Notations On Our World (Special Edition): On Iran vs. The United States

As we went to press, Iran had reached out to France to intercede to try to negotiate a way out of the crisis that has seen oil markets--Iran's main source of revenue--cut off from the World.   An Iranian Tanker was seized by British Royal Marines which triggered strong reaction from the ruling clerics in Tehran.

Our team will continue to assess this over the ensuing days.     

Education Should Add To The Critical Employment Potential Of Countries; Of College graduates, 'Formal' And 'Informal' Sectors

College education adds to the critical employment potential of countries, so this should be an opportunity for education to create an entrepreneurial culture among graduates. 

Thanks +The Boston Globe of Sunday January 6th 2013. As a man recently from Africa, I have met graduates on the Streets of Lagos, Cape Town, Kampala, Nairobi, Dar-es-Salaam, Addis-Ababa and Brazzaville. I have also met non-graduates in various categories. These were functionally engaged in businesses termed as 'informal-sector'. They were the City backbone and had the best places for cheaper food, transport and businesses spaces. Many employed graduates. That is in Africa.

Education provides skills and gives many opportunities to get into the formal sector. Here they enjoy job security, salaries, trappings and means to improve on themselves further. They pursue their goals with confidence and command respect in society. Education gives one the possibility to earn sums of money commensurate to their levels of learning and skills.

The labour market: What is that? Careers? Buildings with offices? Larger storied buildings with big notices calling on applicants to fill in short and long term job contracts?

In Africa one meet graduates making life changing decisions such as taking up jobs in; artisanry, masonry, construction, manufacturing, sales, indigenous herb pharmaceuticals, transport, running video-music kiosks, second-hand trade, teaching, music, dance and drama and modelling. One is also seeing many staying at their parents' homes. 

In USA, we see many graduates taking up jobs as; waiters, waitresses, sales-persons, manufacturing, construction, internet-based businesses, car detailing and call center operatives even when they may be BA English Major or Chemical Engineers with Summa Cum Laude. There is a lesson to learn here. There is need to equip all students with entrepreneur skills so that they can adjust to the changes of life as well transition prevail within the existing market.

A quick look into who constitute this change and what degrees they carry reveals that science and liberal liberal Arts graduates need entrepreneur skills alike.

In Africa and other parts of the world, some advice is called for to craft these degrees to have a business/entrepreneurial component attached to them:

1. Governments have long promised loans to students but the loans are long coming.

2. Students should use their time at Universities to 'sandwich' into shorter certificate courses which teach targeted skills.

3. Cooperatives and Communities where members come together to engage in say, agricultural production should be promoted.

4. The idea of training young people (whether graduates or not) in job-related skills and Technical skills should also be a priority and an addition to all Degrees.

5. The Rural-City migration is following a pattern of social amenities which are better. Governments should make rural communities equally amenable. Jobs will follow this.

The Individual, The Structural, The Private And The Public: Elasticization of Jurgen Habermas' Inquiry Into Categories Of Society

Why should states, corporations, organizations, communities and clubs (societies) be concerned about the individuals that make them up?

I argue that this concern should spring from the fact that individuals are both subjective and objective. They reason, are driven and self preserving. They can look at themselves as resources whose resourcefulness can be fully leveraged only when they are supported or given opportunities to explore life, grow and develop. 

Individuals who are allowed to enjoy and benefit from opportunities become innovative, motivated  and productive. This is the buttress for empathy, integrity, fairness and compassion.

But first individuals have to be allowed to become self aware, self propelling and self motivated to contribute to their own and others' lives. 

The move from self awareness to self recognition goes through different steps. Reasoning, action, inaction, engagement, avoidance, passiveness or activeness are some of the means through which transformation is perceived. 

This is how the individual is able to understand their diverse world. The twists and turns that uniqueness, diversity, collective responsibility and upholding esteem call for are easily understood when individuals have opportunities to navigate the universe at temporal and physical levels. This is known as industriousness.

Industriousness is an opportunity that promotes transformation which in turn gives agency its meaning. Agency has intrinsic characters which if put to use improve responsibility bearing, navigate problem-posing situations, motivate problem-solving initiatives and leverage best practices outcomes at individual and  in community/social settings.

If misused (by discriminatory tendencies), they can lead to confusion, dissatisfaction, disaffection, denigration, deprivation and denial that in turn affects self awareness, self recognition and self preservation.  

It takes justice to address the deprivation.

But, why should one obsess about correcting confusion, discrimination, denigration, deprivation and denial?

One reason, why we should be concerned is because humans must first fulfill the conditions that rid them of confusion, discrimination, denigration, deprivation and denial if they are to attain a state of industriousness at individual, family, community and social levels.

Habermas characterized these as the subjective filters through which a bourgeois society (industrious, able to provide self sustenance and engaging in a form of labor) is formed. 

It is when the humans can see themselves in this light that they become agents of change. Their mobility within private and public spheres is ensured. This mobility is catalyst for exchange of benefits that improve humans. The private person only becomes fully developed once this person allows the public to inform meaning for the questions, needs and curiosities as one develops. The public (authority, collectives, laws and regulations) needs the private because it is from the private that forms of innovations are generated (reason, ideas, creativity and inventions). Both the private and public are resources that mutually coexist. 

Industriousness allows individual to develop the private sphere, which in turn feeds into the public one. Industriousness fuels productiveness. This is what is presented to the public and in turn impacts quality and quantity. This mechanism for consistency's sake becomes a structure on which people can rely for dependability and sustenance. 

Positively done, it promotes human upliftment. The positive aspects include: inclusion, affirmative action, upholding the laws and justice. 

Negatively done it sparks destitution for the deprived which breeds strife. 

The negative aspects include: deliberate discrimination or non-inclusion objectives. 

The individual is as important as the structures that promote self preservation, growth, development, diversity and continuity. 

The benefit of investing in individuals pays back in form of innovativeness, motivation, productiveness, empathy, integrity, fairness, compassion, resourcefulness, reasoning, action, inaction, engagement, avoidance, passiveness, activeness and capacity to gauge or cause transformation. The individual is the primary building block for a family, community, society, organization and a state. 

In appreciating the individual, one has to appreciate the characteristic categories that make up this individual. This appreciation then can be used to build the categories of society. For this to be effective, mechanisms should be in place that ensure individuals are provided opportunities for mobility between the private and public spheres. This is how they contribute to the betterment of themselves and others. Whoever deprives the individual is not only abusive and tyrannical but the deprived person cannot fully grow and develop.