Critical Thinker

1C Agenda 3-3-20: Was the Agricultural Revolution a Crime Against Humanity? Should We Return to the Cave? Signal Phrases Review

March 3 Cover the Agricultural Revolution. Homework #5:  Read Sapiens to page 159 and in 200 words explain how “imagined orders and hierarchies” resulted in “unfair discrimination.”

March 5 Logical Fallacies and Signal Phrase review; Go over Sapiens to page 200. 

March 10 Chromebook In-Class Objective: Write first half of the essay.

March 12 Chromebook In-Class Objective: Write second half of the essay. 

 

March 17 Essay 1 Due on turnitin

Essay #1 (1,000 words)

You need minimum 2 sources for your MLA Works Cited page.

Choice A

Read Tad Friend’s New Yorker online article “Can a Burger Help Solve Climate Change?” and look at two opposing camps on the role of alternative protein sources as a viable replacement for meat. One camp says we face too many obstacles to accept non-animal alternative proteins: evolution, taste, and  cost, to name several. An opposing camp says we have the technology and the proven product in Impossible Foods and other non-meat proteins to replace animal protein. Assessing these two opposing camps in the context of Tad Friend’s essay, develop an argumentative thesis addresses the question: How viable is the push for tech companies to help climate change by replacing animals with alternative proteins?

Choice B

Read Elizabeth Anderson’s “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?” and defend, refute, or complicate the author’s claim that non-religious societies offer a superior moral framework for human evolution than religious societies.  

Choice C

In the context of the Netflix documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, develop an argument about how Yuval Noah Harari's explanation of the Cognitive Revolution exposes human vulnerability to mass manipulation, deceit, and Groupthink.

Choice D

Support, refute, or complicate Harari’s assertion that the “agricultural revolution was the greatest crime against humanity.”

Suggested Outline:

Paragraph 1: Introduction, explain key differences between foragers and people living in AR. 

Paragraph 2: Your thesis or claim.

Paragraphs 3-5, supporting paragraphs.

Paragraph 6, counterargument-rebuttal.

Paragraph 7, conclusion is a powerful restatement of your thesis. 

Last page is Works Cited with 2 sources. 

Sample Thesis and Outline

 

Harari makes a persuasive case that the AR is inferior to the Forager Age evidenced by __________________, ________________, ____________________, and ______________________.  

 

Sample Counterargument and Conclusion

While I love Sapiens as a life-altering book on how I regard the human race, where we came from, where we are today, and where we are going, I am not totally drinking the Noah Yuval Harari Kool-Aid. I in fact agree with those critics who observe that Harari commits a sort of implied Noble Savage Fallacy by suggesting that pre-agriculture society was vastly superior to the evils evident in a post-agricultural state. Ruthless tyrants indeed flourished in the Agriculture Age, but evil “shot-callers” have always been with us. Any microsociety has an Alpha who dominates the others. Where I agree with Harari is that the Agriculture Age scaled this evil because agriculture resulted in a population explosion. 

Secondly, it is too late to fret over our morbidly obese, tooth-decayed post-Forager condition. The Genie is out of the bottle, so to speak. Rather than long to run through jungles in animal skins with our ripped bodies, we need to look at how we might flourish in a world sodden with mono-crops and a growing appetite for mass-produced animal flesh. Here, Harari argues that that A.I. might navigate us out of our self-destruction if we don’t kill ourselves first. 

In sum, Harari’s Sapiens is a masterpiece, an unflinching critique of our violent and irrational appetites, our grand imagination, and our drive for dominance, which may or may not spell our demise. 

How does the pre-agricultural period affect Sapiens today? 

Gorging Gene

Harari observes that “nearly entire history” of Sapiens is pre-agricultural society, also known as foraging society or hunting and gathering society.

This historical period defines who we are today.

After foraging, Sapiens lived for 10,000 years in Agricultural Age: farmers and herders.

For only 200 years, we have lived in Industrial Age: urban laborers and office workers. 

This foraging and need to survive famines have led to the gorging gene, the drive to overeat in order to stave off inevitable starvation.

Gorging Gene in the Industrial Food Age (Processed Food and Fast Food = Death)

For most of us in the world of Industrial Eating, starvation is not a problem; we have the gorging gene and an abundance of food as we read in this Gorging Gene blog post. 

 

Our gorging gene is traced to our need to eat before competing predators could eat our kill and our discovery of sweet fruit. Of course, now we’re maladapted to all the calorie-dense food produced in the Industrial Age. 

We may be slighter dumber with slightly smaller brains than foragers because foragers had to have everyday survival skills and know how to work in the environment whereas we can be lazy slobs, turn on a light, turn on a computer, flip a switch, order a pizza, and watch Netflix (49). 

Foragers

In many ways, foragers had a “more comfortable and rewarding lifestyle” than industrial Sapiens. In affluent societies today, people work 45 hours a week with little free time and few friends, are full of stress, and overworked to deal with declining real wages. In developing countries, people today may work 80 hours a week and are essentially work bots. 

In contrast, foragers had leisure time with one another and worked maybe 3-6 hours a day (50). 

Foragers had a more diverse, nutritious diet as opposed to a diet of monocrops, same crops, and same food for farmers. Today, we load up on processed food and sugar. 

Of course, Harari points out, foragers often led short, brutish lives, often rife with infanticide and similar atrocities, but on balance their lives could be richer and more affluent than the lifestyles of those in Agricultural and Industrial Periods. 

Weakness in Harari's Argument?

Yuval Noah Harari's claim is that the Agricultural Revolution is a crime and a fraud with ill effects in terms of morality and overall health. 

One of the grounds for his claim is that our bodies became fat, afflicted with tooth decay, and crippled by spinal scoliosis after we left the Hunter-Gatherer stage. 

Some Argumentation Terms

The claim is the argument.

Harari's claim is that the Agricultural Revolution was a disaster for the human race and inferior to the previous age of Hunters-Gatherers or Foragers. 

On what grounds does he make his claim? The grounds is one of the reasons for offering concrete, logical support for a claim.

One of his grounds is that after we abandoned hunting to become farmers and then eventually consumers, we suffered obesity, tooth decay, and scoliosis. 

Argument's Against Harari's Claim:

One. Is it logical to say that because the AR was a Hell 10 on the Hell Scale, that if Foragers were an 8 on the scale, we should admire foragers or look up to foragers as a superior lifestyle?

Two. Is it logical to aspire to be ripped forager who suffers violent death at the age of 19 rather than be a fat farmer with cavities who dies of stroke at 60? 

Three. We can concede that the abundance of available calories and the gorging gene lead to obesity, but is reverting the clock and reversing course to becoming Foragers the answer?

Four. No one wants to have face long periods of starvation again. There is no emotional appeal to this argument. 

Five. No one wants to devote their time and labor to hunting and gathering their food again.

Six. It's too late to reverse the clock. The world population, at around 8 billion, cannot revert to foraging. 

Seven. Only super rich people can afford a true organic quasi-Paleo diet in which they consume only finest ingredients for maximum performance. 

Eight. All major technological breakthroughs are disruptive, which means they result in both good and bad things.

For example, Facebook and other social media platforms brought a lot of friends and family together for convenient communication. However, these platforms can be addictive, lead to depression, and become vectors for fake news feeds, disrupting elections, and wreaking havoc on democratic societies. 

Does this mean we're going to get rid of social media platforms? Of course not. The genie is out of the bottle. The toothpaste is out of the toothpaste tube. 

Just because we face an overabundance of calories, does this mean we should subject ourselves once again to food scarcity so we can have trim waistlines? That is an utterly preposterous proposition. 

Nine. It's stupid to tell the human race to abandon technological advancements and "go back to the cave."

With that in mind, let's look at Choice D:

Choice D

Support, refute, or complicate Harari’s assertion that the “agricultural revolution was the greatest crime against humanity.”  

Sapiens & The Agricultural Revolution

Transition from Pre-agricultural period to Post-Agriculture

Harari observes that “nearly entire history” of Sapiens is pre-agricultural society, also known as foraging society or hunting and gathering society. 

This historical period defines who we are today.

After foraging, Sapiens lived for 10,000 years in Agricultural Age: farmers and herders.

For only 200 years, we have lived in Industrial Age: urban laborers and office workers. 

Gorging Gene

Our gorging gene is traced to our need to eat before competing predators could eat our kill and our discovery of sweet fruit. Of course, now we’re maladapted to all the calorie-dense food produced in the Industrial Age. 

We may be slighter dumber with slightly smaller brains than foragers because foragers had to have everyday survival skills and know how to work in the environment whereas we can be lazy slobs, turn on a light, turn on a computer, flip a switch, order a pizza, and watch Netflix (49). 

 

Overview

Agricultural Revolution (Farming) results in the following:

One. more work hours

Two. less nutrition

Three. inferior health (tooth decay, curved spines, stunted growth)

Four. more pregnancies

Five. more exploitation of women

Six. higher population density with more spread of disease

Seven class divisions: huge disparity between Haves and Have-Nots (economic stratification)

Eight. animal cruelty on a mass scale (factory farming)

Nine. More people bought into AR as best way of life possible in spite of contrary evidence because of powerful mythology of the "homeland" and other shared collective delusions of the imagination (thank you, Cognitive Revolution).

Ten. Working harder to become a better person became the work ethic, all based on a lie. This is a way of gaslighting people into participating in their own exploitation (getting punked). 

Faustian Bargain

With all of these liabilities attached to AR, what is the appeal?

Farming is sign of stupidity and de-evolution.

According to Harari, farming is not a sign of intelligence and evolution. Farming is a sign of stupidity and de-evolution. 

Keeping More People Alive in More Concentrated Areas Under Worse Conditions

The appeal or Faustian Bargain of wheat is that it offered more “food per unit of territory” and therefore allowed massive population expansion of Sapiens (82). We read: “This is the essence of the Agricultural Revolution: The ability to keep more people alive under worse conditions.” 

The Agricultural Revolution was not based on a legal fiction or a decision. The Agricultural Revolution was a “trap.” Harari calls it the “Luxury Trap.” I would call it the False Luxury Trap because I don't see any luxury. 

In this trap, babies died more often from disease and malnutrition (less milk and more gruel) but so many more babies were being born that the population continued to grow. Yet life was brutal. In farming societies, 1 in 3 children died before turning 20. 

Viruses spread more quickly in concentrated population centers.

Critical Thinking Failure

"Sapiens could not fathom the full consequences of their decisions" 

Three. Why did Sapiens continue with the brutal farming life? 

Sapiens “could not fathom the full consequences of their decisions.”

Being unable to fathom the consequences of our decisions leads to our demise. Take, for example, that most people continue to use smartphones and social media without knowing the effects of these gadgets that are taking up so much of people’s time. Gadgets hack our brain to our loss of free will. 

We cannot fathom:

impact of agricultural revolution on us today

impact of smartphones as a necessity

impact of giving up our privacy through technology

impact of giving up our free will to A.I. 

impact of man-made global warming

Harari succeeds in showing that Sapiens' greatest weakness is our failure to comprehend consequences of our actions

Foragers Vs. People Today

In many ways, foragers had a “more comfortable and rewarding lifestyle” than industrial Sapiens.

In affluent societies today, people work 45 hours a week with little free time and few friends, are full of stress, and overworked to deal with declining real wages. In developing countries, people today may work 80 hours a week and are essentially work bots. 

In contrast, foragers had leisure time with one another and worked maybe 3-6 hours a day (50). 

Foragers had a more diverse, nutritious diet as opposed to a diet of monocrops, same crops, and same food for farmers. Today, we load up on processed food and sugar. 

Of course, Harari points out, foragers often led short, brutish lives, often rife with infanticide and similar atrocities, but on balance their lives could be richer and more affluent than the lifestyles of those in Agricultural and Industrial Periods. 

AR Myth Persists

Can Myth of AR be eradicated by bloodshed or anything else? 

The short answer is no.

Even after a tribe loses a war, it clings to its false myth. For example, Harari observes that the institution of slavery in the United States based on the myth of white supremacy resulted in the Civil War against forces that rejected the white supremacy myth, but even in the loss of the Civil War, many whites still proudly brandish the Confederate flag, venerate Confederate generals in the form of statues and monuments of various kinds, and hold white supremacy beliefs. Such people embrace what is called the false religion of The Lost Cause. Even after losing a war, such people cling to a racist ideology that gives them identity and meaning based on tribalistic narcissism. 

Myths live because their adherents believe they come from God or are an “indisputable law of nature” or a necessary for keeping order or some other deeply held belief that the adherents share with their tribe. 

Myths imbue the culture in the form of art, fairy tales, poetry, literature, TV, movies, etc. Look at the Jim Crow Museum on Youtube and you will find how white supremacy saturated American culture with myths of white superiority. 

Dangerous Myths That Persist

The American myth of the masculine pioneer creates a deeply seated love for guns that does not exist in any other country. 

The American myth of “follow your passion” deludes Americans into believing they will have their “dream job” if they are simply “true to themselves and their real inner passion,” when in fact only about 2% of people have a career that could be called their dream job. Most people work jobs to support themselves and their families, and they make the best of it regardless of how unpleasant the job usually is. 

The myth of consumerism tells us we cannot be happy unless we work our butts off to buy lots of stuff we don’t need, and the myth works because the majority of people go down Consumer Road and often die there. 

The myth of consumerism has infected our notion of marriage so that we desire to experience our spouse as a “consumer experience,” and if the experience is less than our expectations dictate, we are entitled to seek a new consumer experience in the form of a new spouse until “we get it right.” 

Imagined Orders

What is the key question in understanding human history in the millennia after the Agricultural Revolution? 

How did humans organize in mass cooperation networks when they lacked the biological instincts, such as ants and bees, to do so? 

Humans created “imagined orders and devised scripts” (131). 

These scripts created artificial hierarchies or economic and social stratification with Haves and Have-Nots, lords and serfs, royalty and peasants. 

Harari breaks the system down into Superiors, Commoners, and Slaves, and this stratification was reinforced by some “divine code” or other. 

People in power and privilege like to talk about “justice and equality” but only as a smokescreen in order to perpetuate their advantage over others. 

Political and religious codes, Harari observes, are canards, deceptions, BS, that the powerful create to pacify and to shut up the masses. 

These codes help maintain civil order and control, but they do little to help promote equality and justice.   

Social codes, Harari observes, emphasize purity on one hand and pollution on the other. To scapegoat, marginalize, and eliminate a certain group of people (minorities, women, Jews, gays, to name a few Harari refers to on page 138), these people are dehumanized by the code. 

Harari points out that the morally repulsive and abhorrent slave trade in America was supported by phony codes that supported ideas of white supremacy and black inferiority in order to get white people to cooperate with the evil system of slavery. 

Harari further points out that many societies created codes that designated women as a man’s property. Universally speaking, humans have made man codes or patriarchal codes because, according one theory, men are more violent and aggressive (154). But in the end, Harari says no one theory can explain patriarchal systems. 

Greatest Fraud

How does Harari’s argument above support his larger argument that the Agricultural Revolution is the greatest fraud perpetrated on the human race? 

Clearly, exploiting of the less fortunate is part of the social control and mass cooperation, and Hurari makes the case these codes did not exist in forager society; rather, they flourished in the Agricultural Period.

But Harari's hypocrisy is elevating Foragers to same mythic level as Farmers. 

