Wagar's Main Points / Critiques (The 3 Futures)

I usually post my ideas on the class readings on my blog, but this time I'll be asking students to contribute their summaries and critical reactions to a class wiki or Google Doc, so I'm going to hold back my own ideas.

The 1st Future: "Globalized Liberal Democratic Capitalism"

Critique (unrealistic, not explained enough etc.)

The Transition to the 2nd Future: "A Calamitous System-Wide War"

Critique

The 2nd Future: "Radical Democracy: A Worldwide Republic of Working Men and Women"

Critique

ARW Notes for 1/29 Fri - Starting Wagar

Are you a "futurist"? Most students said No. A few said Yes. I said we should ALL be futurists who consider what the future SHOULD be like (not just predict what it WILL be).

Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of the human race? The response was about half/half, but we agreed that responsible futurists should "hope for the best but anticipate the worst."

After a quick introduction to Warren Wagar, the futurist and author of the "The Next Three Futures" text (just the Epilogue, not the whole book) we will read over the next week or so, we read the first page to consider the key words in Wagar's prediction.

The 1st future (our current world system): technoliberalist democratic capitalist hegemony

A definition: "The chief ideological underpinnings of Gray global history are Enlightenment faith in reason and science and liberal political economy. Elsewhere I have dubbed this world-view "technoliberalism."[4] As of the year 2001, this is the reigning ideology throughout the so-called developed world, and its power in the so-called less developed world should never be underestimated." (Source link)

The 2nd future (after a working class uprising): radical socialist democracy, the Worldwide Republic of Workers.

The 3rd future: countercultural, decentralized ecotopian society.

When I asked what images students' had of counterculture movements, one student mentioned the Japanese singer Yutaka Ozaki, and I felt that was a good example considering many of Ozaki's songs deal with the theme of liberation from excessive social restrictions and control.

The 4th future: Not mentioned yet, but look forward to meeting aliens.

I'm looking forward to my students' reactions and discussion questions on Monday!

ARW Notes for 1/27 Wed

This class was dedicated to Winter Project group planning.

I was very happy to see that each group's ideas are getting more specific, though it is clear that some groups need to make a clear decision of what issue they are going to focus on.

I hope the discussion time was valuable for each group.

• Insects as an efficient source of food for the future--This group has a very clear focus, and just needed to make their outline more specific by writing it down on paper. It is important to make sure all members know exactly what the research question, main argument, and main reasons are going to be.
• Literacy for females in Afghanistan--This seems quite specific, and so the group just needs to continue research to find out what solutions are being implemented currently and what changes or improvements in the solutions are needed (such as changing the approach used by aid organizations, or increasing the efforts for certain types of activities etc.)
• Increasing the birth rate in Japan - This is another good issue to tackle, and it seemed like the group just needed to research what solutions the Japanese government is currently implementing and critically evaluate how the solutions can become more effective.
• Food shortage in Sierra Leone--Nice focus on a country that needs much assistance. The members seem to have a good amount of basic research and just need to consolidate the ideas into a focused argument on what should be changed to make the situation better in a sustainable way.
• Space research--This group seemed to be struggling the most, but during the meeting, it looked like a decision to focus on how much government spending for space-related research (1% of GNP?) is justified as an investment for the future, considering the fact that many other basic issues such as education or assistance for developing countries need funds.

The presentation day will come sooner than we think, so it is important to have good communication within each group by Internet tools and meetings in and out of class.

ARW Notes for 1/25 Monday - Winter Project Groups

First we started by brainstorming what articles might be good for the Future Newspaper of 2110 we will collaborate on. Perhaps the idea of 2110 is too far away to imagine? Or everyone is too tired and overwhelmed with other projects to spend time on creative thinking?

I hope everyone can contribute to the Google Doc. Let me know your ideas on this.

Also I set the initial deadline as Wed, but I wonder if that is too tight. It is no problem to move it back, so I'll ask everyone what they think on Wed.

After a confirmation of some schedule things, each group tried to move their project forward by discussing their research questions and how they will go about researching them.

My role as the instructor was mainly to confirm and give advice on whether the project seemed focused and realistic enough.

The current topics seem to be:

• Should money be spent on space colonization research?
• Hunger in Africa
• Female education in Afghanistan
• Using bugs as a food supply to solve the global hunger problem
• How to solve the birth rate decline in Japan

I hope each group can find a clear focus, help each other research this, and start to develop a thesis and main point proposing solutions to solve the problems.

