So there has been a lot more philosophical tangents in this class than I expected. I understand the difference between idealism and realism and I know that I am most definitely a realist but I don’t fully understand how it pertains to this class. Another class I am taking this semester had a similar discussion; we read Plato’s The Allegory of The Cave and briefly discussed Derrida’s opposing view “Everything is real through text”. We didn’t actually talk about realism vs. idealism but how many people agreed with Plato’s view surprised me. Very few people in our class identified themselves as idealists.

The information presented about the Cold War this class was, for the most part, a review. However I did not know that we did not have a standing army prior to World War 2. I knew that when the country was created there was not a standing army and they did not intend for there to be one but I never really thought about when that changed.