PART I

We imagine that most people will use The New Humanities Reader in their first-year composition courses, as we do at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where the anthology was developed. The chief goal of such a course is to teach students how to compose an expository essay that reflects their own point of view and that demonstrates thoughtful engagement with complex readings of some length. Writing that deliberates upon the ideas of others in a thoughtful way is essential preparation for both writing at the University and engagement in civic life.

The New Humanities Reader encourages students to see themselves as participants in an ongoing written “conversation” about the most important issues of our time: globalization, the rise of the “knowledge society,” biotechnology, environmental decline, the encounter between different regions and cultures, the changing nature of identity, and the search for enduring values beyond the prospect of seemingly random change. This conversational or dialogic model of writing projects an imagined community that includes the authors of the assigned texts, the instructor, other students in the class, and anyone else who might be interested. It assumes also that in the absence of definitive “answers,” the writer’s most important task is the understanding of complex issues and the communication of this understanding to others.

The New Humanities Reader presupposes that the context for writing is always prior reading, and in this spirit it is an anthology of readings rather than a textbook or rhetoric (although teachers will probably wish to make use of a supplemental handbook to help students with the basics). The point of the anthology is to elicit writing that closely approximates the work students are likely to do in many of their college classes and the level of engagement they will need to bring to the issues that affect us all. To create writing of this kind, teachers typically construct “sequences” of readings and assignments that will lead incrementally toward work that synthesizes multiple sources while making an independent argument.

Sequencing has become a popular practice in composition pedagogy. At Rutgers, students complete two sequences of readings during their fourteen-week semester, each making use of three core readings (for a total of six essays, plus an additional essay for our final exam requirement). The first assignment of the course addresses a single text, with an emphasis on exploring the implications of the author’s argument rather than on summarizing it or generating a “personal response.” The second assignment provides an opportunity to examine the relations between two texts (the first reading and a new text) placed in “conversation” with one another. The third assignment of the semester—and the final assignment of the first sequence—requires students to develop an argument that draws on all three texts for its conceptual “frame” and for supporting evidence and illustrations. The second sequence—comprised of the fourth, fifth and sixth assignments of the semester—repeats more or less the same stages with new texts. The only difference is that Assignment Four requires students to work with two texts rather than one: one reading from the previous sequence as well as a new reading that will move the second sequence in a fresh direction. To learn more about sequencing, see the sections on the first and second sequence later in this Instructor’s Resource Manual, which includes a number of examples.

Good assignment sequences define a problem or shape a project for students. However, since composition instruction works best when it is interactive, teachers will need to help students advance and articulate their own projects. You could begin this process by listening to the questions that students raise in their discussions of the readings, and then trying to foreground these questions in successive assignments. Often, helping students to discover their own projects means allowing them the freedom to move beyond the questions you raise to take on related questions or problems that they discover along the way.

Reading, interpretation, connective synthesis, and using textual evidence should receive highest priority during the first half of the course, but at the same time, teachers will need to work with students to address sentence-level error and lack of clarity. First-year composition is always a process-oriented writing course to the degree that it incorporates cycles of reading, pre-writing, drafting, rereading, and revision. We should not forget polishing of the final product, of course, but we should not emphasize style over substance or give students the impression that how they say things takes priority over discovering what they want to say in the first place. From the start of the term, we address grammar, clarity, and structural coherence in the context of revision: the principle setting for the discussion of these matters should be rough or final drafts written for the course, as opposed to workbook-style exercises or lectures on correctness and style. Our basic approach is to help students recognize the patterns of error in their own writing, and to see problems of organization as a consequence of conceptual confusion.

The materials in this Instructor’s Resource Manual are the collected wisdom of many instructors and directors of the Rutgers Writing Program. While some pieces bear the names of specific authors, the following people have also contributed directly to the pedagogical tools presented to you in this volume.

List of Contributors

Alex Bain, Robert Abboud, Barclay Barrios, Danielle Bobker, Carol Denise Bork, Michelle Brazier, Kate Briggs, Christine A. Cerrato, Pat Cesarini, Bob Coleman, Christie Cox, Tina Crafton, Michael J. Cripps, Ann Dean, Lisa Dewey, Suzanne Diamond, Loriann Fell, Jim Gibbons, Jason Geiger, Robert J. Gill, Michael Goeller, Barbara Hamilton, Darrel A. Hamlin, Justin Hart, Rebecca Hartman, Megan Heller, Katie Henry, Rachel Hollander, Priti Joshi, Matthew Kaiser, Karen Kalteissen, Anthony Lioi, Kathy Lubey, Andrew Lutz, Kay Lynch, Katherine Lynes, Thomas Meal, Richard E. Miller, Brian Page, Martin Pousson, Tzarina Prater, Brian Roberts, Heather Robinson, Debra Roy, Annette Saddik, Jen Schubert, Nicole Smith, Kurt Spellmeyer, Martin Springer, Kathryn Steele, Steve Syrek, David Toise, Lara Tupper, Carmen Vendelin, Piper Kendrix Williams, Karen Zivi, Madhvi Zutshi.

Basic Requirements of First-Year Composition at Rutgers

• Students read a minimum of seven selections from The New Humanities Reader.

• Students write six five-page essays, including a rough and final draft of each. By the term’s end, a student’s final drafts should total at least 30 typed pages.

• Students make three brief oral presentations in class (see Public Speaking).

• Students take an in-class Final Exam (essay format, graded pass or fail) on a new reading which they must connect to at least one other essay they have read this term. The final exam is graded pass/fail and is intended to test that students carry with them the lessons of the class.

• Students keep all rough and final drafts in a folder, which teachers collect for “folder review” twice during the semester.

• Students must demonstrate competence developing a project or argument, organizing an essay, citing and discussing texts, and writing correct Standard English.

Teaching New Skills

Our students arrive at college with a variety of experiences in writing, but they have generally not been asked by their high school teachers to do the type of writing expected of them in college. The idea that knowledge comes into existence through conversations among informed readers and writers, and that they should take a position of their own in relation to these dialogues, is often quite a new concept for our students. Typically, they have been taught how to summarize or report information, or if their views have been invited it has only been to offer “personal responses” to literary works or to themes assigned by the teacher. Relatively few first-year students at college have read prose texts as lengthy and complex as James C. Scott’s “Behind the Official Story,” Susan Faludi’s “The Naked Citadel,” and Lila Abu-Lughod’s “Honor and Shame”—let alone been asked to read all three and develop connections among them into a project of their own devising. To reach a high level of college achievement, however, students will have to be able to read and make connections among works even more complex than these.

Given our students’ typical preparation, it is important to build an incremental curriculum, one that takes students through the process of reading and developing connections as a step-by-step process. In the presence of extended arguments that challenge and, at times, even threaten to defeat their best efforts at understanding, students need to be reminded that most good readings begin as misreadings, and that reading, writing, re-reading, and revising are essential steps in getting from initial interpretation to making knowledge.

College Writing versus High School Writing

A good exercise to assign around mid-semester is to ask students what type of writing they did in high school and how they think it differs from the expectations they have encountered in your course and in other courses at college. Here are some typical answers received from students in First-year Composition, which is called Expository Writing or “Expos” at Rutgers University:

1) College Writing Requires You to Deal with Readings

• I would just like to say that the writing that I have done in Expos is very different than any of the writing I ever did in high school. My Honors English class last year was primarily creative writing. I have never had to do this much analyzing before.

• In my high school writing class, we had different types of papers to write, for example: expository papers, descriptive papers, persuasive papers and so on. But they did not require any reading. All of these papers would come straight from your brain. My teacher always told us “Just write what you know,” and I have figured out that that will not cut it in this class.

• College writing requires that the student deal with quotes, and that was something that was not important in high school.

2) College Writing Requires You to Analyze in Depth and with Unity

• College writing entails much more detail and in-depth analyses of the material. In high school I was taught to get straight to the point. . . .

• There is greater attention to detail and the explanations are supposed to be more thorough. Before I came to this class I had been taught to write in a way that produced a very concise paper or essay.

• In high school we were taught to learn how to write fast, and under pressure. Many of our essay topics were given to us at the beginning of our forty-minute class, and we only had that class period to write the essays. This process of writing prevented us from examining many of the quotes and hidden meanings in the texts. In college, the essays must be very in depth, with lots of quotations, explanations and examples.

3) College Writing Has You Form Your Own Arguments to Avoid Summary

• In high school, we were never really required to have and argument in the introduction. The introduction was basically a synopsis of what the essay was going to be about. In college the introduction is almost like a preview of what is to come in the essay. When you put an argument in the introduction, the essay seems to transition better.

• I never knew what an argument was in an essay. I’ve never had to make an argument and support it before. So, that aspect is new for me. Another new aspect for me was including my voice in my essay. I was always told that the writer’s opinion and voice weren’t supposed to be in an essay. This class also taught me how to connect two or more readings that may seem unrelated at first.

• College writing is entirely different from what I had previously learned, especially in two areas. I was taught to never—NEVER—use my opinion in any expository essay, and not to incorporate the works of two authors in one paragraph. What I had written in high school was summary as opposed to the analysis this course calls for.

• First, what college writing has taught me so far is: we should not summarize what we have read, rather to analyze the passage, develop arguments, and most importantly support our arguments to prove specific points while creating a conversation. It differs from my previous writing experience because I have always had to summarize and/or agree or disagree with the author’s point of view.

Five Core Components of Writing Instruction

The pedagogy we have developed at Rutgers University to accompany The New Humanities Reader involves a set of practices that we think should be at the heart of any good composition program. We can break these down into five core components: Reading, Writing, Public Speaking, Revision, and Controlling Error.

Reading

From the start of their writing course, we teach students that reading involves a range of interpretive practices rather than simple recognition and memorization. These practices include:

• isolating, discussing, and writing about difficult, interesting, enlightening, or infuriating passages

• identifying keys to interpretation, which include terms, claims, and examples

• drawing on the keys to interpretation, or on insights from other texts and from general knowledge, in order to make sense of moments in an essay that may initially seem opaque

• using drafts, rereading, and continued discussion to test various interpretations

Writing

Students will come into your classroom with a great deal of practice in writing to demonstrate what they already know (a skill that will continue to have value for them in many other courses). They may have had less practice in using writing to discover a position of their own in relation to other writers, and then to communicate that position to others in a cogent way. The practices required for writing of this kind include the following:

• exploring the implications of a single text

• placing two texts “in conversation” on the level of shared content and, more crucially, on the level of shared implications

• using texts “in conversation” as a starting point for thinking that builds on the authors’ work but also poses new issues or explores questions left unanswered by the authors themselves

• citing and explaining textual evidence

• revising to clarify and develop ideas

• rewriting for the purpose of public presentation, acknowledging the conventions of expository prose (including a forecasted thesis or argument, unified paragraphs, transitional sentences and phrases, and credible supporting evidence)

Especially during the first quarter or so of the term, teachers typically are less concerned with seeing a fully developed argument and more concerned with deepening the students’ understanding of the texts and encouraging the formation of sustained and pertinent connections. Asking content-specific questions, as opposed to focusing primarily on rhetorical form, can help students develop richer, more complex perspectives of the readings.

Public Speaking

At Rutgers University, we have implemented a requirement in all first-year composition classes that students engage in at least three moments of public speaking during the term. The main goal of public speaking is to place students’ written work in the larger context of social action. Opportunities for public speaking might include the following:

• interpreting an assigned reading not yet discussed in class

• presenting the findings of a small group that has worked collaboratively to reach an interpretation or make a connection

• responding to questions on the assigned reading prepared in advance by the teacher

• presenting “paper abstracts”: five-minute summaries of the most recently completed final drafts

• presenting work in progress: five-minute summaries of preliminary drafts prior to peer revision

In addition, at Rutgers we require all students to make one presentation on a grammar or syntax issue. A teacher might schedule three or four presentations on the day final drafts are due or in preparation for class discussion of a new text. Alternately, two or three students might make brief (five-minute) presentations of their rough drafts as a prelude to group work. By asking students to make presentations on grammar we turn the often dry and passive teaching of rules into an active engagement in making sense.

We want our students to use the texts in The New Humanities Reader to support, stimulate, and complicate their own thinking. At the same time, we want students to recognize that thinking, speaking, and writing are fundamentally social acts. Understanding by itself is never adequate; the point, finally, is to be understood. As the semester progresses, we can help students see that open reflection and risky engagement with texts are only the first steps in a process that ends with the convincing presentation of a new way of seeing. Without risk, the writer learns nothing; without coherence, the same fate awaits the reader. One way of emphasizing the social process of making sense is to require students, either in peer groups or individually, to evaluate their papers for interpretive accuracy, organizational effectiveness, and general clarity. The process of “peer review” is especially effective in encouraging students to become more engaged with the social act of making meaning.

Revision

Just as our students begin first-year composition without knowing how to write about an essay like William Greider’s “Work Rules,” so they begin without having developed the ability to read with an eye to revision—which is, after all, a very different way of approaching a text than reading to understand. The process of revising thus involves not only improving our style of presentation in writing but also improving the quality, coherence, and accuracy of our reading. The key moment to have students engage in reflection is after they have already begun drafting their essays and have some interpretive work completed. And the best way to make that reflection into a social act is through peer review, where students bring their typed rough drafts to class for collaborative evaluation with fellow students.

Teachers have experimented with different formats for this collaborative evaluation of student drafts, but the groups will not succeed without prior planning on the teacher’s part. Some teachers preface the activities of the peer groups with a general discussion of what to look for in critiquing the draft. Other teachers prepare written worksheets that reflect the changing goals of each new assignment.

For the class meeting that follows peer revision day, teachers can select, copy, and distribute two or three rough drafts for discussion by the entire class. Because the class discussion of these papers gives teachers the chance to intervene decisively in the revision process, this day may be the most important one in the entire cycle of activities that concludes with the submission of the final drafts. After each peer revision day, teachers are likely to notice problems common to nearly all the drafts, and class discussions can be guided toward the recognition of these problems.

Controlling Error

By the end of the semester, we hope that students will have improved the overall presentation of their papers and developed a sense of clear and polished writing. At the very least, students should be able to produce essays with few sentence level errors and no error of the type that interferes with meaning.

Common Problems in Revising

Different assignments typically create different problems that call for different kinds of revision. Here are some common problems we have observed:

Rough Draft of Assignment One

Problem

Students either (1) summarize the assigned reading or (2) respond in a way that leaves the reading behind.

Intervention

In (1), instruct small groups to identify places in the draft where the writer might explore implications while deleting or shortening summaries. In (2), instruct groups to identify the places where connections can be made to the readings.

Rough Draft of Assignment Two

Problem

Students summarize one text, summarize the second, and then, in the final paragraphs, begin to address the question. Or students “compare and contrast” the readings with no specific object in mind.

Intervention

Direct small groups to delete or shorten summaries while proposing ways to develop promising “moments” in the draft where connections move toward an issue, theme, or topic shared by both texts. Discuss ways of using two texts (such as framing) that get beyond “compare/contrast” modes and ask peers to suggest possible projects based on connections that the writer has noticed.

Rough Draft of Assignment Three

Problem

Students make connections linking the three texts but they do so in ways that fail to coalesce into a unifying question, argument, or subject.

Intervention

Direct groups to consider possible subjects or topics that provide an overarching framework for many of the points made in the draft.

Rough Draft of Assignment Four

Problem

The explicit thesis of the paper, as announced in the first paragraph, is inconsistent with the argument that follows; inadequate development of ideas.

Intervention

Workshop on opening paragraphs; direct students to construct paragraph by paragraph outlines of the paper under discussion, with consideration of possible changes and additions; direct students to find passages in the assigned reading that might develop the paper in fruitful ways.

Rough Draft of Assignments Five and Six

Problem

Students make a predictable argument; unimaginative citations; insufficient development.

Intervention

Encourage students, working in small groups, to sketch out less predictable arguments, and to identify passages that complicate or contradict rather than simply confirm the writer’s argument or observations. Discuss with students the uses of complication and contradiction to extend and refine a line of argument.

