Wankollie Barbara, BLOG POST#3

 

3/23/2022

Strange’s text on Japan and the US finance, information, and power got me thinking a little about fun

childhood memories. I’m from a very  African rooted family, meaning my Grandparents were culturally

oriented. My parents were more open-minded, probably because they were more exposed to the

global world than my Grandparents. Growing up my grandparents would normally come and get us

during school break because they believed that my parents were not “ disciplining” us the right way. 

    In my Grandparent's house, my grandpa always had the final say, his word was basically law because he was the man of the house. On the other hand, my grandma was the one in charge of everything domestic. She did the cooking in particular because she was the only person that knew my grandpa's diet. She also ordered people to do the cleaning, made sure everything was in place and so you had to respect her or you would be in big trouble. On one particular occasion, I and my sisters disobeyed her order because we were kids and a little crazy. As punishment, she said we were not going out to play with the other kids. Knowing we were our grandpa's favorites we went to him to permit us to go out. My Grandma knew what we were about to do, and she shouted,” I don’t care who so ever you ask,  you people are not playing out. My Grandpa heard it, came out and they got into a whole argument. My Grandpa tried not to go deeper into the argument because my grandma was the only person who could cook for him. Even though if he had given the command that we should go out and play, we would have obeyed it because he is the man of the house and my Grandma would not have stopped us, he did not.

In Strange's text,  Japan and the US both had power, but japan's relational power was not enough to be equal to the U.S. power. The US had structural power, which included constitutional veto power over international organizations and edge over the globalization of culture, but the U.S probably at that time was so concerned over the depts that they perhaps did not realize how much power they had, like my Grandpa. My point here is,  I definitely agree with Strange, being the one creating the system, you are more powerful than the one sponsoring the system. Instead of focusing totally on how to get the government to coordinate their economic policies, you also focus on the structural power because that is for the longer term.    As for my Grandpa and Grandma, they finally came to an agreement that instead of giving us the full time to go out and play, it will be cut short.

Comments

  1. Laurel UtterbackMarch 28, 2022 at 2:11 PM

    Barbara- this is a really great connection that you have made! You have created a very strong relationship and identified parallels that are prime examples of structural vs relational power in the real world. I especially like how you included the difference in the power that your grandparents held (domestic vs absolute/international).

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