{"id":206,"date":"2020-05-18T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/?p=206"},"modified":"2020-05-18T17:20:35","modified_gmt":"2020-05-18T16:20:35","slug":"the-pandemic-warlordism-and-our-political-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/2020\/05\/18\/the-pandemic-warlordism-and-our-political-future\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pandemic, Warlordism, and Our Political Future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Husayn Hosoda<\/em><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
MA Student at George Washington University, Violence,Terrorism and Security<\/em><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
13\/05\/2020<\/em><\/strong><\/h6>\n\n\n\n
\n

My isolated experience thus far has\ngiven me a very inward focus on politics. Partially because my dissertation\nbasis and degree program are inherently political, but also because of my\nemotional and personal desire to understand other people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be more in touch with the world,\nI have exposed myself to communities that I largely disagree with on civic\nduty, the role of government, collectivism, and what we consider to be\nfundamentally unnatural. These are all issues that have been latched onto while\nreconciling our current situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m really reaching here, but I\nthink I can connect this to my dissertation using some philosophical\nacrobatics. For background, my thesis is focused on warlordism, and the role of\nideological institutions in building military power. This has nothing to do\nwith COVID-19 or what our daily challenges entail but I\u2019m studying political\nscience so let me have this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, in many ways, going\nthrough a pandemic has made me think more harmoniously with warlord ideology. Do\nI prioritize survival or the common good? What is the line that separates these\ntwo? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life is predicated on\nunpredictability; we\u2019ve known this since we were children. My primary\ndeliberation now is how this present situation will affect us going forward. I\nfeel that as a person who grew up with a comfortable life in a western country,\nthis time is my ultimate confrontation with reality. The reality of death, contention,\nstrife, and isolation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think that this whole experience\nhas made me more cognizant of the subjects of my studies. In a paradoxically\nsociopathic and empathetic way, I better understand what it means to be a\nwarlord. To watch the world collapsing around you, and to appear unwavering. To\nengorge yourself with as many human comforts possible, and sleep through the\ninevitable suffering of others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay, full circle now, the point of\nmy rum-fueled quasi-academic ramblings: I\u2019m curious as to how this period of\ntime will shape our future political ideology. Charles Tilly theorised that the\ndevelopment of our modern state system was artificially built through war,\nstrife, and an intrinsic desire for domination, and now I wonder how we as a\nsociety will emerge from a day when the state very profoundly balances the\nscales of life and death. How will our society address an engrained\npolarization between inherent trust and obligatory defiance of what our leaders\ntell us to do? I know a lot of the latter is most vocally in America, trust me\nwe\u2019re not proud of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thinking like a warlord, I am\nconfronted with a societal afront that is nearly impossible to capitalize on.\nAny effort to gain power must be inadvertently humanitarian and done to\nalleviate harm. Perhaps we need a crisis to make those in power aware of what\npower entails. Some will argue that government impositions have made us\n\u201cfascistic\u201d to curb the liberties of individuals, others will say that stricter\ngovernments save more lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In any case, I am excited for the\npolitical dialogue to follow. I do not know how we will reconcile endemic\nsocioeconomic issues with our confrontation with partial extinction, but I\nbelieve that this crisis will produce incredible ideologs; many of them selfish\nand narcissistic. People my age will later campaign for political office\nhailing their pandemic ideals and what they accomplished during \u201cthe Dark Time\u201d\nof 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a warlord in every person.\nMy peers will scheme and conquer, some to support the state and others to bring\nit down. As a liberal arts major, I\u2019m content to watch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Death is our new currency. In the\nback of our minds there is voice that says, \u201cI would kill to be free,\u201d because\nfreedom makes us powerful and dying is an inevitability. How do we teach\nourselves about the common good, when goodness is a more nebulous concept than\nwe have seen in out mortal lives? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These questions can\u2019t be answered\nwith science, political or otherwise, and none of us are qualified to give\nsolutions. We will survive, in theory, perhaps in practice, because it is our\nnature rather than our duty to protect our fellow human beings. That is the\nwarlord narrative that I would like to accept. A world without evil or vice\nwould be fundamentally inhuman, and this crisis has provided me one of the most\ngenuine human experiences that one could wish for.  <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Husayn Hosoda MA Student at George Washington University, Violence,Terrorism and Security 13\/05\/2020 My isolated experience thus far has given me a very inward focus on politics. Partially because my dissertation basis and degree program are inherently political, but also because of my emotional and personal desire to understand other people. To be more in touch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":785,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lifeinlockdown"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/785"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":226,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions\/226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.qub.ac.uk\/happ\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}