Controlling Error: Grammar

When commenting on a paper with grammar problems, instructors need to remember the triage method: treat the fatal problems first. Too many instructors look at an error-ridden student paper as a publication to be proofread and leave it full of red ink. Not only does such hyper-correction deprive students of the active engagement with correction that is necessary to create learning, it also overwhelms them with issues they need to work on. By developing a pedagogy that emphasizes patterns of errors that students can correct and focusing first on the most fatal two or three errors (and no more than two or three errors in any paper thereafter), instructors will see incremental improvements through the course of the term. Common grammatical errors include the following:

Subject-verb agreement errors

The thoughts a reader generates is only considered “great” when others know those thoughts.

Sentence fragments and comma splices

We see morality through a new point of view. One that comes from nature, not the human world.

Run-on sentences or comma splices

There is no separation between the private and the public in American life, violation of privacy can happen at any time.

Pronoun errors

Each reader must struggle with the text. They decide what it will mean.

The knowledge class has replaced the working class. This could spell disaster or it could bring new opportunities.

Every school has it’s problems. Their’s is especially troubling.

Confusion of plurals with possessives (apostrophe errors)

The dorm rooms belong to the new student’s, not to senior’s and sophomore’s.

Controlling Error: Punctuation

In addition to controlling grammatical error, students should be able to demonstrate a proficiency in the use of punctuation commensurate with their status as members of the community of “educated readers.” They needn’t know the differences between an absolute phrase and an appositive, but they should be able to use the comma, semicolon, and colon correctly. Most importantly, they should be able to control “fatal” comma errors of the “eats, shoots, and leaves” variety. Uses of the comma we regard as especially important include the following:

• Between items in a series of words, phrases, or clauses

We all know that biotechnology is uncertain, dangerous, mind-boggling in its potential ramifications, and also wildly profitable.

• Between two independent clauses:

We judge people by their economic status, and in doing so we build a scale called the “social hierarchy.”

• On either side of a nonrestrictive clause (a clause that often begins with who, whose, which, when, or where):

The school, which they call The Citadel, is like a fortress against change.

• After an introductory phrase or dependent clause:

After reading de Waal and Nussbaum, I begin to question the belief that culture and biology are totally distinct.

Controlling Error: Clarity

In addition to grammar and punctuation, sentence-level clarity should receive significant attention. A sentence whose meaning is unclear may be grammatically correct but it still fails to perform its principal task, the communication of understanding. Students should be told that sustained difficulty with grammar, punctuation, and clarity (generally, three or more errors per page) will result in their failure of the course regardless of the quality of their ideas. Students should be encouraged to proofread their final drafts before bringing them to class, and teachers are advised to use the peer-revision groups as proofreading groups on the days when final drafts are due.

You will find it helpful to use a handbook, and you should take time to instruct students in its use. Though our comments should emphasize the importance of “global issues”—organization of the argument, paragraph coherence, clarity of transitions, and so on—we cannot ignore issues of sentence-level error. Students with severe or persistent problems with error should be assisted through a combination of work with you during office hours and work with a tutor (especially if your school has a Writing Center).

Best Practices for Teaching Composition

This Instructor’s Resource Manual intends to set forth not only a coherent philosophy of teaching, but effective ways of implementing that philosophy. We would suggest a dozen “best practices” for all composition courses (though this list could probably be extended significantly by others).

1. Put it in writing

In a written syllabus, teachers should distribute clear course policies at the start of the term (including attendance, lateness, late papers, etc.) and should then uphold those policies uniformly. We should also provide a written copy of each essay assignment to students before a given rough draft is due. By putting policies and expectations in writing, we have essentially created a contract with students and we have been explicit about our expectations of their duties.

2. Create an active learning environment

Teachers should conduct classes in a small-group discussion and workshop format as often as possible, in a lecture format almost never.

3. Always connect

With the exception of Paper 1, all essay assignments should require students to write about at least two and preferably three selections from The New Humanities Reader. If students are not making connections among readings then they are not preparing for the difficult work of college writing.

4. Sample your students

Teachers should always collect and review students’ rough drafts before the next class meeting. The teacher can then photocopy sample passages from the rough drafts to present in class in order to discuss strategies for revision or for controlling error. If we discover that many students are misinterpreting a passage or aspect of the assigned reading, a good way to address this problem would be to photocopy several examples of that misinterpretation from the drafts and then ask students, in groups, to re-read the passage in question and then to evaluate and revise the sample.

5. Remember that more writing is more opportunity to succeed

Students should be encouraged to write more than the required amount since it will give them more opportunities to demonstrate or develop good skills.

6. Require a collaborative process of revision

Students should work in peer revisions groups on the days when they bring rough drafts to class, reading and commenting on the rough drafts of other students. Teachers should also provide guidance for peer review, usually in the form of a worksheet or set of questions that requires students to comment on certain important aspects of a given assignment.

7. Focus comments toward improvement

Teachers should not comment (or at least not comment extensively or specifically) on students’ rough drafts or they risk defeating revision and the peer review process. Comments on final drafts should be directed not at justifying the grade but at encouraging improvement on future papers. We should also not forget to tell students what they are doing well so that they will carry those skills forward.

8. Give timely feedback

Teachers should return comments and grades at least one class meeting—but preferably two class meetings—before the next graded assignment is due. Unless students have our feedback in a timely way they will not be able to make consistent progress.

9. Explain the difference between right and wrong

Teachers should take some time during the semester to discuss problems of cheating and plagiarism, with explicit reference to your school’s policy for academic honesty.

10. Make sure everybody talks

Active learning is only effective when all students are compelled to participate. One effective way of compelling participation is to require a public speaking component in your class. Public speaking exercises can be presented by a single student within a small group, by a single student before the whole class, or by a group of students before the whole class.

11. Sweat the small stuff too

Though writing instructors often work most to develop students’ critical thinking skills, we also want to communicate to students that they must control patterns of error in grammar, punctuation, and clarity and that they need to avoid careless errors. A written policy that specifies the number of errors that will fail a paper (for example, “papers with an average of four or more errors per page risk failing”) is especially useful for encouraging careful proofreading. Whatever policy you adopt should be on your syllabus from the beginning of the term.

12. Collaborate with other teachers

At most institutions, there is a process of portfolio review or teacher conferencing to discuss student work and issues of grading. To make teacher conferences most effective, we encourage departments to develop and publish common grading standards for the first-year writing classes. Such collaborative grading practices develop greater transparency, consistency, fairness, and authority in grading and tend to mitigate the common tensions that develop between teachers and students over the issue of grades.

Using Technology to Build Class Cohesion

The first week of the semester can be a hectic time. At our school, teachers can expect students to add or drop from their sections during the first week of classes as they seek to get the best possible schedule for the term. This can be disorienting for both teachers and for students. A good way to center your class, especially if you have to face a similar situation, is by making sure that students know how they can contact you, either during your office hours or through e-mail.

Another good way of building a welcoming extension to your classroom is by setting up a class website. Simply posting information about your class online (either at space provided by your institution or on one of the various free commercial websites) can make a big difference in your class environment, and it can be especially helpful for students who might be adding your class late. A basic website might include your syllabus, contact information, office hours, and your first assignment. These could be simply converted from Word files to HTML using the “save as HTML” feature of most current word processors.

To help build class cohesion, you might also consider holding a class in a computer classroom or participating in an online forum (see the section of the Instructor’s Resource Manual devoted to technology for more details about these). Introducing these technological elements early in the semester helps first-year students acquire a familiarity with the writing technology at your institution and can help spur class discussion.

Website References

The following is a list of key website addresses instructors can use to explore ways of using The New Humanities Reader, including ways we have put our reader to work at Rutgers University:

• The New Humanities Reader homepage: http://www.newhum.com

• Writing Program homepage: http://wp.rutgers.edu

• Rutgers Writing Program’s Expository Writing 101 course homepage: http://wp.rutgers.edu/ courses/101

• 101 teacher resources homepage: http://wp.rutgers.edu/teachers/101

• General teacher resources page: http://wp.rutgers.edu/teachers/general/

• GETIT (Gaining Experience Teaching with Instructional Technology): http://getit.rutgers.edu

This section sets forth our recommendations on creating clear assignments for your students and putting them together to create sequences that build upon each other incrementally.

Pacing the Semester

The “Sample 14-Week Class Plan” offers a workable schedule for the entire semester—a rough draft or a final draft due each week. To maintain this pace, it’s also very important that you return work to students promptly: a good rule of thumb is that you should never collect a new set of final drafts before you have returned the previous set. Once you establish this pace, you can carry it through to the end of the semester. Because students need to write regularly and in a sustained way to improve their writing, a weak student who never writes essays longer than three pages is not going to improve very much. For this reason, it is certainly legitimate to request a rewrite of a paper when it does not meet the page requirement for a particular assignment.

The pace we suggest will also sustain a level of difficulty that leads to perceptible change. Most students begin to consolidate gains after about the fourth essay. The fifth and sixth essays assure them and us of the degree of improvement. After six essays, most students leave 101 with more than a vague sense of conceptual advance or of having “passed” the course. Most, in fact, seem to leave with a clearer and stronger sense of what it means to encounter texts and to make meaning.

Strong sequencing not only establishes the overall pace of the course but can, in fact, help students acquire these skills. In building upon their prior conceptions of the texts, sequencing helps students develop deeper understandings while solidifying skills.

For instructors, sequences help organize our teaching so that we can create coherence out of the potential chaos of connecting texts. Barclay Barrios, the Rutgers Writing Program’s Director of Instructional Technology, shares how he created a sequence for Mary Kaldor, Martha Nussbaum, and Malcolm Gladwell:

Building a Sequence, by Barclay Barrios

I started out making my first sequence this semester by rereading the Kaldor piece. I really enjoyed it, and that’s important to me because I’ve found that the only way my students can get into an essay is if I get into it on some level as well. I also thought Kaldor would work great in my class because 1) it touches on important issues and 2) it provides students a lot to “grab onto”—ideas and concepts that they can work with.

After rereading the Kaldor piece, I checked out the Link-O-Mat—that’s something I always like to do after reading a new essay. Since this is a first paper assignment, I generally like to find some webpage that students can use as a second text. The Link-O-Mat didn’t have anything that really appealed to me, so I thought I would check out the U.S. Army’s website—it just seemed like a logical place to look into after the Kaldor essay.

That’s how I found “America’s Army.” It’s a video game the Army has produced and offered free online. I immediately saw a lot of potential here, and in a lot of different ways. Students, I thought, would like the idea of working with a video game and for those students who weren’t interested in playing the actual game, I found a lot of interesting material in the support forums as well. In addition, this is a game aimed at these students, so I wanted to give them Kaldor as a tool to examine critically the Army’s objectives.

A good general rule for generating the actual assignment is to consider the context or larger conversation. That’s a way to get your students (as well as yourself) out of the texts themselves. Kaldor’s essay, clearly, has a lot to do with militarism in the new millennium, so I worked with that idea in formulating the actual first assignment.

In thinking about the second assignment, I went with Nussbaum because I was interested in how their perspectives on humanitarianism and international change might or might not work together. After reading the Nussbaum essay, I again asked myself about the common context I could use in forming the actual assignment. For this assignment, as well as for the third assignment, I used what I think is becoming the classic New Humanities move. Consider this a crib sheet for forming any assignment: what is the role of X in Y? It’s become a very useful nearly universal rubric for formulating assignments. For my second assignment this comes out as the impact of war on human functional capabilities.

Finally, in thinking about the third assignment, I chose Gladwell. Not only is it a very approachable essay, and not only is it fascinating, but it’s also immensely flexible. By that I mean it’s an essay that can be used to discuss lots of other essays, which makes it particularly useful as a third essay, since it could work with a fourth one to form a bridge assignment. Other essays with this kind of flexibility are Scott and Faludi—they just seem to work with a lot of other essays. As for the actual assignment, it was again a “what is the role of X in Y?” kind of assignment, only this time I was interested in how the theories that Gladwell examines would (or would not) play out on the global scale.

Here’s the finished sequence:

Assignment One: The Future of American Militarism

According to Mary Kaldor, America is transitioning to a new kind of militarism, one aimed at allowing us to fight wars without casualties. At the same time, the U.S. is becoming a major player in various multinational peacekeeping efforts. Evaluate the tensions between these two roles for the American military by using Kaldor’s ideas to examine “America’s Army,” the video game released online by the U.S. Army (http://www.americasarmy.com). You can examine either the video game itself, or the variety of texts surrounding it, such as its forum.

Drafts must be at least 4 pages long. Final papers must be at least 5 pages long.

Assignment Two: War and Human Capability

Although Martha Nussbaum’s immediate concern is the plight of women around the world, her articulation of the central human functional capabilities has implications for all human beings. Form a project in which you consider the impact of the military and war—in its new and traditional forms—on human functional capabilities.

Drafts must be 4 pages long. Final papers must be 5 pages long.

Assignment Three: The Power of Context and Global Change

Malcolm Gladwell argues that change can be accomplished simply by altering the smallest values of an environment. While the “power of context” seemed to be effective in New York City, how effective might it be on a global scale? For this essay, consider the function of the power of context in effecting global change.

Drafts must be 4 pages long. Final papers must be 5–6 pages long.

General Tips on Designing a Sequence

In general, here are some tips to keep in mind when forming your sequence:

• Think context, not connection. In choosing the essays to use in your sequence, don’t be concerned about the specific textual connections you see between the essays. Instead, think about what larger contexts or conversations draw them together: globalization, democracy, technology, etc.

• Try to develop, not depart. Once you have a context or theme that draws your essays together, create each assignment with a view towards developing that context/theme rather than having assignments that depart abruptly. In this sense, sequencing is about literally making a sequence, such that each new assignment builds on the previous one.

• There’s always the formula. If you’re stuck on how to phrase an assignment, remember the “classic” formula: What is the role of X in Y? Of course, you probably don’t want every assignment to come out in this form, but it can be a starting point for you to develop the assignment you want to use.

• Be flexible. Sometimes, a planned sequence goes awry. It may be that your class has particular problems with an essay or with a particular assignment. Or it may be that class discussion goes off in a whole new interesting and exciting direction. Always be ready to adapt your sequence to the needs of your class.

Advice on Writing Assignments

Students are often confused by our assignment questions. I have heard them in the Writing Center talking to their tutors:

Tutor: “When is the paper due?”

Student: “I can’t remember—it might be next week.”

Tutor: “Which readings are you supposed to write about?”

Student: “Well, we have a new reading, but I think we’re supposed to connect it to the previous one as well.”

Tutor: “OK—what’s the question you are writing on?”

Student: “I’m not exactly sure—there are a lot of questions on the assignment sheet.”

As this rather typical dialogue suggests, there are some very basic ways we can help our student understand what we are asking them to do. Here are a few words of very practical advice to help make your assignments more consistently usable for students.

• Give due dates. Either at the top or at the bottom of the page, you should have clear due dates for both the Rough Draft and the Final Draft. And be sure to remind them to bring extra copies of their Rough Draft for peer review! That way they have no excuse for forgetting copies on draft day!

• Name the readings. You should name the readings you expect students to discuss at the outset of each assignment. This becomes especially important as the semester progresses and you expect students to return to readings they have discussed previously. Some students will not immediately understand that this means they should discuss all of these readings in conversation with each other. Be explicit about which readings need to be discussed. Some teachers set the list of readings for the assignment apart somewhat by giving it a label (“Readings:”) and listing author, title, and page numbers.

• Provide specific instructions in preparing the paper. Your university may have developed standard ways of presenting student essays or it may not. In either case, your first-year students are new to all this and probably don’t know what a college paper should look like. Especially on the first assignment, you should note basic formatting you expect students to follow in preparing their papers. Be sure to repeat the minimum page requirement (most teachers say “at least four pages for the Rough Draft” and “at least five full pages for the Final Draft” on all assignments) and to specify all of the basic rules that will help to stave off chaos. My list includes the following: “one-inch margins, typed, double-spaced, no large point sizes, name and date in the upper left or right hand corner, a staple in the upper left hand corner, page numbers at the bottom of every page, and an original title centered on the first page.”

• Use the visual elements of the page for emphasis. With computers, we can all now be good page designers, able to use white space, lists, boldface, and other visual cues to help students understand our assignments. I think a good assignment will use boldface especially to highlight the specific question that is being asked. You should also set each separate part of the assignment into its own paragraph or its own part of the page.