We will basically continue team discussions on Wed. I wonder what kind of support I might give at this point. More examples? Just plenty of time for group discussion? Any ideas?

ARW Class Notes 1/22

The goal of this class was to get students thinking about our new theme of Visions of the Future and to launch their group projects researching global issues.

For visions of the future, three questions we discussed were:

1. What progress has been made in Japan (or the world) in the past 100 years?
2. What is "progress"? What should it be defined? What is the goal of human society?
3. What do you predict will happen in the next 100 years? What will a newspaper in 2110 look like?

In particular, the 2nd question to define progress is challenging. Some ideas brainstormed by students or introduced by myself were:

Progress is...

• More convenience
• More efficiency
• Sustainable stability: The ability to avoid major tragedies, catastrophes, incidents
• Security of meeting basic needs for food, water, shelter, medical care
• Greater happiness in society (Bhutan advocates Gross National Happiness as follows)
  GNH encourages individuals to see all things as interdependent with all other things. In order to achieve collective happiness, the principle of interdependence needs to be taken on by everyone. Members of a GNH society would cultivate a third eye, which can elevate our vision beyond individual self-interest to address the happiness of all, as a collective goal. The third eye metaphorically represents our potential to see all things as interdependent across time and space. Equity is central to GNH.
  
• Quality of life - Does more technology lead to better quality of life?
• Greater equality. A smaller gap between haves and have nots.

For more ideas, see this article on What is progress?

It looks like the class will have about 5 winter project groups. I'll look forward to what topics each group decides to develop!

How to Focus a Topic: Example using Water Scarcity in Sub-Saharan Africa

This is the article that I plan to introduce to my essay writing class as an example of how to focus one's research by choosing one critical issue within a topic.

For example, if a student or student group is working on the issue of water scarcity in Africa, the following source would have a wealth of relevant details.

http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/Publications/Working_Papers/working/WOR55.pdf

One temptation of the group would be to make their essay or presentation simply a summary of one expert's results.

However, that does not lead to a well-researched, insightful analysis.

The important thing is to find an unresolved issue or controversy mentioned within the report and try to find other sources to develop an opinion on that issue.

Silver p.27-33

Summary of Main Points

Surreptitious Cloning:
Surreptitious cloning means secretly cloning the DNA of other people without their own consent. Silver uses an example called the Michael Jordan scenario to show that it is possible to steal the DNA of a star and clone the star. Rationally speaking, a Michael Jordan clone will not become Michael Jordan, and most will find it a cruel waste of time and energy, but some people may be interested in that out of curiosity or for money, so it may occur illegally. Another point Silver makes is that couples may be able to legally clone "beautiful and bright" people chosen from a catalogue.

Tissue Regeneration
Cloning of embryos in order to create ES (embryonic stem cells) could help people solve many medical problems such as cancer, Parkinsons disease, or heart and liver diseases. For example, if Anissa needs new bone marrow, we would just make an Anissa clone embryo, get stem cells from it, and make those undifferentiated stem cells develop into differentiated bone marrow cells. Then, Anissa could get a transplant with her own healthy cells.
Note: However, in 2010, we know that iPS cells are probably better for this. Our bodies have stem cells in them, so cloning embryos is not needed.

Genetic Engineering
In this last section, Silver introduces the field of genetic modification (GM) and states that cloning will support the use of GM for humans, which is currently impossible because the failure rate is so high. Silver uses the word "special genetic gift" to mean a artificial genetic characteristic that is added to the original embryo's DNA.

What do you think about his final words: "the human species will gain control over its own destiny"?

Critical Reactions / Discussion Points:

1. Regarding the final line, I think Silver should define what he means. What kind of control over life do we want? Do we want to design superior life? I can see the temptation for some people to engineer genes to make children that are smarter or healthier, but I see it as unneeded and detrimental. Let the randonness of nature decide what kind of humans will be born, and let's do the best with it.

2. Obviously, Silver did not know about iPS cells. However, I am concerned that Silver does not feel any need to protect embryos. If an embryo is not a human, then when does a human become a human?

