1. Is truth Important?

Since I was little I lived in a bubble created by my parents, a fantasy world. I guess there is still a part of that world that lives in me today – what I keep questioning is: is that necessarily a bad thing? In TOK we constantly learn the importance of knowing the truth, of questioning things and I believe that for High School students it’s extremely important. However, I was talking to my niece who is in 5th grade and her view on the world seems much more realistic and in a way even more cynical than me at that age, maybe because of the media, friends and possibly even school. It seems as if kids are no longer allowed to enjoy their childhood. In my conversation with my niece she told me her and her friends believe that the idea of fairy tales is as she says “dumb” and when I ask kids in 3rd and 4th grade they seem to agree with my niece. I always believed that being a kid means dreaming that everything is possible. For me that meant reading fairy tales, fairy tales with a Princess or a Prince Charming, believing that good always triumphs over evil and in other things, that although are not always the truth, we're an idealistic way of looking at the world. If kids are not going to be idealistic, then who is? I believe that Fairy Tales are a way to maintain children’s innocence and allow them to live in this “fantasy world”. Now looking at this from a different perspective, as we have learned in TOK, we/I have realized that there are groups of people that think that Fairy Tales have a negative impact on children. An example is the princess within these stories being a negative stereotype for beauty or being morally misguided. A Newsweek article talks about how fairy tales are just a way to convince girls that they should spend as much money as they possibly can in their wedding. “Princess” is Disney-speak—a sort of noun-adjective you’d hear in a sentence such as”Your hair is, like, so princess today!”—for its plan to market Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Belle and the girls to world domination.” To even going as far as to say that the main goal of fairy tales is to convince girls that “the quest for financial security, class mobility and, in our divorce-ridden, war-pocked world, a few moments of life lived happily ever after.”

But, isn't it true that Fairy Tales have always been a way to manipulates kids? Aren't Fairy Tales moral lesson? Aren't these moral lessons being ignored? The idea that class distinction should never matter as in Cinderella or Aladdin, or that appearances should not be an important consideration as in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and most importantly believing in true love. Fairy Tales still inspire and support the idea of maintaining a kid’s childhoods which has become uncommon in the world nowadays. Looking at the number of articles criticizing Fairy Tales, it seems like people are asking the wrong questions, seeing that the number of movies that have violence and sexual references has increase drastically in the past few years. Isn’t this what causes kids to lose their innocence and childhood? Is it beneficial for our society to have children that are so realistic and cynical?

2. Darwin vs. Mao

Or Science vs. History
There may have been many times when you nodded along, believed everything your science teacher said. But in your history class, you may have often raised questions to the credibility of the facts and started to doubt the accuracy of historical documentations. Why does this happen?

This issue can be traced back to the origin of the method of acquiring knowledge in these two distinct areas.

We realize that science is a subject build on precision and before ANY theory or fact is established, repeat testing and questioning have to be carried out, in order to make any claim more reliable. We tend to believe that more times it had been tested, the more reliable it will be (the fact has withstood many testing and not failed, which proofs that it works on almost any occasion). This method of acquiring knowledge and testing claims are deemed to be more accurate and reliable by our standard. Hence, we often think that whatever fact that we are presented with, it is relatively true.

The fact that science facts or theories are only relatively true is because many things in science can be not ascertained for sure yet, with our current technologies. We accept whichever theory that can fit the best into everyday phenomenom, that can explain why things happen the way they do around us; whichever thing that can allow us to predict future trends. Theories in science are justifiable. They make sense to our brains. Like Benjamin Kuipers said on his site:

“The reason why we don’t believe in fairies but in electrons is because Fairies are much more free. A fairy does what it decides to do. We haven’t been able to find any useful rules for predicting how a fairy will behave under particular circumstances, or even for telling when a fairy has been involved in a particular observation.”

Therefore, humans tend to latch on to the explanations, which are justifiable with reasoning, and that fit that best and allow us to predict future trend, as we learnt in TOK. So until a new theory comes along or we come up with a theory of our own, we will always latch onto the best fitting one.

In history however, the facts are less reliable then that in science due to that facts acquired all came from human made objects.

Those of you doing history should that history relies HEAVILY on first hand eye witness acounts; whatever a witness says, it is placed in priority. But how many of you considered that how biased a witness account can be? Amnesia, personal emotions, exaggeration, and other things can ALL contribute to the accuracy of personal accounts. These factors greatly affect the credibility of evidence gained through witnesses. So what is the solution? Historians do not only acquire information from one source, they acquire information from others to reach a consensus on the information they have gained.

Yet, we still do not fully trust people accounts because we understand that witness accounts cannot be completely accurate, despite how many people had been interviewed.

Therefore, we wish to rely on somethings that are not as capricious and changeable as people; we look at documentations, such as letters, and diaries. But think about this, just like a piece of music, a letter can have different levels of context. As we have learnt in TOK, different upbringings can allow us to intepret differently and understand different meanings in one context. So a letter talking about the death of a bear can be understood to be talking about the death of a bear, or the fall of Soviet Union (bear was the symbol for soviet union) by other people who has the prior knowledge and background information on Soviet Union.