Choice B

Support, refute, or complicate Harari’s assertion that the “agricultural revolution was the greatest crime against humanity.”  

You need minimum 2 sources for your MLA Works Cited page.

Sample Thesis and Outline

 

Harari makes a persuasive case that the AR is inferior to the Forager Age evidenced by __________________, ________________, ____________________, and ______________________. 

 

Paragraph 1: Introduction explains the differences between foragers and inhabitants of the AR.

Paragraph 2: Thesis or claim

Paragraphs 3-6: Supporting paragraphs

Paragraph 7: Counterargument-rebuttal

Paragraph 8: Conclusion is powerful restatement of thesis

 

Sample Counterargument and Conclusion

While I love Sapiens as a life-altering book on how I regard the human race, where we came from, where we are today, and where we are going, I am not totally drinking the Noah Yuval Harari Kool-Aid. I in fact agree with those critics who observe that Harari commits a sort of implied Noble Savage Fallacy by suggesting that pre-agriculture society was vastly superior to the evils evident in a post-agricultural state. Ruthless tyrants indeed flourished in the Agriculture Age, but evil “shot-callers” have always been with us. Any microsociety has an Alpha who dominates the others. Where I agree with Harari is that the Agriculture Age scaled this evil because agriculture resulted in a population explosion. 

Secondly, it is too late to fret over our morbidly obese, tooth-decayed post-Forager condition. The Genie is out of the bottle, so to speak. Rather than long to run through jungles in animal skins with our ripped bodies, we need to look at how we might flourish in a world sodden with mono-crops and a growing appetite for mass-produced animal flesh. Here, Harari argues that that A.I. might navigate us out of our self-destruction if we don’t kill ourselves first. 

In sum, Harari’s Sapiens is a masterpiece, an unflinching critique of our violent and irrational appetites, our grand imagination, and our drive for dominance, which may or may not spell our demise. 

Counterarguments: Noble Savage Myth

Possible counterarguments in Quillette: “Romanticizing the Hunter-Gatherer” by William Buckner

A related criticism is in Will Day-Brosnan's book review: 

Elsewhere, I wondered the extent to which Harari was projecting an idealistic (even Rousseauian) vision of a noble savage on pre-state peoples. His depiction of a foraging lifestyle (‘A Day in the Life of Adam and Eve’) unencumbered by the complexities and worries of civilisational living could be read as reactionary atavism. In this section, the bibliography and citations are also problematic, Harari makes claims for which it is difficult to trace a source. For example, he affirms that ‘loneliness and privacy were rare [amongst hunter gatherers]’; that the human population ‘was smaller than that of today’s Cairo’; that the ‘average ancient forager could turn a flint stone into a spear point within minutes’; and that ‘hunter gatherers living today… work on average for just thirty five to forty five hours a week’ (52-6). If sources for these claims exist, they are very difficult to correlate with the text.

 

Signal Phrase Guidelines:

About 80% of your essay should be written in your voice with your words.

Another 20% of your essay will consist of quotations, paraphrase, and summary from the book Sapiens and credible source of your choice.  We call this "cited material."

When you introduce your cited material, you must use signal phrases. 

Sample List of Signal Phrases (active as of 2-29-20)

 

When you cite material, paraphrases and summaries are with few exceptions superior to direct quotations. 

You need minimum 2 sources for your MLA Works Cited page.

Signal Phrases

Purpose

We use signal phrases to signal to the reader that we are going to cite research material in the form of direct quotes, paraphrase or summary.

You can also call a signal phrase a lead-in because it leads in the quotation or paraphrase. 

Grammarian Diana Hacker writes that signal phrases make smooth transitions from your own writing voice to the quoted material without making the reader feel a "jolt."

Another Purpose: Providing Context

Signal phrases not only establish authority and credibility. They provide context or explain why you're using the sourced material. 

Example:

As a counterpoint to Yuval Noah Harari's contention that Foragers lived superior lives to Farmers, we read in culture critic Will Day Brosnan: "Elsewhere, I wondered the extent to which Harari was projecting an idealistic (even Rousseauian) vision of a noble savage on pre-state peoples. His depiction of a foraging lifestyle (‘A Day in the Life of Adam and Eve’) unencumbered by the complexities and worries of civilisational living could be read as reactionary atavism."

Same Example with Different Context:

Concurring with my assertion that Harari is misguided in his Noble Savage mythology, we read in culture critic Will Day Brosnan: "Elsewhere, I wondered the extent to which Harari was projecting an idealistic (even Rousseauian) vision of a noble savage on pre-state peoples. His depiction of a foraging lifestyle (‘A Day in the Life of Adam and Eve’) unencumbered by the complexities and worries of civilisational living could be read as reactionary atavism."

Different Example for Supporting Paragraph

Further supporting my contention that not all calories are equal, we find in science writer Gary Taubes' Good Calories, Bad Calories that there is statistics that show . . ."

Credentials, Establishing Authority, and Ethos

We often include credentials with the signal phrase to give more credibility for our sourced material. 

The acclaimed best-selling writer, history professor, and futurist Yuval Noah Harari excoriates the Agricultural Revolution as "the greatest crime against humanity." 

You don't have to put the signal phrase at the beginning. You can put it at the end:

"The Agricultural Revolution is the greatest crime against humanity," claims celebrated author and futurist Yuval Noah Harari. 

You can also put the signal phrase in the middle of a sentence:

Racism, sexism, worker exploitation, and pestilence afflicted the human race during the Agricultural Revolution, claims celebrated futurist Yuval Noah Harari, who goes on to make the bold claim that "the Agricultural Revolution was the greatest crime perpetrated against humanity." 

Partial List of Signal Phrases

acknowledges  adds admits affirms agrees answers argues asserts claims comments concedes confirms contends counters counterattacks declares defines denies disputes echoes endorses estimates finds grants illustrates implies insists mentions notes observes predicts proposes reasons recognizes recommends refutes rejects reports responds reveals speculates states suggests surmises warns writes

Varying placement and types of signal phrases helps you avoid monotony, makes you a more impressive writer, and gives you more ethos. 

 

Examples of a signal phrases:

We are fools if we think we were put on Planet Earth to be happy. That is the fantasy of a four-year-old child. Ironically, this infantile pursuit of happiness makes us unhappy. In the words of John Mellencamp: “I don’t think we’re put on this earth to live happy lives. I think we’re put here to challenge ourselves physically, emotionally, intellectually.”

The idea of a meritocracy is that a healthy society allows people with merits, regardless of their economic privilege, to rise to the top of the power hierarchy. However, such a meritocracy does not exist as privilege, not merit, is the dominant force of acquiring power. As we read in Yale Law School professor Daniel Markovits' essay "How Life Became an Endless Terrible Competition": "Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale collectively enroll more students from households in the top 1 percent of the income distribution than from households in the bottom 60 percent. Legacy preferences, nepotism, and outright fraud continue to give rich applicants corrupt advantages. But the dominant causes of this skew toward wealth can be traced to meritocracy. On average, children whose parents make more than $200,000 a year score about 250 points higher on the SAT than children whose parents make $40,000 to $60,000. Only about one in 200 children from the poorest third of households achieves SAT scores at Yale’s median. Meanwhile, the top banks and law firms, along with other high-paying employers, recruit almost exclusively from a few elite colleges."

Variation of the above:

The idea of a meritocracy is that a healthy society allows people with merits, regardless of their economic privilege, to rise to the top of the power hierarchy. However, such a meritocracy does not exist as privilege, not merit, is the dominant force of acquiring power. According to Yale Law School professor Daniel Markovits in his essay "How Life Became an Endless Terrible Competition": "Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale collectively enroll more students from households in the top 1 percent of the income distribution than from households in the bottom 60 percent. Legacy preferences, nepotism, and outright fraud continue to give rich applicants corrupt advantages. But the dominant causes of this skew toward wealth can be traced to meritocracy. On average, children whose parents make more than $200,000 a year score about 250 points higher on the SAT than children whose parents make $40,000 to $60,000. Only about one in 200 children from the poorest third of households achieves SAT scores at Yale’s median. Meanwhile, the top banks and law firms, along with other high-paying employers, recruit almost exclusively from a few elite colleges."

 

1C Agenda 2-27-20: Sapiens Covers Limited Liability & Imagined Realities

Essay #1 (1,000 words)

You need minimum 2 sources for your MLA Works Cited page.

Choice A

Read Tad Friend’s New Yorker online article “Can a Burger Help Solve Climate Change?” and look at two opposing camps on the role of alternative protein sources as a viable replacement for meat. One camp says we face too many obstacles to accept non-animal alternative proteins: evolution, taste, and  cost, to name several. An opposing camp says we have the technology and the proven product in Impossible Foods and other non-meat proteins to replace animal protein. Assessing these two opposing camps in the context of Tad Friend’s essay, develop an argumentative thesis addresses the question: How viable is the push for tech companies to help climate change by replacing animals with alternative proteins?

Choice B

Read Elizabeth Anderson’s “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?” and defend, refute, or complicate the author’s claim that non-religious societies offer a superior moral framework for human evolution than religious societies.  

Choice C

In the context of the Netflix documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, develop an argument about how Yuval Noah Harari's explanation of the Cognitive Revolution exposes human vulnerability to mass manipulation, deceit, and Groupthink.

Choice D

Support, refute, or complicate Harari’s assertion that the “agricultural revolution was the greatest crime against humanity.”  

February 18 Introduction; Homework #1 is to read Tad Friend’s New Yorker online article “Can a Burger Help Solve Climate Change?” and in 200 words explain the difficulties of replacing animals with alternative proteins. 

February 20 Alternative protein debate; Homework #2 is to read Elizabeth Anderson’s “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?” and explain in 200 words how she supports her claim that non-religious societies are morally superior to religious societies. 

February 25 Cover morality debate; Homework #3 is to read Sapiens up to page 60 and in 200 words explain how “limited liability companies” and “imagined realities” are part of the Cognitive Revolution.

February 27 Cover Cognitive Revolution in the context of the documentary Fyre. Homework #4 for next class: Read Sapiens, up to page 132 and in 200 words explain how Harari makes the claim that the Agricultural Revolution is history’s “biggest fraud.”

March 3 Cover the Agricultural Revolution. Homework #5:  Read Sapiens to page 159 and in 200 words explain how “imagined orders and hierarchies” resulted in “unfair discrimination.”

March 5 Logical Fallacies and Signal Phrase review; Go over Sapiens to page 159. 

March 10 Chromebook In-Class Objective: Write first half of the essay.

March 12 Chromebook In-Class Objective: Write second half of the essay. 

March 17 Essay 1 Due on turnitin

Choice C

In the context of the Netflix documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, develop an argument about how Yuval Noah Harari's explanation of the Cognitive Revolution exposes human vulnerability to mass manipulation, deceit, and Groupthink.

Use Netflix documentary Fyre

 

Develop a thesis about the power of manipulation and deception of Harari's notion of Imagined Reality by addressing the fraud evident in the Netflix documentary Fyre (Links to an external site.). 

Paragraph 1: We will define cognitive revolution according YNH. 

Paragraph 2: We will write a thesis similar to this: The Netflix documentary Fyre shows how the Cognitive Revolution creates imagined realities that work in the service of hucksters, hacks, sociopaths, and mountebanks who can spin an imagined reality or narrative resulting in mass manipulation, self-deception, a quest for status, and _______________________. 

Your body paragraphs will support the above thesis mapping components. 

Another Sample Thesis for Choice B (Netflix documentary Fyre)

The colossal  ****show so splendidly rendered in the Netflix documentary Fyre is largely the result of Groupthink evidenced by _______________, ______________, ______________________, and ___________________. 

Choice D

Support, refute, or complicate Harari’s assertion that the “agricultural revolution was the greatest crime against humanity.”  

Sample Thesis

While I largely agree with Harari's critique of the Agricultural Revolution, his implication that we were better off as hunters and gatherers is fallacious when we consider _________________, __________________, _________________, and _________________________. 

Be sure to have a counterargument section (1 or 2 paragraphs) before you reach your conclusion.

Your conclusion is a dramatic restatement of your thesis.  

Lesson One Study Questions 

One. That Sapiens is an exclusive species today emerging from several species of great apes is both “peculiar and incriminating.” Explain. 

Evolution,the idea of human progression, may be a myth. We may grow in fits and bursts with episodes of regression. 

Evolution Assumption Fallacy

Harari wants us to question common assumptions about Sapiens?

Why? In part because critical thinking is about questioning mindless assumptions.

For example, we assume humans are marching on an arc of progress toward justice and reason. Such an assumption may not be in concert with reality. 

Social media is part of the Great Dumbing Down and is evidence that we are devolving or degenerating:

For example, social media may be causing us to reverse in two major ways: We're becoming infantile as we feature ourselves in narcissistic fashion, curators of our phony self. 

We're giving up our private data to social media. This is stupid, not a sign of evolution.

We're reading and sharing weaponized fake news in the service of destroying democracy.

Other mindless assumptions:

Or we may assume that if we go to college and play by the rules, we'll find a good job, good real estate, a long, healthy life, and vibrant love to reward us for our toil. 

Or we may assume that if we lose a big chunk of body weight and get lean and attractive, all our problems will be solved, the world will love us, and our newfound popularity will create a huge tidal wave that will carry us to the land of Milk and Honey. 

Mindless Assumptions in Sapiens

Now let's look at a mindless assumption in the context of Sapiens:

Mindless Assumption #1

Humans are a dominant species with an indefinite shelf life. We like to think we, as humans, have an indefinite stay in the world's VIP room. We are here to stay. It's our birthright. But we're grossly mistaken.

We may be at the end. Think of global warming. 

Reality

Humans are a fragile species that owing to their penchant for self-destruction have a tenuous shelf life.

The window of history of a dominant, exclusive species called Sapiens is rather small. Harari speculates that we won't last long relative to other species.

Humans are hard-wired to be violent and look for systems to exploit masses of people.

Further, it appears that as a species we tend to kill other species. Killing our competition appears to be part of our nature. Our tendency toward violence seems to contradict our self-aggrandizing name “homo sapien,” which means “wise man.” 

Yuval Noah Harari's critics accuse him of being a misanthrope, someone who scorns the human race.

Three revolutions define Sapiens as the dominant species: 

Cognitive Revolution from 70,000 years ago.

Agricultural Revolution from 12,000 years ago.

Scientific Revolution from 500 years ago. 

Two. What are defining characteristics of Sapiens? 

We have big brains relative to other mammals that suck 25% of our body’s energy. 

We walk upright on two legs, freeing our hands for fine motor skills, playing musical instruments, painting caves, and performing other forms of advanced communication.

We are born underdeveloped and as babies require a lot of nurture and protection. Without our parents, we'll be carried away by a giant pterodactyl and fed to the baby pterodactyls. 

We have advanced rapidly from the middle of the food chain to the top of the food chain resulting in disrupting the ecosystem and killing other species, often to the point of extinction.

At the top of the food chain, we are shown to have ravenous appetites and brutally violent tendencies without proper checks to insure the world's safety and our own. 

Unlike other mammals, we learned to use fire to alter our environment and to cook food that otherwise could not be digested efficiently.