3. Just for discussion, if you could clone somebody to be your child, who would you clone?

4. Also, for discussion, since we are at the end of the text, what is your opinion about human cloning? How has it changed since starting to read Silver's text?

ARW Notes for Jan. 15 (Fri) - Essay Peer Editing

The purpose of this class was for students to help each other confirm what is important about writing a good essay.

Students will use this Essay No.1 Self-Evaluation Sheet as a checklist for writing a good essay, and we went through some of the main points to see how their printed drafts were.

Obviously, the most important aspect of a good essay is 1) the meaningfulness of the topic and research question, 2) the depth of the research, and 3) the persuasiveness of the argument. I could easily give A, B, C grades based on my personal perception of whether a student has done well in those areas.

However, I prefer to give a point-based checklist because it is important for me that students know what is important for a good essay and can evaluate their own essay by themselves.

Designing a point-based rubric is difficult, and I always struggle with the weighting of points. For example, this time the item "Persuasiveness" is 6pts out of 20, but perhaps it should be 10pts out of 20. Also, I don't have an explicit item to give points for easy vs. difficult topics or meaningful vs. not so meaningful research questions. I have considered give that some weighting. Another questions is whether should I have a system to give extra points to students who struggled with some basic things such as constructing their argument, but made an outstanding effort to do research with academic English sources. At this point, all of those important areas are under the umbrella of "persuasiveness," while the other 14 points are given for in 1 or 2 or 3 point allocations for items such as formatting, organization, use of sources, and academic English.

It is difficult to know whether this system is best, so I hope to keep analyzing the effectiveness by asking students about and getting feedback from other teachers.

In any case, I hope the Self-Evaluation sheet helps students look at their essay with several key criteria in mind as they do the final checking and polishing for submission.

Peace in the Post Cold War Era - Reaction to Professor Mogami's article

ICU has an active Peace Research Institute, and I greatly support the efforts that are being made their to research how peace and stability can be ensured globally.

The institute publishes a newsletter, and the main article in this issue was a reflection by Professor Toshiki Mogami on the 20 years that have passed since the end of the Cold War in 1989.

After reviewing the fact that the end of the Cold War did not bring peace to the world, but instead led to new series of conflicts in the Middle East, Africa, the Balkans, Afghanistan and so on, he writes (with my translation from the Japanese):

"(20 years after the end of the Cold War) Systems and structures that breed hate between groups of people still remain. Cultures and value systems that express their hate with violence still continue to exist. Political systems and parties that believe in subduing violence with bigger violence still are essentially unchanged."

We need to conceptualize and build systems that will nurture and ensure peace. I hope all of my students, no matter what major they go into, will have a chance to feel the importance of this endeavor during their studies at ICU. I hope I can play a role in this work

ARW Class Notes for 1/13 Wed

I passed out the Essay No.1 Self-Evaluation Form and explained that it needs to be filled out and handed in together with the essay.

I also announced that deadline for the essay will be pushed back to Monday 1/18 instead of Friday. I hope that leads to more polished essays, and we will use Friday's class for final peer feedback and confirmation of editing points.

The ARW PWT is next Friday, so I showed some examples of Knowledge (summary of Silver's idea) and Reaction (opinion) essay questions that may be asked. We'll do a practice test on Monday for about 25 minutes after I briefly explain the points of a good answer paragraph.

Then we talked about What is Wrong with Cloning? Some of the interesting questions that were reported by each group were:

• Is Jennifer's choice to clone herself to make her daughter Rachel morally acceptable or not? Some groups argued that there will be no particular harm to Rachel and therefore it seems to be an acceptable way to have children. Other groups mentioned that it might be harmful to Rachel because Jennifer may have unrealistic expectations for a person who has the same DNA as her, or Rachel may suffer from seeing how she will age like Jennifer.
• One argument for why cloning is wrong is that it may lead to eugenics. Cloning allows us to know exactly what DNA a child will have, and it leads to a choice of who will be cloned. In other words, we will decide exactly what kind of person we want. It is a type of genetic selection, and that is similar to eugenics.
  
• In relation to the eugenics argument against cloning, one group discussed what we would do if we did a prenatal DNA test for an embryo or fetus and the doctor told us the baby would be born with a disability. Would we go ahead with the pregnancy, or terminate it? That is a fundamental question of humanity. Should technology progress so that only healthy persons are born? Or, is that an insult to people who have been born with disabilities and their families, who have lived meaningful lives in spite of having the disability. Do we want to live in that kind of society where we select who should be born and who should not? Or, is that a unstoppable technological advance?
• How much would you pay for cloning yourself? That cost question and the availability of cloning will probably be decided by the market.
  

