November 27 Homework #20:
Read Paul Bloom’s “Against Empathy” and write a 3-paragraph essay that explains the author’s position.
Bear in mind, the author is not against all empathy, just the wrong kind and "too much of a good thing."
Essay Variation #3 for "Winter Dreams": Comparing and Contrasting Dexter Green and Hasan Minhaj
In the context of "Winter Dreams" and Hasan Minhaj's Netflix 72-minute comedy special "Homecoming King," compare and contrast the chimera of social status as a chimera between a white man, Dexter Green, and a self-described member of the "New Brown America," Hasan Minhaj. What special challenges do immigrants of color face as they try to find belonging, acceptance, and social status in America? How do these immigrants struggle to fit in with their American peers and fit their parents' expectations at the same time? How does this conflict add pressure to their quest to find status and belonging in America?
Or to put the assignment in another way:
Develop a thesis that compares and contrasts the validation quest of The Great American White Princess in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story “Winter Dreams” and Hasan Minhaj’s Netflix comedy special “Homecoming King.”
Key Points You Might Address
One. Hasan struggles with American freedom and his father's strict authoritarian control.
Two. Hasan and Dexter share the freedom to dream and enjoy "the audacity of equality." They both believe they can become what they want, but we see no moral compass inside Dexter. In contrast, Hasan learns forgiveness, a value imparted to him from his father.
Three. Hasan must find belonging in a country that smears him with racial stereotypes. Hasan loves the American Dream even though racists, especially right after 9/11, want to stigmatize him as a "terrorist." In contrast, Dexter's whiteness makes it easier for him to join "the club." But even the white Dexter never feels validated. In what appears to be insanity, Dexter attaches white privilege with his white princess Judy Jones. He never sees his insanity.
In contrast, Hasan realizes how insane it was to attach white privilege with his own white princess Bethany Reed. Hasan's realization helps him let go of his chimera and restore his sanity.
Four. Hasan finds connection and belonging with his fellow Americans through popular culture. So does Dexter. But this popular culture that gives us things in common to share also has a status system, and for Dexter "winter dreams" refers to the "tinsel" that elevates people's status in the eyes of others. Dexter never goes beyond this tinsel.
In contrast, Hasan digs deeper into his heart for meaning and core values that he has received from his family.
Five. Both Dexter and Hasan have a chip on their shoulder in that they feel they've never "made it" or found the status they desire. At one point, Hasan seeks revenge on someone who he feels betrayed him and must learn a valuable lesson.
Six. Dexter and Hasan both have a white privilege chimera: Dexter is obsessed with Judy Jones; Hasan is obsessed with Bethany Reed. "You Are My White Princess" would be a good essay title.
Seven. Dexter's story is horrible and full of despair with no redemption. In contrast, Hasan's story is hopeful and full of redemption.
Sources
For your sources, you can use "Winter Dreams," the Netflix special "Homecoming King," the New Yorker article, and the AV/TV Club article.
Sample Thesis Statements for Above
Dexter Green and Hasan Minhaj are examples of the hopes and anguish of pursuing the American Dream of success, privilege, and personal reinvention and how those dreams get channelled in a chimera of a "lost love."
Dexter Green, who operates on white privilege, and Hasan Minhaj, who operates under brown status, both desire ultimate validation in a white world, and they both express their desire for this ultimate veneration in their adulation of a "white princess" who embodies all of America's apex privileges.
Dexter Green and Hasan Minhaj show us that the desire for validation in America's power hierarchy is so strong that this desire for validation often leads to insanity and self-destruction. The difference between Dexter and Hasan is that Dexter's through-line is from being a lost soul to being a complete lost soul evidenced by his squandered existence. In the case of Hasan, his journey into darkness is interrupted by wisdom, forgiveness, and redemption.
Using Block Paragraph or Point by Point Comparison
In point by point, you analyze Dexter and Hasan in each paragraph.
In block method, you spend half the essay on Dexter and the other half on Hasan.
I recommend using block method.
November 13 Homework #17: Read Chekhov’s “Gooseberries” and write a 3-paragraph essay that analyzes Nikolay’s moral disintegration and decrepitude. We will also explore a Guardian essay that critically examines how the story reveals a lot about the deception of happiness.