• Ask a question. Some assignments, including even those by very experienced teachers, never really ask a question of students. Without a question to answer, students have no clear instigation for writing. Not only should your assignment ask a question, but it should also highlight that question (perhaps with boldface or by putting the question into its own paragraph, or both). This way students can focus on what you are really asking. And be sure your question has more than one possible answer!

• Ask follow-up questions or give advice. After you have written your question, try to think about the ways your weakest students might struggle to answer it. What advice can you give them? What additional questions (clearly segregated from the main question) might help them to understand what you are asking and how it applies to the texts under consideration?

• State the learning objectives (or, “What I’m looking for”). With each paper you likely will be emphasizing different skills, which you might call the “learning objectives” for that assignment. With Assignment #1, you will usually be most concerned about getting students beyond summary and making sure they are using textual evidence to support their points. In Assignment #2, you might be looking for more connective work, patterns of error, and signs of a project. It’s a good idea to set these forth at the bottom of the assignment (perhaps in an unordered list) so that students can pay attention to them. The learning objectives can then inform your comments.

The Assignment Question

The most important part of any writing assignment is the main question it asks. You might want to ask a number of questions to encourage reflection, but there should be one central prompt. Highlight this main question in some way (perhaps by putting it in bold, making it an independent paragraph, explicitly labeling it “Question,” or all of the above.) Make sure that students don’t miss it. And work hard at making it an effective instigation for student projects. Be sure, first of all, that it is in the form of a question. That means it should end with a question mark. Make sure it is open-ended enough to allow for a variety of responses. It should not be possible to answer it “yes” or “no.” The best questions are often those that even you are not sure how to answer. They set students with a task and motivate them to develop an original project to fulfill it. Questions can take a wide variety of forms, but they tend to begin with “How” or “Why” rather than “Who,” “What,” “Where,” or “When.” The following are some categories of successful questions.

Close Reading

Students are asked to examine implicit assumptions in the essay (usually about some “big question” or topic) that can only be revealed through close reading and analysis, using specific evidence from various parts of the essay itself. This type of question is especially useful with a single text and so is a good form for the first assignment.

• According to Schlosser, why is the homogenizing effect of globalization a problem and how might it be resisted?

• How might Boyarin’s research be shaped by his sense of loss?

• Some recent thinkers have argued that words predetermine what we see and say. Does Gould’s historical account of the term “evolution” confirm, contradict, or complicate this view?

• How do symbolic representations or cultural symbols, such as a yarmulke (Boyarin) or a veil (Abu-Lughod), operate in the formation of community?

Synthesis

Students are asked to combine ideas from one reading with those of another.

• How is the “netforce” that drives “new war,” as described by Kaldor, a product of the forces of globalization that Schlosser describes?

• How might altruism and reciprocity, as described by de Waal, produce some of the effects of complexity described by Johnson?

Frame and Case

Students are asked to use a theoretical “frame” from one reading to interpret the “case” of another. This type of assignments works well when you have one strongly theoretical reading and one rather descriptive or narrative reading. The ideal question here will ask students to “re-frame” one reading in the terms of another, re-evaluating the ideas of X in terms of Y.

• How might Scott describe the power dynamics discussed by Abu-Lughod and Faludi?

• How well does a term like “evolution,” as discussed by Gould, describe the way either the individual or the group develops over time in Boyarin’s essay?

• How might Kaldor’s notion of humanitarianism alter the landscape of globalization that Schlosser describes?

• How does Kaldor’s description of humanitarianism invite you to reevaluate Guinier’s notion of “proportionality” and/or de Waal’s “survival of the kindest”?

• Does The Citadel, as described by Faludi, prepare young men to function according to the rules of work described by Greider?

Terministic Frame

Students are asked to invent or find a term (in the essay itself) to frame a rereading of the essay. This works like “frame and case,” but here students are challenged to invent or find their own terms to serve as the frame.

• How do global corporations, such as McDonald’s, use “tradition” as a marketing tool? Invent a term to describe the way they use “tradition” and explain how their strategy works using at least three examples from Schlosser’s essay.

• What is the difference between a “cultural landscape” and a “portable landscape”? At the end of Boyarin’s essay, what kind of landscape does he inhabit?

Action Horizon

Students are asked to use ideas from the readings to describe a plan of action in the real world. This question asks students to develop an “action horizon” to describe how real problems might be solved through applied knowledge.

• Schlosser’s essay ends with a discussion of the “McLibel trial” and its outcome (which you read about online). What is the alternative that those waging a battle against McDonald’s in particular and globalization more generally might propose? If we are not to live in a world organized and controlled by corporations, how is our food supposed to be produced and distributed?

• What ideas do Gladwell and de Waal offer that might help Guinier make her idea of reforming the voting system more feasible in the real world?

Assignment Sequence Peer Review Sheet

If you are using this handbook as part of your orientation process for new instructors (as we do in the Rutgers Writing Program), you may find it useful to organize a peer review session for your instructors to discuss their sequences. After all, if we are going to have our students do peer review, we should be willing to try it out ourselves. Here is an Assignment Sequence Peer Review sheet we have used with our instructors. Further below you will find a peer review sheet designed for reviewing the second sequence (which we have used in our midterm mentoring meetings).

Instructor’s Name: ______________________________________________________________________________________________

Reviewer’s Name: _____________________________________________________________________________________________

Instructions

Get into groups as directed and exchange assignment sequences with the other instructors in your group. Fill out a peer review sheet for a fellow instructor and make marginal notes or proofreading comments on the assignments themselves. Be sure to return this sheet to the instructor.

A Check List

In preparing individual assignments, has the instructor included all critical information for the student? Check “yes” or “no” for the following:________

Instructor’s name ___Yes ___No

Assignment number ___Yes ___No

Readings for the assignment ___Yes ___No

Due dates for rough and final drafts ___Yes ___No

Explicit page requirements ___Yes ___No

Guidelines for preparing the paper ___Yes ___No

Highlighted question to be addressed ___Yes ___No

Follow-up questions (if useful) ___Yes ___No

Guidance on the writing process ___Yes ___No

Learning objectives for the assignment ___Yes ___No

Assignment #1

What specific main question is asked by Assignment #1? (Put it in your own words if necessary to make it a question.)

Is there more than one way to answer this question? ___Yes ___No

Comment:

Students often write summary when working with only one reading on Assignment #1. How has the instructor tried to overcome this problem? How could the assignment be improved to discourage summary responses?

Assignment #2

What specific question is asked by Assignment #2?

Is there more than one way to answer this question? ___Yes ___No

Comment:

Students often write “compare and contrast” essays in Assignment #2 when working with two readings. How has the instructor tried to overcome this problem? Or how could the assignment be improved to avoid “compare and contrast” responses?

A good second assignment will encourage students to build on their earlier discoveries without merely repeating things they said in the first paper. How does Assignment #2 encourage development rather than repetition? How might the assignment be improved in this regard?

Assignment #3

How would you describe what the teacher has asked students to do with the readings in Assignment #3? Write a single sentence that describes how students are expected to use all three essays in combination. That is, how are readings X, Y, and Z supposed to be related to each other?

The Sequence

How do the assignments create a sequence? What is the theme?

Are there any assignments that don’t seem to fit the sequence? How might they be improved in order to fit?

Play devil’s advocate for a moment. What agenda do you see in these assignments or in the sequence as a whole? How might the assignments seem to limit student’s choices of response—according to the most negative or resistant viewpoint you can imagine?

What should the writer work on most in revision?

The following section contains eleven class sequences, most of which appear nowhere else in the support materials for The New Humanities Reader. We hope they offer you a wide range of examples in how to shape a coherent sequence of assignments for your course. Please feel free to adapt these to your own purposes.

Sample Sequence #1: Michael J. Cripps: Miller/Spellmeyer, Boyarin, Gould, Armstrong.

Sample Sequence #2: Barclay Barrios: Boyarin, Gould, Stille.

Sample Sequence #3: Michael Goeller: Boyarin, Gould, Abu-Lughod.

Sample Sequence #4: Heather Robinson: Boyarin, Gould, Armstrong

Sample Sequence #5: Kate Briggs: Miller/Spellmeyer, Abu-Lughod, Boyarin, Gould

Sample Sequence #6: Piper Kendrix Williams: deWaal, Guinier, Kaldor, Gladwell, Schlosser, Stille.

Sample Sequence #7: Richard E. Miller: Guinier, de Waal, Tannen.

Sample Sequence #8: Kurt Spellmeyer: de Waal, Guinier, Nussbaum

Sample Sequence #9: Barclay Barrios: Guinier, de Waal, Gladwell.

Sample Sequence #10: Michael Goeller: de Waal, Guinier, Gladwell

Sample Sequence #11: Megan Heller: de Waal, Guinier, Nussbaum, and Faludi

Sample Sequence #1
By Michael J. Cripps

The idea behind this sequence is a serious consideration of religion, faith, and its continued importance in the twenty-first century. By starting with the Preface to The New Humanities Reader, it is possible to get students to be conscious of the process of connective thinking. In fact, the whole question of meaning is tied up with connective thinking, making the Preface even more important as a central hub for the sequence.

The sequence could easily extend further into the area of spirituality. Armstrong is tough reading, and would really reward more work in the second sequence. Willis might be a nice piece to help students “get personal” with Armstrong’s ideas without falling into autobiography or religious self-disclosure. I also think this first sequence could set up some serious treatment of such issues as religious wars/conflicts, or even the value of tradition. Armstrong can work very well, I think as that transition text to move students to the second sequence. Abu-Lughod, Dillard, Kaldor, Nussbaum, Stille, or even de Waal might work in that sequence.

Assignment 1: The Value and Cost of Connective Thinking and Action

Miller and Spellmeyer, in the Preface to The New Humanities Reader, write about the value of “connective thinking.” For Miller and Spellmeyer, connective thinking can be a way to locate “a larger shared horizon” in times of crisis, or when discontinuities between our ideas seem too difficult to bridge. Connective thinking is important, at least in part, because it can help us decide how to act in the world, and so it is often closely linked to action.

In a very real sense, Boyarin’s “Waiting for a Jew” can be read as a series of examples of examples of efforts at connective thinking and connective action. The Jewish communities of Farmingdale, New York, the Eighth Street Shul, and even those in Paris are all trying to locate a way of being in the world that can connect a Jewish identity to the larger community of which they are a part. These examples may confirm much of what Miller and Spellmeyer see as valuable in connective thinking. Boyarin is himself interested in locating a way to connect his way of being Jewish to the ways of Jews in Paris. “If I cannot make out of a shared marginality a niche in the city for myself, I will be lost” (158).

At the same time, Boyarin’s essay reveals potential pitfalls in actions that grow from connective thinking. For example, reflecting on Jewish efforts to assimilate into a twentieth century secular society, Boyarin’s wife “articulates our shared impression that Jewish secularism has failed to create everyday lifeways that can be transmitted from generation to generation.”

Write a five page essay in which you use both the Preface to The New Humanities Reader and “Waiting for a Jew” to develop and articulate your own view of the importance and limitations of connective thinking for action in the world.

Be sure to quote from both selections from The New Humanities Reader in your essay. Also, use MLA citation style conventions in your essay (see Raimes, Keys for Writers).

Assignment 2: Portable Landscapes and the Dreaded “E” Word

“Any marginal group in mass society may be subject without warning to the loss of its cultural landscape, and therefore those who are unable to create portable landscapes for themselves are the most likely to endure” (Boyarin).

While he does not reference Darwin (or even evolution) in his essay, Boyarin’s idea suggests that a cultural selection process akin to Darwinian natural selection is at work in society. Much like the elephants in Gould’s fable of natural selection, only the strong groups (those who can create portable landscapes) actually survive the shifting social arrangements.

But can these apparently successful adaptations have any larger significance in terms of our understanding of the Jewish faith, or any other religion?

Using Gould’s conceptions of evolution and Boyarin’s discussion of Jewish adaptability to landscapes as sources for ideas, develop your view of the applicability of theories of evolution (variational and/or transformational) to our understanding of our place in the cosmos.

Gould, for one, sees real problems with any effort to connect Darwinian evolution to religious notions of the origin of homo sapiens. But perhaps the appropriate connection is not the either-or choice of evolution or creation, as implied in the Kansas school board’s decision to warn that evolution is but one theory of origin.

Be sure to quote from both selections from The New Humanities Reader in your essay. Also, use MLA citation style conventions in your essay.

Assignment 3: Faith—What Is It Good For?

Karen Armstrong, in “Does God Have a Future?,” provides us with a brief tour of humankind’s relationship to God. In part, Armstrong is looking to develop a conception of God that can meet the objections thrown up by the rise of science, rationalism, atheism, and the twentieth century’s two world wars. This is important, Armstrong thinks, because “people who have no conventional religious beliefs . . . keep returning to central themes that we have discovered in the history of God.”

What is the value of faith/belief/God in our increasingly rational, technological, and scientific world?

Use Miller and Spellmeyer’s Preface, Gould’s “What Does the Dreaded ‘E’ Word Mean, Anyway?,” and Armstrong’s essay to develop and support your own position on this very important question. You might begin by revisiting your ideas about connective thinking and its place in action (Paper 1), and your ideas about evolution and meaning (Paper 2). After all, Gould himself writes, “the specification of morals and the search for a meaning to our lives cannot be accomplished by scientific study in any case.”

Sample Sequence #2
By Barclay Barrios

Assignment 1

According to Jonathan Boyarin, “Anthropology is a tool for mediating between the self and the community”. Using his ideas about individuals, communities, and identity, write a paper in which you propose tools that can be used for mediating between communities. These tools might be particular ideas about what a community is or how it functions, or they might be strategies Boyarin uses applied on a larger scale. Apply your proposed tools to the Middle East peace process as explained in the current “roadmap” to peace (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2003/20062.htm), suggesting what might be changed in the roadmap to further its success based on the tools you extract and develop from Boyarin.

Assignment 2

Using Jonathan Boyarin’s ideas about community and identity and Stephen Jay Gould’s observations about both the competing meanings of “evolution” and the ways in which Darwin’s ideas have been variously received, adapted, misunderstood, and altered, write a paper whose central project addresses the changing role of the United States as peacekeeper in the international arena.

Assignment 3

What are the key elements to successful relationships between the United States and other countries, or between communities in general? Write a paper that addresses this question using the ideas and concepts from the essays by Boyarin, Gould, and Stille.

Sample Sequence #3
By Michael Goeller

Assignment 1

Reading: Jonathan Boyarin’s “Waiting for a Jew.”

Re-read Boyarin’s essay, paying special attention to the role of both individual choice and social pressures in shaping his identity as a Jew. Then do something really really difficult: (1) Invent a term to describe the relationship between individual choice and the influence of others in shaping identity, and (2) explain where your term comes from and how it helps to describe the way Boyarin came to his sense of identity.

If you do the first part, you can answer this question: What term can explain the way we come to our sense of identity? How does it apply to Boyarin?

Be sure to discuss at least four pieces of specific evidence (use quotations or describe specific episodes in your own words) from the essay to show how your term helps to describe the way Boyarin’s identity came about. If possible, try to develop your term from among those that Boyarin himself uses. Is there any evidence that seems difficult to account for using your term? Why might that be?

Assignment 2

Readings: Stephen Jay Gould’s “What does the Dreaded ‘E’ Word Mean Anyway?” and Jonathan Boyarin’s “Waiting for a Jew.”

In his essay, Stephen Jay Gould uses Darwin’s terms to describe the development of species, and he discusses how a relatively similar (though distinct) terminology is used in astronomy to describe the development of stars.

Can we apply any of Gould’s terms to the psychological or social phenomenon described by Boyarin? How well does a term like “evolution” (or, if you prefer, “modification with change”) describe the way either the individual (Boyarin) or the group (Orthodox Jews) develops or changes over time?

