Month: September 2020

Chernobyl, the HBO drama series

figure 1

1. What constraints are there on the pursuit of knowledge?

On May 6th HBO premiered their five-part miniseries, which was their co-production with Sky. The historical drama retells the story of the 1986 Chernobyl accident that occured in Ukraine, Soviet Union at the city of Pripyat, it is considered one of the worst man-made catastrophes in history.

The miniseries were written and executive produced by Craig Mazin, Chernobyl was also directed by Johan Renck . Main characters were played by Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgard and Emily Watson.

Craig Mazin started his research on the Chernobyl disaster in 2014 by using multiple materials such as books, government reports from inside and outside USSR and first-person accounts. Mazin also learned how a nuclear reactor works from his conversations with nuclear scientists, he also interviewed former citizens of the Soviet Union to gain a better understanding of their culture in 1986.

Even with the shows success of winning 2 Golden Globes and 10 Emmys a question remains, how accurately did the miniseries portray the terrifying event of the Chernobyl explosion?

When I first saw the mini series I had very little knowledge about the history of Chernobyl, I was aware of the miniseries based on it and the approval it received from many people online and in real life. When I got the opportunity to watch the series myself I was trusting the directors vision and believed that it was extremely accurate to the real events, and I based my knowledge on the event from the series.

This however was changed after I watched a video published by Vanity Fair on their youtube channel, it was a review video of the mini series by a Ukrainian medial responder after Chernobyl accident and radiation expert Alla Shapiro. In one of the tragic scenes where a fireman who was a radiation victim was saying good bye to his lover, we as an audience saw the horrible burns he suffered, however Alla Shapiro claimed that the actor looked like he was painted by an artist without any solid knowledge or experience of the event.

This made me realise that it was proven again that when pursuing knowledge one of the most common constraints is bias, and in this case the bias was creating an entertaining story rather than exact replica of the historical event. Bias is human nature, and when obtaining knowledge from one human being it would be impossible for it to be presented without any bias present.

Tubeteika

My dad gave my brother a hat which we call tubeteika, my brother wears it casually but also during his visits to the Mosque. I see it as a cultural and religious symbol. It is not a strictly religious symbol because a tubeteika is not a Taqiyah, which is a cap worn my some Muslim men, it is seen as a form of religious uniform to identify a person who follows the religion of Islam.  It still contains a cultural connotation to it since it’s a national headdress in Central Asia.

The history of tubeteika comes from the early ages, in a blog post about the hsitory of the hat Rustam Mizaev mentions that people say that Islam which forbade from walking bareheaded impacted the custom of wearing this cap.

The reason this object asks the question of what constraints there are in pursuit of knowledge, is because it represents how Religion of different kinds can impact the way we obtain information and how we can perceive it.

With metaphysical statements such as “everything was created by Allah” creates a bias against scientific findings and research conclusions, when discussing serious issues such as someones health and them having a serious condition could receive a statement that translates the idea that everything does and will happen by Allah’s choice and decision.

This creates the idea that religious beliefs and values may cause a person to perceive information that will suit them the best, which may not allow them to find out the whole narrative and explanation, instead they only choose the parts that they would want to see.

Citations:

“Emily Watson.” IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/name/nm0001833/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1.

HBO. “Chernobyl: Official Website for the Miniseries.” HBO, 27 Mar. 2019, www.hbo.com/chernobyl.

“Jared Harris.” IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/name/nm0364813/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0.

Rosso, Porco. Чернобыль Chernobyl. 15 Dec. 2016,https://www.flickr.com/photos/porco_roso/31662698035/in/photolist-QeVB1P-NXyJLd-QeVzoR-NXyJmq-NXyJPu-QeVze2-Q4FyvT-PEZ49N-QeVCrK-NXyJfy-QeVCAc-QeVCfT-PEZ46m-NXyJhY-NXyKmb-QeVDu6-QeVBHR-PEZ4Xb-QeVyHH-PEZ3sN-Q4FxxF-QeVyYH-QeVyUe-PEZ3rq-NXyM63-PEZ4jh-QeVDgk-NXyKcd-QeVzhZ-PEZ5ud-PEZ3MA-NXyJGW-PEZ5TQ-PEZ4gm-NXyK11-PEZ5aq-QeVAVi-PEZ5ym-NXyKAQ-QeVz4x-QeVBS8-PEZ8ao-PEZ5Eo-QeVzqK-PEZ3G5-Q4Fxr8-PEZ5fq-PEZ4ho-QeVAzP-Q4FwiX

“Stellan Skarsgård.” IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/name/nm0001745/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0.

Vanity Fair. “Chernobyl Doctor Fact Checks the HBO Series | Vanity Fair.” YouTube, 20 Sept. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1GEPsSVpZY.

This year I would like to develop the skill of being comfortable with my abilities and being more disconnected from social media and other stressing factors. This is important to me because this year is one of the two final years of school and I would like to get good results and achieve the goals I have set for myself, the academic requirements for IB can also be intimidating and if I learn how to disconnect from social media more I would not only improve my time management skills but can also focus more on my image and sense of self.

Social media takes up a lot of my time and can subconsciously negatively impact my mental state due to the different standards people have set for themselves and others. By learning how to slowly reduce its presence in my everyday life I will not only have more time to myself but also benefit how I view myself in terms of looks and situation.

I dislike not seeking perfection because it is one of my main values and what motivates me to do well in school, I have high expectations for myself and by making everything perfect I can feel good about the work I have done even though it may stress me out or cause other negative emotions.

I don’t think that I would like to overcome the trait of being a perfectionist, but I would learn how to cope with it better and build a more realistic approach. I tend to be harsh on myself when I don’t reach the goals I want to, instead I should find ways in a project to make it perfect whilst also avoiding negative emotions. The goal may be perfection but its the process that counts.

I can overcome this by being resilient and using my time management skills to have a rational view and realistic expectations, even though this will be hard to manage it will benefit me on the long term scale.