Post Seminar WWI Write Up.

Reaction: Identify a comment made by someone else during the seminar.  React to his/her statement.

In this past seminar, there was one comment that was quite memorable.  This comment was made by Johnathon Cannon.  He said that if we were in society where we were in there were no weapons, different countries could cut each either other off by blocking their goods.  He said that all the countries would start to cut each other off and then no one would import goods to each other.  I disagree with this comment because I feel like we are already at this point with nuclear weapons.  I feel that we already are at the point where invading countries is not a viable solution.  To make up for this he said that boycotting a country would create a select few countries that would not have anyone to trade with.  This part of the statement is what really got to me.  I  think that Cuba is already and example of this.  The US does not trade with them but that does not stop other countries from trading with them.  Overall, the idea that boycotting countries would create these deep conflicts throughout the world is an idea I disagree with.

Changes in Thinking: Explain how the seminar influenced or changed your thinking about this topic or text.  How is your thinking now different than it was before the seminar.

I don’t actually think that my thinking changed during this seminar.  Rather,  I  think that my thinking was reinforced.  Throughout the seminar, I stayed strong on my arguments and never backed down.  I think this shows that I had very strong arguments and that I did not change my thinking.  Like the Israel subject, I have strong opinions, but unlike the Israel subject, my mind is open to change.  Even so, I did not hear an argument strong enough to change my mind

Connections: Make a connection between the issues discussed in this seminar and another topic or idea (news story, novel, experience, event, personal experience, movie, song, article, another class...).

I think the most obvious connection that was made during the conference would be the connection to Cuba.  Even so, there were a lot of other connections that could be made that aren't as obvious.  For example, the connection to modern day war is not apparent but still there.  With the Iran nuclear conflict it is very important to find alternate ways of handling war.  The chance that the world will go into nuclear war-fare is growing as a strangely fast rate and the alternate ways of handling war are becoming more important to find.

Self Evaluation: What were your strengths during this seminar?  What are your goals for our next seminar, and how do you plan to achieve them?

With this conference I think that I had many strengths and a few areas that need work.  First of all, I think I did a great job of  using evidence.  I used it in my argument 2 times and used it again when someone else used the text in the wrong way.  I really liked the size of the article we read because it made it easier for me to use evidence.  My shortcoming in this seminar is that I  would get into very deep arguments with specific people.  I felt this could have slowed down the progress of the seminar in some situations so for my next seminar I my goal is to keep on subject and keep my individual discussion with people on the side.