Some things to consider: Gould describes how terms can both enable and limit us in understanding how things work. How are Gould’s terms both helpful and limited? How might you change Gould’s terms to fit Boyarin’s case? Might a new but similar term to “evolution” (or whatever term you prefer to focus on) be more satisfactory? If so, what would that term be? You might consider how well Gould’s terms compare to your own (as developed in the first essay) in describing the development of Jewish identity. Remember also not to limit yourself to only one term (such as “evolution”) that Gould uses. For example: Gould makes an interesting distinction between “variational” and “transformational” change, which he sees as essential to understanding the difference between the way Darwin describes “descent with modification” and the way astronomers (and Darwin’s contemporary biologists) describe “evolution.” Using Jonathan Boyarin’s terms, could we say that Darwin viewed change as more “haphazard” while astronomers and others saw it as more “intentional”? Is the word “intentional” an accurate one in the case of astronomers or Darwin’s contemporaries? How does Boyarin’s view of his own “haphazard but intentional” (emphasis added) participation in the Orthodox Eighth Street Shul justify or complicate the application of Gould’s terms “variational” and “transformational” in describing his experience? Which term seems best for describing the way that individuals work collectively to form distinctive communities?

Assignment 3

Readings: Lila Abu-Lughod’s “Honor and Shame,” Stephen Jay Gould’s “What does the Dreaded ‘E’ Word Mean Anyway?” and Jonathan Boyarin’s “Waiting for a Jew.”

Both Abu-Lughod and Boyarin describe marginal religious communities that work to maintain their collective identities in the midst of larger secular cultures. But the methods by which these two communities maintain their identities are often quite different from each other.

How can you use Gould’s ideas or terminology to explain why different communities develop different methods to persist in a changeable world? What factors seem most important in accounting for the differences between the two communities under consideration?

Remember to rely exclusively upon evidence from the texts in supporting and exploring your claims.

Sample Sequence #4
By Heather Robinson

Assignment 1: Two Voices

In Jonathan Boyarin’s “Waiting for a Jew,” he seems to occupy two roles simultaneously—that of observer, and that of the observed. However, he discusses and comments on not only his own experience, but also the society in which he lived. In a sense, Boyarin was his own subject, as much as the Jewish.

What do you think such a personal perspective—a retrospective of his own life—allows Boyarin to do, that observing and studying a group from the outside could not?

Here are some questions to get you started: What is Boyarin saying in this essay—what’s his point? What is he trying to show about Jewish culture? What is he trying to show about himself, and the choices that he made? How do the two—his own development, and the Jewish culture in which he grew up, fit together?

Assignment 2: The Nature of Things, Or What’s In a Name (a gartl, a yarmulke . . .)

“I am writing about the term ‘evolution’ in the domain I know in order to explicate its strikingly different meaning in the profession that I put aside but still love avocationally. A discussion of the contrast between biological evolution and cosmological evolution might offer some utility as a commentary about alternative world views and as a reminder that many supposed debates in science arise from confusion engendered by differing uses of words and not from deep conceptual muddles about the nature of things.”

—Stephen Jay Gould, What Does the Dreaded “E” Word Mean, Anyway?

In Stephen Jay Gould’s essay, “What Does the Dreaded “E” Word Mean, Anyway?,” he discusses the importance and power of the word evolution, both historically, and today. He claims that it is not only the theory promulgated by Darwin, but the very word which is now used to name this theory which is the source of much controversy and debate, even when people are not aware of exactly what they are doing when they use the word. In Jonathan Boyarin’s “Waiting for a Jew” he talks about the importance of a lingua franca in his research, and the power not only of the Jewish religion, but of the artifacts thereof.

Using the essays by Boyarin and Gould, I would like you to answer the following question for this assignment: How can the language that we use frame and inform our thinking, either limiting us to one specific point of view, or giving us the right tools for a “proper” exploration of the issues at stake? Following from this, does adhering to the trappings of a particular culture—be it scientific, religious, social etc. help has to understand better, or do they hold us back from having our eyes, truly open, and being accepting of possible new ideas and views on the world. If so, how? If not, why not?

Assignment 3: A God-Shaped Hole

In light of the discussion in the essays by Jonathan Boyarin, and Stephen Jay Gould, what do you think the answer to the question in Armstrong’s title is? That is, “Does God Have A Future?”

If you think yes, then explain why you think this so, and what form the idea of God in the future will take. If you think no, then explain why you think not, and what, if anything, you think will replace the historical idea of God.

Be sure to consider and explain how your perspective fits in with Armstrong’s own, and how the ideas and opinions in Gould and Boyarin helped you to formulate a perspective that differs from Armstrong’s (if that is indeed the case), or, if your perspective coincides with Armstrong’s, discuss how Gould and Boyarin brought you to this conclusion. Remember that I am not interested in a personal response; I am interested in a reasoned discussion based upon your analytical response to the three texts.

Sample Sequence #5
By Kate Briggs

Assignment 1: Moral Communities and the “Freedom” of Choice

Readings: Lila Abu-Lughod, “Honor and Shame” and the Preface to The New Humanities Reader.

Lila Abu-Lughod’s essay documents “the gradual shift in the boundaries of the moral community” of a traditional tribal people. Kamla, the Bedouin girl about whom she writes, confided to her:

that she would have liked to replace her kerchief with the new Islamic headcovering but she was afraid her family would object. A photograph of her with her school friends revealed that she was the only one among them not wearing the new modest dress. Yet Kamla criticized some of her classmates who wore this type of clothing but added flowers and multicolored headbands to their veils. She said their religion teacher had given them a real talking to and had confiscated their flowers and headbands saying, “If you want to take on the veil, do it seriously.” Kamla said she would adopt this kind of headcovering “if God opens the way for me and I get to marry someone educated.”

Your project for this assignment is to discuss how the boundaries between moral communities change and what kinds of freedom are involved in the choices to change them. Why does Abu-Lughod write that she worries “about Kamla’s blithe confidence that life in the city will be so much better”? How do the different perspectives offered by Kamla and Abu-Lughod help you to understand some of the issues at stake? How do the distinctions between Bedouin, Egyptian, and “Foreigner” impact on Kamla’s life and on the life of her family? How do they respond to these tensions?

Reading Assignment for Assignment 1

“We begin to get a glimpse of the larger world, however, only when we move from one reality to another and we discover the insufficiency of our previous ways of thinking. Then it can become possible to think in a new and different way. It is this movement from the known to the unknown that is the essence of all learning; indeed, we believe that the most successful learners are those who have developed the highest tolerance for not-knowing—those who continue to question and explore issues beyond their own areas of specialization, and so can entertain alternatives others might find unimaginable.” (Richard E. Miller and Kurt Spellmeyer)

How might the idea of a “tolerance for not-knowing” apply to your reading of Abu-Lughod’s essay? How has your understanding of her essay changed so far?

Can you say that you “understand” or “know” what it would be like to be in Kamla’s community? What can you relate to and what is difficult to understand?

How do the different perspectives offered by Kamla and Abu-Lughod help you to understand some of the issues at stake?

What other differences of perspective can you find in the essay?

How do these instances involve the relation between knowledge, lived experience and the particular culture of the community?

Assignment 2: Cultural Symbols and the Formation of Identity

Readings: Jonathan Boyarin, “Waiting for a Jew” and Lila Abu-Lughod, “Honor and Shame.”

Jonathan Boyarin describes his work as a Jewish anthropologist along with his own search for a Jewish identity:

In assuming the yarmulke, I perhaps do not stop to consider that neither my actions nor my knowledge match the standards that it symbolically represents. But it works effectively, almost dangerously, as a two-way sensor, inducing Jews to present themselves to me and forcing me to try to understand how I am reflected in their eyes.

For this assignment, I would like you to consider how symbolic representations or cultural symbols, such as a yarmulke or a veil, operate in the formation of a community. What do the reasons Kamla or Boyarin give for wanting to adopt such head coverings illustrate about such communities and the tensions to which they respond?

Boyarin refers to anthropologists as “messengers,” who spend their lives moving back and forth among the worlds of others. As we do so, in order to avoid getting lost along the way we must become cultural pioneers, learning to “get hold of our transcultural selves” (Wolff 1970:40). Communities on the edge of mass society, or even on the fringes of ethnic enclaves, seem to be the most congenial fields in which to do so. How do such cultural symbols relate to the idea of a “transcultural” self?

The rough draft of 4 pages is due in class on ________. Bring three copies of your rough draft to class for peer review. Revised drafts of at least 5 full pages are due in class on Please staple the peer review sheets and your post draft outline to the final draft.

In evaluating your paper, I will look at:

• Your project: Use textual evidence from the texts to develop and support your own ideas about the assigned topic.

• The organization of your essay: Explain and explore a central claim in each paragraph. Your paragraphs should connect logically to each other, and all work toward developing your central project.

• Your work with the texts: Define key terms and choose relevant quotations and examples. Explain the connections between this evidence and your larger project.

• Your sentence structure: Proofread your essay carefully for grammar and spelling errors.

Assignment 3: Evolution and Belief

Readings: Stephen J Gould, “What Does the Dreaded ‘E’ Word Mean, Anyway?” Jonathan Boyarin, “Waiting for a Jew,” and Lila Abu-Lughod, “Honor and Shame.”

Stephen Jay Gould notes that the “truly liberating content” of Darwin’s scientific discoveries are often misunderstood or actively resisted, and cautions evolutionary biologists to be careful to avoid misunderstandings generated by inappropriate word choices, given that “we still face considerable opposition, based on conventional hopes and fears, to our insistence that life evolves in unpredictable directions, with no inherent goal.” He argues that once we recognize that the specification of morals and the search for a meaning to our lives cannot be accomplished by scientific study in any case, then Darwin’s mechanism will no longer seem threatening and may even become liberating in teaching us to look within ourselves for answers to these questions and to abandon a chimerical search for the purpose of our lives, and for the source of our ethical values, in the external workings of nature.

Jonathan Boyarin notes how Jewish ethnographers can contribute to the reintegration of Jewish thought in Western academic communities by elucidating the dialectic of tradition and change as worked out in communities facing vastly different historical challenges. We may then . . . explore how the Jewish belief that “Creation as the (active) speech or writing of God posits first of all that the Universe is essentially intelligible” (Faur 1986:7) provided a pathway from Torah to a restless, unifying modern impulse in the natural and social sciences.

For this assignment, use the texts by Boyarin and Abu-Lughod to form a project discussing Gould’s response to the controversy between religion and science over “evolution.” What light does the idea of a “tolerance for not-knowing” (Miller and Spellmeyer) shed on this discussion?

The rough draft of 5 pages is due in class on ________. Bring three copies of your rough draft to class for peer review. Revised drafts of at least 5 full pages are due in class on ________. Please staple the peer review sheets and your post draft outline to the final draft.

In evaluating your paper, I will look at:

• Your project: Use textual evidence from the texts to develop and support your own ideas about the assigned topic.

• The organization of your essay: Explain and explore a central claim in each paragraph. Your paragraphs should connect logically to each other, and all work toward developing your central project.

• Your work with the texts: Define key terms and choose relevant quotations and examples. Explain the connections between this evidence and your larger project.

• Your sentence structure: Proofread your essay carefully for grammar and spelling errors.

Sample Sequence #6
By Piper Kendrix Williams

Assignment 1: To Be Fit or To Be Kind?

Frans de Waal concludes “Survival of the Kindest” with a description of the animal kingdom that is bound to shock some readers: he describes dogs who became “depressed” when exposed to a great deal of death; he discusses strategies that were pursued to help the dogs recover their “emotional investment” in helping others; finally, he concludes with the assertion that there are species of animals who intend to do good deeds. Imagine that de Waal’s revision of the evolution narrative is not simply an academic matter, but has importance in a larger context.

Your project in this paper is to take a position on the social, cultural, or spiritual ramifications of de Waal’s assertion of kindness as an organizing principle of evolution. In beginning this paper you may want to consider the following: What would change if de Waal were right? That is, what would the consequences be if de Waal’s account of the evolutionary value of kindness replaced the dominant account of evolution as the arena of “the survival of the fittest”?

Assignment 2: Reciprocity in Politics

In your last paper you considered the social, cultural, or spiritual ramifications of de Waal’s theory of “survival of kindness” and “human goodness.” In this assignment we turn to the political. In “Second Proms and Second Primaries: The Limits of Majority Rule” Lani Guinier argues that majority rule does not meet the ideals of the democratic process, proposing instead a system based on proportionality. de Waal is obviously aware that humans can be unfair or unjust towards one another as well as kind. Your project in this paper is to take a position on the place of kindness and altruism in the workings of democracy. In beginning this paper you may want to consider the following: How does the reciprocal nature of a proportional system fit into de Waal’s theory of kindness and altruism? How can de Waal’s argument be used to shed any light on the working of democracy in the U.S.? Can evolutionary theories be used to explain or illuminate Guinier’s account of democracy?

Assignment 3

In the selections from The Ape and the Sushi Master we’ve read, Frans de Waal provides us with an optimistic interpretation of human nature, advocating an understanding of human evolution as shaped by “kindness,” rather than “fitness.” He argues, “At least in some cases, we seem to be dealing with the genuine article: a good deed done and intended.” Lani Guinier, in “Second Proms and Second Primaries: The Limits of Majority Rule,” argues for a hopeful revision of American politics, one that will fulfill the “ideal of reciprocity . . . [and] the moral authority” of democracy. Both writers rethink old and static ideas in order to construct a better world. In “Beyond Militarism, Arms Races and Arms Control,” Mary Kaldor analyses the nature of armed forces and war in the post-Cold War period. She also extends a new way to think, extending the “humanitarian approach” as a way out of “wars that cannot be won.” All three writers implicitly suggest a role for individuals in changing human, national, and global relations, subscribing to a belief in an essential human equality. Given the world Kaldor describes, does it make sense for the individual to re-think the world? What’s at stake? For whom? In beginning this paper you may want to consider the following: de Waal and Guinier provide specific ways to re-think: for example, in the “survival of the kindness” model, locating acts of intended kindness and altruism and in a proportional system of politics, achieving reciprocity. Use these and other specifics to think though concrete ways to achieve the “humanitarian approach” Kaldor calls for.

Assignment 4

Primary (required) Readings:

Malcolm Gladwell, from The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference and Mary Kaldor, “Beyond Militarism, Arms Races and Arms Control”

Supplementary (optional) Readings:

Frans de Waal, from The Ape and the Sushi Master and Lani Guinier, “Second Proms and Second Primaries: The Limits of Majority Rule”

In your last paper you were asked to consider the possibilities and limits of “re-thinking” to alter the world. In his chapter, “The Power of Context (Part One),” Malcolm Gladwell argues for another way to understand and effect change. While Gladwell looks at the epidemic of crime in New York City in the mid 1980s and the dramatic drop in crime rates a decade later and Mary Kaldor points to “new wars” as an epidemic at the beginning of the 21st century, they both focus on the contagious nature of violence. How does the “Power of Context” help explain why the United States is involved in a “war on terrorism” and how does it suggest possible resolutions to this conflict? Was September 11 a “little thing”? Does Gladwell’s theory have predictive value? That is could it tell us, ahead of time, whether or not the humanitarian approach could “tip” the current epidemic of violence and war to a time of relative peace? What other “signals” or environmental shifts could work to cause this change? Are human’s reactions to violence and war an intrinsic part of how we’re structured or are they subject to small shifts in situation?

Assignment 5

Primary (required) Readings:

Eric Schlosser, “Global Realization” and Malcolm Gladwell, from The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

In his essay about crime in New York, Malcolm Gladwell provides a conceptual framework for the study of cultural change, the “power of context.” In your essay, I would like you to consider how Gladwell might use his theory to explain the “global realization” discussed by Schlosser. Use the “power of context” to develop an argument about the cultural changes that have accompanied globalization.

As you construct your argument, consider the following questions:

How do the central issues in Gladwell’s essay—behavioral change and environmental context—contribute to our discussion of globalization? Gladwell writes about local contexts, but how can we imagine thinking about context in connection to Schlosser’s global culture?

It is probably relatively easy to imagine the sudden and ubiquitous nature of McDonald’s being the consequence of a “tipping point,” but think also about Gladwell’s argument that small changes in context can alter human character. What does this suggest to you about how we should understand Schlosser’s argument about the cultural effects of globalization?

Assignment 6

In his essay, “The Ganges’ Next Life,” Alexander Stille attempts to understand the complexity of Veer Bhadra Mishra’s “double identity” as both a manhant and scientist. Stille is interested in the ways this complexity seems to influence the proposed solutions for cleaning the Ganges River. In what many would see as a paradox, Mishra engages modern technology to save ancient Hindu traditions. As Stille tells us, “Like India itself on the eve of the millennium, Mishra is trying to incorporate what is best from the West in order to preserve the Hindu traditions that he loves”. For Mishra, “science and religion have to mesh if the Ganges is to be saved. The Western approach, based on fear of a possible ecological disaster, will not work. . . .”

