Interior States: Develop a thesis about the conflict between the need for idealism (faith or belief in something greater than oneself) and critical thinking.
Essay #1: Support, refute, or complicate Harari’s assertion that the “agricultural revolution was the greatest crime against humanity.”
Essay #2: Support, refute, or complicate Harari’s assertion that “modern liberal culture” is a fraud.
Develop an argumentative thesis that addresses how effectively and convincingly Harari presents us with a dark, gloomy, pessimistic view of home sapiens. What is his dark view? Does he approach his subject with adequate logic, support, and scientific evidence or is his dark vision the result of too much license with his own subject interpretation of the evidence he provides? Does his interpretation make his analysis more compelling or reveal a bias that makes his presentation more of a propaganda piece? Explain. Make sure your essay has a counterargument-rebuttal section.
English 1A
Find Two Essay Topics from Yuval Noah Harari’s Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
A. Develop a thesis that explains Debra Dickerson's claim from "The Great White Way" that on one hand race is America's obsession while on the other hand race does not really exist except as a phony "arbitrary system for establishing hierarchy and privilege." Support your thesis with 4 paragraphs. Please double-space.
B. Develop a thesis that explains the causes of Caroline Knapp's anorexia in her essay "Add Cake, Subtract Self-Esteem." Support your thesis with 4 paragraphs. Please double-space.
Develop a thesis that explains how Ursula Le Guin’s short story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (should be online) is an allegory of the moral challenges we face as we are drugged by privilege leaving us indifferent about the sufferings of The Other. Successful essays will connect the allegory to modern day social injustices such as the inhumane working conditions of migrant workers or the incarceration system, to name a couple.
Explanation
The privileged position themselves to sacrifice a group to perpetuate the privileged group's power. The privileged, like the leaders in Le Guin's short story, rationalize their exploitation of the sacrificed group by making utilitarian pronouncements such as "sacrificing a few for the greater good."
The poor are used as a resource in our society. They pay for municipal violations, they pay higher fees for cars, house, interest payments. There is an entire industry based on exploiting the poor. For example, there are check cashing agencies in poor neighborhoods that take a huge percentage out of the check before handing over the cash.
Small children work in sweat shops all over the world. They don't have a childhood. They don't see their parents. They are slaves. However, they are in demand because they allow American consumers to buy clothes for cheap. Thus these small children are sacrificed for our consumer pleasures.
The same can be said with agriculture. People work in substandard working conditions so we, the consumer, can buy affordable produce.
The same can be said of the restaurant industry. People are exploited so we, the hungry diner, can "eat out on the cheap."
Perhaps the worst sacrifice is made in the industrial prison complex where poor people of color are the primary source of income for this industry.
Theme of Denial
We are all upset by injustice, but we can inure ourselves to cruelty and injustice through denial or willed ignorance.
We rationalize:
"Someone's gotta clean those toilets."
"Someone's gotta pick cheap produce so I can feed my family."
"I'm sad that cows cry before they get slaughtered, but dang that double cheeseburger with goat cheese, bacon, onion rings and sopping with tangy chipotle mayonnaise is delicious."
"I know my peanut butter has cockroach pieces and rat hair in it, but what are you going to do?"
To use the above John Oliver video in a comparison with the Ursula Le Guin short story, you might consider the following parallels of moral shortcomings:
denial
compartmentalization
desensitization to cruelty
confusing majority rule with moral order
confusing status quo with moral order
preferring self-interest and pleasure over moral duty to others as a Faustian Bargain (deal with the devil)
Study Questions
One. What is the role of Dionysian ecstasy in the story?
The "clamor of bells," dancing, and celebration is about being grateful, but to surrender to one's praise of happiness one must forget about the dark side, the tiger's claw beneath the velvet carpet.
To be happy requires compartmentalization, having your happy "pocket" and keeping your sad "pocket" hidden.