Nice discussions!

ARW Jan. 12 Discussion on Cloning (Silver 20-27)

The Cloning of Adults
Silver introduces cases where adults may clone themselves. The main cases include infertile couples, homosexual (gay and lesbian) couples, fertile couples (but Silver feels they will have no desire to clone), and single persons such as Jennifer. Silver seems to suggest that the main advantage of adult cloning is that there is no need to get DNA from a "stranger". The infertile or homosexual couples or single persons can have children that are connected to their own DNA. Silver also mentions a survey saying that 6 to 7% of people are interested in cloning themselves, but he is not sure whether people were answering seriously.

Jennifer and Rachel
Silver tells a fictional story of a single woman who might use cloning in an acceptable way. Jennifer clones herself outside of the USA and has a daughter named Rachel because she wants to be single, but have a child. Jennifer has enough money and can take care of Rachel with no problem. Is there anything wrong with what Jennifer has done? Is Rachel harmed in some way? Rachel will look like her mother Jennifer (as a twin sister), but Rachel will be a normal little girl. If society does not have any prejudice and accepts cloning, there will be no need to keep Rachel's cloning a secret. Of course, the meaning of parents, grandparents and siblings will need to be reconsidered.

Is Cloning Wrong?
Silver introduces six arguments against cloning and tries to show they are not logical (this is called a "rebuttal" in debate language). Are his rebuttals logical? Also, has he included the strongest arguments against cloning or ignored some? Eugenics? Experimentation?

Argument 1-"identity": Clones such as Rachel will be harmed by not having a unique genetic identity (Callahan).
Silver's rebuttal: Identical twins are born every day.

Argument 2-"knowledge of future condition": Cloning children cannot help knowing their future possibilities for example, their appearance, disease and so on.
Silver's rebuttal:Natural conceived children can also predict some future possibilities because of genes from parents. In addition, people can see their genetic future with modern technology.

Argument 3-"unrealistic expectations": Clones such as Rachel will be harmed by having to live up to her mother's unrealistic expectations.
Silver's rebuttal: Many other parents also expect their children to accomplish what the parents couldn't accomplish in their own.

Argument 4-"tampering with human embryos":
Silver's rebuttal: Cloning does not kill embryos. It only uses an unfertilized egg and the nucleus of an adult cell. (Of course, "cloning research" will probably need to experiment with and destroy many human embryos, but Silver does not mention that. )

Argument 5-Making life through cloning is invading "God's domain":
Silver's rebuttal: That's a religious question, so science cannot answer that. If people want to believe that, it is their free choice.

Argument 6-Cloning will harm society because it will "restrict evolution," which needs the mixing of genes from male and female:
Silver's rebuttal: On practical grounds, not many people will clone, so the effect on evolution will be negligible. The idea that everyone will become the same is absurd. On theoretical grounds, the progress of evolution is not definable. How humans will develop is unpredictable and evolution cannot be "restricted."

Another idea Silver argues is that governments and borders will not be able to stop cloning. The needs of people and supply and demand in the international market place will determine when and where cloning will occur.

Reactions/Discussion Questions:

1. My main reaction is that Silver has neglected what is probably the strongest argument against human cloning. This is the fact that, if the world moves ahead with cloning, some children will need to be experiments in the early stages of cloning research. They will be experiments not only biologically, but also socially. We do not know what will happen. I think it is reasonable to argue that NO child should be born as an experiment. Of course, I have to admit that in vitro fertilization lead to benefits and some experimentation may have occurred there. However, that was essentially replicating a natural process in a lab, while cloning does not occur naturally. Until the technology is safe and society is ready, no child should be cloned. However, to be ready, experiments will be needed, and these experiments should not occur.
   
   
2. My other main reaction is that Silver has ignored the eugenics argument against human cloning. The eugenics argument is that cloning a human essentially means choosing what kind of human will be born. In natural reproduction, humans do not know what kind of child will come, and genetically disabled children are possible by chance. That is the way it should be. Although disabled persons have difficulty, a society in which imperfect people are born and accepted as part of nature seems more humane than a society in which DNA is selected for passing on to the next generation.
   