November 15 Homework #18: Read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams” and write a 3-paragraph essay that compares how Dexter Green and Nikolay both traded true happiness and meaning for a life wasted on a chimera.
November 20 Homework #19: Read Brendan Foht’s “The Case Against Human Gene Editing” and write an essay that explains why the author maintains his position.
November 22 Holiday
November 27 Homework #20: Read Paul Bloom’s “Against Empathy” and write a 3-paragraph essay that explains the author’s position.
November 29 Homework #21: Read Evan Osnos’ “Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich,” and in 3 paragraphs analyze the causes behind the wealth tech industry’s obsession with preparing for the Apocalypse. See this Silicon Valley Doomsday Prep video, Bloomberg, Guardian, and Business Insider.
December 4 Homework #22: Read Barbara Ehrenreich’s essay “Giving Up on Preventative Care” and in 3 paragraphs support, refute, or complicate her thesis that we should resist the preventive care of America’s medical establishment.
December 6 Homework #23: Read Elizabeth Anderson’s “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?” and write a 3-paragraph essay that explains her reasons for arguing that non-theism is morally superior to theism. See Psychology Today, and McMahon's blog analysis of Anderson's essay.
December 11 Peer Edit
December 13 Essay #5 Due and Portfolio Part 2, #11-#23
Essay #5 Due 12-13-18: 260 Points(over one-fourth of your total semester grade)
You need minimum 3 sources for your MLA Works Cited page.
Option A
Read Ursula Le Guin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,” Chekhov’s “Gooseberries” the Guardian essay, and “Winter Dreams” and develop a thesis that addresses the claim that happiness is a form of deception that results in a squandered life and moral decrepitude. Consider the false types of happiness we settle for based on denial, willed ignorance, pursuing chimeras, and Pascal's notion of the Imaginary Life.
Blaise Pascal, writing in his Pensees, summed up our incurable vanity that seeks to flatter ourselves with a trumped-up image at the expense of our substance and moral character. He writes:
We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our own being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavour to shine. We labour unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence and neglect the real. And if we possess calmness, or generosity, or truthfulness, we are eager to make it known, so as to attach these virtues to that imaginary existence. We would rather separate them from ourselves to join them to it; and we would willingly be cowards in order to acquire the reputation of being brave. A great proof of the nothingness of our being, not to be satisfied with the one without the other, and to renounce the one for the other! For he would be infamous who would not die to preserve his honour.
Option B
Read Brendan Foht’s “The Case Against Human Gene Editing” and write an essay that supports, refutes, or complicates the claim that gene editing poses moral and political problems that we cannot handle.
Sources:
"Here's what we know about CRISPR safety"
"Genome editing: Are we opening the back door to eugenics?"
"Human Gene Editing Is Leaving Ethics Dangerously Far Behind"
"Genetically Modified Humans? No Thanks"
More pros and cons from Business Insider
"Building Baby from the Genes Up"
Netflix Explained, "Designer DNA Explained"
Option C
Read Paul Bloom’s “Against Empathy” and address the claim that Bloom, trying to sell lots of books, is writing a disingenuous argument, relying more on semantics and trickery than substance, to write a sensationalistic, hyped-up thesis.
Option D
In the context of Evan Osnos’ “Doomsday Prep for the Super-Rich,” analyze the causes behind the wealth tech industry’s obsession with preparing for the Apocalypse.
Option E
Read Barbara Ehrenreich’s essay “Giving Up on Preventative Care” and support, refute, or complicate her thesis that we should resist the preventive care of America’s medical establishment.
Option F
Read Elizabeth Anderson’s “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?” and defend, refute, or complicate the author’s claim that non-theism is morally superior to theism.
Option G
Watch Hasan Minhaj defend affirmative action in the context of Asian Americans suing Harvard (Netflix Patriotic Act, first episode), and write a research paper that defends, refutes, or complicates Hasan's argument. Consult "The 'Whitening' of Asian Americans" in The Atlantic; "The Rise and Fall of Affirmative Action" in The New Yorker; "The Uncomfortable Truth About Affirmative Action and Asian-Americans" in The New Yorker.
Option H
Watch Hasan Minhaj in Netflix's Patriot Act argue that Amazon's policies present unfair practices to other businesses and the consumer to the degree that they should be subject to antitrust laws. Defend, refute, or complicate Minhaj's position.
