WHAT IS THE THIRD WORLD AND WHY ARE SOME COUNTRIES DEVELOPING WHILE OTHERS CLAIM TO BE DEVELOPED?
At the beginning of the class we knew who were Foucault and Carl Lineé and their theories.
FOUCAULT
- Focusing in power of language, cultures...
- Language, Knowledge and culture operate in society.
- There are different ways to use the language.
- Truth discursive: some discourses have shaped meaning-systems; and others are marginalized.
- Focus on: How some discourses have shaped and created meaning-systems that have gained the status of truth.
- Your believes represent the truth and affect your point of view: truths dominate how we see ourselves and how we organize ourselves and social relations/world.
But who has the right opinion, the truth? For example, who discovered America? Technologies help you to get the power? What can helps you to get the power?
First world thinks it has the truth. Is it right? I don’t know and I don’t think so, but we’ve gained the status of truth, because we’ve the power. And the question is then... if we have the power, why don’t we change the 3th world? Because we don’t want to change it. If you want, you can. Our society is based in consumerism, so we need poor people to be rich. I’d like to think that there are people in our world that want to change it, but maybe they don’t know how to do it or they don’t have enough resources. It’s like an ambitious circle, how can we stop it?
CARL LINEÉ
- “Systema natura” (1735)
- There are differences between different origin’s people.
- He classified American, European, Asiatic and African people.
- Only European people had positive adjectives.
I think is important to say that Carl Lineé was Swedish, European. If we considerate it, we could understand why only European people has positive adjectives. What you have or know is more positive because you know it. Is common seeing your “culture-mates” as “normal”; because they are like you, so it’s difficult to find your own negative aspects. For this reason we should be modest and critic with self and try to know others without prejudices and without negative point of view.
MAIN DISCOURSES
As Foucault said, there are different types of discourses.
1.The Truman discourse
Brief description
Everybody wants progress and peace, so you should do the way we do (the way of “advanced” societies); we’ll help you with our way. They have to look like us.
“I believe that we should make available to peace-loving peoples the benefits of our store of technical knowledge in order to help them realize their aspirations for a better life.”
2.UN discourse
Brief description
Pain to pay the price.
“There is a sense in which rapid economic progress is impossible without painful adjustments.”
After that we tied to find the different discourses and power relations in two Mongolian cases. Two cases show us how Mongolia Government copies the Danish Education System. They adopt the “right” discourse or system without making questions because they thing that European people have the truth. This is the Truman discourse where underdeveloped people have to imitate developed people.
Mongolian people didn’t listen what Marcus said: “don’t believe me, ask yourself what’s good for Mongolian”, find your own way to educate. It was because the same reason. And the same happens everywhere: who represent the truth is invited; developed countries are invited, not underdeveloped countries.
But, who is developed and underdeveloped? And how does it mean?
Developed represents the 1st world: industrialized countries, advanced economy, etc.; and underdeveloped the 3th world: poverty, hunger, misery, etc. Personally, I don’t like using that concepts because all of us are in the same world, and if you divide it in two worlds it’s like to say “we can’t do anything for the 3th world” –it’s too far away-, because is not my world but another world like Mercury or Jupiter. But actually and unfortunately it seems another world.
I can’t understand why in a part of world a child dies of hunger and in another part a child says “I want that” and she/he has it instantly.
It was horrific the numbers of the “test” which we did at class. And I don’t know how to change that; it’s not enough make pupils aware of this. So I can’t answer why, because if I knew the answer I would know how to change the world and, unfortunately, I don’t know it yet.
