Thesis Moral Crisis (#1)

It’s Thursday of Week 12 of my second term and after laying down for a bit to clear my thoughts before diving into the tumult of final projects I came to an unexpected realization about my thesis. As I’ve gotten closer to entering my third term and the inevitable “Thesis Gateway” at the end of it, I’ve been attempting to seriously consider what my year-long thesis project will be.

So far, two of the largest themes that I’ve found myself interested in are isolation and self-sufficiency; emanating mostly from the world of floating islands and airships known as Pelago. The concept of having one’s own self-sufficient, secluded island floating in the clouds has always attracted and fascinated me. In an age of global warming this seems even more intriguing as instead of trying to “fix” global warming or stem its effects, why not just lock ourselves away like was so often planned for nuclear holocaust? There can be no global warming or climate change in a self-sustained ecosystem or biosphere.

And herein lies the conflict. While attempting to solidify my voice for the second project in my Comm Design 2 class on the Rem Koolhaas book Mutations, I realized something unsettling. My response to Mutations was essentially, “Yes the world is mutating and so are societies. It’s globalization and we must view the world as one body with humanity in it and not warring tribes with individual agendas. The earth isn’t large enough for everyone & their egos so we must look at the larger picture.”

This goes completely against isolationism and self-sufficiency!

We, as the United States, are inescapably dependent on the rest of the world for resources. As such, and in a world of global climate change, we can not practice diplomatic isolationism again. It simply does not work. What we don’t know can & will hurt us without even a second thought.

In the face of this realization though, how does one progress on an original thesis without succumbing to the current global warming hype (not to downplay the seriousness of the issue at all; I use ‘hype’ in a cultural sense) in which everyone has an answer, but no viable solution? Is it isolation or global unity?

*sigh*

How soon are we getting to Mars?