American slave owners committed heinous acts against their slaves before coming home to pray with their families, read bedtime stories to their children, and smile piously to Jesus before sleeping with a saint-like grin, only to wake up in the morning and start their acts of abomination all over again.
These slave owners are compartmentalizing. Their left hand commits evil and their right hand, unaware of what the left hand is doing, prays with piety to its white Jesus.
We cannot be happy in heaven if were conscious of those suffering in hell.
How do we enjoy our juicy medium-rare steak when we know that the cow whose butchered cuts we're savoring trembled with terror, cried out, and let out explosive diarrhea before being cut into hundreds of pieces?
How do we enjoy an expensive dinner at a fancy restaurant when we know every 5 seconds a baby somewhere in the world dies of starvation?
How do we enjoy our recently purchased clothes when we know they were made from child slaves?
Speaking of slaves, the American economy boomed when slavery in the south was at its peak. The cotton industry fed the American economic machine, causing white Americans to shout with joy, "Cotton is king!" All the while, every sort of abomination was committed against the slaves. How could the white people be so happy when they knew another group of people was suffering with such unspeakable torment?
The short answer: compartmentalization.
And this leads us to one of the story's major themes: Compartmentalization is a moral abomination.
The collective joy in the opening paragraph is the joy resulting from a collective delusion, a shared psychosis. To partake in such a psychosis destroys the moral order.
Two. What kind of society is Omelas?
We know they are not simple. They are smart.
They do not own slaves.
They are not ruled by a monarchy.
They were happy yet intelligent.
However, they had succumbed to the "banality of evil," the notion that evil exists in our every day lives without drama or spectacle. Rather, evil exists insidiously and we become numb and inured (accustomed) to it.
We pen up livestock, torture and abuse millions of pigs, cows, and chickens, and gnash our teeth into these slaughtered meats while laughing and slapping our thighs in chicken wing bars.
This society exhibits other moral failures with its "If you can't lick 'em, join 'em" philosophy. They are conformists. Everyone tows the line and does their share. Conformity to an evil order makes us evil. But we haven't seen the evil in the story yet.
We also know that they have kept their desires (concupiscence) in check. They are neither peasants nor technophiles always wanting the newest smartphone. They are in the middle. They want comfort and luxury, but not in excess.
Omelas is a society that has mastered compartmentalization to the point that they have eradicated guilt.
They take a dreamy drug called drooz that gives them "dreamy languor." We are assured that it is not habit forming.
Three. What is the allegory of the boy locked up in a cellar?
Or the service industry serving the expensive appetites of the booming tech industry in San Francisco as explored in "Dinner, Disrupted" by Daniel Duane.
I am reminded of girls in India who are forced by their families to be surrogate mothers for a few thousand dollars.
I am reminded of the babies sold in the surrogacy industry who are later victims of human trafficking.
The people of Omelas have made peace with the suffering boy as a bargain for their happiness. They have sold their souls to the devil, so to speak. They live in a dystopia, a sort of hell on earth.
The children initially disgusted by seeing the suffering child begin to accept its suffering. They see the child as subhuman and incapable of achieving happiness anyway. This reminds me of academics who speak of "the underclass," so well articulated in Bell Hooks' essay.
A "good" white person (living in accordance with the laws of the land regardless of how racist) during times of slavery would not want to live in a nice house, attend a nice school, attend beautiful cultural events, and enjoy the progress of technology if all these things were built on the blood, sweat, and tears of slavery.
Morality cannot exist with compartmentalization. To have morality is to be spiritual and to be spiritual begins with seeing the human race as a unified whole.
We are only as good as we treat the least fortunate and most exploited among us.
Writing Option #2
Defend, refute, or complicate Bloom's assertion in "Against Empathy" that empathy, contrary to popular opinion, is not a virtue in the face of evidence that empathy is a form of "irrational compassion" that can be destructive and inimical to human affairs.
Paragraph 1 is your introduction, a summary of Bloom's points.