Because we are insecure in our Top Dog Food Chain position, we are like “Banana Republic dictators” full of fear and anxiety over our apex role, and as a result we inflict cruelty, havoc, and destruction everywhere we reign. In other words, we are warmongers. Peaceful existence is the exception, not the rule (11). 

Barbarian Throng

Reading Sapiens reinforces the Hobbesian notion of the “barbarian throng,” which can only be controlled by fear and rule of law.

The problem with seeing humans as barbarians is the tendency to ditch democracy for totalitarianism and the latter has a history of brutality, severed human rights, and genocide.

Critics of Harari, such as Rod Dreher, accuse him of being a hedonist, a materialist, and a misanthrope who sees human race improving through genetic editing. 

Three. What two competing theories explain the emergence of Sapiens as the exclusive species? 

One is Interbreeding Theory, which states that Sapiens and Neanderthals mated and evolved into the Sapiens we are today. 

The second is Replacement Theory, which states that Sapiens committed genocide against other species, including the Neanderthals. If this theory is true, all of us can be traced back to East Africa from 70,000 years ago. If Replacement Theory is correct, we have some seriously violent hard-wiring in our DNA. 

Most Sapiens have a religious-based belief that they are exclusive to the animal kingdom, superior and apart, but Harari claims humans are deluded; in fact, humans were related to other species, which they wiped out: 

Soloensis and Denisova were wiped out 50,000 years ago.

Neanderthals were wiped out 30,000 years ago.

Flores Island dwarf-like humans were wiped out 12,000 years ago (18). 

Cognitive Revolution

Four. How did language cause Sapiens to become more advanced than other species? 

From 70,000 to 30,000 years ago, Sapiens embarked upon the Cognitive Revolution (described in Harari's Ted Talk video).

Objective Reality

Animals live exclusively in an objective reality. The zebra, for example, lives near the Nile River and must navigate across past hungry 20-foot crocodiles. The same zebra must be on the lookout for hungry lions and leopards. The zebra survives by paying keen attention to its objective reality.

Legal Fictions

Imaginative Reality or The Shared Imagination

Humans, too, survive by having a clear awareness of their objective reality, their actual physical environment.

But they have imposed another layer of reality over their physical reality. This added layer of reality is in the realm of the imagination, what Harari calls "legal fictions." 

This second reality is the main ingredient of the Cognitive Revolution. This ability for humans to have a shared imagination is what separates humans from other animals. Furthermore, this shared imagination allows humans to dominate over the other animals. 

Shared Imaginative Reality Leads to Mass Cooperation

No other animal engaged in an imaginary reality that would cause mass cooperation toward a shared goal. 

Bees cooperate in the hive, but their cooperation is instinctive and rigid. Any changes in the environment that disrupt the cooperation cannot be met with an adaptive response from the honeybees. They will perish.

Dolphins and chimpanzees are less rigid and more flexible than honeybees in their cooperation. But the flexible cooperation of dolphins and chimps is limited to small numbers: These mammals need an intimate knowledge and trust of one another to be flexible in their cooperation.

Humans take cooperation to a higher level. Humans are both flexible in their cooperation and they can scale it to big numbers. They don't need intimate knowledge of one another. They rely on agreed fictions or collective imaginations to cooperate toward shared goals, values, and aspirations. 

Because humans have advanced language skills, they can create these imaginary worlds with vivid detail. 

Examples of Shifting Imaginary Worlds

In the Cognitive Revolution, we agree that an imaginary world presents a reality that is in our best interests. 

For example, before the 20th Century, marriage was imagined as a family business arrangement in which men owned women as property. This was agreed upon in patriarchal (man-dominated) societies. 

The good news is that marriages didn't end in divorce. The bad news is that women were treated like property. 

By the 21st Century, patriarchal societies slowly transformed into consumer societies. The advent of photography, cinema, and television produced vectors for powerful consumer images.

The idea of marriage shifted from a business arrangement to one of Romantic Love. 

Romantic Love is an imagined reality. 

The Quest for Meaning is an imagined reality that can have positive or negative consequences:

Take this example from one of my students who used a story his father told him:

A young man in his early twenties goes to the beach, looks up at the sky and says, “God, help me find meaning.” 

God says, “Look at the rocks about you and pick them up, study the bottom of them, and eventually you will find that one of them has the meaning of life inscribed on it.” 

The young man looks at the hundreds of thousands of rocks surrounding him and says, “But God, there are so many rocks. This could take a long time.”

“I have spoken,” God says.

So the young man embarks upon his meaning quest, picking up thousands upon thousands of rocks. Decades pass, and the persevering man, now in his nineties, emaciated, lonely, and decrepit, is still standing on the beach. Every rock has been upturned, but he has found nothing. The old man looks up at the heavens and says, “God, I am really pissed off at you.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I did what you told me to do. I have upturned all the rocks, but I have found nothing. What’s worse, God, is that I’m near the end of my days and I have nothing to show for it.”

Then God says, “That’s right, you dumb shit. Now die.”

Imagined realities scaled that cooperation.

Harari calls these imagined realities fiction (27). He writes: "Any large-scale human cooperation--whether a modern state, a medieval church, an ancient city or an archaic tribe--is rooted in common myths that exist only in people's collective imagination." Belief in Christ or Allah can move millions, even billions, of people to perform the same rituals and adhere to the same behaviors and attitudes. 

The love of coastal property can compel many people to work three jobs so they can live by the sea and work so many hours that they have no free time to walk along the beach.

A cadre of lawyers who never met each other can work together to free a man from prison because that prisoner represents the violation of human rights that this team of lawyers all wish to defend. 

A business is a fiction.

Harari points to Peugeot SA as an example of a fiction. Peugeot makes cars and has factories, but if these material things did not exist, Peugeot, the brand, would still exist. It could use its money to make new factories, make new cars, and hire new managers.

Harari writes: "In short, Peugeot SA seems to have no essential connection to the physical world. Does it really exist?" He answers by writing the following: "Peugeot is a figment of our collective imagination. Lawyers call this a 'legal fiction.' It can't be pointed at; it is not a physical object. But it exists as a legal entity."

Harari goes on to explain that "Peugeot belongs to a particular genre of legal fictions called 'limited liability companies.' The idea behind such companies is among humanity's most ingenious inventions."

Legal liability companies accelerated human innovation.

Property had to shift from family to giant business, called a legal liability company:

Harari explains that a family business could be wiped out by litigation. Families could be sued into extinction, even lose family members to indentured servitude (30). 

As a result, people imagined legal liability companies. A legal liability company, like Peugeot, outlives its founder Armand Peugeot, because the enterprise exists as a fiction.

Harari compares this fiction to demons and devils of the church. No one needs to see these demons and devils, but they exist in the imagination and are used to affect and control behavior. 

Further, taking Holy Communion is based on a shared belief that exists in the collective imagination.

Harari then returns to the case of Peugeot SA in which the lawyer must follow "all the proper liturgy and rituals," "sacred procedures," and "hocus pocus" to make Peugeot exist as a legal fiction.

Function of these legal fictions:

Harari then asks what is the purpose of these legal fictions? He writes, "much of history revolves around this question: how does one convince millions of people to believe particular stories about god, or nations, or limited liability companies? Yet when it succeeds, it gives Sapiens immense power, because it enables millions of strangers to cooperate and work towards common goals. Just try to imagine how difficult it would have been to create states, or churches, or legal systems if we could speak only about things that really exist, such as rivers, trees, and lions" (31).

These fictions, such as Peugeot, "accumulate immense power." 

We call these "fictions," "social constructs," or "imagined realities," but they are not lies. Unless they are charlatans, they believe in their fictions like wizards believe in their magic spells, demons, and gods. 

Some Apple employees who work at the "Genius Bar" believe they are truly geniuses. 

These fictions enable humans to cooperate in millions of numbers, and this capacity for mass cooperation allows humans to do good, evil, and destruction on a massive scale. 

Review: How did “legal fiction” advance Sapiens to develop cities, political systems, and business enterprises? 

We read one of the book’s most important passages: “Large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths” (26). 

Religious, nationalist, and judicial values and beliefs can bind alliances between people who have never met each other. They share a common commitment based on a common value system. 

This value system is based on shared beliefs. These beliefs emerge from shared stories. 

“Yet none of these things exist outside the stories people invent and tell one another. There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no human rights, no laws, and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings” (27). 

To make a successful business, Harari asserts that we must be “powerful sorcerers” and “tribal shamans.” He uses the example of Peugeot. Like Rolex, Mercedes, and Apple, Peugeot is an entity that does not exist as a person or a group of persons, but as a brand, an idea, a symbol.

Giving value to a symbol or a brand is unique to Sapiens, and this activity has a great influence on human affairs. 

Peugeot is a “legal fiction” and a “figment of our collective imagination” (29). 

Peugeot is a corporation, a legal entity, an institution that pays taxes. Individuals are not sued, but the corporation Peugeot can be sued. 

Peugeot as a legal fiction is what is called a limited liability company. Before Sapiens invented the limited liability company, they were at too much risk to have their own business because they, not the legal fiction, were liable in the event of being sued. Their children could be sold into servitude, they could lose all of their possessions, and they could be put into prison simply because they were liable for any shortcomings or violations their company presented. 

Such legal exposure discouraged people from innovation. In the wake of a limited liability company, however, innovation flourished. 

Therefore, limited liability companies, the product of legal fiction, are a huge force in accelerating creativity, business, and innovation. 

Harari observes a comparison between religion and business: Both require a story and “hocus pocus” to emerge and exist in people’s collective imagination. Religion needs stories to supports its divine claims. Businesses need the legal magic of lawyers to produce paperwork with legal codes to create a fabrication. 

These fabrications, or “legal fictions,” propel human lives in large numbers and disrupt the evolution of societies. 

“Telling effective stories is not easy,” the author writes, but the successful, compelling stories create immense power for those in are held in authority of these stories because “millions of strangers to cooperate and to work towards common goals” (31). 

A college is not a professor, a group of professors, or a bunch of administrators. A college is an idea, a legal fiction that provides a positive narrative to the community. This positive narrative is about upward mobility and personal enrichment. If the story does not corroborate with reality in some compelling way, the legal fiction or the brand is in danger of weakening or being completely upturned into something else. 

When we speak of legal fictions, we are not speaking of lies. Harari writes:

“An imagined reality is not a lie.” 

Rather, an imagined reality is a shared value or belief system such as “justice for all,” “diversity in education and the workplace,” “overcoming structural inequality,” “individualism over utilitarianism,” “sacrifice to the family and community and public duty over personal pleasure and personal fulfillment” and so on. 

The above are imagined realities that millions of people may share and that millions of others may reject in favor of some contradictory belief system. 

Sapiens Live in Dual Reality

Because of the Cognitive Revolution, Sapiens live in a dual reality: the objective reality of the world around us and the imagined reality of value systems that are sustained by compelling stories (32). 

Competing myths or stories can radically alter our value systems. For example, the author observes France in 1789 when myths supporting “divine right of kings” were supplanted by myths supporting “sovereignty of the people.” 

In the United States with structural inequality getting worse and worse, American Millennials are not as friendly toward stories about American democracy and equality and therefore are not necessarily supportive of democratic ideals. Millennials may in fact reject stories that support notions of democratic ideals and equality. 

Shared stories or “imagined realities” make humans cooperate toward common goals and have the effect of making Sapiens dominate all other species on the planet. 

This is why we cannot overestimate the effects of “legal fictions” or “imagined realities” on the Apex Predator status of Sapiens. 

One of the biggest effects of legal fictions is trade. We trade objects based on the object’s value, and the value is based on some story. 

Apple computer is a story about creativity, hipster coolness, and innovation.

Rolex and Mercedes are stories about achieving the ultimate in success of “making it.”

Such stories existed tens of thousands of years ago for jewels, spices, fabrics, precious metals, etc. 

Trade established the need for trust and trade stimulated world travel, further propelling Sapiens toward world domination (36). 

Shared imagined realities also created culture. In fact, culture is defined as a shared imagined reality and the ways this shared imagined reality manifests itself. 

Before the Cognitive Revolution, Sapiens were defined by biology but after the Cognitive Revolution Sapiens were defined by imagined realities, which comprised of their culture. 

The story of Romantic Love as a consumerist idea is this:

Women can buy soaps, hair products, cosmetics and engage in activities that will bring them to the apotheosis of pulchritude (physical beauty) and they can exact high demands on men in courtship. By doing these two things: achieving maximum beauty and physical attraction while demanding that a man "step up his game" in courtship, a woman transforms man, a disgusting beast unworthy of love, into a noble savage slavishly devoted to monogamy in the pursuit of his True Love. 

That the divorce rate, between 50-70% depending on what part of the country you survey, contradicts this narrative, doesn't matter.

The consumer imagined reality of Romantic Love persists in our collective consciousness. 

In Smithsonian interview, Harari elaborates on imagined realities in society and how they stabilize and bond societies:

Humanity's greatest invention is religion, which does not mean necessarily mean belief in gods. Rather, religion is any system of norms and values that is founded on a belief in superhuman laws. Some religions, such as Islam, Christianity and Hinduism, believe that these superhuman laws were created by the gods. Other religions, such as Buddhism, Communism and Nazism believed that these superhuman laws are natural laws. Thus Buddhists believe in the natural laws of karma, Nazis argued that their ideology reflected the laws of natural selection, and Communists believe that they follow the natural laws of economics.

No matter whether they believe in divine laws or in natural laws, all religions have exactly the same function: to give stability to human institutions. Without some kind of religion, it is simply impossible to maintain social order. During the modern era religions that believe in divine laws went into eclipse. But religions that believe in natural laws became ever more powerful. In the future, they are likely to become more powerful yet. Silicon Valley, for example, is today a hot-house of new techno-religions, which promise us paradise on earth with the help of new technologies. From a religious perspective, Silicon Valley is the most interesting place in the world.

Imagined Realities Translate into Distinct Societies

Autocratic Despot

Ethno-Nationalism

Theocracy

Democracy: human rights, equality, justice, freedom, individuality

The latter is the most appealing to most humans who will flee to those societies, which will enjoy technological and general innovation. 

Language, Gossip, and Shared Values

Unlike other animals, humans can use language to gossip, to pain pictures of other humans that either detestable or enviable. We avoid certain behaviors so we don't become of the object of gossip about the detestable human being and as a result are shunned in the realm of reproduction. We are drawn to other behaviors that would generate gossip so that we could be the topic of conversation that paints us in a venerable and admirable light so that we would be desirable in terms of reproductive success. In this regard, we share common values.

Cooperating within the tribe would win us "Brownie Points." Not cooperating would paint us as pariahs. Therefore, most of us were motivated to cooperate and show reciprocity within the tribe.

Gossip allowed us to separate decent people from cheats. Apes could not gossip. We developed social networks far more advanced than apes because largely in part of our capacity for gossip. 

To this day, we love gossip. We are obsessed with gossip. We watch "reality TV" that focuses on gossip. When we hang out with friends, our primary activity is gossip. Gossip is in our DNA. 

Gossip thrives in the social media age. Twitter is in your face gossip full of "hot takes." 

Downside of Gossip

Downside of gossip is that we talk behind people's backs. We are all naturally born back-stabbers. Mark Twain famously said that if we could be the fly on the wall and listen to what our friends said about us when they didn't know we were listening, none of us would have any friends. 

Gossip about our reality was only the beginning. 

