Political Science and Prince
I was flabbergasted, as I think most of us were, to read of Prince's death. Like Bowie, I wasn't a huge fan, but it feels as if an important cultural influence has gone. In some ways, Prince was the cultural touchstone of the 1980s into the early 1990s in the same way that Bowie was to the 1970s-80s.
The song that I'm playing is Baltimore. It was performed publicly for the first time last year in Baltimore during the Freddie Gray riots. I'm still amazed that the Crips and Bloods did more to keep the peace during that week than the government did.
But the line that grips me from the song is "Peace is more than the absence of war."
In the mid-1980s I was working toward a Master's in International Relations and was required to take International Systems. One of the central texts was On the Causes of War by Michael Howard. In it, Howard argued that peace wasn't merely the absence of war, but absence of the threat of war. I was mocked by the professor for agreeing with Howard.
I still think it's one of the most important points, and may be part of the disconnect on "Black Lives Matter." Too many white people don't feel the threat of daily violence and so don't grasp that even when things are quiet, the neighborhoods aren't at peace.
The song that I'm playing is Baltimore. It was performed publicly for the first time last year in Baltimore during the Freddie Gray riots. I'm still amazed that the Crips and Bloods did more to keep the peace during that week than the government did.
But the line that grips me from the song is "Peace is more than the absence of war."
In the mid-1980s I was working toward a Master's in International Relations and was required to take International Systems. One of the central texts was On the Causes of War by Michael Howard. In it, Howard argued that peace wasn't merely the absence of war, but absence of the threat of war. I was mocked by the professor for agreeing with Howard.
I still think it's one of the most important points, and may be part of the disconnect on "Black Lives Matter." Too many white people don't feel the threat of daily violence and so don't grasp that even when things are quiet, the neighborhoods aren't at peace.
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