Now that we have reached the end of the semester, you should be able to define a specific context in which to define a project of your own. For this final paper assignment I would like you to articulate an argument that places Stille’s ideas about the meshing of traditional culture with modern, technological culture in conversation with at least two other readings from this semester. In writing this essay you may want to consider the following questions: How applicable is Mishra’s “meshing” of the modern and the traditional to Western places and problems around the globe? Why would that meshing work in India, and how might it work in the United States and/or other “Americanized” places, not only for ecological problems, but for any of the problems we have studied this semester?

Note: Avoid approaching the questions to simplistically: If you think the meshing of the modern and the traditional is a viable option for Western and/or global problems, be precise about how this meshing would work. And/or: If you think such meshing would be problematic, say exactly why, in the context of the readings you choose to work with.

Sample Sequence #7
By Richard E. Miller

Assignment 1: Democracy, Reciprocity, and Voting

“[W]hen a prejudiced majority excludes, refuses to inform itself about, or even seeks to thwart the preferences of the minority then majority rules loses its link with the ideal of reciprocity, and so its moral authority.” (Guinier)

Why is Guinier concerned with reciprocity and moral authority? What do these ideas have to do with elections and the democratic process? Does democracy depend on the ideal of reciprocity?

Assignment for Revising Paper 1: Testing Your Ideas by Visiting the Center for Voting and Democracy

In your first draft, you staked out your preliminary position on the relationship between democracy and reciprocity. To extend this discussion, I would like for you to visit the Center for Voting and Democracy website <http://www.fairvote.org/> (a link for this site can be found on the Guinier Link-O-Mat). What do you make of this organization’s promotion of proportional voting? Does this site support, contradict, or complicate Guinier’s vision of a reciprocity-based democracy?

In your revision, please make certain to refer at least twice both to Guinier’s work and the Center for Voting and Democracy site. Your final paper should be at least five pages long.

Assignment 2: The Consequences of Goodness

In making his argument for an alternate explanation of the evolutionary process, de Waal relies on the work of Ernest Westermarck, who believed that “human goodness” was part of our genetic makeup. The meaning of this term is hard to pin down: does “human goodness” require a commitment to reciprocity or proportionality or, even, democracy? What are the consequences of linking democracy to “human goodness”?

Write a paper where you discuss the relationship between democracy and altruism. Please make certain to refer at least twice both to Guinier’s work and de Waal’s work. Your final paper should be at least 5 pages long.

Assignment 3: Altruism, Legitimation, and the Democratic Process

“A homogenous legislature in a heterogeneous society is simply not legitimate.” Both Lani Guinier and Deborah Tannen describe democracy as a system that is troubled by under-represented minorities or by a lack of meaningful dialogue that might actually change people’s minds. What changes would need to take place to establish a democratic system or public dialogue that would be recognized as both legitimate and successful by these two authors? Would re-thinking the evolutionary process in the ways de Waal encourages contribute to improving how democracy works or is evolutionary theory a largely irrelevant player in the ways governments and citizens go about their daily business?

Please make certain to refer each of the assigned authors at least once in your paper. Your final paper should be at least five pages long.

Sample Sequence #8
By Kurt Spellmeyer

Assignment 1: The Transformation of Evolutionary Thought across Knowledge Communities

One way to think about knowledge is to see it simply as information that can be judged either true or false. But another way to think about knowledge is to view it in terms of “knowledge communities.” Evolutionary biologists make up one knowledge community, a community to which de Waal himself belongs, as did Darwin before him. Another community might be described as the “interpreters of evolution,” some of whom are practicing scientists and some of whom are journalists or freelance writers. Within this community we might include Thomas Henry Huxley, Richard Dawkins, Robert Wright and Matt Ridley. A third group, by far the largest, might be called “non-scientists” or, better yet, the “general public.”

For this assignment, I would like you to explore the ways in which knowledge first created by the community of biologists gradually made its way into the common knowledge of the general public. What distortions, improvements, elaborations, or applications did Darwinism undergo along the way? Is the contemporary public understanding of evolution primarily the outcome of scientific inquiry or have other forces shaped it just as much as science, possibly even more. What might these other forces be?

When I ask you to “explore” the transformation of evolutionary thought as it travels from the knowledge community of biologists to the larger community of the general public, I really want you to make some kind of point or argument. In order to make that point, you will need to draw heavily on the evidence provided by de Waal, but I am not looking for a simple summary of his argument. The last part of my question–about the forces that have shaped scientific knowledge after it has left the hands of scientists themselves–requires you to engage in some intelligent speculation. Why might non-scientists be so ready to see nature as “red in tooth and claw,” if this is not what Darwin tried to tell us? Could it be that attitudes and values that have nothing to do with science have somehow gotten mixed up with our popular understandings of evolution? What might be some of the cultural, social, or economic sources of those attitudes and values?

Assignment 2: Culture and Biology, Voting and Altruism

For your second assignment, I would like you to use de Waal and Guinier to make an argument that answers this deceptively simple question:

Is the principle of “majority rule” consistent with genuine Darwinism, as Frans de Waal represents it, or is it more consistent with the “survival of the fittest” mentality that de Waal calls into doubt?

Basically, this question asks you to decide whether democracy by majority rule, which Lani Guinier regards with suspicion, is more conducive to altruism and reciprocity than to selfishness and competition. You might respond in a variety of ways. Among them are these possibilities:

If you decide that majority rule is indeed consistent with altruism, then you might also make case that Guinier’s idea of proportional representation is less consistent with altruism or completely contradicts it.

On the other hand, if you decide that Guinier’s proposal is consistent with altruism, you might also try to demonstrate that majority rule undermines reciprocity and therefore flies in the face of our biological heritage.

Alternately, you might make the case that evolutionary biology cannot give us any meaningful guidance at all about conduct of our political affairs. Remember, however, that you will need to explain in some detail—drawing on de Waal as well as Guinier—why biology and culture constitute completely separate domains.

Finally, you might argue that evolutionary biology lends support to both majority rule and proportional representation. Perhaps both serve the ends of evolution in different ways.

Please bear in mind that this assignment is not asking you to compare and contrast de Waal with Guinier. Instead, it asks you to explain how the evidence provided by de Waal might confirm, contradict, and/or complicate Guinier’s argument.

Assignment 3: Finding a Ground for Moral Action

We have now read three authors—de Waal, Guinier, and Nussbaum—all of whom explore in different ways the subject of ethics or morality, whether their concern is altruism among primates, an ethically responsible political system, or the need for universal human rights. None of them argues for divine revelation as the basis of ethics.

For your third assignment, please write an essay that answers the following question:

Do human beings need moral absolutes? If so, where will these absolutes come from? If not, what sort of morality might be an adequate alternative?

As you consider the possible sources of moral absolutes, use the three authors to explore the complexities that are produced by any answer to this question. If you are intrigued by the possibility that moral absolutes might come from science, then please explain how we should respond to disagreements within the scientific community. Consider in particular the debates between de Waal’s camp and its opponents. Similar complexities must be faced by those who turn to religion as the bedrock of morality. After all, the various religions do not always agree, and even within a single faith, sharp disagreements are quite common. After considering science and religion as sources of authority, you might turn to our nation’s civil institutions: the people, you might argue, should be free to decide on the morality they will abide by. But in that case, who qualifies as “the people”? If we base our ethics on majority rule, does that mean that the majority is always right?

Needless to say, the questions I have posed here are huge ones. Your paper does not necessarily need to reach a firm conclusion: a strong essay might simply explore the complications of the issue or demonstrate the strengths and limitations of various possible answers. If you manage to come up with a truly compelling answer, one developed in a well-organized, persuasive, and articulate way, you will qualify not only for an “A,” but also for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Sample Sequence #9
By Barclay Barrios

Assignment 1: The Individual, the Group, and the Future of Democracy

Lani Guinier is centrally concerned with the future of democracy and the inclusion of all citizens in representation. While Guinier’s vision emphasizes the role of groups and minorities in state power, the Institute for Justice’s website, particularly as represented by its Profile (http://www.ij.org/ profile/), argues for the rights of individuals against not only the state but also racial, ethnic, or other groupings. Using Guinier and the IJ website, make an argument about the role of the individual and the group in the future of democracy.

Drafts must be 3 pages long. Final papers must be 4 pages long.

Assignment 2: The Biology of Democracy (Version A)

Frans de Waal argues for a biological basis to human ethics and morality through the principles of altruism and “retributive emotions.” Using Guinier and de Waal, form a project that focuses on retributive emotions in government. Be sure to pay attention to de Waal’s discussion of multi-layered problems; that is, create a nuanced and complicated position, not one that is black and white.

Drafts must be 4 pages long. Final papers must be 5 pages long.

Assignment 2: The Biology of Democracy (Version B)

It’s tempting to see de Waal as simply arguing against scientists like Hawkins, Hobbes, and Huxley, but more than once he moves into explanations that are, in his terms, “multilayered.” Return to the argument you made in Paper One and revise it using de Waal to create a more multilayered understanding of the individual and the group in democracy.

Drafts must be 4 pages long. Final papers must be 5 pages long.

Assignment 3: Nature, Nurture, Democracy

Malcolm Gladwell finds that the “Power of Context” was crucial to the decline of crime in New York City. Changing the smallest elements of the environment altered (via the Broken Windows theory) the context of crime, leading to a precipitous decline. How might we apply the Power of Context to democratic reform? And what role might altruism, reciprocity, and/or proportionality play in this reform? Use Guinier, de Waal, Gladwell, and (optionally) the IJ website to support your project.

Drafts must be 4 pages long. Final papers must be 5–6 pages long.

Sample Sequence #10
By Michael Goeller

Assignment 1

Reading: Frans de Waal, “Survival of the Kindest” and “Down with Dualism!” along with sources from the Link-O-Mat, including The Living Links Center and NPR’s Science Friday.

In his interview on NPR with Ira Flatow to promote The Ape and the Sushi Master, de Waal talks at length about the importance of cultural transmission among monkeys and great apes. Yet in the two essays we have from his book, de Waal seems to focus most on the importance of genetic transmission in determining animal and human behavior.

How do you think de Waal can reconcile the relative importance of genetics and culture in shaping behavior? Use evidence from the text and from the online sources to support your argument.

You might wish to explore de Waal’s distinction between “proximate” and “ultimate” levels of behavior in considering the ways in which culture (or nurture) relates to genetics (or nature). And you might consider the question of whether generosity can be explained in terms of “reciprocity” (as discussed both in the essays we read and at The Living Links Center) or in terms of a more deeply ingrained compulsion to altruism—or in terms of some combination of the two.

Assignment 2

Readings: Lani Guinier, “Second Proms and Second Primaries: The Limits of Majority Rule,” and Frans de Waal, “Survival of the Kindest” and “Down with Dualism!”

According to Lani Guinier, “reciprocity” is at the heart of the social contract that validates political authority: “you cooperate when you lose in part because members of the current majority will cooperate when you win and they lose.” However, as she argues, when the majority is always the same, “reciprocity” is short-circuited. For Frans de Waal, by contrast, an expectation of “reciprocity” cannot itself explain why we are able to act contrary to our own selfish ends, especially since we can rarely have any expectation of repayment for our acts of kindness.

Whose view of the place of “reciprocity” in human relationships do you find more persuasive? How can that writer’s viewpoint be used to revise the interpretations of the other? And what are the larger implications of such a revision?

This assignment does not ask you to compare and contrast the views of these writers. Instead, it asks you to use the views of one writer to reframe key examples used by the other. If you agree with de Waal, how would he view problems and examples that Guinier discusses? Or, if you prefer Guinier’s point of view, how would she interpret problems and examples discussed by de Waal?

Assignment 3

Readings: Lani Guinier, “Second Proms and Second Primaries: The Limits of Majority Rule,” Frans de Waal, “Survival of the Kindest” and “Down with Dualism!” and Malcolm Gladwell, “The Power of Context.”

In her essay on “the limits of majority rule,” Lani Guinier argues that we need to change the winner-take-all approach to voting in order to make voting more fair for minorities, and she makes specific recommendations for how to construct a fairer system. But she does not consider how her new approach to voting might be implemented or how her goals might be accomplished given our current political realities. After all, why would the majority agree to have its power undermined?

The other essays we have read might provide a way of accomplishing Guinier’s project. Malcolm Gladwell argues that enormous social change can be wrought by relatively small changes in our immediate environment. And Frans de Waal suggests that we can all act unselfishly because it is ingrained in us to do so.

How might the ideas of Gladwell and de Waal be deployed to improve the situation of minorities in the ways Guinier has in mind?

Some questions to consider before you write (do not try to answer all of these):

If you were working for Guinier and consulted Gladwell and de Waal about how to accomplish some of the goals that Guinier sets forth, what insights might they offer? And what approaches might they recommend? Basically, this assignment asks you to use ideas from Gladwell and de Waal to construct a viable plan of action for improving the political situation of minorities. How might that plan work? What political or rhetorical approaches would help to put it in place? How could resistance to Guinier’s plan be overcome? And how might the ideas of Gladwell and de Waal force you to change some of Guinier’s ideas in order to achieve her overall goal?

Sample Sequence #11
By Megan Heller

Assignment 1

In your last paper I asked you to take a position on the place of kindness and altruism in the workings of democracy. Frans de Waal calls altruistic acts those than do not involve personal gain, in which the impulse to help becomes “dissociated from the consequences that shaped its evolution,” allowing the impulse to be “genuinely unselfish”. Lani Guinier, in the meantime, seeks a democracy that is “fair and just”, involving a system of proportionality in which one would have to recognize underrepresented groups and provide them with a voice equal to that of the majority. What about a situation where what is altruistic becomes unclear? Martha Nussbaum, a philosopher and social critic, takes a universalist stance on the rights of women in her essay “Women and Cultural Universals” in presenting her “Central Human Functional Capabilities”; however, she also presents the side of the anti-universalists, the cultural relativists, who place the right to tradition first. Both universalists and relativists mean well, and act out of a sense of altruism and the greater good for a particular group of people, without any real benefit to themselves. Both groups see themselves as acting according to a system of proportionality, giving equal rights to those outside the majority; for relativists, it is a matter of placing the rights of non-Western traditions as equal to Western thought, while for the universalists in this article, it is a matter of placing the rights of women as equal to those of men.

Can cultural relativism and cultural universalism be reconciled or made compatible at all? Do you believe that Nussbaum finds a compromise in her Central Human Functional Capabilities? Does being kind to one group while potentially violating the rights of another demonstrate altruistic intentions?

You may consider the following questions: De Waal offers a picture of evolution based on a mixture of “survival of the fittest” and “survival of the kindest”; how might these roles work according to relativists and/or universalists? Are the women in Nussbaum’s article less entitled to enfranchisement that the blacks in Phillips County because their tradition still prohibits it? Or, is it wrong for Western democracy to impose change upon a culture, rather than allowing it the autonomy to change on its own? You should use at least three main supports to your argument, and each support should contain at least three quotations, one from each author.

Assignment 2

In your last essay, I asked you to take a position on the question of cultural relativism versus cultural universalism. Martha Nussbaum offered us the opportunity to compare the rights of a general group, in this case women, to the right of a particular culture to exist. Your next article, Susan Faludi’s “The Naked Citadel,” also draws attention to the question of a culture’s right to exist, but it brings the problem a little closer to home. Faludi shows us The Citadel, a public (state-funded) military institution in South Carolina which was, until recently, exclusively male. Those who were against the admission of women to The Citadel believed deeply in the traditions and internal culture of the college, and believed they had a right to exist without outside interference.

For your next essay, I would like you to consider the following question in terms of the two assigned essays: What right does a tradition have to exist? You may also consider any or all of the following support questions: If you believe traditions have some sort of inherent right to exist, why? If not, how would you defend yourself against critics? What, if anything, gives one tradition more weight than another? Does changing particular elements about a tradition destroy it, or is it necessary to maintain traditions intact? Do Nussbaum’s Central Human Functional Capabilities apply to The Citadel’s traditions? Should the value of “tradition” be allowed to insulate an organization from having to value human rights? Does the role of personal choice make a difference? Does public financial support make a difference? Remember to use at least three quotations per author.