Beyond Gossip, Language Takes an Even More Radical Turn 

Harari says our radical departure from other animals is in our capacity to live in an invisible or imagined reality: "Yet the truly unique feature of our language is not its ability to transmit information about men and lions. Rather, it's the ability to transmit information about things that do not exist at all. As far as we know, only Sapiens can talk about entire kinds of entities that they have never seen, touched or smelled. 

Unlike animals, we live in a shared imagination:

Legends

Myths

gods

religions

religious fables

idea of an afterlife

idea of monogamy and "living happily ever after."

idea of virtue

idea of moral dissolution (disintegration) 

politics such as nation states

economics such as money being worth X (this bill is the value of three cheeseburgers)

brands such as Apple, Mini Cooper, Google represent a type of human and a type of lifestyle

laws based on "human rights," something we imagine to exist

We imagine a $10 Casio on a certain type of man and a $20K Rolex on another type of man. 

Racism is an imaginary idea that certain people agree upon to base their identity and behavior.

Nationalism is an imaginary idea that affects our identity and behavior.

Tribalism and other "isms" are imagined realities that affect our identity and behavior. 

Collective Imagination: Or Shared Fictions

We don't just imagine things. We imagine things collectively. 

Gossip limited our social cooperation to groups of about 150 members.

***

How does the pre-agricultural period affect Sapiens today? 

Harari observes that “nearly entire history” of Sapiens is pre-agricultural society, also known as foraging society or hunting and gathering society. 

This historical period defines who we are today.

After foraging, Sapiens lived for 10,000 years in Agricultural Age: farmers and herders.

For only 200 years, we have lived in Industrial Age: urban laborers and office workers. 

Our gorging gene is traced to our need to eat before competing predators could eat our kill and our discovery of sweet fruit. Of course, now we’re maladapted to all the calorie-dense food produced in the Industrial Age. 

We may be slighter dumber with slightly smaller brains than foragers because foragers had to have everyday survival skills and know how to work in the environment whereas we can be lazy slobs, turn on a light, turn on a computer, flip a switch, order a pizza, and watch Netflix (49). 

Foragers

In many ways, foragers had a “more comfortable and rewarding lifestyle” than industrial Sapiens. In affluent societies today, people work 45 hours a week with little free time and few friends, are full of stress, and overworked to deal with declining real wages. In developing countries, people today may work 80 hours a week and are essentially work bots. 

In contrast, foragers had leisure time with one another and worked maybe 3-6 hours a day (50). 

Foragers had a more diverse, nutritious diet as opposed to a diet of monocrops, same crops, and same food for farmers. Today, we load up on processed food and sugar. 

Of course, Harari points out, foragers often led short, brutish lives, often rife with infanticide and similar atrocities, but on balance their lives could be richer and more affluent than the lifestyles of those in Agricultural and Industrial Periods. 

Six. Why is human visitation to Australia one of the “most important events in history”? 

We see how destructive Sapiens are to ecosystems living apart from human contact. 

We see Sapiens as the “deadliest species in the annals of planet Earth” (64). Within a few thousand years, all of the continent’s giant animals became extinct. 

Sapien colonization on any new landfront is a massive disaster. Sapiens leave mass destruction in their wake. 

Guidelines:

About 80% of your essay should be written in your voice with your words.

Another 20% of your essay will consist of quotations, paraphrase, and summary from the book Sapiens and credible source of your choice.  We call this "cited material."

When you introduce your cited material, you must use signal phrases. 

Example Link #1

Example Link #2

When you cite material, paraphrases and summaries are with few exceptions superior to direct quotations. 

Example Link #1

Example Link #2

You need minimum 2 sources for your MLA Works Cited page.

Signal Phrases

We use signal phrases to signal to the reader that we are going to cite research material in the form of direct quotes, paraphrase or summary.

We include the author's background information to give author credibility or ethos in our argumentation. 

After we cite the information, we present our own analysis to show how this material supports our argument. 

Examples of a signal phrases:

We are fools if we think we were put on Planet Earth to be happy. That is the fantasy of a four-year-old child. Ironically, this infantile pursuit of happiness makes us unhappy. In the words of John Mellencamp: “I don’t think we’re put on this earth to live happy lives. I think we’re put here to challenge ourselves physically, emotionally, intellectually.”

The idea of a meritocracy is that a healthy society allows people with merits, regardless of their economic privilege, to rise to the top of the power hierarchy. However, such a meritocracy does not exist as privilege, not merit, is the dominant force of acquiring power. As we read in Yale Law School professor Daniel Markovits' essay "How Life Became an Endless Terrible Competition": "Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale collectively enroll more students from households in the top 1 percent of the income distribution than from households in the bottom 60 percent. Legacy preferences, nepotism, and outright fraud continue to give rich applicants corrupt advantages. But the dominant causes of this skew toward wealth can be traced to meritocracy. On average, children whose parents make more than $200,000 a year score about 250 points higher on the SAT than children whose parents make $40,000 to $60,000. Only about one in 200 children from the poorest third of households achieves SAT scores at Yale’s median. Meanwhile, the top banks and law firms, along with other high-paying employers, recruit almost exclusively from a few elite colleges."

Variation of the above:

The idea of a meritocracy is that a healthy society allows people with merits, regardless of their economic privilege, to rise to the top of the power hierarchy. However, such a meritocracy does not exist as privilege, not merit, is the dominant force of acquiring power. According to Yale Law School professor Daniel Markovits in his essay "How Life Became an Endless Terrible Competition": "Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale collectively enroll more students from households in the top 1 percent of the income distribution than from households in the bottom 60 percent. Legacy preferences, nepotism, and outright fraud continue to give rich applicants corrupt advantages. But the dominant causes of this skew toward wealth can be traced to meritocracy. On average, children whose parents make more than $200,000 a year score about 250 points higher on the SAT than children whose parents make $40,000 to $60,000. Only about one in 200 children from the poorest third of households achieves SAT scores at Yale’s median. Meanwhile, the top banks and law firms, along with other high-paying employers, recruit almost exclusively from a few elite colleges."

 

1C Agenda 2-25-20: Elizabeth Anderson Argues for Secular Morality

Essay #1 (1,000 words)

You need minimum 2 sources for your MLA Works Cited page.

Choice A

Read Tad Friend’s New Yorker online article “Can a Burger Help Solve Climate Change?” and look at two opposing camps on the role of alternative protein sources as a viable replacement for meat. One camp says we face too many obstacles to accept non-animal alternative proteins: evolution, taste, and  cost, to name several. An opposing camp says we have the technology and the proven product in Impossible Foods and other non-meat proteins to replace animal protein. Assessing these two opposing camps in the context of Tad Friend’s essay, develop an argumentative thesis addresses the question: How viable is the push for tech companies to help climate change by replacing animals with alternative proteins?

Choice B

Read Elizabeth Anderson’s “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?” and defend, refute, or complicate the author’s claim that non-religious societies offer a superior moral framework for human evolution than religious societies.  

Choice C

In the context of the Netflix documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, develop an argument about how Yuval Noah Harari's explanation of the Cognitive Revolution exposes human vulnerability to mass manipulation, deceit, and Groupthink.

Choice D

Support, refute, or complicate Harari’s assertion that the “agricultural revolution was the greatest crime against humanity.”  

February 18 Introduction; Homework #1 is to read Tad Friend’s New Yorker online article “Can a Burger Help Solve Climate Change?” and in 200 words explain the difficulties of replacing animals with alternative proteins. 

February 20 Alternative protein debate; Homework #2 is to read Elizabeth Anderson’s “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?” and explain in 200 words how she supports her claim that non-religious societies are morally superior to religious societies. 

February 25 Cover morality debate; Homework #3 is to read Sapiens up to page 60 and in 200 words explain how “limited liability companies” and “imagined realities” are part of the Cognitive Revolution.

February 27 Cover Cognitive Revolution in the context of the documentary Fyre. Homework #4 for next class: Read Sapiens, up to page 132 and in 200 words explain how Harari makes the claim that the Agricultural Revolution is history’s “biggest fraud.”

March 3 Cover the Agricultural Revolution. Homework #5:  Read Sapiens to page 159 and in 200 words explain how “imagined orders and hierarchies” resulted in “unfair discrimination.”

March 5 Logical Fallacies and Signal Phrase review; Go over Sapiens to page 159. 

March 10 Chromebook In-Class Objective: Write first half of the essay.

March 12 Chromebook In-Class Objective: Write second half of the essay. 

March 17 Essay 1 Due on turnitin

An expanded study, from an earlier post, of Elizabeth Anderson’s “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?”

One. What is a binary view of the universe?

Morality (moral code of right and wrong) Vs. Nihilism (idea that life has no meaning, there is no such thing as right or wrong, vice or virtue; all one can do is live a life of pleasure and then die). 

Two. What is Anderson's main critique?

Common Proposition of Religion: Without faith, morality is impossible

Anderson presents a critique to the proposition that without the notion of God people will turn to a life of immorality an nihilism.

For it is argued by many that without a belief in God, the world won't have a healthy fear of divine punishment and embrace an "anything goes" approach to life.

Three. Is the fear of God an antidote to violence and chaos?

Some argue that even if religion isn't true, we need it to put the fear of God in the hearts of the barbarian horde and keep evil and chaos at bay. 

Thomas Hobbes is famous for making that claim that without fear of God and retribution from the state the masses would be reduced to barbarian hordes sending society into a state of lawless anarchy. 

Four. What major question does Anderson present?

Do we need religion to have morality?

Many religious people make a similar claim: We need God to give us a moral foundation, and that without this foundation, we will dissolve into chaos, anarchy, and anything goes. God is the author of morality, according to this logic. In the absence of God, we have no morality.

Empirical Evidence May Contradict Above

Over the last three decades, I have gotten to know families, through my students, who are not explicitly religious; however, these families have strong moral values: love, loyalty, commitment, sacrifice, etc. 

It appears that family bonds generate their own kind of morality. 

Different Types of Religious People

I have seen religious people who are good and religious people who are evil. Therefore, I have doubts that religion based on a belief on God, has a monopoly on morality. 

Five. What is the common Christian argument?

Elizabeth Anderson Begins with the "Common Christian Argument":

Philosophy professor Elizabeth Anderson begins her essay “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?”with a common Christian argument that the “evil tree” of evolution, atheism and secularism grows evil branches: “abortion, suicide, homosexuality, the drug culture, hard rock, alcohol,” to give a partial list.

Anderson explains that religion objects to evolution on moral grounds and that “the basic cause of this immorality is atheism.”

Six. How do we know difference between right and wrong without a religious text?

Theists would have us believe that in the absence of religion the world would succumb to chaos and moral dissolution.

Christian apologist William Lane Craig argues that without God-ordained morality we cannot know the difference between right and wrong. Everything would be permitted. We would plummet into nihilism and decay.

Anderson shows insight in making the claim that theists have a gut hostility toward atheism, not because of solid evidence for a belief in God, but because of a conviction that “without God, morality is impossible.”

Seven. What is Anderson's claim?

Anderson's Claim or Thesis

She then presents her thesis, which is that not only do we not need religion to flourish morally as a society but also that religion is too often an impediment to moral development.

Eight. Does belief in hell help steer us toward moral behavior?

Anderson's thesis contradicts the Jesus of the Four Gospels who believed we had to love God with all our heart.

Also, he encouraged us to fear eternal hell to develop our morality. Whenever we are tempted to commit an immoral act or sin, we should contemplate our rotting in hell.

Many of us have been raised to believe that following Jesus’ words are the only way to the Moral Path. Some would argue that a belief in a literal hell is for taming wild children, that as adults mature they see that immorality is its own punishment (just as virtue is its own reward). Perhaps some people are more mature than others. Some people need the fear of hell while others can mature beyond such a stick to repel them from immorality.

Fear of the stick (hell, for example) to be good is not the sign of a mature adult.

Enticed by the carrot (heaven, for example) to be good is not the sign of a mature adult.

Fear of punishment and enticement through reward is inferior morality, according to Anderson.

Anderson dismisses the idea that religion provides motivation for morality. The idea that people should be enticed with heavenly rewards or threatened with hell is in fact off-putting: “On this view, people must be goaded into behaving morally through divine sanction. But this can’t be right, either. People have many motives, such as love, a sense of honor, and respect for others, that motivate moral behavior.” In fact, she points out, Pagan societies are just as morally robust as religious ones.

Nine. If morality doesn't come from religion, then where does it come from?

Anderson sees morality as not a byproduct of religion but as a natural occurrence in any healthy society. Morality evolves to make societies more stable and cooperative.

As Anderson explains, morality does not belong to religion; rather is a natural occurrence in any healthy secular or religious society.

She writes, “Every society, whether or not it was founded on theism, has acknowledged the basic principles of morality, excluding religious observance, which are laid down in the Ten Commandments. Every stable society punishes murder, theft, and bearing false witness; teaches children to honor their parents; and condemns envy of one’s neighbor’s possessions, at least when such envy leads one to treat one’s neighbors badly.”

Secular societies banned immoral behavior long before religion, according to Anderson.

People have been aware of these moral codes, Anderson observes, “long before they were exposed to any of the major monotheistic religions. This fact suggest that moral knowledge springs not from revelation but from people’s experiences in living together, in which they have learned that they must adjust their own conduct in light of others’ claims.” 

Is this true?

However, one could argue that pagan societies were not as morally robust as religious ones. For example, Elaine Pagels, who is not a religious fundamentalist, points out in her book Adam, Even and the Serpent, that in ancient societies, pagans threw unwanted babies away on the curb to be taken away in the garbage dumps while Christians did not engage in this abhorrent act. 

We should remember that Elaine Pagels is no friend of religious fundamentalism, the kind that preaches heaven and hell in the traditional sense.

Ten. How does Anderson rate the morality that we get from the Bible?

Anderson claims that the Bible most often actually degrades morality.

The great turn in the essay is where Anderson explains the moralistic argument: If something leads to moral rot, we should reject it. Not only does Anderson argue that atheism does not lead to moral rot, she argues, in a big twist, that it is theism, especially organized religion from the Old and New Testaments, that creates moral abominations and catastrophes.

The God of the Bible is so full of whimsy, caprice, cruelty, tyranny and other abominations that this God can make anything appear to be good, including lots of things that are very, very bad.

Anderson writes that, “God could make any action right simply by willing it or by ordering others to do it. This establishes that, if the authority of morality depends on God’s will, then, in principle, anything is permitted.”

Crimes of the Old and New Testament

Anderson anticipates that theists would defend their God by saying that “God would never do anything morally reprehensible Himself, nor command us to perform heinous acts.” But Anderson will have none of us. She will devote the next portion of her essay—a rather large chunk—to detailing many heinous acts done in the name of God. She plumbs the Old Testament for all kinds of war, murder, genocides, plagues, curses, famines, infanticide, slavery, adultery-spurred stonings, and finishes one litany-laden paragraph with “This is but a sample of the evils celebrated in the Bible.”

Anderson is equally repulsed, morally, by the New Testament. She disdains Jesus’ “family values” and the doctrine of eternal damnation. Anderson is equally offended by Jesus dying for our sins and becoming the “scapegoat for humanity.” She argues that “scapegoating contradicts the whole moral principle of personal responsibility.” She is also offended that God needs to kill his son to forgive humanity. He should be able to forgive humanity “straightaway.”

