Organzd Society, Organzd State

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

Technology is shrinking the world, even as the information domain grows. How does this contradiction impact the world today? Has human thinking changed since the inception of the internet, the information age, and modern computing? This course will have students separate the context of the environment from geopolitics, reviewing state structures and human cognition in parallel to identify the origins of social identity and the basis of nationalism. Looking at nationalism as the thinnest layer of connection that binds people to pursue a combined objective, students will learn about shared intentionality and how it propels group decision-making. Though modern informational tools provide a kaleidoscope of identities and influences, live experiences dominate everyday influences. Or do they? How rooted in social psychology are in-person or online engagements? At what level do concepts like self or group manifest in a democratized arena? If the British crown gave American colonists royal titles or accepted an Indian aristocracy, would the United States exist, and would India still fall under British rule? This course will pursue the context to answer questions like these in four instructional blocks. 1. The social context for government control. 2. Constructs for categorizing society. 3. Analysis of the ownership and structured use of land. 4. Ecology, geography, and geopolitics, and the impacts of forced order. Each instructional block will build on the previous, developing the understanding required to reduce societies to orderly state schemes, identify where and how to draw the lines that develop nations, and categorize populations. In addition to discourse-centric class periods, students will provide written analyses, organizational charts, and weekly journals about weekly or lesson block topics. Students will explore order and complexity to better understand their environment, physically and cognitively, and how to identify and categorize a nation’s national borders. Students will leave this course with an understanding of how to separate the metaphysical nation from a state’s geography, the social influence of nationalism on the development of a nation-state, and the effects of homogeneity on societal progress.