Paragraph 2 is your agreement or disagreement with Bloom, your thesis.
Paragraphs 3-6 are your supporting paragraphs.
Paragraph 7 is your counterargument-rebuttal section.
Paragraph 8 is your conclusion, a restatement of your thesis.
Writing Option #3
Support, refute, or complicate Malcolm Gladwell's claim that expensive universities are immoral to serve gourmet food to their students because the cost excludes financially challenged students from attending these universities.
Support, refute, or complicate the claim that the disease model of addiction can be harmful to some addicts who would benefit more from a habit or conditioning model of addiction.
While many parents are well intentioned and fearful of vaccines as they are mired in a sea of overwhelming alarmist information, their decision to deny their children vaccines is misguided, at best, and morally repugnant, more likely, when we consider their refusal to acknowledge real science and empirical evidence, their reliance on logical fallacies and quack pseudo-science, their narcissistic conspiracy mentality, and, most of all, their decision to exact a potentially fatal pestilence upon our children.
Sample Outline
Paragraph 1: In your introduction explain the justifications used for the anti-vaxxer movement.
Paragraph 2: Refute or defend those justifications in your thesis.
Paragraphs 3-6 are your supporting paragraphs.
Paragraph 7 is your counterargument-rebuttal section.
Paragraph 8 is your conclusion, a restatement of your thesis.
Group Activity
Get into groups of 4 or 5 and ask the following 3 questions:
One. Do you have an emotional response to parents who don't vaccinate their children?
Two. Are parents who don't vaccinate their children getting a "bad rap"? Explain.
Three. How could you incorporate these two questions into an introduction for your essay?
Writing Option #6
Support, refute, or complicate Tom James' claim that the promises of legal pot have not been fulfilled by incompetence, corruption, and confusion.
In two paragraphs, about a page, explain what Ta-Nehisi Coates means by "kleptocracy" in the context of his essay, "The Case for Reparations." Then develop an analytical thesis that shows how Jordan Peele's movie Get Out builds on the notion of kleptocracy to further its powerful themes of microaggressions and the difficulties of assimilation in white America.
Essay Option #1: Develop a thesis that in the context of the documentary Merchants of Doubt addresses the question: Should we have faith that "reason and faith can defeat propaganda and falsehoods." Or is such a message optimistic bias rooted in delusion?
Essay Option #2: Develop an analytical thesis that in the context of Merchants of Doubt explains the fallacies behind spin and how these fallacies can be constructed to effectively cause doubt and confusion over the legitimate claims of science.
In a 5-page essay with 5 sources, support, refute or complicate the notion that Sherry Turkle's Alone Together is a technophobic screed that exaggerates and twists information to create an unfair nightmare portrait of social media.
Acting Out Culture, Third Edition, edited by James Miller
The following assignments are modified from the ones James Miller uses in his book. Sometimes I take the liberty to quote Miller so in essence these are his assignments with my modifications added.
Chapter 1 How We Believe
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate the notion that Stephen Asma's "Green Guilt" and Michael Eric Dyson's "Understanding Black Patriotism" provide a convincing indictment of "isms" evidenced by their dogmatic zeal, myopia, tribalism, and Groupthink. If you want, you can include Schwennesen's "The Ethics of Eating," which addresses vegetarianism.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate the argument that Ty Burr's "Faces in the Mirror" and Michael Sandel's "Markets and Morals" complement the theme of human degradation and "moral vacancy" in an age of excessive marketing and pathological self-promotion.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate the notion that Michael Eric Dyson has written an convincing argument about the crucial differences between nationalism and patriotism.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that addresses the cultural stereotypes discussed in Michael Eric Dyson's essay and Katie Roiphe's "In Defense of Single Motherhood."
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that addresses the tribalism discussed in David Brooks' essay "People Like Us" and the "scientific racism" discussed in Debra J. Dickerson's "The Great White Way."