Assignment 3

In your last essay, I asked you to demonstrate whether or not a culture’s traditions had some inherent right to exist. In Susan Faludi’s “The Naked Citadel,” we saw The Citadel’s controversial fourth-class system as a means of breaking cadets before rebuilding them, and the conflicts raised when women were introduced into that environment. She claims that “[W]e are at a psychic and economic crisis point for manhood,” both in confronting the traditions of The Citadel and on a larger scale. Deborah Tannen goes beyond tradition as well to the roots of learning in Western culture, and there finds what could be the same roots for the violence at The Citadel. Tannen sees Western education as being based in a system of confrontation and aggressive argument, and proposes a compromise between debate and dialogue which would involve less the questions of “wrong” and “right,” and more the possibility for constructive agreement and disagreement. She claims that the current system is based in a militaristic model that is also responsible for the exclusion of women in certain academic arenas.

For your next essay, I would like you to consider the following question: How might a shift in the way we think about learning change the way we think about masculinity?

As you write, you may also consider the following questions: Why do you believe that an aggressive, militaristic model of education has perservered for so long? Would The Citadel be able to exist in a revised system like Tannen’s, or would its traditions be destroyed? Finally, a question that could potentially stir controversy: Do you agree with Tannen? Is such a change really necessary?

Assignment 4

In your last assignment, I asked you to consider how a shift in the way that we think about learning might change the way we think about masculinity. Deborah Tannen showed us our educational system as based on debate and argument, rather than productive discussion. Susan Faludi presented us with The Citadel, a military institution whose traditions of learning seem based as much on the hazing in the dormitories and the “fourth-class system” as on the books in the classroom. Peter Ho Davies, in his “What You Know,” gives us a fictional story from the point of view of a creative writing teacher contemplating a student’s act of murder/suicide, and his attempts to understand the motivations behind it. In each of these pieces, we see education and violence mingling, sometimes in unexpected ways.

For your next essay, I would like you to consider the following question: How and why do acts of violence become connected to structures of learning? How does power work in each of these situations? Do you think that questions of what is perceived as masculinity continue to play a role in this problem? How might we consider these questions outside of a learning institution (The Citadel, the high school, the college), in terms of the larger questions of learning in life?

The sample student essays in this section were produced by students in Expository Writing at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, NJ. We hope that instructors in your program will find them useful for discussion. Our evaluations of these papers (including the grade it received and the explanation) are offered after each.

Student Essay #1: Becky’s First Paper (C)

Student Essay #2: Becky’s Second Paper (NP)

Student Essay #3: Becky’s Third Paper (C+)

Student Essay #4: Jan’s First Paper (NP)

Student Essay #5: Jan’s Second Paper (NP)

Student Essay #6: Jan’s Third Paper (C)

Student Essay #7: Joe’s First Paper (C+)

Student Essay #8: Joe’s Second Paper (NP)

Student Essay #9: Joe’s Third Paper (B)

Student Essay #10: Jan’s Sixth Paper (C+)

Student Essay #11: Joe’s Sixth Paper (B)

Student Paper #12: Ernst’s Sixth Paper (A)

Student Paper #13: Aileen’s Fifth Paper (A)

Student Essay #1: Becky’s First Paper

The Plight of the Homeless

Today, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, homelessness is still a weighty issue to be contended with. People are homeless for a variety of reasons including mental health, illness, trouble at home or wherever they ran from, or an inability to procure employment for themselves. The homeless are not all criminals or ex-convicts. Many of them are decent people who have just hit hard times. Many homeless people turn to the streets because they are too far in debt to be able to pull themselves out, often because their medical bills were exorbitant and healthcare wouldn’t provide for them. This is a universal problem, not special to North America alone. I, myself, have seen homeless people begging for money in several North American states, Holland, and Israel. As fellow human beings we, the privileged who have resources to share, should not be letting these people suffer.

The accepted notion of man’s origin is the Theory of Evolution, by Charles Darwin. His main point was that the strongest and most desirable creatures would be the ones to find mates and procreate. Darwin dubbed this phenomenon “natural selection”. Over time, one of the more desirables mating with another one of the more desirables would lead to the less desirables extinction. Darwin referred to this as “the survival of the fittest”. His theories have been interpreted by many scientists to portray the species that have survived natural selection as selfish and unfeeling towards others. According to de Waal, selfishness “is now often used as if it were a synonym for ‘self-serving’, which it is not. Selfishness implies the intention to serve oneself, hence knowledge of what one stands to gain”. In fact, many of these scientists see man as born evil, and taught to be moral and kind. For example, George Williams says, “I account for morality as an accidental capability produced, in its boundless stupidity, by a biological process that is normally opposed to the expression of such a capability”. There are also Robert Wright and Matt Ridley, who say that “virtue is absent from people’s hearts and souls, and that our species is potentially but not naturally moral”. The other scientists who feel this way include Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Henry Huxley, Sigmund Freud, and Claude Levi-Strauss. These scientists would see it as perfectly reasonable that our society has so many homeless people. If people aren’t created moral and caring about others, it makes sense for the have-nots to sleep in the streets. I, on the other hand, believe that humans are created moral and caring about others. I am Jewish. In Judaism all people are as brothers, and therefore responsible for taking care of each other. We are commanded to be kind as part of the larger goal of making the world a better place in which to live. In fact, in Judaism we are commanded to donate a tenth of our annual profits to the needy to ensure that they have food to eat and a roof over their heads. Those who have are supposed to look out for the have-nots.

Frans de Waal, in The Ape and the Sushi Master, seems to understand the issue of human morality differently than the aforementioned scientists. He does not think that man is selfish and uncaring, or that he is born evil and needs to be taught to be moral. He thinks that man is kind and moral and altruistic to begin with. As he says concerning altruism, “At least in some cases, we seem to be dealing with the genuine article: a good deed done and intended”. De Waal calls his theory “survival of the kindest”. He quotes Adam Smith in saying, “How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it”. (The Ape and the Sushi Master)

There are several scientists whom de Waal agrees with, most notably Charles Darwin. He quotes Darwin as saying, “ Any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well developed, or nearly as well developed, as in man”. He also agrees with Edward Westermarck, a scientist who is “part of a long lineage, going back to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, which firmly anchors morality in the natural inclinations and desires of our species”. De Waal also mentions Mencius as someone who believes in the goodness of man, saying, “Mencius believed that humans tend toward the good as naturally as water flows downhill”. Frans de Waal and his fellow believers in the goodness of man would be appalled at the amount of homeless people there are in today’s societies. They would be upset that the homeless aren’t taken better care of.

Obviously, there is not enough “survival of the kindest” in today’s world. “Survival of the fittest” is still more powerful. There needs to be more of a balance between the two, as expressed, “with the belief of many philosophers and scientists, including Charles Darwin, that our species moderates its selfishness with a healthy dose of fellow feeling and kindness”. If “survival of the fittest” were the dominant theory, people would all be entirely alone, completely selfish beings. They would have no one to care for, and no one to care about them. If “survival of the kindest” were the dominant theory society would be too lopsided. There would be way too many providers for any service because there would be no competition. A world without competition would lead to less satisfaction. People wouldn’t feel the drive to succeed without it. People need to be driven to succeed, but they should do it without stepping all over other people. Society would be wonderful if there were “survival of the fittest” modified by “survival of the kindest”.

In the perfect world, according to Frans de Waal’s model, there would be no homeless people. Society would run based more on “survival of the kindest” ideals than “survival of the fittest” ideals. People would be kind and moral towards each other, and would act upon their altruistic tendencies. They would care enough about each other to give just a little bit of their paychecks to those in need. People would offer physical aid too, not simply monetary. They would be happy to help each other, not necessarily seeking gain or future IOU’s. I think that Frans de Waal would have a special Medicaid-type organization to take care of the homeless, and find some way to make jobs available to them. Homelessness would be a sure sign to de Waal of his fellow man’s lack of a sense of obligation to help one another when necessary.

Homelessness is a huge problem in societies all over the world today. Whether or not human beings have more “fitness” and selfishness or “kindness” and altruism, something needs to be done. Whether de Waal is right and people are naturally kind, or Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Henry Huxley, Sigmund Freud, Claude Levi-Strauss, Robert Wright, and Matt Ridley are, and humans are not naturally moral and kind, we should work on actively being kinder and better. We should make an effort to cut down on our selfish or self-serving acts. We should aim to do more good, purely motivated, altruistic deeds. People should be here, there, and everywhere around the world fixing it, not just writing papers and theorizing about how to solve the problem. We shouldn’t sit back and wait for the world to get better and the homeless people to find homes and jobs for themselves. De Waal would definitely advocate lending a helping hand without expecting anything in return.

Evaluating Student Essay #1: C

First papers are always difficult to grade, but especially so when using a sequenced approach to composition. The first assignment asks students to write about only one essay and so is unlike the assignments that will follow. Often, with only one essay to write about, even the strongest writers in the class will fall into a summary response rather than seeking to develop an independent project. On the other side of the coin, any students who go beyond mere summary will usually be seen as passing or even better (especially if compared to their peers). Some instructors try to control for the problems inevitable in grading the first paper by only grading it “pass” or “fail.” Not only are students much less likely to be troubled at failing for writing summary alone or at getting a grade of C for non-summary (after all, they must have received much better grades in high school if they made it to college in the first place), but teachers are much less likely to send the wrong signals by over-valuing relatively weak non-summary responses like this one.

Becky’s paper is made up mostly of summary, after all, in which she depicts how de Waal’s view of evolution conflicts with that of most post-Darwinian writers. But her use of the example of homelessness creates framework for understanding that summary by directing it toward an analysis of a social issue. Thus, what might in another context be seen as simple summary can be seen as directed summary, since it is made to serve a purpose in her paper. By beginning and ending with the example of homelessness, Becky also creates a sense of unity to her paper. The example of homelessness, as a politically charged issue, also allows her to take a stand and make a point. Directed summary, a sense of unity between paragraphs, and the ability to take a stand or make a point in the paper are all hallmarks of passing (or C) work.

Becky has some error in her papers, but most of it is simply poor formatting. Like most students writing their first college paper, she has not yet adjusted to MLA style (hence the punctuation marks mistakenly fall outside of the quotation marks and the page citations mistakenly follow the periods).

Student Essay #2: Becky’s Second Paper

The Plight of the Minorities

There are many, many minority groups in the United States population today. Some minority groups are racial, such as blacks, and Native Americans. Some are ethnic, such as Jews, and Hispanics. And some are simply social minorities, such as the poor and the homeless. There are also many other groups of people who, for whatever reason, are not part of the American majority. These people all have one thing in common though- they all have relatively small voices on the national scene.

Minorities, in modern democratic America, have some trouble making their ideas and opinions heard. Smaller groups of people are often not well represented in their governments. This is a problem because democracy is supposed to be a government for the people, by the people; it should not be a government for some of the people, by some of the people. Many people within these minority communities experience economic troubles and hardships, not simply the poor and the homeless. Life can be quite difficult for minorities. The inability of minority groups in America to make their voices heard is a major issue. This shouldn’t be occurring in America, the leader of the free world, at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Lani Guinier agrees that this is a problem, citing our reliance on the majority rule principle as a major factor. Frans de Waal sees man as inherently kind and caring, so there shouldn’t be people who aren’t given a chance to make their voices heard. As fellow human beings and Americans, we, the privileged who have voices that are heard, should not be letting this happen.

In his book, The Ape and the Sushi Master, Frans de Waal contends that survival of the fittest isn’t good enough on its own; it must be combined with survival of the kindest. Charles Darwin’s ideas about “natural selection” and “survival of the fittest” were understood by such scientists as Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Henry Huxley, Sigmund Freud, and Claude Levi-Strauss to portray the species that survived these processes as selfish and unfeeling toward others. In fact, many of them see man as born evil, as George Williams says, “I account for morality as an accidental capability produced, in its boundless stupidity, by a biological process that is normally opposed to the expression of such a capability. (De Waal) In a system of government in which morality was seen as a mistake it would make sense for there to be underprivileged people, but not in a democracy where all men are created equally and protected by their government.

De Waal disagrees with this notion of man as a selfish uncaring being that needs to be trained to be moral. He quotes Darwin as saying, “ Any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well developed, or nearly as well developed, as in man”. (De Waal) Man is inherently moral and caring towards others. We should, naturally, feel indignant that there are people just like us who don’t have a fair say in our government. While Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Henry Huxley, Sigmund Freud, and Claude Levi-Strauss would not blink an eyelash at the plight of minorities in today’s United States, Frans de Waal and Charles Darwin would be somewhat upset.

Lani Guinier, in her book Second Proms and Second Primaries: The Limits of Majority Rule, is quite upset about the problems that black voters have in making their voices heard. It is important to remember that blacks are not the only minority group, simply the one that Guinier, a black law school professor and would-be supreme court nominee, focuses on in this essay. She too contends that “survival of the fittest”, majority rule, isn’t good enough; it should be combined with “survival of the kindest”, proportionality, letting the minorities have their say. Lani Guinier is bothered by the fairness of majority rule, as she says, “The conventional case for the fairness of majority rule, however, is that it is not really the rule of a fixed group—The Majority—on all issues; instead it is the rule of shifting majorities, as the losers at one time or on one issue join with others and become part of the governing coalition at another time or on another issue. So the argument for the majority principle connects it with the value of reciprocity: you cooperate when you lose in part because members of the current majority will cooperate when you win and they lose. The result will be a fair system of mutually beneficial cooperation. But when a prejudiced majority excludes, refuses to inform itself about, or even seeks to thwart the preferences of the minority, then majority rule loses its link with the ideal of reciprocity, and so its moral authority”. (Guinier)

Her solution to the problem is, “an alternative to majoritarianism: a ‘principle of proportionality’ that transcends winner-take-all majority rule and better accommodates the values of self-government, fairness, deliberation, compromise, and consensus that lie at the heart of the democratic ideal”. (Guinier) Lani Guinier wants minorities to have a fair say, proportional to their population and presence. She doesn’t want there to never be black officials elected because they are a minority group in a racially divided country. A system of government that is proportional to the population would be fair to everyone involved. No one would be slighted or have to worry about getting their fair share.

The blacks that Lani Guinier worked with in Phillips County, Arkansas, were quite poor, though not all minority groups are poor. Although they were the majority of the population of the town, they were not the higher percentage of the county voting age population. Actually, “blacks in the county have never had much political power. In fact, since Reconstruction, no black has ever been nominated to any county-wide office in Phillips County”. (Guinier) The black people of this particular community are not able to improve their circumstances by being represented in their local government, nor are they helped by the current governments. 42% of the blacks there don’t have a car, and 30% don’t have a telephone, which could certainly hamper one’s ability to get to vote on time, especially if the location is changed at the last minute. Many of these people use significant amounts of their resources in order to vote the first time, and it is difficult to convince them to show up for a run-off. The difference is so large that the black plurality winner in the first round often has more votes than the white winner of the run-off. How should more minorities be encouraged to vote? The usual remedy is to establish a sub-district in which the minority is the majority. This causes a lot of fighting between minorities trying to gain a foothold in modern American society, calling it, “like any system of winner-take-all, flawed as a method for ensuring a fair system of political representation”. (Guinier) This is also bad because potential friends/allies don’t know of each other. Rather than fighting with each other to gain majority status, minority groups should be able to have nothing to worry about because their voices should be as audible as any other groups of people.

Lani Guinier came upon the idea of proportionate influence which, “requires something that winner-take-all districts simply cannot provide to numerically–weak minority voters: a basis of inclusion and representation that does not require winning more than 50% of the votes in a politically-imposed and geographically-defined constituency” (Guinier). This would ensure that everyone is fairly represented. There wouldn’t be any minority groups who didn’t have enough clout to get an official elected.

There are many, many minority groups in the United States today who are being let down by our current interpretation of democracy. Even though, in The Ape and the Sushi Master Frans de Waal asserts that survival of the fittest isn’t good enough, it must be combined with survival of the kindest; and, in Second Proms and Second Primaries: The Limits of Majority Rule Lani Guinier asserts that “survival of the fittest”, majority rule, isn’t good enough, it too must be combined with survival of the kindest, proportionality, we still have a problem. The minority groups’ voices need to be heard. Obviously, this hasn’t happened yet. Therefore, we, the privileged who have voices that can be heard, need to make sure that the different racial and ethnic minorities have their say.