Slavery in the Bible

The Old and New Testaments, human chronicles confined to their age, treat slavery as if it were normal and morally acceptable. If they were truly divine, some say, they would give us an unequivocal condemnation of slavery so that immoral people could not use the Bible to justify slavery. 

Anderson sees cruelty in the Bible.

Her verdict of the Bible is that it is a disgrace and an abomination. She writes, “I find it hard to resist the conclusion that the God of the Bible is cruel and unjust and commands and permits us to be cruel and unjust to others.” Here are religious doctrines that on their face claim that it is all right to mercilessly punish people for the wrongs of others and for blameless error, that license or even command murder, plunder, rape, torture, slavery, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. So we should reject the doctrines that represent them as right.”

Anderson then looks at way theists could be decent by glossing over reprehensible Bible passages and leaving fundamentalism to become liberal theists, because she concludes, “that there is no way to cabin off or soft-pedal the reprehensible moral implications of these biblical passages. They must be categorically rejected as false and depraved moral teachings.” Liberal theists can reject these teachings; fundamentalists cannot.

Anderson later observes that the Bible contains good and bad passages and that the picking and the choosing depends on our moral character: “the Bible is more like a Rorschach test: which passages people choose to emphasize reflects as much as it shapes their moral character and interests.” Our beliefs, Anderson observes, are often the result of “cognitive bias” and self-interest.

Anderson is further repulsed by the biblical God’s “raw power,” which people tend to worship in fear rather than rational understanding and love. Quoting Thomas Hobbes, Anderson explains that people, including the biblical scribes, often worship “raw power” for its own sake regardless of moral considerations.

Review of Elizabeth Anderson's objections to Old and New Testament:

 

1. God orders genocide.
2. God condones slavery.
3. God encourages homophobia.
4. God encourages sexism. 
5. God commands stoning.
6. Religion inspires Inquisition (burning heretics at the stake).
7. Religion inspires Calvinism, predestination, a God who pleasures in sending majority of human race to eternal torture.
8. Christianity can be part of a sacrifice cult in which God must kill his son to appease his need to punish people. 
9. You’ve got the hell as a vindictive situation and Aquinas describing the pleasures of heaven as being enhanced by witnessing the torments of the unsaved. 

Eleven. How does Anderson evaluate the fact that several religions make competing claims about having the single truth?

Different religions claim to have the "one truth":

Anderson gives a personal account of an annual summer fair she attends. Many different religious people give out information in their booths. They all claim to be right while disparaging others’ beliefs. For Anderson, the major religions are no better than mountebanks L. Ron Hubbard, Joseph Smith, the Rev. Moon, Mary Baker Eddy, and others. The major religions are no more legit than “Zeus, Baal, Thor, and other long-abandoned gods, who are now considered ridiculous by nearly everyone.”

Anderson takes offense to the non credible evidence used to defend religion: “revelations, miracles, religious experiences, and prophecies, nearly all known only by testimony transmitted through uncertain chains of long-lost original sources.”

These flimsy bits of evidence, Anderson writes, “systematically generate contradictory beliefs, many of which are known to be morally abhorrent or otherwise false.”

Twelve. So if not religion, then where does moral authority come from?

So if we have no faith in God, Anderson asks, where does moral authority come from? Having definitively rejected theism, Anderson writes that we humans, not God, are responsible for moral authority. Our authority is not absolute. Rather morality is part of “reciprocal claim making, in which we work out together the kinds of considerations that count as reasons that all of us must heed, and thereby devise rules for living together peacefully and cooperatively, on a basis of mutual accountability.”

 

Choice B

Read Elizabeth Anderson’s “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?” and defend, refute, or complicate the author’s claim that non-religious societies offer a superior moral framework for human evolution than religious societies.  

Sample Outline

Paragraph 1, your introduction, write a profile of someone you know who demonstrates strong morals and put this person in a religious or non-religious framework.

Paragraph 2, transition from your profile to your claim or thesis in which your defend or refute Elizabeth Anderson's claim that religion is not only not necessary for morality but actually an impediment to morality.

Paragraphs 3-6: your supporting paragraphs

Paragraph 7: your counterargument-rebuttal. 

Paragraph 8, your conclusion, a powerful restatement of your thesis. 

Sample Thesis Statements

Supporting Elizabeth Anderson

Philosophy professor Elizabeth Anderson makes a persuasive case that flourishing secular societies develop superior morality to religious ones because secular societies rely on universal or common law to implement justice, not prejudicial religious law, which may or may not exact justice (for example, most religious texts encourage slavery, sexism, and homophobia), because religions have so much toxic baggage contained in their doctrine the only way their believers can market their faith as savory is by cherry-picking passages, emphasizing the good lines and "back-pedaling" the bad ones; and finally, secular societies are better positioned to encourage virtue for its own sake rather than push heaven and hell incentives, which are primitive and childish methods for encouraging moral behavior. 

Refuting Elizabeth Anderson

Philosophy professor Elizabeth Anderson's attempt to make the claim that secular societies provide superior morality to religious ones collapses under her misguided view of religion in which she distorts the essence of religious belief; her failure to see that secular societies only provide the most superficial morality for a semblance of order while failing to address the wickedness and urgent need for salvation in the hearts of humanity; her failure to see that adhering to secular society norms is no morality at all but rather conformity to civilizations that emphasize worldliness, not spiritual sacrifice, as the human ideal; and her failure to see that religious values are far more universal than secular ones, which often clash depending on which part of the world they arise. 

Mini Essay That Refutes Both Atheist Elizabeth Anderson and Religious Arguments for Morality

Atheists like Elizabeth Anderson and religious people like William Lane Craig who claim to have the answer to morality are both wrong. 

In fact, morality is such a rare thing and is practiced with such impotence and futility in the face of immorality that for all intents and purposes morality does not exist at all. 

Non-religious evangelist Elizabeth Anderson claims that secular societies create morality through “reciprocal claim making,” but this is no morality at all; it is rather a sort of moral minimalism in which people test the boundaries of doing what they can get away with as long as people don’t make claims against them. This is not morality or even decency. This is conforming to society’s laws only when one feels that to fail to do so will have unpleasant consequences. 

Religious people, too, are wrong about morality, claiming that religion is the only source of goodness and morality. On the contrary, religion usually doesn’t make people moral. People are either good or bad, and then they use religion to exacerbate whatever preconditions roil inside them. A good person will use religion to exercise the goodness that is already there. But a jackass before finding religion is usually still a jackass after his religious conversion. Both strident atheists and religious zealots can be bullies and jerks. 

Finally, people who claim to be religious only do so at the service of convenience. If their faith is tested so that they must carry their Cross to use courage, self-denial, and sacrifice to live their faith, they usually fail to do so. The atheist vegan and the religious crusader who are both fully committed to their cause are rare breeds and owe their commitment, not to their atheist or religious ideology, but to their innate psychological hard-wiring. 

To recap, most people are indecent, most people are unchanging since birth regardless of their ideology, most people put convenience over their ideals, and most people only behave as morally as they are forced to do so, engaging in a sort of moral minimalism, which is so pathetic as to not be deserved to be called morality at all. 

Therefore, I am neither swayed by atheist Elizabeth Anderson or Christian William Lane Craig. Both are blinded by their respective ideologies and eager to push their beliefs while conveniently ignoring the moral depravity I’ve accurately and cogently described. Nor have Anderson or Craig  refuted any of my trenchant points in the slightest. Their arguments are so flimsy, trivial, and misguided that I found this entire exercise of rebuking them rather boring, and I am now prepared to take a long nap.  God, I can't wait till I graduate college, when I'll no longer have to submit to this insufferable torture and bull-crap. 

One. What is a binary view of the universe?

Morality (moral code of right and wrong) Vs. Nihilism (idea that life has no meaning, there is no such thing as right or wrong, vice or virtue; all one can do is live a life of pleasure and then die). 

Two. What is Anderson's main critique?

Common Proposition of Religion: Without faith, morality is impossible

Anderson presents a critique to the proposition that without the notion of God people will turn to a life of immorality an nihilism.

For it is argued by many that without a belief in God, the world won't have a healthy fear of divine punishment and embrace an "anything goes" approach to life.

Three. Is the fear of God an antidote to violence and chaos?

Some argue that even if religion isn't true, we need it to put the fear of God in the hearts of the barbarian horde and keep evil and chaos at bay. 

Thomas Hobbes is famous for making that claim that without fear of God and retribution from the state the masses would be reduced to barbarian hordes sending society into a state of lawless anarchy. 

Four. What major question does Anderson present?

Do we need religion to have morality?

Many religious people make a similar claim: We need God to give us a moral foundation, and that without this foundation, we will dissolve into chaos, anarchy, and anything goes. God is the author of morality, according to this logic. In the absence of God, we have no morality.

Empirical Evidence May Contradict Above

Over the last three decades, I have gotten to know families, through my students, who are not explicitly religious; however, these families have strong moral values: love, loyalty, commitment, sacrifice, etc. 

It appears that family bonds generate their own kind of morality. 

Different Types of Religious People

I have seen religious people who are good and religious people who are evil. Therefore, I have doubts that religion based on a belief on God, has a monopoly on morality. 

Five. What is the common Christian argument?

Elizabeth Anderson Begins with the "Common Christian Argument":

Philosophy professor Elizabeth Anderson begins her essay “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?”with a common Christian argument that the “evil tree” of evolution, atheism and secularism grows evil branches: “abortion, suicide, homosexuality, the drug culture, hard rock, alcohol,” to give a partial list.

Anderson explains that religion objects to evolution on moral grounds and that “the basic cause of this immorality is atheism.”

Six. How do we know difference between right and wrong without a religious text?

Theists would have us believe that in the absence of religion the world would succumb to chaos and moral dissolution.

Christian apologist William Lane Craig argues that without God-ordained morality we cannot know the difference between right and wrong. Everything would be permitted. We would plummet into nihilism and decay.

Anderson shows insight in making the claim that theists have a gut hostility toward atheism, not because of solid evidence for a belief in God, but because of a conviction that “without God, morality is impossible.”

Seven. What is Anderson's claim?

Anderson's Claim or Thesis

She then presents her thesis, which is that not only do we not need religion to flourish morally as a society but also that religion is too often an impediment to moral development.

Eight. Does belief in hell help steer us toward moral behavior?

Anderson's thesis contradicts the Jesus of the Four Gospels who believed we had to love God with all our heart.

Also, he encouraged us to fear eternal hell to develop our morality. Whenever we are tempted to commit an immoral act or sin, we should contemplate our rotting in hell.

Many of us have been raised to believe that following Jesus’ words are the only way to the Moral Path. Some would argue that a belief in a literal hell is for taming wild children, that as adults mature they see that immorality is its own punishment (just as virtue is its own reward). Perhaps some people are more mature than others. Some people need the fear of hell while others can mature beyond such a stick to repel them from immorality.

Fear of the stick (hell, for example) to be good is not the sign of a mature adult.

Enticed by the carrot (heaven, for example) to be good is not the sign of a mature adult.

Fear of punishment and enticement through reward is inferior morality, according to Anderson.

Anderson dismisses the idea that religion provides motivation for morality. The idea that people should be enticed with heavenly rewards or threatened with hell is in fact off-putting: “On this view, people must be goaded into behaving morally through divine sanction. But this can’t be right, either. People have many motives, such as love, a sense of honor, and respect for others, that motivate moral behavior.” In fact, she points out, Pagan societies are just as morally robust as religious ones.

Nine. If morality doesn't come from religion, then where does it come from?

Anderson sees morality as not a byproduct of religion but as a natural occurrence in any healthy society. Morality evolves to make societies more stable and cooperative.

As Anderson explains, morality does not belong to religion; rather is a natural occurrence in any healthy secular or religious society.

She writes, “Every society, whether or not it was founded on theism, has acknowledged the basic principles of morality, excluding religious observance, which are laid down in the Ten Commandments. Every stable society punishes murder, theft, and bearing false witness; teaches children to honor their parents; and condemns envy of one’s neighbor’s possessions, at least when such envy leads one to treat one’s neighbors badly.”

Secular societies banned immoral behavior long before religion, according to Anderson.

People have been aware of these moral codes, Anderson observes, “long before they were exposed to any of the major monotheistic religions. This fact suggest that moral knowledge springs not from revelation but from people’s experiences in living together, in which they have learned that they must adjust their own conduct in light of others’ claims.” 

Is this true?

However, one could argue that pagan societies were not as morally robust as religious ones. For example, Elaine Pagels, who is not a religious fundamentalist, points out in her book Adam, Even and the Serpent, that in ancient societies, pagans threw unwanted babies away on the curb to be taken away in the garbage dumps while Christians did not engage in this abhorrent act. 

We should remember that Elaine Pagels is no friend of religious fundamentalism, the kind that preaches heaven and hell in the traditional sense.

Ten. How does Anderson rate the morality that we get from the Bible?

Anderson claims that the Bible most often actually degrades morality.

The great turn in the essay is where Anderson explains the moralistic argument: If something leads to moral rot, we should reject it. Not only does Anderson argue that atheism does not lead to moral rot, she argues, in a big twist, that it is theism, especially organized religion from the Old and New Testaments, that creates moral abominations and catastrophes.

The God of the Bible is so full of whimsy, caprice, cruelty, tyranny and other abominations that this God can make anything appear to be good, including lots of things that are very, very bad.

Anderson writes that, “God could make any action right simply by willing it or by ordering others to do it. This establishes that, if the authority of morality depends on God’s will, then, in principle, anything is permitted.”

Crimes of the Old and New Testament

Anderson anticipates that theists would defend their God by saying that “God would never do anything morally reprehensible Himself, nor command us to perform heinous acts.” But Anderson will have none of us. She will devote the next portion of her essay—a rather large chunk—to detailing many heinous acts done in the name of God. She plumbs the Old Testament for all kinds of war, murder, genocides, plagues, curses, famines, infanticide, slavery, adultery-spurred stonings, and finishes one litany-laden paragraph with “This is but a sample of the evils celebrated in the Bible.”

Anderson is equally repulsed, morally, by the New Testament. She disdains Jesus’ “family values” and the doctrine of eternal damnation. Anderson is equally offended by Jesus dying for our sins and becoming the “scapegoat for humanity.” She argues that “scapegoating contradicts the whole moral principle of personal responsibility.” She is also offended that God needs to kill his son to forgive humanity. He should be able to forgive humanity “straightaway.”

Slavery in the Bible

The Old and New Testaments, human chronicles confined to their age, treat slavery as if it were normal and morally acceptable. If they were truly divine, some say, they would give us an unequivocal condemnation of slavery so that immoral people could not use the Bible to justify slavery. 

Anderson sees cruelty in the Bible.

Her verdict of the Bible is that it is a disgrace and an abomination. She writes, “I find it hard to resist the conclusion that the God of the Bible is cruel and unjust and commands and permits us to be cruel and unjust to others.” Here are religious doctrines that on their face claim that it is all right to mercilessly punish people for the wrongs of others and for blameless error, that license or even command murder, plunder, rape, torture, slavery, ethnic cleansing, and genocide. So we should reject the doctrines that represent them as right.”

Anderson then looks at way theists could be decent by glossing over reprehensible Bible passages and leaving fundamentalism to become liberal theists, because she concludes, “that there is no way to cabin off or soft-pedal the reprehensible moral implications of these biblical passages. They must be categorically rejected as false and depraved moral teachings.” Liberal theists can reject these teachings; fundamentalists cannot.

