Honors Freedom and Authority is a diverse class that taught me the major ideologies in the world. Some of the most helpful moments are the time when we discussed the Trolly problem, Confucius, and Utilitarianism.
This course opened my eyes to the ideology of all civilizations existing rather than the shallow surface politics happening right now. This course changed my mind in a lot of areas. For example, I used to think of a diploma as an important source of information for leadership style. However, the diplomatic strategy not only relies on people’s intelligence but also rely on the power of the country and political demographic. One of the other important ideas I learned from the course is the origin of ideologies. From Confucius to capitalism, from Buddhism to Christianity, people are constantly finding a way to live well, or a way to pursue their desire. Which is the part I found the most interesting, because it points out the underlying relationship between people’s desires and their cultural formation, and therefore alludes to the potential relationship between culture and leadership style.
When talking about the deeper mindset, for example, whether people believe in a god creature or not, would not really affect their leadership style. This is quite interesting because while people love to think deeply about philosophical questions, they seem to do little about the leader's practical decisions. The only “true” leadership we talked about in this class was Machiavelli’s theories. Machiavelli believed in the very worst of human beings. He is suspicious of a lot of things and never relied on so-called trust or morality. I was influenced by this person a lot, probably because I was born in China which was invaded by western countries and Japan in WWII. I believe that people, for survival purposes, would put the national interest above all other needs. Morality may play a huge role in peaceful years, and in domestic situations, but not in war. It is rational to assume the very worst result of others in diplomatic issues.
Year taken: 2021