Evaluating Student Essay #2: NP (not passing)

Becky’s second essay is very much like her first. The only difference is that it involves summary of two essays and “the plight of minorities” rather than of the homeless. This second paper thus highlights in some ways the non-passing qualities of the first, which are sometimes more difficult to judge on the first paper than they are on the second. Though she takes a stand in the paper, she does not develop a project that is in dialogue with the essays (at least in her first paper, she was able to connect homelessness to de Waal’s ideas more directly). The paper relies on overgeneralizations about the readings and it often make claims that suggest either reading comprehension problems or an active distortion to suit what she wants to say. The lack of connection and problems with accuracy to the text suggest a failing grade.

Becky is not doing much to connect Guinier, de Waal, and the issue of homelessness in her paper. There is only one moment, in fact, in paragraph four, where she makes a direct connection between the two writers, by conflating “majority rule” with “survival of the fittest” and “proportionality” with “survival of the kindest.” Yet this attempt at connection, while promising, is never articulated. How exactly does the idea of “survival of the fittest” match up to “majority rule,” after all? And, if it does, what questions might that raise? For example, are majorities always most fit? And how does Guinier’s idea of proportional voting parallel “survival of the kindest” exactly? They are certainly not the same thing, nor even the same type of thing really. The connection needs to be articulated in order to make sense, and it needs to be interpreted in order to make knowledge.

Becky’s failure to explore what the essays are actually saying, except by generalized summary and shorthand gestures, leads her to misapply quotations and to make statements (especially in the last paragraph) that are clearly misreadings. After all, how can de Waal be said to argue that “survival of the fittest isn’t good enough, it must be combined with survival of the kindest”? Isn’t de Waal’s point that the kind are already the most fit since they will have better chances of survival in this world of interdependent beings?

Becky has a good sense of how to structure a paper. But her essay is hollow of real engagement with the texts. She needs to add substance by working closely with the texts and actively interpreting them.

Student Essay #3: Becky’s Third Paper

Rethinking Our World

I agree with Frans de Waal, Lani Guinier, and Mary Kaldor about the need to rethink the way our world is run today. There are many problems, and they each suggest a way to solve one of them. De Waal’s survival of the kindest, Guinier’s proportional voting, and Kaldor’s world court would all be wonderful, to a point. After this point, all of these good things would cease to be good. Therefore, we see that there are limits for each of these.

De Waal’s survival of the kindest would be wonderfully useful in diminishing, if not eliminating, the effect of man’s selfishness on daily life. In a world that was based more on survival of the kindest than our current one people would care about each other. They would be naturally moral and giving, much more often then we currently are. De Waal bases this opinion of man’s natural goodness on Darwin’s belief that, “Any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, the parental and filial affections being here included, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well developed, or nearly as well developed, as in man” (De Waal). There wouldn’t be homeless people, or minorities who never get to have their say. Cutthroat competition would not exist, and there wouldn’t be any of the dog-eat-dog mentality that pervades the financial and business markets today.

Unlimited survival of the kindest would also be a problem, though. There would be way too many providers for any service because there would be no competition. If there were no competition in society, there would be no drive to succeed, and thus, no satisfaction. Also, like Darwin saw, natural selection of some sort must be allowed to continue. If we were to support everyone, even the “weakest links” at all times, the entire chain of humanity would eventually be weakened. There must be checks and balances in everything.

Similarly, Guinier’s view on proportional voting instead of majority rule could be wonderful. All of the little people in the world, whose voices are not heard right now, would be heard. There wouldn’t be minorities who had no say in how their governments worked. Everyone would be able to elect representatives from amongst their own communities, and make their votes count. Democracy would be truer to itself if it were run this way, as Guinier says, “For in the end democracy is not about rule by the powerful-even a powerful majority-nor is it about arbitrarily separating groups to create separate majorities in order to increase their share. Instead, the ideal of democracy promises a fair discussion among self-defined equals about how to achieve our common aspirations”(Guinier). Proportional voting seems to be the fairest way to establish everybody on level ground, as “self-defined equals”. It sounds like it should be the perfect solution.

Alas, unchecked proportional voting can also lead to problems. Different ones than there are in America currently, but problems nonetheless. There are many, many small political groups who all have a say in what should happen, but not really enough power to get elected or make any of their changes come about. Some of these small groups band together to gain power, and this often leads to chaos. A good example of this is the Knesset, in Israel. There is hardly ever a stable Knesset. Parties are always making noises about going back and forth between different camps because different parties share different views on different issues. It is often a mess. In order to prevent this from happening in America, I think that we should not be so hasty in completely scrapping the majority rule model. We should try to create a system with a little bit of both proportional voting and majority rule. This may help to prevent some gridlock while giving everyone equal opportunities.

Kaldor, in her essay “Beyond Militarism, Arms Races and Arms Control,” also advocates equality. She describes several new types of armed forces, and several new types of warfare that have emerged since the Cold War, and explains that the fighters must be treated as our equals. Just because they may be denizens of smaller countries, or no countries at all, doesn’t mean that they don’t have to be reckoned with. These fighters have all come from different places, and they all have their own reasons, but they cannot be dismissed simply because they don’t have a country like America backing them. This has been discovered since the Cold War, in all the fighting during the ’90s. Kaldor is in favor of dealing with these marauders by establishing international tribunals and courts more and more often. She says, “Perhaps the most hopeful approach to the contemporary problem of controlling war, nowadays, is not through arms control but through the extension and application of international humanitarian law (the ‘laws of war’) and human rights law”(Kaldor). Kaldor is so sure that this is important because, “As argued above, violations of humanitarian law and human rights law are no longer ‘side effects’ of war, they represent the core the new warfare”(Kaldor). The old types of warfare are no longer viable, because they will cause way too much destruction. Therefore, in addition to calling these tribunals, she is, “talking about a collective commitment by states, international organizations and civil society to act when individual states fail to sustain these norms and to do so within a framework of international law” (Kaldor). In effect, this would be an agreement from all of the countries in the world to meet as a court for whichever country needs to be brought to trial, for whatever reasons. This all sounds quite nice. A completely international agreement to act only humanely towards all other countries sounds positively utopian. It would be nice if it would actually get rid of all the current warfare problems.

The idea of all countries looking out for each other’s welfare is quite nice, but I’m not sure I trust it wholly. I feel like it would be making the world into one big socialist country, in a way. We, the countries, would obviously have more autonomy than that right now, but what would prevent this group of countries from moving in that direction? Each country has it’s own identity and issues, and I’m not sure we’d all understand each other’s issues in enough detail to actually do real justice to whatever issue we’d be working with. I feel like there just wouldn’t be quite the depth of understanding that someone actually embedded in the issue would have. Also, because America is still considered one of the leaders of the free world, and because much of the world does think capitalistically and competitively, there would be a race for one-upmanship even if we were all to agree to work together. America would still just be seen as bullying other countries to do what it wanted them to. If modern warfare as Kaldor describes it really is gone, and it is because of the mass destruction it would cause, I think that there needs to be some other type of warfare or punishment for those who commit warfare-like crimes, in addition to this. Countries that are at all harsh will have to worry about being brought to court by the whole world, when maybe the whole world should have stayed out a little longer. It will continue to be a really fine line to wait to cross to know when to enter a situation, and when to let a country resolve it’s own issues.

I agree with De Waal, Guinier, and Kaldor about the need to rethink the way the world is today. Survival of the kindest, proportional voting, and a world court would all be wonderful; to a point! There are limits that should be put on each of these efforts to rethink the world.

Evaluating Student Essay #3: C+

Becky is still working here with the same essay-pattern that she brought with her to our composition classroom and which she applied to the first two essays. She takes a stand and treats the essays rather separately in trying to support it, always subordinating them to her point. But here, at least, she is more engaged with (and accurate to) what the essays actually say and does a better job of relating them to her overall project than she had done previously.

Becky’s project is to establish what she sees as the limit to the three authors’ arguments when compared to the way the world works. The organizational structure for the paper is straightforward and easy to follow: each author is allocated two paragraphs, one charting out ideas the student writer agrees with, the next pointing out the ideas the student writer has more difficulty accepting. Finally, the paper has “several moments of solid work with text” as each author is allowed one representative quote that the student writer then incorporates into her project of identifying points where she can agree with the assigned authors.

Thus, this paper is better than a C paper for the following three reasons: the student writer consistently establishes her position throughout the paper; the paper is coherently organized from beginning to end; and the student’s work with text goes beyond establishing connections between the readings to illustrating the student writer’s own project.

This paper does not approach the B-level because the position Becky stakes out involves nothing more than accurately representing the arguments of the assigned authors and noting her reservations about their arguments. Consequently, this paper does not build towards any insight beyond observing that all these ideas are appealing “to a point.” The quickest way for this student writer to move her writing up to the next level is for her to begin to consider how de Waal, Guinier, and Kaldor might respond to her objections. How might Kaldor, for example, counter her concerns about world courts? What might Guinier say to the charge that she has set out to “completely scrap the majority rule model”? The way of arguing represented in this paper captures the most common attribute of papers in the C-range: a point of disagreement is identified by the student writer and the discussion is brought to a close. In papers at the B-level and above, these moments of disagreement come to serve as opportunities for thinking further about the issues at hand: if not a world court, then what? If not proportional voting, then what? This move to consider the implications of one’s own position is a move to explore what we term “the action horizon”—that place where the ideas in the paper are understood to have some potential impact or influence on the world outside the classroom.

Alternately, she could do more within individual paragraphs to allow the texts to speak to each other. Rather than imposing a structure and then seeking to fill it with the texts, she should work organically to put quotations in dialogue and see what ideas develop.

In some ways, all three of Becky’s papers suggest a failure to fully engage with the ideas of the readings. This third paper is at least closer to an accurate representation of the texts. Her project is imposed upon the readings rather than in real conversation with them, but at least it does not lead her to distort what they are saying, and it does allow her to say something that is coherent and structured. The problem that Becky is having, though, is that the structure she is working with is one that she imposes upon the readings rather than one that she creates through engagement with the ideas of the texts. Often, students like Becky need to allow their papers to become messy and disorganized through the difficult work of creating conversations before she can make a real step to the B-level or above. By trying to control the conversation from the outset with an imposed structure, Becky prevents herself from discovering anything new by really thinking about what the texts say and what knowledge they can make when put in honest dialogue.

Student Essay #4: Jan’s First Paper

Balancing the Kind and Unkind

The theory of the “survival of the fittest” has been the base of people’s way of living throughout time. This means that one has to think of oneself and not the other in order to survive in this world. This has been going on in the everyday lives of people and other living creatures in the world since the time of evolution. However, Frans de Waal, a primatologist and the author of the book “The Ape and the Sushi Master” has come up with another way of looking at this theory. By focusing mostly on animals, he was able to express his belief that the animal kingdom didn’t live solely on the theory of “survival of the fittest”. De Waal focused mostly on the theory of “survival of the kindest”, which states that animals, as well as humans, lived by “depending on each other” in order for survival. Nowadays, people live on both these theories. There should be a balance of being altruistic, and at the same time, the act of being self serving in order for a person to survive in this world and would have to depend on the culture one would be brought up in. De Waal proves this through observations of animals like chimpanzees, dogs, and other living creatures.

For years, the idea of “survival of the fittest” has become the accepted way people and animals were believed to have carried on with their lives throughout time. It came from the beliefs of Darwinism. Animals preyed on other animals for food and shelter. It was how things worked. Animals like tigers hunt down other smaller animals for food and that was their way of survival. However, others like De Waal believed that other ways, like the act of kindness, existed in other cultures which can changed how we see how life was before.

De Waal’s observed that the act of kindness became the basis of people’s way of living. He believed that animals learned to act kind from other animals especially their next of kin. A good example was that of the rescue dogs who were affected greatly by the idea that there were no survivors to be found. This also showed that these dogs didn’t need anything in return for their depression and sadness. As De Waal said, “We seem to be dealing with the genuine article: a good deed done and intended”. If it was true, according to De Waal, these dogs learned from their ancestry and that these dogs were taught to do such acts of kindness. Other animals as well were known to do such acts like the bats, he also mentioned in his book. It was their way of living.

Other animals such as the chimpanzees act otherwise. According to Darwin, there would always be a “struggle for existence” in every species in this world. Human beings battle other humans for survival and the same goes for animals. This, however, doesn’t necessarily mean being selfish from one another or that one must risk the well being of another for ones own. De Waal agreed on the saying, “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” which means “help is directed to someone willing to repay the service”. People do things for one another which mean that both parties gain from each others services. Chimpanzees might have been raised differently compared to the way dogs and bats were raised. There was still some sort of kindness practiced by the chimpanzees, only that they want something in exchange for this kindness. Similarly with people, if people were to be put in these situations, a variety of attitude will be seen coming from each kind of people.

In any society, it’s main goal is to survive in this world. This could be approached in various different ways. Depending on the way each culture has been taught, that will be the way in how each one will attempt to survive. The different ways each species treat others came from the culture they have been brought up with. This is how ones society works. The idea of being kind to one another is always what one would prefer, however, if one will not benefit from it; chances are it wouldn’t be the top choice. If an animal would kill another animal but will be of no use to them, there would be no reason for the animal to kill the other. Same goes for some people; others expect something in return for their kindness. De Waal believes otherwise, “In the ultimate twist of irony, anyone who doesn’t believe that we are fooling ourselves, who feels that we may be genuinely kind, is called a wishful thinker and thus stand accuse of fooling himself”. The idea of being kind can be seen in many different ways but will always lead to the question of benefiting from it. Being kind and helpful has been a part of evolution according to De Waal. However, its purpose or objective can very much vary in a lot of ways. According to De Waal, “Evolution has produced species that follow genuinely cooperative impulses. I don’t know whether people are deep down, good or evil, but I do know that to believe that each and every move is selfishly calculated overestimated human mental powers, let alone those of other animals”. People and animals are known to do heroic acts. Everyone has the ability to act kind consciously and unconsciously. Not everyone expects something in return for any good deed that was done. There will always, however, be people who do expect something in return. It’s something a person was brought up knowing or it could be a certain culture.

A person who sees surviving through a person’s own kindness towards others and live a self-serving life can very well live a pretty normal life. Everyone has their own agenda in life and one is to live a happy and peaceful life. “Survival of the fittest” and “survival of the kindest” is practiced together by people who have been successful in life. The notion that it’s being kind what made the evolution, not being fit, is something a person needs to do altogether. The ability to balance the act of kindness and selfishness is something one learns and sees in their environment throughout ones life. Culture has a big influence on the way people act towards any situation in life.

Evaluating Student Essay #4: NP

Jan’s issues are not atypical of a student whose first language is not English. When she began her work at Rutgers, she was placed in classes for second language learners. She did well in those courses and then took developmental writing, which she had passed the semester before she took our composition class. Obviously, Jan has learned quite a bit about how to write a paper. She works hard at making sense of the essay and at trying to work with quotations. But this paper has no project and exhibits too many patterns of error to be passable.

Jan is a student who would benefit greatly from tutoring. Tutors are helpful to students who don’t have a sense of project in their papers. But they are essential for students who need to work on their sentence-level writing. Though the only obvious pattern of error in Jan’s paper is a misuse of apostrophes (especially to form possessives), there are quite a few places where her syntax is strained and difficult to follow because it is non-idiomatic. She might achieve some results by working with more active voice constructions (notice the number of times the word “is” occurs in her sentences). So I might recommend that she work with a tutor on developing her project and improving her sentence-level writing by focusing on possessives and active voice as a good first step. Writing instruction for students with issues of error is always a “triage” process: we focus on the most “fatal” issues first, then work on the others in time.

Student Essay #5: Jan’s Second Paper

Not Fair

Is America really a country who runs a just and fair government according to many people? Lani Guinier would definitely say “no” to this question. In her text, “Second Proms and Second Primaries: The Limits of Majority Rule,” she tried to open her reader’s eyes to how our government runs unfairly in this country. She suggested a mere solution to how this could be prevented. This would be what she called the cumulative voting which exhibits the act of fairness and equality towards every type of race in this country. Frans de Waal would be one who will agree to a solution that practices acts of kindness and altruism towards others, according to his text, “The Ape and the Sushi Master.” Cumulative voting is a way that will bring equality to the way people vote for government officials where functional altruism and reciprocity plays an important role.