Anderson later observes that the Bible contains good and bad passages and that the picking and the choosing depends on our moral character: “the Bible is more like a Rorschach test: which passages people choose to emphasize reflects as much as it shapes their moral character and interests.” Our beliefs, Anderson observes, are often the result of “cognitive bias” and self-interest.

Anderson is further repulsed by the biblical God’s “raw power,” which people tend to worship in fear rather than rational understanding and love. Quoting Thomas Hobbes, Anderson explains that people, including the biblical scribes, often worship “raw power” for its own sake regardless of moral considerations.

Review of Elizabeth Anderson's objections to Old and New Testament:

 

1. God orders genocide.
2. God condones slavery.
3. God encourages homophobia.
4. God encourages sexism. 
5. God commands stoning.
6. Religion inspires Inquisition (burning heretics at the stake).
7. Religion inspires Calvinism, predestination, a God who pleasures in sending majority of human race to eternal torture.
8. Christianity can be part of a sacrifice cult in which God must kill his son to appease his need to punish people. 
9. You’ve got the hell as a vindictive situation and Aquinas describing the pleasures of heaven as being enhanced by witnessing the torments of the unsaved. 

Eleven. How does Anderson evaluate the fact that several religions make competing claims about having the single truth?

Different religions claim to have the "one truth":

Anderson gives a personal account of an annual summer fair she attends. Many different religious people give out information in their booths. They all claim to be right while disparaging others’ beliefs. For Anderson, the major religions are no better than mountebanks L. Ron Hubbard, Joseph Smith, the Rev. Moon, Mary Baker Eddy, and others. The major religions are no more legit than “Zeus, Baal, Thor, and other long-abandoned gods, who are now considered ridiculous by nearly everyone.”

Anderson takes offense to the non credible evidence used to defend religion: “revelations, miracles, religious experiences, and prophecies, nearly all known only by testimony transmitted through uncertain chains of long-lost original sources.”

These flimsy bits of evidence, Anderson writes, “systematically generate contradictory beliefs, many of which are known to be morally abhorrent or otherwise false.”

Twelve. So if not religion, then where does moral authority come from?

So if we have no faith in God, Anderson asks, where does moral authority come from? Having definitively rejected theism, Anderson writes that we humans, not God, are responsible for moral authority. Our authority is not absolute. Rather morality is part of “reciprocal claim making, in which we work out together the kinds of considerations that count as reasons that all of us must heed, and thereby devise rules for living together peacefully and cooperatively, on a basis of mutual accountability.”

 

Choice B

Read Elizabeth Anderson’s “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?” and defend, refute, or complicate the author’s claim that non-religious societies offer a superior moral framework for human evolution than religious societies.  

Sample Outline

Paragraph 1, your introduction, write a profile of someone you know who demonstrates strong morals and put this person in a religious or non-religious framework.

Paragraph 2, transition from your profile to your claim or thesis in which your defend or refute Elizabeth Anderson's claim that religion is not only not necessary for morality but actually an impediment to morality.

Paragraphs 3-6: your supporting paragraphs

Paragraph 7: your counterargument-rebuttal. 

Paragraph 8, your conclusion, a powerful restatement of your thesis. 

Sample Thesis Statements

Supporting Elizabeth Anderson

Philosophy professor Elizabeth Anderson makes a persuasive case that flourishing secular societies develop superior morality to religious ones because secular societies rely on universal or common law to implement justice, not prejudicial religious law, which may or may not exact justice (for example, most religious texts encourage slavery, sexism, and homophobia), because religions have so much toxic baggage contained in their doctrine the only way their believers can market their faith as savory is by cherry-picking passages, emphasizing the good lines and "back-pedaling" the bad ones; and finally, secular societies are better positioned to encourage virtue for its own sake rather than push heaven and hell incentives, which are primitive and childish methods for encouraging moral behavior. 

Refuting Elizabeth Anderson

Philosophy professor Elizabeth Anderson's attempt to make the claim that secular societies provide superior morality to religious ones collapses under her misguided view of religion in which she distorts the essence of religious belief; her failure to see that secular societies only provide the most superficial morality for a semblance of order while failing to address the wickedness and urgent need for salvation in the hearts of humanity; her failure to see that adhering to secular society norms is no morality at all but rather conformity to civilizations that emphasize worldliness, not spiritual sacrifice, as the human ideal; and her failure to see that religious values are far more universal than secular ones, which often clash depending on which part of the world they arise. 

Mini Essay That Refutes Both Atheist Elizabeth Anderson and Religious Arguments for Morality

Atheists like Elizabeth Anderson and religious people like William Lane Craig who claim to have the answer to morality are both wrong. 

In fact, morality is such a rare thing and is practiced with such impotence and futility in the face of immorality that for all intents and purposes morality does not exist at all. 

Non-religious evangelist Elizabeth Anderson claims that secular societies create morality through “reciprocal claim making,” but this is no morality at all; it is rather a sort of moral minimalism in which people test the boundaries of doing what they can get away with as long as people don’t make claims against them. This is not morality or even decency. This is conforming to society’s laws only when one feels that to fail to do so will have unpleasant consequences. 

Religious people, too, are wrong about morality, claiming that religion is the only source of goodness and morality. On the contrary, religion usually doesn’t make people moral. People are either good or bad, and then they use religion to exacerbate whatever preconditions roil inside them. A good person will use religion to exercise the goodness that is already there. But a jackass before finding religion is usually still a jackass after his religious conversion. Both strident atheists and religious zealots can be bullies and jerks. 

Finally, people who claim to be religious only do so at the service of convenience. If their faith is tested so that they must carry their Cross to use courage, self-denial, and sacrifice to live their faith, they usually fail to do so. The atheist vegan and the religious crusader who are both fully committed to their cause are rare breeds and owe their commitment, not to their atheist or religious ideology, but to their innate psychological hard-wiring. 

To recap, most people are indecent, most people are unchanging since birth regardless of their ideology, most people put convenience over their ideals, and most people only behave as morally as they are forced to do so, engaging in a sort of moral minimalism, which is so pathetic as to not be deserved to be called morality at all. 

Therefore, I am neither swayed by atheist Elizabeth Anderson or Christian William Lane Craig. Both are blinded by their respective ideologies and eager to push their beliefs while conveniently ignoring the moral depravity I’ve accurately and cogently described. Nor have Anderson or Craig  refuted any of my trenchant points in the slightest. Their arguments are so flimsy, trivial, and misguided that I found this entire exercise of rebuking them rather boring, and I am now prepared to take a long nap.  God, I can't wait till I graduate college, when I'll no longer have to submit to this insufferable torture and bull-crap. 

1C Agenda 2-20-20: How Viable Is the Impossible Burger? Netflix Explained Season 2: "The Future of Meat"

Essay #1 (1,000 words)

You need minimum 2 sources for your MLA Works Cited page.

Choice A

Read Tad Friend’s New Yorker online article “Can a Burger Help Solve Climate Change?” and look at two opposing camps on the role of alternative protein sources as a viable replacement for meat. One camp says we face too many obstacles to accept non-animal alternative proteins: evolution, taste, and  cost, to name several. An opposing camp says we have the technology and the proven product in Impossible Foods and other non-meat proteins to replace animal protein. Assessing these two opposing camps in the context of Tad Friend’s essay, develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the question: How viable is the push for tech companies to help climate change by replacing animals with alternative proteins?

Choice B

Read Elizabeth Anderson’s “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?” and defend, refute, or complicate the author’s claim that non-religious societies offer a superior moral framework for human evolution than religious societies.  

Choice C

In the context of the Netflix documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, develop an argument about how Yuval Noah Harari's explanation of the Cognitive Revolution exposes human vulnerability to mass manipulation, deceit, and Groupthink.

Choice D

Support, refute, or complicate Harari’s assertion that the “agricultural revolution was the greatest crime against humanity.”  

February 18 Introduction; Homework #1 is to read Tad Friend’s New Yorker online article “Can a Burger Help Solve Climate Change?” and in 200 words explain the difficulties of replacing animals with alternative proteins. 

February 20 Alternative protein debate; Homework #2 is to read Elizabeth Anderson’s “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?” and explain in 200 words how she supports her claim that non-religious societies are morally superior to religious societies. 

February 24 Cover morality debate; Homework #3 is to read Sapiens up to page 60 and in 200 words explain how “limited liability companies” and “imagined realities” are part of the Cognitive Revolution.

February 26 Cover Cognitive Revolution in the context of the documentary Fyre. Homework #4 for next class: Read Sapiens, up to page 132 and in 200 words explain how Harari makes the claim that the Agricultural Revolution is history’s “biggest fraud.”

March 3 Cover the Agricultural Revolution. Homework #5:  Read Sapiens to page 159 and in 200 words explain how “imagined orders and hierarchies” resulted in “unfair discrimination.”

March 5 Logical Fallacies and Signal Phrase review; Go over Sapiens to page 159. 

March 10 Chromebook In-Class Objective: Write first half of the essay.

March 12 Chromebook In-Class Objective: Write second half of the essay. 

March 17 Essay 1 Due on turnitin

 

 

Study of “Can a Burger Help Solve Climate Change?” by Tad Friend

Study Questions

One. What compelling reason is there for the food industry to create an alternative to animal protein?

We read that raising cattle depletes water and creates greenhouse gas:

Meat is essentially a huge check written against the depleted funds of our environment. Agriculture consumes more freshwater than any other human activity, and nearly a third of that water is devoted to raising livestock. One-third of the world’s arable land is used to grow feed for livestock, which are responsible for 14.5 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions. Razing forests to graze cattle—an area larger than South America has been cleared in the past quarter century—turns a carbon sink into a carbon spigot.

When the world’s one and a half billion beef and dairy cows ruminate, the microbes in their bathtub-size stomachs generate methane as a by-product. Because methane is a powerful greenhouse gas, some twenty-five times more heat-trapping than carbon dioxide, cattle are responsible for two-thirds of the livestock sector’s G.H.G. emissions. 

Every four pounds of beef you eat contributes to as much global warming as flying from New York to London—and the average American eats that much each month.

Two. Why are fake burgers the focus as opposed to fake steak or fake prime rib?

Because 60% of beef is ground up for burgers. 

Three. Before Impossible Burger and Beyond Beef burgers, what has been the state of veggie burgers?

They have been a form of punishment for masochists, people who don’t care about their food but are vegan virtue-signalers eager for self-punishment on the road to being a social justice warrior. 

We read: “The existing plant-based armory was unpromising; veggie burgers went down like a dull sermon.”

Impossible Burger doesn’t target vegans. It targets meat eaters, so the Impossible Burger is designed to taste, bloody, fatty, salty, and decadent. Anything less is a failure. 

As a result of its target consumer, 95% of Impossible Burger customers are meat eaters. 

Four. What are some of the technical marvels of the Impossible Burger?

We read that it is more sustainable, is nutritionally superior to beef (higher in protein but also higher in sodium and vegetable oil), has the luxury taste and feel of beef thanks in part to molecule heme, but falls short a bit in the tactile department:

Brown assembled a team of scientists, who approached simulating a hamburger as if it were the Apollo program. They made their burger sustainable: the Impossible Burger requires eighty-seven per cent less water and ninety-six per cent less land than a cowburger, and its production generates eighty-nine per cent less G.H.G. emissions. They made it nutritionally equal to or superior to beef. And they made it look, smell, and taste very different from the customary veggie replacement. Impossible’s breakthrough involves a molecule called heme, which the company produces in tanks of genetically modified yeast. Heme helps an Impossible Burger remain pink in the middle as it cooks, and it replicates how heme in cow muscle catalyzes the conversion of simple nutrients into the molecules that give beef its yeasty, bloody, savory flavor. To my palate, at least, the Impossible Burger still lacks a beef burger’s amplitude, that crisp initial crunch followed by shreds of beef falling apart on your tongue. But, in taste tests, half the respondents can’t distinguish Impossible’s patty from a Safeway burger.

Five. Do meat producers feel threatened by Impossible Burger?

No, they have too deep of an infrastructure, provide too many jobs and have so much diversity of business, including leather and pharm. Currently, alternative burgers are only 0.1% of the burger market. 

We read:

Meat producers don’t seem too worried that Brown will rid the earth of livestock by 2035. The three largest meatpacking companies in America have combined annual revenues of more than two hundred billion dollars. Mark Dopp, a senior executive at the North American Meat Institute, a lobbying group, told me, “I just don’t think it’s possible to wipe out animal agriculture in sixteen years. The tentacles that flow from the meat industry—the leather and the pharmaceuticals made from its by-products, the millions of jobs in America, the infrastructure—I don’t see that being displaced over even fifty years.”

Six. In addition to harm to the environment, what health risks are associated with beef eating?

Cancer and cardiovascular disease are two problems. We read:

In the past decade, venture capitalists have begun funding companies that view animal meat not as inflammatory, or as emblematic of the Man, but as a problematic technology. For one thing, it’s dangerous. Eating meat increases your risk of cardiovascular disease and colorectal cancer; a recent Finnish study found that, across a twenty-two-year span, devoted meat-eaters were twenty-three per cent more likely to die. Because antibiotics are routinely mixed into pig and cattle and poultry feed to protect and fatten the animals, animal ag promotes antibiotic resistance, which is projected to cause ten million deaths a year by 2050. And avian and swine flus, the most likely vectors of the next pandemic, pass easily to humans, including via the aerosolized feces widely present in slaughterhouses. Researchers at the University of Minnesota found fecal matter in sixty-nine per cent of pork and ninety-two per cent of poultry; Consumer Reports found it in a hundred per cent of ground beef.

Seven. What is difficult-to-attain Holy Grail in making an alternative burger?

Umami. What is this?

We read in Merriam-Webster:

A Japanese scientist was the first to discover the savory taste of the amino acid glutamic acid, which was found to occur in soup stocks made with seaweed. This fifth basic taste - alongside sweet, sour, salty, and bitter - was named umami, meaning "savoriness" in Japanese. Umami can be experienced in foods such as mushrooms, anchovies, and mature cheeses, as well as in foods enhanced with monosodium glutamate, or MSG, a sodium salt derived from glutamic acid.

We read:

It’s easy enough to replicate some animal products (egg whites are basically just nine proteins and water), but mimicking cooked ground beef is a real undertaking. Broadly speaking, a burger is sixty per cent water, twenty-five per cent protein, and fifteen per cent fat, but, broadly speaking, if you assembled forty-two litres of water you’d be sixty per cent of the way to a human being. Cooked beef contains at least four thousand different molecules, of which about a hundred contribute to its aroma and flavor and two dozen contribute to its appearance and texture. When you heat plant parts, they get softer, or they wilt. When you heat a burger, its amino acids react with simple sugars and unsaturated fats to form flavor compounds. The proteins also change shape to form protein gels and insoluble protein aggregates—chewy bits—as the patty browns and its juices caramelize. This transformation gives cooked meat its nuanced complexity: its yummy umami.

Eight. In addition to the difficulty to achieving mouth feel, nutritional standards, and the elusive umami quality, what other challenges do alternative burger companies face?

One could be biological evolution. We may be hard-wired to crave animal meat. Eating meat can be a way of machismo signalling for greater reproductive success. 