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, defend, refute, or complicate Debra J. Dickerson's argument that race is not an objective reality but rather a social fantasy.
Chapter 2: How We Watch
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, defend, refute, or complicate the argument that Jessica Bennett's "The Flip Side of Internet Fame" evidences a need to make new freedom of speech restrictions in the age of social media.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that analyzes the causes of cultural stereotypes evidenced in Harriet McBryde Johnson's "Unspeakable Conversations" and Heather Havrilesky's "Some 'Girls' Are Better Than Others."
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate the argument made by Virginia Heffernan's "The Attention-Span Myth" and Don Tapscott's "Should We Ditch the Idea of Privacy?" that the digital age has, rightly, abolished certain cultural norms and values.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate the argument that Charles Duhigg's "How Companies Learn Your Secrets" affirms Virginia Heffernan's examination of the attention-span myth.
Chapter 3: How We Eat
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate Kristof's argument in "Prudence Or Cruelty?" that in spite of the food stamp abuses cited by opponents of the food stamp program, providing food stamps for the poor is moral and economic imperative over the long-term. Be sure to have a counterargument and rebuttal section at the end of your essay.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate the notion that eating meat is morally defensible in the context of evolution and biology and that ethical objections to meat eating are not born of eating meat but the abuses that result in the factory farming of animals. Be sure to have a counterargument-refutation section.
Addressing Francine Prose's "The Wages of Sin," write a 4-page essay with 3 sources that supports, refutes, or complicates the notion that overeating is not an illness but a moral flaw and a vice.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that addresses the claim that Francine Prose and Caroline Knapp are criticizing cultural norms about eating that in truth are not normal at all but pathological and that these norms create a toxic eating environment in our culture.
Both McMillan and Kristof (172) use their examinations of public attitudes toward food as a platform to argue for specific changes in our official food policy. In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that explains how these recommendations compare. Can you imagine Kristof citing points McMillan raises here as evidence or support for the argument he makes about food stamps? If so, how specifically?
Both Dolnick and Francine Prose address the mythical narrative of obesity and overeating by deconstructing the myth. In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that analyzes how Dolnick and Prose deconstruct the myth of fatness.
Chapter 4: How We Learn
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate Kohn's argument that grading is inimical to effective teaching.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate the notion that Rizga's essay provides evidence to support the argument that standardized testing is a canard that hurts the students' education.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, support, refute, or complicate John Taylor Gatto's argument that school is not about education but rather about indoctrinating students into being malleable sheep, non-thinkers, and childish consumers who are sorted into "their rightful place" in the social and economic hierarchy.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that explains how Gatto and Rose are attempting to rewrite the conventional norms regarding class, learning, and intelligence. In making your thesis, consider how the two essays complement the other.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that supports, refutes, or complicates the notion that the triumph we learn of in Bell Hooks' essay "Learning in the Shadow of Race and Class" is that Hooks overcame Alexander Inglis's six basic functions (mentioned in John Taylor Gatto's essay) and instead of becoming indoctrinated became truly enlightened. Is it possible that she was both indoctrinated and enlightened? Explain.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that analyzes, in the context of Rachel Toor's 'Unconscious Plagiarism," the difference between legitimate modeling that is a form of healthy plagiarism and immoral plagiarism.
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that explains how Kozol's essay "Preparing Minds for Markets" supports Mike Rose's main argument in his essay "Against School."
Chapter 5: How We Work
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that compares the way Louis Uchitelle (342) and Matthew Crawford (368) explore the emotional life of work and how work affects our happiness, contentment, and self-esteem. To what extent does Uchitelle's argument about the psychological damage wrought by unemployment recall or help reinforce Crawford's claims about the emotional satisfactions afforded by working with your hands?
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, write a review of DePalma's essay that you think Uchitelle might offer. To what extent would Uchitelle's review find parallels in the social and economic hardships profiled here and his argument regarding the emotional costs of unemployment?