   
3. Discussion Question: What is the strongest argument against human reproductive cloning? I think none of the arguments that Silver has presented are really strong, and he easily refutes them, more or less persuasively. I think the two points I presented above--experimentation and eugenics--are stronger.
   
   
4. Discussion Question: What is your opinion about what Jennifer has done? Is it morally acceptable? Personally, I think it is possible that Rachel will be as happy as any child. She will look like her mother, but nobody knows she is cloned. If Jennifer is a reasonable person, she will accept that Rachel has the same DNA as she does, but is a completely different human and will be different from herself, just like twins are different. Will Jennifer be harmed in any way? I don't think so.
   

ARW Jan. 8 - Discussion on Cloning Ethics

I was happy to see that all groups were having heated exchanges regarding the issue of human cloning based on Silver's ideas about the Brave New World scenario and Cloning Children.

Some of the key discussion points reported by each group were:

1. To create a clone army, an army of surrogate mothers would be needed, either forced or paid money. Is such surrogacy ethical? Is any type of surrogacy such a commercial surrogacy in India morally acceptable? I feel that commercial surrogacy should be allowed as long as the rights of the surrogate mother, parent mother, and the child are protected by clear laws and contracts.
2. If parents clone a dead child to replace that dead child with a living "copy," will the individuality and dignity of the cloned child be fully protected? Will the cloned child live with undesirable psychological pressure of expectations to be like the dead child? Is such an arrangement fair? As a parent, if my child dies, I can see the attraction of creating a cloned copy to replace the loss, but I would not want to destroy the memory of the original child by trying to get a child that is just like him. Respect for the individuality of both the dead child and the next child born seems in jeopardy if cloning is used.
3. Is adoption a better option than cloning if a couple is unable to have a child? Will the popularization of cloning in the future disrupt the balance of how childless parents adopt parentless children? I strongly feel that adoption of orphans is a very important part of a humane society. However, at the same time, I do not see adoption as a strong reason to ban cloning as an option of reproduction.
4. How is Silver's style of argumentation? Is it persuasive? He is trying to use a personal style that talks to the reader with I/you/we. He also uses several self-serving hypothetical cases like the twins who are hit by a car to make an argument. Another characteristic of his style is that he does not seem to give a very fair presentation of the opposing arguments or alternatives to cloning. Nice analysis!
   

Thanks for sharing these issues and ideas!

ARW class on 12/21 - Food Inc. video

We watched Food Inc. for about 50 minutes. Some of the main points to think about are:
-Where does our food come from? Who controls the food production and safety system?
-If only a few large multinational corporations gain control over international food supply, what are the implications?
-For meat, grains, and vegetables, what are the effects of aiming for growing "cheaper, faster, bigger" with industrialization and genetic engineering?
-What are the future implications of corporations such as Monsanto owning patents on genetically modified seeds and selling them to farmers?
-What can consumers do if large corporations seem to influencing government policies in an undesirable direction?

See Official Food, Inc. Movie Site - Hungry For Change? - Trailer and Photos

ARW Jan. 6 - Happy New Year!

What are my 2010 resolutions? See my blog article on those.

What are my resolutions for ARW? I want to make all of the remaining classes good chances for students to practice their critical thinking and English communication skills. I want to achieve a good balance between small group discussions where all students do intensive thinking and speaking and whole class discussions where I am providing topics or activities that will be stimulating and helpful.

Please keep helping me by giving me your feedback and comments and suggestions!

I hope everyone can find a good Winter Project topic and group through the Moodle system. Sometimes it can be difficult to make groups, but I hope everyone in BH can be flexible and make the project a meaningful, creative, and fun experience!

Reactions to Silver p.12-20

Summary

VI. The Brave New World Scenario:

Silver considers the possibility that some governments (like North Korea) might try to make an army of clone soldiers or factory workers. Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel titled Brave New World included this type of scenario, and even today many people seem to fear it, but Silver argues against with the following points:

1. The government would need to force large numbers of women to bear and raise these clones, and this is unlikely to happen in a normal country.


