entity in a community with power and influence, so politics is obviously a broader and more encompassing concept than government. As a matter of fact, government is a subset of politics. Politics is the use of power and influence to affect the community, sometimes through government, sometimes through other channels.

Federal Vs. Unitary Governments

There are several essential differences between federal and unitary forms of government. The terms ‘federal’ and ‘unitary’ refer to the sharing of political power between a central government and its constituent units.

Division of Power. A federal form of government is constructed  on the principle of power being divided between the multiple levels of government, whereas a unitary government has only a single level which delegates some power to local units.

In a federal nation-state (e.g. Canada), therefore, local (provincial, municipal) governments as well as the federal government can exercise certain powers over its citizens. Under a unitary government (e.g. Britain) however, a local government institution exercises power on behalf of the central government – it’s simply a branch of power.

Organization. A federal form of government is typically organized into at least three levels: federal, provincial/state, and local. The middle, provincial level is missing in a unitary system and local governmental institutions are not at all independent. Effectively, there is only one government.

Principle. The concept underlying a federal system is the promotion of diversity in the population, and an attempt to provide a degree of autonomy to regions. A unitary form of government results in what its name implies: unity.

Presidential Vs. Parliamentary Governments

This classification focuses on the structure of the executive (single or dual) within a government, and “its relation (separation or fusion of powers) to the legislature within a single governmental level” (15). Like federal and unitary structures, there are several key differences between the presidential and parliamentary government forms.

Executive Functions. A parliamentary system has a dual executive: a formal executive (head of state) with limited political power (e.g. British monarch, or Canadian governor general and provincial lieutenant governors), and a political executive, with substantial political power (British and Canadian prime ministers, and provincial premiers). A presidential system, on the other hand, operates with a single executive. Both formal and political executive functions are performed by the president.

Executive and Legislative Power. In a parliamentary system, executive and legislative power is fused. “Whichever party has a majority of seats in the legislature also controls the executive branch; in other words, the same group of political leaders operates both the executive and legislative institutions of government” (15). (The cabinet is what effectively fuses executive and legislative power in a parliamentary system. It is responsible to the legislature for its actions, and retains office by majority support in the legislature.)

Under a presidential system, executive and legislative powers are separated. “This separation of powers principle is maintained through a series of checks and balances, which are the specific constitutional powers granted to each branch to control, in some respects, the operation of the other branches of government” (16). A good example of this is how the American president can veto a law passed by the legislature, and the legislature may override a presidential veto (through a 2/3 vote in the House of Representatives and Senate).

Elections. In a parliamentary government there is a maximum time limit a government can retain office, but within that time it may hold elections to renew its mandate. In a presidential government election times are mandated by law – there is no leeway. For example, American presidential elections are held in November every four years.

Globalization

Landes perspective on the advent of globalization isn’t overly optimistic. He credits the phenomenon with an increasing uniformity among worldwide democratic electoral practices and the spread of liberal-democracy as an ideal (thanks to the success of Western capitalism), but also notes that much of the substance of democracy is ‘lost in translation.’ In other words democratic ideas and forms are spreading, but substance is lacking in many cases. He also states that governments are losing decision-making power to global organizations (IMF, UN, etc.) and even international corporations (i.e. through free trade agreements).

Political Power and Influence

Where do they intersect?

Political power and influence are relational concepts, i.e. both involve human interaction (direct or indirect), involve causation (exercised before a change in behavior), and politics (public in their import, as opposed to religious influence, for example). However, these two terms differ.

How do they differ?

It’s important to realize that while both terms refer to affecting change in someone’s behavior, Influence is the broader term – power is a type of influence.

Landes offers us the following definitions:

“People exercise influence when they change another person’s attitudes or behaviour…Power, likewise, represents a change in a person’s behaviour, but [specifically, via the actual or threatened] use of sanctions” (30). In other words, power is influence (changes behavior) with a gun (force).

Examples that serve to delineate these terms abound. If I join the military partly because of an arousing speech I hear regarding the horrors of 9/11 and threats of Islamic terrorism, then the speechmaker has exercised some degree of influence over me. If a conscription law is in place (along with sanctions consequent to ‘draft dodging’), on the other hand, my decision to join the military is a good example of power having been exercised.

On the other hand, I suppose sanctions could involve less serious deprivations than that of freedom or life. For example, the deprivation of government services. In such a case, the exercise of power wouldn’t involve force.

Political Resources and Influence

A political resource is a means by which one person or group can influence the behaviour of another. Such resources range from money to the threat of force, social standing to food, and more.

Presumably, though not always, individuals and groups with the greatest political resources will also hold a proportionate level of influence (a good example of an exception would be a rich man with little influence).

If I wanted to increase my own political influence, a good start would be taking stock of and growing my own political resources. This might involve raising funds ($$$) for a campaign, gaining knowledge about the political process in my area (education and information), attending the best parties (social status and connections), and boosting my credentials (authority).

However, I may fail to achieve political influence despite having access to great political resources. Why? Whatever reason – I may lack a minimum level of charisma, have a reputation that interferes with trust (where did I get my money?), etc. While it isn’t difficult to understand how political resources don’t necessarily lead to influence (Landes uses the good example of Ross Perot), it’s hard to imagine a situation where influence is achieved without resources. Resources include not only wealth afterall, but also popularity and a great variety of other things. I think political influence is always rooted in some form of political resources.

Other Perspectives

Dahl and Landes describe the differences in the amount of influence people exercise as being attributable to three factors:

1. Differences in the distribution of political resources.
2. Variations in the skill or efficiency with which individuals use their political resources…
3. Variations in the extent to which individuals use their resources for political purposes. (Dahl 1984: 31)

The first point is especially noteworthy, because it reveals an implicit notion in Dahl and Landes’ conception of political influence, namely that bases of political influence are not restricted to any specific sphere of society. This assumption, that sources of power and influence are widely dispersed, is the core of what is known as the pluralist approach.