Despite the factual information that documentations present, it is humans that eventually intepret the piece freely. When there is need for intepretation, there will be a difference of people’s intepretation and what we get out of the documentation. It is humans who make the documentations and give us information; there is a constant danger of changing the credibility of information based on personal emotions and backgrounds.

You see, even a factual information can be understood differently in history and things can be moulded by peoples’ emotions in history, whereas in science, the strict dimensions made up by matters, not humans, do not allow people to freely intepret what the scientist had meant; the only freedom in science is to use our imaginations to challenge existing theories.

3. Love and Hate

In your IB History class, you have studying the immediate post-World War II era and how the Cold War was started.The United States dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9 of 1945 respectively. The bombs ended the most devastating global war in the human history with the Japanese acceptance of the unconditional surrender.

What did the United States then do from 1945 until the late 1950s - the era the Cold War was triggered?

The United States sent and stationed a massive amount of troops in Japan and started the rebuild of the economy, industry and society - what now we call the democratization and demilitarization of the Axis powers. This took place in Germany too (although Germany was split in half). The United States paid billions and billions of dollars to rebuild Japan and Germany, although they were the major enemies during the global war.

There are many historical reasons behind the US rebuild of Japan. For example, the US wanted a military base in Asia. However, for instance, there was civil war going on in China (which later made the communists to takeover the country), the Philippines was about to gain its independence, and India (by then the British colony) was too far away from the Soviet Union. Thus, Japan - who was defeated and was close to the communist states - was the only country where the US could station their armies and suppress the rises of communism in Asia.

Okay. Enough study of the history. I will not go too beyond.

My point is the action of the US right after the global war somehow reminds me of the “love and hate” theory of one of my English teachers. He said love and hate are just like the head and tail of a coin. Love and hate seem so different, but as a whole, they share similar aspects.

It is true that the US ‘hated’ Japan for many reasons during the war (sorry, hate is not an appropriate word).

Japan was a fascist, imperial, anti-democratic and authoritarian state. However, once the war was over, the US went to Japan and all of the sudden started to rebuild what they had destroyed. The US also made Japan an ally (- what our history teacher calls ”hugs and kisses” of countries).

To help the rebuild of a country that was once an enemy.

Despite the fact that the US feared the further spread of communism, it still sounds awkward. The Americans bombed so many cities in Japan and also in Germany, killing millions of people, and once the war ended, they came to help and spent so much money.

This could be considered that this took place because the US ‘knew’ Germany and Japan in depth. In other words, through the war, the Americans naturally knew how Germany and Japan were organized as a country. Thus, they could successfully dominate the two countries after the war.

“Love and Hate” theory may not fit in in this case. However, it is still possible to consider that we hate or hate somebody because we know him/her/them in depth. The US rebuild of Japan and Germany was similar. It is possible to consider since they fought a massive war over 4 years in total, they knew each other and led the Americans to know how Japan and Germany were organized as a country.

4. Fog of War

Lesson number 1 Empathize With Your Enemy



Have we learned?

ToK Prescribed Titles (2010) Question 7

“We see and understand things not as they are but as we are.” Discuss this claim in relation to at least two ways of knowing.

The essence of the Q: concentrate on the words 'see' and 'understand': which WoK do they correspond to? The quotation appears to distinguish between the world 'out there' or 'things' and human minds or 'we'. What are the problems for knowledge that are generated by this distinction? Is it a valid distinction? The implication is that there is no knowledge of reality or truth without human minds; that knowledge comes from an interaction between human minds and the world. If I see and understand the world as I am and you see and understand it as you are, do we see it as the same? Again, you must address the issue of 'subjective' and 'objective' belief and the limitations involved. Think about whether this claim holds true across different cultural/international boundaries.


Knowledge Issues: How far is it true to say that the human mind shapes the world according to its knowledge needs? To what extent do we experience the same reality? In what way do our cultural beliefs limit or enhance the way we 'see' and 'understand' ourselves and our world?


Aproaches: Scientists apparently see the same reality - they experiment on it to produce data to prove/disprove their theories about the world. Also their need to understand the world creates technological breakthroughs that help to shape that world differently - think of examples. The past is a fixed reality, isn't it? The things that have happened are a constant, so to speak. Then how is it that historians 'see' and 'understand' those events differently? We all perceive ethical problems differently and deal with them differently, jus as we agree or disagree about what makes a work of art good. Is this because of the way 'we are' or because of the nature of the ethical issue or art work itself? If you believe, as Pythagoras did, that the real world is ruled by numbers, that mathematical relationships between these numbers determine events and our very own behavior, then surely we have to reverse the claim: what we see and understand is limited by the world outside - the very 'things' that we see shape our understanding...