2. A crazy dictator or religious maniac might do it. However, would there be any benefit? The clones would be the same in terms of DNA (the same life in a general biological sense), but would not necessarily be good soldiers or factory workers or great minds or leaders because they will grow up differently. The environment is what makes a soldier or genius, not the DNA. After taking 20 years to raise clones, crazy dictators or religious leaders such as Asahara will realize that clones are not the same as themselves and have no advantages and will "lose interest."

Thus, Silver argues that the Brave New World scenario of a clone army is highly unlikely to happen and is not a rational reason to ban cloning as a reproductive method for normal persons who want to use the technology for acceptable motives.

Reaction/Discussion Questions:

1. Is Silver's refutation of the Brave New World scenario successful? Does it help us feel safe to proceed with allowing human cloning research and legalizing human cloning? Silver fully accepts the possibility that egomaniac leaders like Asahara will attempt to abuse cloning technology and says "Well, that is unstoppable, so it is not a reason to ban cloning." I feel that he is taking this possibility too lightly and there is still room for concern. What do you think? Personally, I think the risk for abuse in this way is high, especially if genetic engineering is involved for developing superhuman genes. Humans may be engineered and cloned for specific purposes and that seems unacceptable to me.
   
2. This is related to the above, but on p.14, Silver writes: "one is hard-pressed to come up with a single strategic advantage that any government might get from breeding clones..." Silver seems extremely naive with this statement. With genetic engineering, there is obviously an advantage to clone certain types of engineered humans who have been found to be effective for some purpose. It is an abuse of both the cloned person and the mother that will bear this designed child, and it seems likely to happen if human cloning technology becomes widely available. Do you feel that Silver's argument in that part is persuasive?

VII. The Cloning of Children:
Silver presents two main scenarios in which cloning a child might be a positive choice: 1) organ donations for siblings, and 2) sterile couples having genetically connected children.

First, using the real story of Anissa and Marissa for comparison, Silver argues that having a clone child to save the life of an other child as a 100% compatible donor is ethical and better than Marissa's case, which was lucky with a 25% chance. Some experts feel that creating a clone child as a tool for the purpose to save another child is unethical, but Silver argues that as long as the parents love the child, it is probably better than the large numbers of unplanned natural children born throughout the world.

Reaction/Discussion

1. Is the Anissa/Marissa scenario of having a cloned sibling to cure a disease a morally acceptable case for having a cloned child? If you were a parent, what would you do? What would I do? I think I would...do it. I would still love the second child in the same way, so I would not hesitate to clone my first child (assuming the illness gene will not also be cloned--)
2. Now that iPS cells have been discovered, is the Marissa cloning purpose no longer relevant?

Second, Silver presents two examples of cloning children for sterile parents. In one example, a pair of twins die in a car accident. The mother is sterile (no eggs) and cannot have natural children, so cloning from the cells of the twins is the only way to have children with the DNA of both parents. Silver states strongly "It is hard to imagine what could possibly be wrong with this use of human cloning technology." He suggests it is unethical to withhold the technology; in other words, parents should have this choice if the technology is safe. Also, Silver mentions that a child's consent to be cloned is not needed, and children will not feel "so" bad about having the same DNA as someone else. If some cloned children are not treated with respect or are abused, the problem is the people who do the discrimination and abuse, not the cloning technology. Drawing a line with laws related to reproduction is not necessary, and people should be allowed to make their own choices.

1. Discussion: On p.20, Silver mentions the idea that the respect and dignity of the clone might be abused because the clone has been created for a purpose such as saving a dying child or replacing a dead child, but refutes it saying 1) it is not very likely, 2) it is the abuse that is the problem, not the cloning, and 3) if having twins is OK, cloning should be OK. It is basically the same thing. Do all of those arguments make sense? I think that they are basically good, but somehow I think there is a difference between natural twins and cloned latter day twins. What do you think? Will a cloned person feel trauma from the fact that he has been copied from another child? Also, is this enough of a reason to ban cloning?

Mark's New Year's Resolutions for 2010

Well, it's that time of year again.

In 2009, my resolutions/goals were like this, and I think I was able to blog, run, write articles, read to my kids, and spend time with Megumi quite a bit, but, for all categories, I wanted to do more.

Basically, my goals for 2010 are the same as 2009, but I want to write them out to keep them in mind more vividly.