We read:

Maple Leaf Foods, a Canadian company, is building a three-hundred-million-dollar facility in Indiana to make alternative proteins. But its C.E.O., Michael McCain, told me, “The human body has been consuming animal protein for a hundred and fifty thousand years, and I honestly think that’s going to continue for a really long time.”

Climate change, which now drives our hunt for meat substitutes, originally drove hominids to turn to meat, about two and a half million years ago, by making our usual herbivorean foodstuffs scarce. Eating animals added so much nutrition to our diets that we no longer had to spend all our time foraging, and we developed smaller stomachs and larger brains. Some scientists believe that this transformation created a powerful instinctive craving. Hanna Tuomisto, a Finnish professor of agricultural science, recently wrote, “This evolutionary predilection explains why eating meat provides more satisfaction compared to plant-based food and why so many people find it difficult to adopt a vegetarian diet.”

An inborn meat hunger remains a hypothesis; meat is the object of many human urges, including the urge to construct all-encompassing theories. In the book “Meathooked,” Marta Zaraska writes, “We crave meat because it stands for wealth and for power over other humans and nature. We relish meat because history has taught us to think of vegetarians as weaklings, weirdos, and prudes.” The anthropologist Nick Fiddes goes further, declaring, in “Meat: A Natural Symbol,” that we value meat not in spite of the fact that it requires killing animals but because it does. It’s the killing that establishes us as kings of the jungle.

Ethan Brown, of Beyond Meat, suspects that nibbling plant patties doesn’t exude the same macho vibe. A bearded, gregarious, six-foot-five man who played basketball at Connecticut College, he has retained a squad of athlete “ambassadors” to help dispel that perception. When I visited Ethan at the company’s offices, in El Segundo, California, he pointed me to a 2009 study of Ivory Coast chimpanzees which suggested that males who shared meat with females doubled their mating success. “Men usually give women the meat first, at dinner, before the sex—you want to be a protein provider,” he said. “Do you think if you take a woman out and buy her a salad you get the same reaction?”

It’s worth noting that the Neanderthals, who subsisted almost entirely on meat, were outcompeted by our omnivorous ancestors. In any case, Ethan told me, meat no longer serves its original purpose, and “we can use the expanded brain that meat gave us to get us off of it.”

Eight. For Beyond Meat, what are the 4 arguments for replacing beef burgers?

We read:

Ethan said that he launched Beyond Meat to mitigate meat’s effects on “human health, climate change, natural resources, and animal welfare—we call them ‘the four horsemen.’ ” One consequence of this compendious mission, with its attention to people’s health—and to their concerns about health, warranted or not—is that Beyond, unlike Impossible, uses only ingredients taken more or less directly from nature.

Nine. What is a good summary of the challenges in making an alternative burger?

Soy is associated with dangerous hormone disruption.

Pea protein tastes like cat urine.

Wheat protein has an awful texture that can create a gag reflex.

Vegetable burgers have more sodium and oil than beef burgers. 

Evolutionary hard-wiring may make people crave beef. 

The cost of a “tech burger” for producer and consumer remains high.

Ten. What is a good summary of why we need to stop eating beef?

We are ruining our climate at a rate that is equivalent to mass suicide.

We can’t feed meat to the world population by 2050.

We need to stop animal cruelty.

Beef creates heart and rectal disease.

Choice A

Read Tad Friend’s New Yorker online article “Can a Burger Help Solve Climate Change?” and look at two opposing camps on the role of alternative protein sources as a viable replacement for meat. One camp says we face too many obstacles to accept non-animal alternative proteins: evolution, taste, and cost, to name several. An opposing camp says we have the technology and the proven product in Impossible Foods and other non-meat proteins to replace animal protein. Assessing these two opposing camps in the context of Tad Friend’s essay, develop an argumentative thesis addresses the question: How viable is the push for tech companies to help climate change by replacing animals with alternative proteins?

Sample Introduction and Thesis #1:

The viability problem with alternative burgers like Impossible Foods’ version is a matter of whole vs. processed foods. Is the Impossible Burger a whole food? Clearly, it is not. It is a highly processed food thing larded with oil and sodium, so that anyone like myself aspiring to good health is going to stay away from any kind of Frankenstein Patty. If we want to stop eating beef, then we need not replace our “old girlfriend” with her inferior twin. We need to start anew with no such baggage.  Therefore, while the Impossible Burger is a sort of bait and switch, offering a more environmentally-friendly version of a burger, it is not a viable alternative to beef because it is still junk food and should not be looked at as a desirable food for healthy eating. At best, it should be looked at like pizza, an occasional foray into a “cheat meal.”

Explanation of the Above Thesis

In the above example, the writer would focus on why “Frankenstein Patties” are not healthy for regular eating. 

But this may not be enough material for a 1,000-word essay, so let’s revise:

Sample Thesis #1 Revised:

Frankenstein Patties may be trendy and hyped in our social media environment, but they are not a viable replacement for beef burgers because they are not healthy alternatives, they are too costly, and they do not satisfy the human inborn craving for real meat. 

Sample Thesis #2

While I will concede that the oil and sodium used in vegan burgers are not ideal, feeding the world’s burger appetite with Impossible Burger and other alternatives is a good thing because we need to curtail the greenhouse emissions from cows, we desperately need to save water that is used in raising cows, we need to discourage animal cruelty, and we need to forge paths of feeding the world with sources that can accommodate our planet’s population explosion. 

Sample Thesis #3

Since animal cruelty and attacking our environment for the sake of beef burgers are both unacceptable, we have to find a powerful marketing campaign to make plant-based burgers a viable replacement for meat. We can and must do this by making plant-based burgers cool in terms of elevated social status, macho in terms of appealing to “the Joe Rogan bros,” and affordable so that the regular consumer can buy what are now overpriced vegan burgers. Looking at the effective vegan propaganda in the documentary The Game Changers, featuring professional fighter James Wilks, is an effective model for this marketing campaign.  

Sample Thesis #4

The claim that we should rely on “powerful marketing” to appeal to “Joe Rogan bros” is an absurdity that makes a mockery of a critical thinking class’ Three Pillars of Argumentation, logos, ethos, and pathos. It is illogical to promote a processed burger soggy with canola oil and sodium, thus a violation of logos. It is not credible to reference the slick albeit highly flawed propaganda piece The Game Changers, thus a violation of ethos. It is demoralizing to promote processed foods as a substitute for succulent beef burgers, thus a violation of pathos.

Sample Thesis #5

That we should encourage plant-based burgers using similar rhetorical strategies in The Game Changers is not at all a violation of The Three Pillars of Argumentation. To the contrary, making more powerful branding can indeed be performed while adhering to the topnotch pillars of ethos, logos, and pathos. It is logical to pave ways of alternative proteins to meat as animal products can no longer meet the demands of the world’s growing human population, thus logos. It is credible to find ways to provide plant-based burgers that offer more protein than their beef counterparts, thus ethos. It is inspiring and ethically sound to find plant-based proteins to spare the torture that is inflicted on cows and other animals, thus pathos. 

Sample Outline for Frankenstein Patty Essay Assignment

Paragraph 1, your introduction, explain in the context of Tad Friend’s essay why there is an intense race with millions of dollars being invested, in replacing meat burgers with vegan burgers. This race is for money, saving the environment, and relieving animals of cruelty. Elaborate on these issues. 

Paragraph 2, your thesis, stake a claim on the viability of plant-protein burgers. 

Paragraphs 3-5 are your supporting reasons for your claim or thesis.

Paragraph 6 is your counterargument-rebuttal in which you address your opponents’ objections to your argument.

Paragraph 7, your conclusion, is a powerful restatement of your thesis.

Your last page is your MLA Works Cited page with a minimum of 2 sources. 

1C Agenda 2-18-20: Introduction, Syllabus, Homework for 2-20; What is critical thinking? What's the difference between English 1A & English 1C?

Email: [email protected]

Office: H121P; extension 5673  

Office Hours:

Monday/Wednesday 4:15 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.    

Tuesday/Thursday      3:30 p.m. – 4:15 p.m.  

Turnitin Class ID & Enrollment Key:

Class ID: 23791862

Enrollment Key: strength   

Materials You Need for This Class:

One. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

Two. Ebook version of The Little Seagull Handbook, Third Edition, purchased on the Norton website: digital.wwnorton.com/littleseagull3

Three. Flat, Pocketed Folder for Your Homework Portfolio

Work You Must Do in This Class

One. You will write 4 typed, 1,000-word essays in MLA format. The fifth essay, your capstone essay, will need 2 to 3 sources for your Works Cited. These essays will be uploaded on turnitin. Late essays are accepted for a week after the deadline and are marked down a full grade.

Two. Instead of getting quizzed on the readings, you will write 200-word reading-response essays to the readings. You will keep these typed responses in a flat, pocketed folder, which I will grade twice, in the middle and at the end of the semester. Your portfolio is worth 150 points, 15% of your total grade.

Grading Based on 1,000 Points 

4 Typed Essays

2 Portfolios

One. First three 1,000-word essays are 200 points each (600 subtotal).

Two. Final Capstone Essay #4, also 1,000 words, with 3 sources is 250 points.

Three. Homework Portfolio includes all your 200-word reading responses: 75 points for parts 1 and 2 for 150 total.

Grading Point Scheme

Total Points: 1,000 (A is 900-1,000; B is 800-899; C is 700-799; D is 600-699)

Essay Assignments

Essay #1 (1,000 words)

You need minimum 2 sources for your MLA Works Cited page.

Choice A

Read Tad Friend’s New Yorker online article “Can a Burger Help Solve Climate Change?” and look at two opposing camps on the role of alternative protein sources as a viable replacement for meat. One camp says we face too many obstacles to accept non-animal alternative proteins: evolution, taste, and  cost, to name several. An opposing camp says we have the technology and the proven product in Impossible Foods and other non-meat proteins to replace animal protein. Assessing these two opposing camps in the context of Tad Friend’s essay, develop an argumentative thesis addresses the question: How viable is the push for tech companies to help climate change by replacing animals with alternative proteins?

Choice B

Read Elizabeth Anderson’s “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?” and defend, refute, or complicate the author’s claim that non-religious societies offer a superior moral framework for human evolution than religious societies.  

Choice C

In the context of the Netflix documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, develop an argument about how Yuval Noah Harari's explanation of the Cognitive Revolution exposes human vulnerability to mass manipulation, deceit, and Groupthink.

Choice D

Support, refute, or complicate Harari’s assertion that the “agricultural revolution was the greatest crime against humanity.”  

Essay #2 (1,000 words)

Minimum of 2 sources for your MLA Works Cited page.

Choice A

Watch Netflix documentary Ronnie Coleman: The King. Considered to be the greatest bodybuilder of all time, Coleman is now on crutches, faces a lifetime of excruciating pain, must take opioid pain medication, may have to be consigned to a wheelchair, and by most accounts the abuse he took to become a champion bodybuilder is the reason for his condition. The film celebrates Coleman’s life principle to persist in doing what he loves, but doing what he loves comes with a price: excruciating, life-altering injuries. Is doing what we love worth it? In this context, develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the notion that in order to achieve exceptional success, we are justified to make sacrifices of our body, minds, and souls. Is Coleman’s current condition justified by his success and his heroic drive to do what he loves? Answer this question and be sure to have a counterargument section. 

Choice B

Read LA Times editorial “Why not let homeless college students park in campus lots?” and develop and argumentative thesis that addresses the claim that community colleges are acting in students’ best interests by providing sleeping spaces in the parking lots. 

Choice C

Read Yoni Appelbaum’s essay “How America Ends” and develop an argumentative thesis about the role of massive demographic shifts on American democracy. 

Choice D

Read Derek Thompson’s essay “Workism Is Making Americans Miserable” and develop a thesis that supports or refutes Thompson’s claim that work has become a false religion that doesn’t deliver on its promises. 

Choice E

Read "Should the Government Give Everyone $1,000 a Month?" by Spencer Bokat-Lindell in The New York Times and develop a thesis that argues for or against UBI as a viable solution to the crisis of mass unemployment. 

 

Essay 3 (1,000 words)

Minimum of 2 sources for your MLA Works Cited page.

Choice A

Read New Yorker writer Joshua Yaffa’s essay “The Kremlin’s Creative Director: How the television producer Konstantin Ernst went from discerning auteur to Putin’s unofficial minister of propaganda” and develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the role of media in producing a new type of “postmodern propaganda” that shatters critical thinking. 

Choice B

Read the online essay "It's been hot before" and write an argumentative essay about the role of  logical fallacies in the dangerous denial of global warming and global drought. For another source, you can use Netflix Explained, "The World's Water Crisis."

Choice C

In the context of Jasmin Barmore’s essay “The Queen of Eating Shellfish Online,” develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the alleged benefits of mukbang, the glorification of binge-eating on a webcam. In your essay, address the lonely factor by reading Read Judith Shulevitz’s essay “Why You Never See Your Friends Anymore,” and use the essay to support or refute the contention that mukbang addresses the depression and anxiety of loneliness.  

Choice D

Read “The Coddling of the American Mind” and “Have Smartphones Ruined a Generation?” and develop an argument about the authors’ claim that a “coddling culture” is creating a generation of dysfunctional people. 

Essay 4 (1,000 words)

You need 3 sources for Works Cited

Option A

Read Allison Arieff’s “Cars Are Death Machines. Self-Driving Tech Won’t Change That” and support or refute her contention that self-driving cars are not the solution to traffic dangers. 

Choice B 

Read "It's Time to Confront the Threat of Right-Wing Terrorism" by John Cassidy in The New Yorker and "Does the banning of Alex Jones signal a new era of big tech responsibility?" by Julia Carrie Wong and Olivia Solon in The Guardian and agree or disagree with the claim that big tech companies are morally obliged to censor right-wing white nationalist trolls such as Alex Jones. For another source, you can also use “Free Speech Scholars to Alex Jones: You’re Not Protected” by Alan Feuer. 

Choice C

Read Alexandra Sifferlin's "The Weight Loss Trap" and Harriet Brown's "The Weight of the Evidence" and develop an argumentative thesis that addresses their claim that losing weight is a nearly futile quest. 

Choice D

Read Andrew Marant’s “Free Speech Is Killing Us” and support or refute his claim that free speech does not apply to private companies.

Choice E

Read Spencer Bokat-Lindell’s “Do We Need to Break Up Facebook?” and develop an argumentative thesis that addresses some people’s claim that Facebook has gotten too big and should be divided into smaller parts. 

Choice F

Read “What Women Know About the Internet” by Emily Chang and agree or disagree with the author’s contention that regulations are more important than free speech for protecting women. 

Choice G

Read the following: “Speaking Ill of Hugh Hefner,” “Why Hugh Hefner’s Haters Won’t Let Him Rest in Peace,” “Negative Obituaries Prove Hugh Hefner Was Right,” and 10-minute video Maher vs. Douthat. Then develop an argumentative thesis that addresses this question: Was Hefner a warrior for equal rights, free speech, and higher culture, or was he a selfish, salacious Peter Pan who denigrated women? Or a bit of both?

Choice H

Read Conor Friedersdorf’s “In Defense of Harvey Weinstein’s Harvard Lawyer” and agree or disagree with the contention that representing someone as monstrous and diabolical as Harvey Weinstein performs a civic good. 