The pluralist approach isn’t universally accepted. Marxists, for example, contend that political power and influence is concentrated in the dominant economic class (i.e. owners of the means of production), and that the political and economic spheres of a society are inseparable.

Elite theorists believe that power and influence are concentrated in the elite minority that rules over the masses (even under socialism), and have a non-economic basis. Since power and influence are assumed to be monopolized by the elite minority, elite theorists find questions regarding power and influence largely irrelevant.

…has this to say in response to my assertion that we can’t survive without reason.

What human being survives without reason? – your argument is just an ambiguous oxymoron. Who is not practical? Except, being practical means we have to define what practical is. If something works, we have to define what “works” means – it is NOT independent of us – that would be totalitarianism. You cannot explain everything (or anything) ever – and that is why we have religion. You cannot explain the origin of the universe, life, or why we are here. Stop being so arrogant !!!!!!!

Because, as we all know, religion does such a good job at explaining things. Like that intelligent design theory that sounds conspicuously similar to its scientific counterpart (except for that last little bit).

With the submission deadline for the 12th annual Seoul Photo Essay Contest just having passed, dozens, if not hundreds of foreign residents in Seoul put pen to paper. This year’s topic was entitled simply,” A clean and attractive global city, Seoul.”

As usual, the municipal government offered us a number of suggestions for essay content, including festivals, beautiful but disappearing traditions, parks, and royal palaces.

Pondering my own entry, I realized that as interesting as these topics were, none of them fully captured why I continue to call Seoul home. They are all good reasons to visit the city, but I wanted to go beyond selling Seoul as a great place to visit, I wanted to explain (as much to myself as to readers) why Seoul is a great place to live.

I knew I loved this city – but why? Beset by curiosity, I concluded that the answer lay somewhere beyond my usual combination of Google and self-reflection. Armed with a notebook, a camera, and an umbrella (the sky was ominously dark), I set out to rediscover the city I first came to love five years ago.

My first stop was Myeong-dong where, despite the light mist of rain, a sea of people was busily engaged in enjoying the area’s commercial pleasures.

Anyone who has been to Myeong-dong on a Saturday afternoon knows what to expect. It’s noisy, crowded, filled with the smells of street vendors’ food, and chaotic in that patently Korean way. People are well-dressed, move with speed and purpose, and elbow each other unapologetically as they go about their business.

Having snapped off a few shots and well into a corndog (why are they so much cheaper here?), I found myself reminiscing over my first trip to New York – specifically, Manhattan. It wasn’t the shape of the buildings around me that caused me to think of Seoul and New York in tandem, nor anything so specific (it certainly wasn’t the corndog), but rather the flavor of the activity around me.

I need to digress somewhat. You see, what they say about New York – that a day spent in the city will inspire the best in you – well, that was absolutely true for me. From the high edifices in the financial district to the ‘joie de vivre’ of fifth avenue shoppers…the entire experience of visiting New York reaffirmed my confidence in man, and myself no less.

It was in this train of thought that my love for Seoul began to reveal itself. I knew I didn’t live in Seoul for any sort of superficial resemblance it may bear to New York – the two cities are significantly more different than they are similar. But sitting here in Myeong-dong I realized that it was the city’s sense of life that evoked a similar emotional response in me.

Having discovered the underlying principle of my affinity for Seoul, and armed with quite a bit of experience living in this city, I knew I wouldn’t need to make any more stops that day – I felt ready to write.

I found myself in a frenzy to jot down everything that living here meant to me – McDonald’s Home Delivery and Wal-Mart sized discount stores open 24/7, no last call at the neighborhood pub, alcoholic beverages as close as my corner convenience store (or with my chicken delivery!), same-day delivery of internet purchases, incredible business efficiency, computer prices that are negotiable, the list went on and on. All the conveniences Seoulites take for granted…and find themselves missing when they’re away.

Ideas were integrating naturally, and my thesis was clear: Seoul’s beauty resides in its vibrant trader culture, ridiculous amount of signage and all! I was eager to remind the world in no uncertain terms that the Seoul as we know it is a new city, despite a documented two-thousand-year history, and that it’s all the more livable for it. In essence – modernity, not antiquity is what makes Seoul a beautiful place.

As my confidence grew, so did the realization that my point of view wasn’t at all common. As a matter of fact, it seemed downright contrarian.

Here is a little of what I hear every day.

From the vast majority of my my foreign peers living in Seoul – how crowded the city is, the air pollution, a longing for the countryside and nature. They find peace and refuge from the ‘urban nightmare’ in weekend trips to remote mountain temples, in the escape from people and stimuli in general. In essence, that which I love about Seoul, they abhor.

Most surprisingly, from my Korean peers, my praise of Seoul and Korea in general is almost unanimously, albeit politely disagreed with. Seoul is too dirty, too crowded, too noisy. Seoulites dress well because peers and seniors expect them to, and what I identified as movement with rational purpose is actually stress and anxiety in motion.

I’m not quite sure why I was saddened – it’s not as if I haven’t encountered these sentiments before. Having lived in Vancouver for two years, I am well acquainted with the return-to-nature, anti-industrial, and anti-man points of view. I simply expected more out of Seoulites – residents of a community that has proudly pulled itself out of the ashes in its embrace of capitalism over the past century.

In place of another essay about a palace, I am making this simple request to Seoulites: ask yourself how you benefit daily from living in such a brilliantly modern and commercial city. If your list is as long as mine, you will begin to appreciate the true beauty of Seoul.