Research/Teaching Career: Get a clearer picture of what my research specialization will be over the next few years. I have a wide interest in issues related to helping Japanese learners develop effective oral and written English skills and intercultural communication skills for academic and professional purposes. However, within that relatively wide area, what am I going to put my main emphasis on? Recently I've been doing work in the area of curriculum and instruction for academic speaking skills (presentations/discussions/debate) and might decide to go with that focus. Starting a doctorate in that area would be ideal, but I want to secure a permanent university appointment first, get my family settled, and then start the degree part-time while continuing my teaching. For now, I want to write and publish a literature review to find my "obsession" in the oral communication education area and proceed to narrow my main research question and possible approach for data collection.

Kids' Education: Do systematic research to develop a long-term plan for my kids' education. Michael will start Japanese elementary school in April and we will continue to home-school him for English with supplementary summer study in the US (hopefully), but we need a plan for switching to full-time English schooling. I want to visit at least 5 schools to start getting a sense of good candidates, and to start thinking about where my family might settle down in the long-term.

Personal: Keep blogging two or three times per week or more--150 for the year?--more short articles on what I teach/learn/read/watch/feel. Run one full marathon in Feb and one half marathon in October. Keep swimming two or three times per week. Climb one new mountain. Spend time in the US visiting relatives during the summer (possible?).

Social Contributions: More volunteer work, possibly with a new project in addition to supporting the international English book reading club my kids go to and the World Vision sponsorship we do. Something related to English teacher training or development in Tokyo, or something related to helping increase multicultural awareness and sensitivity to international issues and sustainable global development would be ideal. I want to keep my eyes open for opportunities.

And I still need to find that babysitter so that Megumi and I can go out on dates without our kids. 2010 is going to be a busy year, but I'm excited about it!

みなさん、今年もよろしく！

Book Review: When China Rules The World by Martin Jacques

Jacques writes at length a provocative, frightening and partially persuasive analysis that the 8 main differences that will define China as a major global power will be:

1. China is a "civilization-state" not a nation state, which seems to mean (Jacques is not the most coherent writer in the world) it feels it transcends any nation and era and draws on its past history for ideals and inspiration rather than conforming to western views of modernity and civilization. In other words, it will do its own thing.
2. China will see its relationship to East Asia and other parts of the world as a "tributary-state" relationship. In other words, when it becomes powerful, it will see other nations are inferior and in need of submission to its demands.
3. China will see the Han Chinese as a superior race, not just culturally but also biologically.
   
4. China is a continent as well as a country. Point not clear. Something about how the continent includes many different nations and regions and becoming truly democratic will not be likely to happen. One region will dominate the rest, just like in the EU system where strong economies dominate the weaker.
5. China will continue to have politics in the form of "imperial dynasties" that do not share power. One group will hold the mandate from heaven, whether imperial, communist, or other until it is overthrown and replaced by another. In other words, China is unlikely to become a western style democracy.
6. China's current rapid speed of development will continue, but unlike Japan, Taiwan and Korea which as smaller nations could attain relative equality within the modernized country, China will continue to face disparity of development among regions.
7. China has had a Communist Party based system since 1949. It has successfully overseen China's re-emergence as a global economic power and therefore has a strong level of legitimacy.
8. China will continue to be a mix of "developed" and "developing"--allowing it to relate and be involved in interactions with both types of countries, developed and developing, colonizer and colonized, the winners of the 19th/20th centuries and the losers.

Reading through the book gave me the impression that Martin Jacques accumulated a wealth of information about the current situation of China, economic, political and cultural, and did his best to make sense of it to write predictions and cautions for western observers of China. However, the task may have been fundamentally impossible on such a large scale and the books leaves the reader a bit confused and unsatisfied with the depth of the final analysis.

The facts he gives are well-documented and valuable. However, when it comes to drawing conclusions about where China is going to go in the future, most of his paragraphs become bogged down in rather unsatisfactory repeats of the historical or current situation. Yes, we know China had an imperial tributary system that dominated that region of the world for centuries, and we know that it has a soaring socialist market economy that is going to become by far the largest in the world. So where is China going to go from here? Jacques is able to tell us that China will dictate its own terms of modernization and global interaction, and is able to tell us what we might need to consider in predicting what that modernization path will entail--the 8 things above.

OK, we'll leave it at that and see where things go. The most valuable point Jacques makes is that we should not assume we know where China is going and we should be ready for deviations from the western model of the liberal capitalist democratic multicultural state.