Essay Variation 3 "Winter Dreams":
In the context of Pascal's Pensees 147, we can examine Dexter Green's life as someone who embodies the aspiration to achieve the American Dream, which the story masterfully shows to be a necrophilic Trickster that sucks the life out of us the way a drug sucks the life out of an addict.
Another Variation:
Analyze the emptiness of Judy Jones in the context of Kristen Dombek's essay "Emptiness."
Sources:
For your sources, you can use Pascal's Pensees 147, McMahon's blog post on "Winter Dreams," Kristen Dombek's essay "Emptiness," and Laurence Shames' chapter "The Hunger for More." You can also use the PBS Newshour video "The Origin of 'White Trash' and Why Class Is Still an Issue in the US":
Human Gene Editing Debate
Option B
Read Brendan Foht’s “The Case Against Human Gene Editing” and write an essay that supports, refutes, or complicates the claim that gene editing poses moral and political problems that we cannot handle.
Gene Editing Inevitably Leads to Ethical Questions:
"Here's what we know about CRISPR safety"
"Genome editing: Are we opening the back door to eugenics?"
"Human Gene Editing Is Leaving Ethics Dangerously Far Behind"
"Genetically Modified Humans? No Thanks"
More pros and cons from Business Insider
"Building Baby from the Genes Up"
Netflix Explained, "Designer DNA Explained"
Dangers of Genetic Editing
One. What will happen to unconditional love when we have expectations of a Super Baby?
Two. Will we be individuals or the products of our parents' catalog wish-list?
Three. Will economic and social divisions widen between Haves (can afford to be super) and Have-Nots (can't afford to be so super, just bargain babies)?
Four. Have we committed the sin of pride by playing God?
Five. We could be subject to genome vandalism.
But Babies by Design Are Our Inevitable Future
One. We don't want to deny our babies advantages if they're affordable.
Two. We don't want our children to be outcasts.
Three. We don't want our children to be sick or have dyslexia or some other affliction if we can help it.
Four. We may be denied insurance of various kinds if we don't upgrade our baby.
"Genetically Modified Humans? No Thanks"
Richard Hayes points out the dilemma of genetically modified humans: On one hand, they will have superior health; on the other hand, a free market of super babies will "undermine the foundations of civil and human rights." There will be a small group of rich Desirables who can afford genetic enhancement and large group of serfs serving at the whims of these Desirables.
Hayes points out the slippery slope: Once we improve one aspect of the human body, where do we stop? A child is no longer a child but a consumer product, an "artifact," a toy.
Hayes observes in the future there could be a "high-tech eugenics arms race" with countries amassing armies of super fighters.
Sample Thesis Statements
Sample #1
Human ethics usually clash with rapid disruptions of technologies. Gene editing is no exception. Appalled at the notion of super babies, the commodification of human beings, eugenics, genome vandalism, and other moral atrocities, many make the case that we must either halt or significantly regulate genetic editing. But as well intentioned as these people are, their warning cries are an exercise in futility for several reasons. One, technology cannot be stopped. Even if the United Nations signs an agreement to end genetic testing, rogue entities will advance genetic editing underground, and then they will have the upper hand when it comes to using genetic editing in various types of warfare. Second, to halt genetic editing is to deny medical breakthroughs that are surely a benefit to all of us. Third, genetic editing can be used to alter farm crops in order to stop world-wide famine. While I concede we may kill off the human species by creating some kind of monstrous transhuman race of evil-doers, we at least have a fighting chance of improving our lot through the continued research of genetic editing.
Sample #2
All new technologies present challenges to the human race in terms of job disruption, economic distribution, health, national security, and ethics. We can cry and moan about it like the genetic engineering naysayers, but I say to them, "Welcome to Planet Earth." The survival of our species is not about retreating back into the womb of ignorance. Rather, it is about marching forward with knowledge with open eyes about both the benefits and potential dangers of this new genetic technology.
Sample #3
Granted, we cannot retreat into the womb and embrace ignorance to save ourselves from the ravishes of technology. Nor can we pull the reigns on our technological advancements as rogue states unleash their technological malevolence unchecked. However, with the same ardor and financial commitment, we must create a technology ethics task force so that we don't allow our technological advances in gene editing destroy us through _________________, _______________________, __________________________, and ________________________________.
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