Week 5: Samantha Nguyen

Samantha Nguyen

ASA 2 A03

Week 5

The reading of Piya Chatterjee and Sunaina Maira, The Imperial University, was incredibly eye-opening because it shed light upon the influence of imperialism and hyper-militarism in American culture. Due to the long history of war, America is always in a defensive behavior, which increases the need for more militaristic equipment and allows the change for a more violent disposition even in peaceful situations. The imperialism in university has brought upon academic containment and the policing of knowledge. I never thought about this concept until I read it in The Imperial University. I was surprised to read that students and faculty who are seen to be as political dissenters to the imperialistic agenda are met with scrutiny and punished harshly for their words and actions. This is odd to me because one would think of universities as bastions of free thought where an individual can say what he or she wants without hesitation.

To connect the two readings, I realized that because of the “hyper-militarist American culture,” the nation reaps what it sows (Hamamoto, 2003, pg. 288). Because our government is the “potent, [and] the omnipresent teacher,” and goes off to other countries, mass-murdering hundreds and thousands of others, this greatly affects how people in our society behaves (Hamamoto, 2003, pg. 288). The government leads by example, as well as teaches by example. Due to the government being hyper-militaristic, the people took this and implemented it into society. For example, guns can easily be accessed today. Since the hyper-militaristic view seeped into American culture, this affects our education system. Those who work in our universities implement these militaristic ideas, which can be demonstrated through the pepper spray incident as well as the increase of militaristic equipment for police forces on campuses. It is saddening to see students being shut down by their own school even though universities are supposed to be our bastions of free speech.

Question: Because of the long history of militarism and the effects it has had on our society, is there any way to get rid of imperialism in universities? If so, how long would it take due to the widespread militaristic views? 

Source: 

1. Chatterjee, P., & Maira, S. (2014). The Imperial University. London: University of Minnesota Press.

2. Hamamoto, Y. Darrell. “Empire of Death and the Plague of Civic Violence.” Masters of War: Militarism and Blowback in the Era of American Empire, edited by Carl Boggs, Routledge, 2003, pp. 277-292.

3. [Digital Image]. (n.d.). Retrieved October 17, 2017 from

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/casually-pepper-spray-everything-cop