I have been influenced to think about the topics of power, social justice and peace throughout my life. These are questions everyone must grapple with once they see what  atrocities the world has seen in the past and the horrors it still sees today. First I will talk about power. The word has multiple meanings but the version we want is in a person having influence over the behavior of another person. Taking that one step further we generally are interested in political power as this is something that has influence, the power of the police and army to enforce laws, over all people in a society. Now growing up I was taught to think that those in power are good people that are looking out for you, however if you study your history and pay attention this is unfortunately almost never the case. Abraham Lincoln said it best: “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” Essentially I ended up learning that power is intoxicating to man and he will do what it takes to get it. It throughout history has been held by the few, and we have made strides to take some of the power back. Social Justice is the attempt by the people to put everyone on the same playing field.
I learned about the history of social justice movement growing up from the end of slavery, to woman suffrage, and the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King Jr was one of the most influential people in American history for me and he influenced my thinking in this subject more then any other. Social justice is essentially just being fair to everyone and that is a moral philosophy I have always been taught throughout my life. Peace is non violence between people. Peace should always be the goal because any differences are ultimately trivial and not worthy of death or violence. I was always taught that world peace should be the goal of everyone and while I think its quite a lofty goal, aiming high is the attitude we should have.

Now as far as news I try to get a wide sampling of different sources and use news aggregator sites. The media just like politicians have power over what people read and discuss. Therefore they have a responsibility to get the facts of what is happening out to the people so they can make informed decisions. I do not find them to be very good at this and you see bias in almost every article. Therefore I read multiple articles and try and stick to the facts of the situation. Malcolm X puts it bluntly: “The medias the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and thats power. Because They Control the minds of the masses.”

I think volunteering and helping serve the poor food was the most eye opening experience I have had. I got to see just how lucky I am to have the little things like food and a warm bed to sleep in at night. I am passionate about equality for all and seeing how little people in our own country which is the most well off in the world made me take more of a passion in it. I think one of the areas we can improve most on is the poverty and slum cycle that many places in our country remain stuck in. Not only are conditions bad but the violence is terrible in many places. I don't know how we go about fixing this problem but just talking about it sheds light on the issues and hopefully we can use some of Ury’s strategies to get past no on getting these places help. In terms of conflict resolution I think am good at being calm and talking out the options with the opposing party. I think I could use some improvement at bargaining to a common solution. I hope to really improve my skills in this as it is an area that affects a lot of skills in your life.

I am enjoying Ury’s book he has good examples of how to put his theory into practice. One quote that I really liked was the following when the Russian diplomat said : “It is just as frustrating for me to negotiate with such inflexible instructions from Moscow. The problem is that you’re always asking me questions for which I have instructions. Why don’t you ask me questions for which I have no instructions?” This was the most clever point I thought he made in the first part of the book. Making your opponent think outside the box makes him step back at which point he is open again to reason and negotiation.