Ecology of Eden - Chapter 12 (Amanda)

 I was assigned to present on chapter 12 of the Ecology of Eden textbook. I chose this one, because I connected with the idea of the dangers of Universalism. Its both my opinion and real life experiences that have shown me that if one stays in a Universalist World for too long...Nothing good can come of it. The chapter uses the Roman Empire's influence on Ancient Israel as an example to this. The Romans were expanding their ever-growing, ever-strengthening empire into something unanimous - All citizens shared the same language, the same culture, and even sometimes, the same gods! 

There I believe there is nothing inherently wrong in this idea, where people are sharing different aspects of life together in the same way. However, when this turns into straight-up Nationalism, the idea that one country is better or superior than another because of resources, culture, etc. Universalism becomes a problem. I think one great example in our modern day and age is American Nationalism. For example, so much of the Fourth of July is commercialized and used to celebrate our country. But a lot of it, I think, is exaggerated. Are we really "free" as we say? I think a lot of this rhetoric is used to uplift ourselves as a collective group (the ingroup) and to bring down the "others" who are from other countries (the outgroup). It is very silly to me. 

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