First class

I sat there tonight in class, after having attempted to understand Hannah Arendt’s philosophical works in Spanish, and the intensity of this all hit me like tons of bricks. Our master’s classes have begun in such a dynamic environment. First, consider the composition of our class: 6 here on scholarship (5 U.S., 1 Brazilian), a young man from Texas with an interest in international business who was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Nicaragua, and approximately 8 Argentinean men in their forties from the armed forces (most air force, at least one military). I haven’t yet had the opportunity to hear their stories, but believe me, my curiosity is peaked, and I’m excited to see how our diverse perspectives will interact.

Our first class tonight was with Prof. Alexandre Roig, born in France, in BsAs since 2001. A young, of course extremely intelligent, articulate, and compassionate teacher, “Alejandro” is delivering our seminar on Theory of Conflict and Development in the Social Sciences. He has come to see development as organized conflict, and therefore intimately linked to the concept of conflict itself. He introduced the idea that conflict need not be considered as something negative by relating the tradition of the Swirling Dervishes. They turn in order to introduce conflict and liberate themselves from equilibrium. And thus in this first evening of class, one of my most basic assumptions—that as a world we should be constantly be striving for equilibrium, as that is the “positive state”—was questioned, apropos to my reintroduction to the intellectual realm. Alejandro proposed that we keep toward the front of our mind two questions: “Why does something exist instead of nothing?” and “Why does something exist instead of something else.”

My reflex reaction is to resist this reentry into the theoretical world, and long for the fulfilling grassroots practical experience I had led since graduation from F&M. But I keep patience and faith, nurtured and encouraged by my fellow peace scholars, that this effort will in the long term augment our effectiveness in the field.

And it need not be so long term, but rather in conjunction... A zen Buddhist group that my friend Mneesha and I are attending is longing to reach out from their sacred space to the community around them, and have asked Mneesha and I to serve as mentors on this path. It’s more than coincidence that we found this group right as it is looking to adopt into its identity an activist role. Until next time...