Choice I

In the context of Peter Pomeranstsev’s online essay “Russia and the Menace of Unreality,” address the claim that the “mass hallucination” of misinformation is at war with the powers of democracy in the United States and abroad. Also see David Roberts address “tribal epistemology.” 

Reading Writing Schedule for English 1C Spring 2020 Syllabus

February 18 Introduction; Homework #1 is to read Tad Friend’s New Yorker online article “Can a Burger Help Solve Climate Change?” and in 200 words explain the difficulties of replacing animals with alternative proteins. 

February 20 Alternative protein debate; Homework #2 is to read Elizabeth Anderson’s “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?” and explain in 200 words how she supports her claim that non-religious societies are morally superior to religious societies. 

February 24 Cover morality debate; Homework #3 is to read Sapiens up to page 60 and in 200 words explain how “limited liability companies” and “imagined realities” are part of the Cognitive Revolution.

February 26 Cover Cognitive Revolution in the context of the documentary Fyre. Homework #4 for next class: Read Sapiens, up to page 132 and in 200 words explain how Harari makes the claim that the Agricultural Revolution is history’s “biggest fraud.”

March 3 Cover the Agricultural Revolution. Homework #5:  Read Sapiens to page 159 and in 200 words explain how “imagined orders and hierarchies” resulted in “unfair discrimination.”

March 5 Logical Fallacies and Signal Phrase review; Go over Sapiens to page 159. 

March 10 Chromebook In-Class Objective: Write first half of the essay.

March 12 Chromebook In-Class Objective: Write second half of the essay. 

March 17 Essay 1 Due on turnitin; Ronnie Coleman; debate on providing sleepover parking lots: Read LA Times editorial “Why not let homeless college students park in campus lots?” and develop and argumentative thesis about the pros and cons of providing sleeping spaces for college students. Homework #6 for next class is to read Yoni Appelbaum’s essay “How America Ends” and in 200 words explain how massive demographic shifts threaten American democracy.

March 19 Go over Yoni Appelbaum’s essay “How America Ends.” Homework #7 for the next class. Read  Derek Thompson’s essay “Workism Is Making Americans Miserable” and in 200 words explain the curse of “Workism.” 

March 24 Go over Derek Thompson’s notion of “Workism.” Homework #8 is to read "Should the Government Give Everyone $1,000 a Month?" by Spencer Bokat-Lindell and in 200 words explain the pros and cons of UBI. 

March 26 Go over the UBI debate. We will grade Portfolio #1, based on responses 1-8. 

March 31 Chromebook In-Class Objective: Write first half of your essay.   

April 2 Chromebook In-Class Objective: Write second half of your essay. 

April 7 Essay 2 due on turnitin. We will read the online essay "It's been hot before" and discuss an argumentative essay about the role of logical fallacies in the dangerous denial of global warming and global drought. For another source, you can use Netflix Explained, "The World's Water Crisis." Homework #9 is to read Jasmin Barmore’s essay “The Queen of Eating Shellfish Online” and Judith Shulevitz’s essay “Why You Never See Your Friends Anymore,” and use the essay to support or refute the contention that mukbang addresses the depression and anxiety of loneliness. 

April 9 Go over “The Queen of Eating Shellfish Online” and “Why You Never See Your Friends Anymore.” Homework #10 is to read Read “The Coddling of the American Mind” and in 200 words explain how some colleges are cultivating dysfunctional students. 

April 21 Go over “The Coddling of the American Mind.” Homework #11 is to read “Have Smartphones Ruined a Generation?” and explain in 200 words how smartphones are part of a coddling culture that is impeding the emotional growth of young people. 

April 23 Go over “Have Smartphones Ruined a Generation.”

April 28 Chromebook Objective: Write first half of your essay. 

April 30 Chromebook Objective: Write second half of your essay. 

May 5 Essay 3 due on turnitin. We will ead Allison Arieff’s “Cars Are Death Machines. Self-Driving Tech Won’t Change That” and support or refute her contention that self-driving cars are not the solution to traffic dangers. Homework #12: Read "It's Time to Confront the Threat of Right-Wing Terrorism" by John Cassidy in The New Yorker and "Does the banning of Alex Jones signal a new era of big tech responsibility?" by Julia Carrie Wong and Olivia Solon in The Guardian and in 200 words agree or disagree with the claim that big tech companies are morally obliged to censor right-wing white nationalist trolls such as Alex Jones.

May 7 Go over the Alex Jones controversy. Homework #13: Read Alexandra Sifferlin's "The Weight Loss Trap" and in 200 words explain why it is so difficult to lose weight and keep it off. 

May 12 We go over Harriet Brown's "The Weight of the Evidence." We will see Netflix Explained on this subject of weight loss. Homework #14: Read Andrew Marantz’s “Free Speech Is Killing Us” and in 200 words agree or disagree with his position that free speech doesn’t apply to private companies. 

May 14 Go over “Free Speech Is Killing Us.” Homework #15: Read Spencer Bokat-Lindell’s “Do We Need to Break Up Facebook?” and in 200 words explain the pros and cons of breaking up this huge social media company. 

May 19 Go over “Do We Need to Break Up Facebook?” Homework #16: Read “What Women Know About the Internet” by Emily Chang and in 200 words agree or disagree with the author’s contention that regulations are more important than free speech for protecting women. 

May 21 Go over Emily Chang. Homework #17: Read “Speaking Ill of Hugh Hefner,” “Why Hugh Hefner’s Haters Won’t Let Him Rest in Peace,” “Negative Obituaries Prove Hugh Hefner Was Right” and then explain in 200 words why Hugh Hefner is such a controversial figure. 

May 26 We will examine the Hugh Hefner debate: Was Hefner a warrior for equal rights, free speech, and culture, or was he a selfish, salacious Peter Pan who denigrated women? Or a bit of both? We will study the following: “Speaking Ill of Hugh Hefner,” “Why Hugh Hefner’s Haters Won’t Let Him Rest in Peace,” “Negative Obituaries Prove Hugh Hefner Was Right,” and 10-minute video Maher vs. Douthat. Your homework #18 for next class: Read Conor Friedersdorf’s “In Defense of Harvey Weinstein’s Harvard Lawyer” and in 200 words agree or disagree with the contention that representing someone as monstrous and diabolical as Harvey Weinstein performs a civic good. 

May 28 Go over Conor Friedersdorf’s “In Defense of Harvey Weinstein’s Harvard Lawyer” and agree or disagree with the contention that representing someone as monstrous and diabolical as Harvey Weinstein performs a civic good. Your homework #19 is to read Peter Pomeranstsev’s online essay “Russia and the Menace of Unreality,” and in 200 words address the claim that the “mass hallucination” of misinformation is at war with the powers of democracy in the United States and abroad. 

June 2 We will cover “Russia and the Menace of Unreality.”

June 4 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write first half of your essay.

June 9 Chromebook In-Class Writing Objective: Write last third of your essay.

June 11 Essay 4 Due on turnitin. We will grade Portfolio Part 2.

Students with Disabilities:

If you have a documented disability and wish to discuss academic accommodations, please contact me as soon as possible.  

Course Catalog Description:        

This course focuses on the development of critical thinking skills. Students will apply these skills to the analysis of written arguments in various forms and genres, both classic and contemporary, and to the writing of effective persuasive essays. Students will learn to evaluate and interpret data, to recognize assumptions, to distinguish facts from opinions, to identify and avoid logical fallacies, to employ deductive and inductive reasoning, and to effectively assert and support argumentative claims.

Course Objectives:

One. Evaluate arguments in terms of bias, credibility, and relevance.

Two. Assess an argument's claims by examining assumptions, by differentiating between facts and inferences, by recognizing errors in logic, by analyzing support, and by identifying both explicit and implied conclusions.

Three. Recognize and assess argumentative claims embedded in literary works, advertisements, political tracts, and presentations in other media.

Four. Express critical viewpoints and develop original arguments in response to social, political, and philosophical issues and/or to works of literature and literary theory.

Five. Demonstrate the ability to evaluate electronic sources and databases, to incorporate research from online and print media, and to compose unified, coherent, fully supported argumentative essays that advance their claims by integrating primary and secondary sources, and by employing the tools of critical interpretation, evaluation, and analysis.

Student Learning Outcomes:

Upon completion of this course, students will:

One. Compose an argumentative essay that shows an ability to support a claim using analysis, elements of argumentation, and integration of primary and secondary sources.

Two. Identify and assess bias, credibility, and relevance in their own arguments and in the arguments of others, including primary and secondary outside sources.

Three. Write an essay that is correct in MLA format, paragraph composition, sentence structure, grammar, spelling, and usage.

Essay Requirements (based on 6,000 words):

English 1C SLO-aligned Assignment (Updated for Fall 2016)

The assignment designed using these criteria will be used to assess the course SLOs and should be assigned as a later (or last) essay.

Students will write a 4-5 page essay, not including Works Cited page, which is also required (but does not count towards length requirement.  In the essay, the students will do the following:

One. Express critical viewpoints and develop original thesis-driven arguments in response to social, political, and philosophical issues and/or to works of literature and literary theory.  This argumentative essay will be well organized, demonstrate an ability to support a claim using analysis and elements of argumentation, and integrate primary and secondary sources.

Two. Use at least three sources and not over-rely on one secondary source for most of the information.  The students should use multiple sources and synthesize the information found in them.

Three. Address issues of bias, credibility, and relevance in primary and secondary sources.

Four. Demonstrate understanding of analytical methods and structural concepts such as inductive and deductive reasoning, cause and effect, logos, ethos, and pathos, and the recognition of formal and informal fallacies in language and thought.

Five. Use MLA format for the document, in-text citations, and Works Cited page.

Six. Integrate quotations and paraphrases using signal phrases and analysis or commentary.

Seven. Sustain the argument, use transitions effectively, and use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

Course Catalog Description:         

This course focuses on the development of critical thinking skills.  Students will apply these skills to the analysis of written arguments in various forms and genres, both classic and contemporary, and to the writing of effective persuasive essays.  Students will learn to evaluate and interpret data, to recognize assumptions, to distinguish facts from opinions, to identify and avoid logical fallacies, to employ deductive and inductive reasoning, and to effectively assert and support argumentative claims.

English 1C Grammar Policy and Grading

Students in English 1C are expected to write clear, college-level essays with logical paragraph composition and sentence structure as well as correct grammar, spelling, word usage, and punctuation. If you feel you cannot be successful in this class due to struggles with grammar or other elements of essay composition, please see the instructor as early as possible to discuss resources and strategies for your improvement.

Policy on Plagiarism   

Any attempt to commit fraud, misrepresenting someone else’s writing as your own, including turning in essays from previous semesters, will result in an automatic F grade, zero points, which mathematically, will disqualify you from earning a grade higher than a C for the semester. You will not be allowed to rewrite for a higher grade and because of the breach of trust it will be preferred that you drop the class. I will use turnitin to investigate plagiarism.  

Each essay must be submitted to www.turnitin.com where it will be checked for illegal copying/plagiarism.

I cannot give credit for an essay that is not submitted to this site by the deadline.   

The process is very simple; if you need help, detailed instructions are available at http://turnitin.com/en_us/training/student-training/student-quickstart-guide

You will need two pieces of information to use the site:  

Class ID and Enrollment Password, which I’ll give you first week of class.

Late Essays Are Deducted a Full Letter Grade

You cannot turn in a late paper more than a week after the due date.

You Cannot “Ride” the Class: You cannot miss over 10 percent of the classes while not keeping up with the assignments because you are not fulfilling the Student Learning Outcomes. Therefore, you will have to be dropped if you are “riding” the class.  

Classroom Decorum: No smart phones can be used in class. If you’re on your smartphone and I see you, you get a warning the first time. Second time, you must leave the class and take an absence

Tardies: Two tardies equals one absence.

 

Essay #1 (1,000 words)

You need minimum 2 sources for your MLA Works Cited page.

Choice A

Read Tad Friend’s New Yorker online article “Can a Burger Help Solve Climate Change?” and look at two opposing camps on the role of alternative protein sources as a viable replacement for meat. One camp says we face too many obstacles to accept non-animal alternative proteins: evolution, taste, and  cost, to name several. An opposing camp says we have the technology and the proven product in Impossible Foods and other non-meat proteins to replace animal protein. Assessing these two opposing camps in the context of Tad Friend’s essay, develop an argumentative thesis addresses the question: How viable is the push for tech companies to help climate change by replacing animals with alternative proteins?

Choice B

Read Elizabeth Anderson’s “If God Is Dead, Is Everything Permitted?” and defend, refute, or complicate the author’s claim that non-religious societies offer a superior moral framework for human evolution than religious societies.  

Choice C

In the context of the Netflix documentary Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, develop an argument about how Yuval Noah Harari's explanation of the Cognitive Revolution exposes human vulnerability to mass manipulation, deceit, and Groupthink.

Choice D

Support, refute, or complicate Harari’s assertion that the “agricultural revolution was the greatest crime against humanity.”  

Homework #1 is to read Tad Friend’s New Yorker online article “Can a Burger Help Solve Climate Change?” and in 200 words explain the difficulties of replacing animals with alternative proteins.

What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking is a lot of things, but in terms of one’s personal life it is having the awareness to evaluate one’s personal habits and determine if these habits are beneficial or detrimental to one’s well being. Most people behave in accordance with the default setting of one's ingrained habits without evaluating those habits.

Critical thinking is about distancing oneself from one's behavior to make an objective evaluation of it. We call this metacognition. 

Example of critical thinking in evaluating one’s personal habits.

Most of my students tell me that their use of social media diminishes their academic performance and generally makes them unhappier. But what's crazy is they stay on social media anyway, as if they have no choice in the matter. 

Critical thinking, that is to say, standing back and evaluating one’s use of social media, often shows the following harmful results:

 

1. Increased depression
2. Increased anxiety
3. Reduced energy
4. Loss of mental sharpness, called “brain fog”
5. Going down a rabbit hole of wasted time that’s so bad that the person doesn’t even realize that time is being lost
6. Using social media to mask one’s essential loneliness and disconnection, which only makes these matters worse
7. The guilt and shame of knowing that the time wasted on social media is preventing one from achieving anything, or becoming a person of substance, productivity, and creativity. 
8. Realizing that the end game of diving down the rabbit hole of social media is to become a miserable dopamine addict and a cipher. A cipher is a word for “zero,” “nonentity,” or “nobody.”
9. Realizing that social media is a giant Dopamine Crack House where people go to die.
10. Realizing that one has to delete most if not all social media accounts and start one’s life from scratch.

What's the difference between English 1A and English 1C?

Pathos, Logos, & Ethos

Both 1A and 1C both address argumentation and research methods, but 1C is more advanced in that it takes a deeper exploration into the rhetorical methods, pathos (creating emotional appeal), logos (using logic and evidence), and ethos (establishing credibility through establishing a high quality of writing, avoiding logical fallacies, and using peer-reviewed credible sources).

Logical Fallacies:

English 1C examines logical fallacies that are used in inferior writing or by fake writers who rely on deception to push their agenda. Some common examples of logical fallacies are the following:

slippery slope

either-or

false causation

faulty comparison or faulty analogy.

Bias:

English 1C attempts to look at our own biases by considering counterarguments and to expose the bias evident in others' writing.