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, write an assessment of how the messages in Catherine Rampell's essay (388) and Matthew Crawford's (368) compare with one another. Does Rampell's attempt to explode the myth of the "slacker generation" remind you in any way of Crawford's desire to rewrite the boundary between white-collar and manual labor? Do these writers challenge such stereotypes in order to say similar or different things about the meaning and value of work?
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that compares the way DePalma (353) profiles immigrant workers with the way Ehrenreich (380) explores the working poor. Based on the argument she makes here, which specific aspects of DePalma's essay do you think Ehrenreich would find most persuasive? Why?
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, show how McClelland's examination of the psychological pressures she experienced on the job (394) compare to the portrait of the unemployed Louis Uchitelle (342) presents? Do you find any similarities or parallels in the ways each essay explores this issue?
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop an argumentative thesis that addresses whether it is appropriate, or not, to use the business model described in Hochschild's essay (418) as a way of making the "mutually beneficial transaction" between parents and a surrogate mother. Consider Barbara Ehrenreich's essay (380) about how the experience of being poor complicates this business model.
Chapter 6: How We Connect
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, write an essay in which you speculate about how Lovenheim (458) might respond to the argument Silver is advancing about "the quagmire of social media friendship." Do you think Lovenheim would find much commonality between this argument and the portrait of contemporary neighbor relations his essay presents? How or how not?
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, write an essay in which you speculate how Morozov (449) would respond to the "digital detox" retreat Suddath depicts (500)? Given his own argument about the dangers of access and "openness," do you think Morozov would regard the retreat's efforts to disconnect from the digital world to be a viable solution? How or how not?
Write a 4-page essay (with 3 sources) in which you evaluate how Kotkin's examination of home and roots compares to Silver's discussion of online friendship (444). Does Silver's essay, in your view, confirm or complicate the conclusions Kotkin draws about Americans' increasing commitment to place and each other?
Write a 4-page essay (with 3 sources) in which you identify and assess the parallels connecting Lovenheim's examination of neighborhoods (458) and O' Brien's discussion of empathy (464).
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that explores the ways O'Brien's investigation into empathy provides us with a useful context for thinking about the experiment of "unplugging" that Claire Suddath profiles (500). What specific aspects of O'Brien's thesis about the "empathy deficit" do you think are most directly in line with the goals of the "tech addicts" Suddath describes?
In a 4-page essay with 3 sources, develop a thesis that explains how Rosin's essay (484) can be seen as a critique of the views that Suddath explores (500).
I'd like to incorporate From Critical Thinking to Argument into the first unit of the semester. For the first 4 weeks, I could teach the book while having the students find an article that they disagree with. Their task is to write a 1,000-refutation of the article while exposing its fallacies and other writing lapses. They could use Toulmin or Rogerian method. They would need at least 3 sources for MLA paper.
Support, defend, or complicate the assertion that Lina's decision to stay married to Zuming was an act of self-betrayal.
Support, defend, or complicate the assertion that "Temporary Love" is a refutation of moral absolutism.
Support, defend, or complicate the assertion that Dan (from "The Beauty") was justified in the distrust he feels for his wife Gina.
Support, defend, or complicate the assertion that Eileen's decision to dump her boyfriend Dave (from "Choice") evidences that the mother is surrendering too much power to her daughter Sami.
Support, defend, or complicate the assertion that there is no evidence of metacognition in the short story "A Composer and His Parakeets."
Support, defend, or complicate the assertion that Martin (from "The Half Sister") would be wise to marry Charmian because settling with the "monster woman" is the best thing this failed loner can do at this point of his bereft existence.
Support, defend, or complicate the assertion that Stewart (from "The Natural Order") shoud be praised for staying youthful, defying dreary domestic conformity, and keeping the excitement of Eros alive in his life.
Support, defend, or complicate the assertion that Lasdun's characters are too weak and helpless to be worthy of studying literary themes.
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