According to the Center for Voting and Democracy, a homepage that researches the concerns people have on voting and democracy in different countries, America’s system of voting is “unjust and unnecessary. It is unjust because it leaves minorities unrepresented with a resulting impact on majority rule as well as fair representation.” Guinier very much is against the “majority rules” voting system we have. Instead, she promotes to everyone the system of cumulative voting. Cumulative voting is where one person can vote up to the number of positions available in the elections. This will provide a chance for voters to be able to convey their feelings towards every candidate. It’s a chance for everyone to be able to participate in deciding for the government. It gives other a chance to be represented more fairly to the majority instead of just sticking to the majority. This idea can benefit both sides of the party, the voters, as well as the candidates through the concept of altruism and reciprocity.

Functional altruism according to de Waal is where “in which one individual gains from another’s action”. In other words, altruism is an act of kindness towards others where both or just either one benefits from it. However, it doesn’t have to be an “intended kindness, in which someone else’s well being is the goal” (de Waal). In some cases, people know first hand that they will be rewarded so they will proceed to do the deed. In connection to voting, a candidate’s goal must always be for the well being of the people one might govern. On the other hand, every voter’s vote must count even if the vote might be against the popular candidate. That is how it should work in the government. Every vote must count and every candidate should get a chance, which brings up the idea of reciprocity.

Reciprocity, I believe, should be a basis of every election that happens in every part of the world. Both the voter and the candidate must benefit from each other. A voter will vote for candidates that will be of help or assistance to him/her have a better life. In cumulative voting, the candidate would promise the people assistance or better changes, in return, the voters in return must help the candidate get elected. This will make candidates not discriminate against minorities for each candidate will want as many votes one can get. The voter, on the other hand, can evaluate the ability of each candidates and vote for each depending on their promises which means each candidate’s vote will count fairly. Both parties will have a chance to help each other somehow which what reciprocity is. According to Guinier, “When a prejudiced majority excludes, refuses to inform itself about, or even seeks to thwart the preferences of the minority, then majority rule loses its link with the ideal reciprocity, and so its moral authority.” In majority wins situation, many will be left unheard and this doesn’t practice reciprocity.

Everywhere in this world there will be always be racial discrimination and inequality that will never go away. Guinier suggested that a life where there is no inequality doesn’t exist. It will remain present throughout time. It will be difficult to overcome discrimination, more so if one will live through “survival of the fittest” because one will only think of oneself instead of helping each other. This will make racial issues worst. Therefore, De Waal suggested the idea of the “survival of the kindest” which will be better if both this and the “survival of the fittest” be present in each person’s life.

De Waal believes that “survival of the kindest” was what the basis of evolution became. The acts of kindness is what made people become who they are. Democracy can only be earned in a fair matter. One should not disregard feeling and rights of others for the benefit of himself. The only way one can obtain democracy and equality is by being fair and just to others. Cumulative voting is being fair to every person where each vote will be counted towards every candidate. This is a practice of kindness towards everyone, the voter and the candidate. This will prove that the idea of “survival of the kindest” will be a good basis for one’s life.

Evaluating Student Essay #5: NP

This marks an improvement on Jan’s first paper. She is beginning to develop a project that puts the texts in dialogue; she is trying to understand the texts conceptually; and she is, in some ways, more engaged with the texts than Becky is. But Jan’s sentence-level writing is still too strained to pass. For us, the test is whether “sentence-level errors impede meaning,” so that reading becomes as much an act of guesswork as understanding. In Jan’s essay, the reader is made to guess at her reading on too many occasions.

I might now give Jan an additional list of issues to address, which might include subject-verb agreement, use of pronouns, and the use of articles. By focusing on patterns of error and not overloading the student with too many patterns at once, we can help her to develop a strategy for improving.

Student Essay #6: Jan’s Third Paper

Which Way Is the Best Way?

Our country has been a land full of chaos. We have been facing a variety of challenges these past months up to the present. There was the attack on The World Trade Center, the disastrous downfall of the economy, and the very recent tragic death of the kidnapped journalist. There were also numerous attempts of similar attacks by terrorists who, fortunately, were unsuccessful. The kidnappings, deaths, and other tragic circumstances that’s been taking place can make each of us re-think what one could have done or should have done to prevent all of these commotions. Frans de Waal explained in his text, “The Ape and the Sushi Master”, that we have been taught and should reconsider the acts of kindness and altruism towards all situations around us. Lani Guinier agreed on the idea of reciprocity in the government that will wipe away discrimination, as she explains further in her text, “Second Proms and Second Primaries: The Limits of Majority Rule”. These ideas of re-considering a more humanitarian approach on different circumstances especially on the on going war that America’s been having are ideas Mary Kaldor construed in her essay, “Beyond Militarism, Arms Races and Arms Control”. They all believe that there are other ways in setting about ideas that we have been brought up with and ways that we can re-think. In some cases, re-thinking gives way to obtaining better solutions and explanations to questionable theories and methods. Yet, in other cases, re-thinking of alternative strategies might cause more tragic consequences depending on the circumstances.

Some of the tragedies we’ve been facing in our country today are just some of the consequences that we’ve obtained from decisions our government has made in the past. Our country has been attacked by acts of terrorism numerous times the past years. In my opinion, this could be due to the interfering of America with the wars between different religions in other countries. Its purpose might be to help the subordinate country to succeed but might’ve angered the opposition causing them to attack us. The war against terrorism that is on going right now is a decision made by the government subsequent to the attack on the World Trade Center. Kaldor addressed this issue in her text regarding the idea that being in a military war against terrorism should’ve not occurred, but instead, there should’ve been a more humanitarian approach. She suggested, “The most hopeful approach to the contemporary problem f controlling war, nowadays, is not through arms of control but though the extension and application of international humanitarian law and human rights law”. Kaldor is very concerned about the rights of the innocent people being affected by these wars. Not only people who are fighting the war get affected, but also the unheard voices that get killed. The on-going war has taken lives of several people, both military soldiers and civilians. Guinier corresponded to the human rights of every individual in going about the approach to fix the problem of inequality of who is heard and who’s not. Guinier suggested, “To redeem that promise, we need to put the idea of proportionality at the center of our conception of representation”. She was implying the way our system is right now could be the cause of some discrimination that is happening in case of the voting system that we have. Kaldor believed that only if one just might consider thinking of a more of an altruistic approach, then everyone can benefit. This is an idea de Waal would agree upon that people were brought up with kindness and altruism; a less severe consequence might’ve be an outcome to this type of situation.

However, some ideas of re-thinking may not always work on certain situations like September 11. In my opinion, it would have cost the people who were closely affected by the tragedy more grief if the president has decided not to attack the terrorists. If the president has decided to go about it the “nicer” way, it would have angered most of the citizens of US, especially those individuals who were affected by the most. America is one of the most powerful countries in the world and as a result, we have helped several countries along the way. However, in situations where terrorists attack innocent victims, a decent approach would have prevented from capturing the ones responsible. America has captured several terrorist leaders that can be held responsible for the attacks and in this situation; I think military attack was the only way for this to happen. In instances like voting, the outcome of re-thinking might take so long that it might not even be worth all the trouble. There might be a lot of other factors to consider. Guiner somehow saw that there would be a lot of work needed for her ideas to be successful. She states, “To get full benefits of cumulative voting, however, it would also be necessary to change the process of government decision-making, away from majorities model toward one of proportional power”. There would be hard work needed to obtain the changes that we wish for. Even de Waal would somewhat believe that it might be difficult to change some people’s ways. He states, “The question becomes whether animals and people posses the knowledge of to act selfishly. In nature, the future is mostly hidden behind a veil of ignorance”. It is very difficult not to think of our own well being and only think of other’s well being. We sometimes might feel this is selfish, but de Waal believes that it is a part of our personalities. Not everything can be thought over and be done something about. It would all depend on the circumstances that re-thinking can be a benefit to others.

Re-considering a more humanitarian method of solving other problems, on the other hand, would make some difference in some situations that’s been happened lately. An example would be the death of the journalist in Pakistan. The reason for kidnapping was a demand for the release of some terrorist leaders in our country. Looking back to how this was started, the World Trade Center was attacked by terrorists, so the U.S. government declared war against them, which resulted to deaths and terrorist leaders being captured. Angered terrorists resulted on kidnapping. Both sides are practicing acts of retaliation in this case. According to de Waal, “Forgiveness prohibits revenge but not punishment. Punishment is necessary component of justice, whereas revenge—if let loose—only destroys”. To retaliate against the enemy by the same means of attack will only make things worse. Since now that the journalist was killed, Americans are more raged than ever. Feeling of revenge will come to each of us towards this unfortunate ordeal. According to Kaldor, “new wars are very difficult to contain and very difficult to end”. I agree that once a war has started, it may take years to end and may take more lives one can imagine, as years would go by. People must try to go about the feeling of revenge in a more tolerant manner even if they have the power to do so. Being powerful can’t always be the answer to that problems and changes we want. Guinier would agree that, “For in the end democracy is not about rule by powerful—even a powerful majority—nor is it about arbitrarily separating group to create separate majorities in order to increase their share” (345). It is the idea of being kind and equal to others. The idea of re-thinking of other ways might result in less tragic consequences.

Our aim should be to re-think of ways that there would be lesser consequences for our actions. People must realize the different outcomes from every aspect of their action. An outcome of re-thinking that people was brought up with—kindness towards other—can make us realize the different positive approach to problems that’s been going on. As Kaldor states in her essay, “The point is to provide a schematic account of what is happening in the field of warfare so as to be able to offer some new ways of thinking about possibilities for controlling or limiting means of warfare”. Her goal is to provide an alternative way of fighting against terrorism and other causes of war. In most cases, re-thinking can help create an improved way of living especially when it comes to situations where it affects many innocent people. It gives us chance to realize what will be the best tactic to go by. There are also some cases where time is an important factor and re-thinking of other ways would not be an option. It is possible to be in this situation. In situations like it, it might cost more tragic consequences than there already is. A person can only judge what can be re-evaluated and what needs to be attended to at once. Our world is full of chaos that is impossible to get rid of. Only a person would be the judge on how to handle things and consider who will be affected. It is safe to re-think of other methods of approach, it will all depend on how one will go by of doing it. There’s always more than one way to go by, but always think of the most sensible way where there would be the least affected, yet will make a whole lot of difference in the world.

Evaluating Student Essay #6: C

What is striking about the introduction to this essay is Jan’s effort to bring the three assigned readings into conversation with each other. As she considers de Waal on altruism, Guinier on discrimination, and Kaldor on humanitarianism, Jan formulates her project as showing that all three authors “believe that there are other ways in setting about ideas that we have been brought up with and ways that we can rethink otherwise.” She thus demonstrates a basic control of connective thinking to formulate a general project. She then begins to qualify the argument of her opening paragraph with the observation that “rethinking may not always work on certain situations.” Here, she takes issue with both Guinier and de Waal over the appropriate response to a perceived injustice and concludes that the value of rethinking depends “on the circumstances.” Jan is making use of the assigned materials to construct a more nuanced position than was outlined in the introduction, which is typical of student work stronger than the C-level.

As with Jan’s previous two efforts, however, the writing is marred by grammatical and syntactical errors. While these errors do hinder comprehension at times, they are not as prevalent as in the previous essays and do not rise to a level warranting failure. Especially in light of the other strengths that the essay exhibits, which give it a strong sense of overall clarity and purpose, these errors seem much less important than they did in the previous two papers.

This paper clearly qualifies as passing work because it has: “evidence of an emerging project” and it shows the student’s ability to “work with more than one source text” and a clear organizational structure. The paper does not rise to the C+ level for two reasons: it does not have “several moments of strong work” with the assigned texts and it does not have “most errors under control.” So this paper is a C: it moves beyond report-style summary, moves towards solid connections between the readings, and does all that with some sense of emerging project and sufficient control of sentence-level error.

If you look at Student Essay #10, you can see Jan’s last paper of the term, which demonstrates her continued improvement.

Student Essay #7: Joe’s First Paper

What Does It Take to Be ‘Fit’?

Cut throat competition. Struggle. Confrontation. Conflict. Battle. War. Such things occur constantly in plants, in animals, and in Man, and perhaps for one simple purpose: Survival. In his theory of evolution, Charles Darwin suggests only the strongest, most clever, most devious creature is the one that will survive; only the best will pass on its stronger genes (providing it can reproduce). But what if this were not so? In another theory by Frans de Waal, a primatologist, he suggests an alternative to Darwin’s Evolutionary Theory. In his book, The Ape and the Sushi Master, he uses examples and analogies to show how kindness will win out over ability to survive. That instead of the most fit creature surviving to reproduce its genes and hereditary information, the most willing to help, the most willing to care and understand the needs and wants of others was the one to carry on the next generation. Not competition, but Altruism, was the means of evolutionary adaptation. Instead of “Survival of the Fittest” it was “Survival of the Kindest?” If this were accurate, how would the lives of nature and Man have grown to be different? However, in the real world, would perhaps a mix between the two form? Perhaps thinking only in black and white: only the ‘fittest’ vs. only the ‘kindest’ may not be the correct judgment? And just how good are we? As de Waal asks: “Are we naturally good? And if not, whence doest human goodness come? Is it one of our many marvelous inventions, like the wheel and toilet training, or could it be a mere illusion? Perhaps we are naturally bad, and just pretend to be good?”

For starters, such a thing as “Survival of the Kindest” cannot take place. If nature truly selected only the “Kindest” of creatures to reproduce, many organisms that currently exist now, or have existed, would not have done so. First, for an organism to be “Kind” or altruistic, is must have the intelligence to understand the consequences of its actions on another organism. Second, the kindest animal may not be the one who attains the most food to survive. The most adapted; the most fit to survive would be. The statement “Good guys finish last” may come to mind. Third, animals, in an attempt to be “kind” would not so exploit one another. Thus, carnivores would not exist, like de Waal’s rescue dogs, tigers, or dolphins. Nor could parasites, like leeches and ticks have evolved to be seen in the world. Infectious pathogens would also not exist, like smallpox and HIV, because the bacteria and viruses would be ‘kind.’ Kindness is no reason for survival, and so, kindness cannot be the single evolutionary factor. However, many animals show the ability to, and the dependency, of working together for each others safety and survival. While it may seem kind, it may actually have selfish undertones. Wolves, similar to the rescue dogs in one of de Waal’s examples, seem to show care and concern for their fellow pack members, to the extent of risking their lives for one another. However, if a wolf lets his pack member die, the chances of his pack being able to hunt down and kill prey diminish; it lowers the entire pack’s chances of survival. Much like humans, wolves need each other to survive, codependency that can be viewed as kindness, though actually an adaptation from selfishness. Humans, like wolves, have become dependent on a thing called Community, where acts of kindness and caring are ways of securing one’s own survival.

However, the contemplation of the consequences and ramifications of a theory such as “Survival of the Kindest” is an interesting thought. The societies and communities created by Man would be, as some would consider, a utopia; a land without ever knowing war, and with it, everlasting harmony with nature. Without the urge for conflict and competition, crime would never exist. Human beings would not know theft, assault, rape, or murder, nor would humans work to cheat or deceive another. All men would be altruistic, sacrificing their time and effort to help and assist those around them. In a society such as this, the homeless would be homed. The beggars would be fed. All humans would work together to achieve a state of bliss; an existence without pain, worry, hunger, the lack of shelter, the lack of medical care, a lack of an education, or sorrow. A government would not be needed to prosecute and protect the people it governed; these people would take care of each other. If a government was necessary, it would, perhaps, exist coordinate their altruistic efforts. As de Waal researched, “Mencius [a lesser known Chinese philosopher] had a revolutionary bent in that he stressed the obligation of rulers to provide for the common people.” (de Waal) In fact, most forms of government would not exist, as governments are prone to being run by corrupt and tyrannical people.

However, such a world is not the complete utopia it might seem to be. Competition and conflict bring out the best qualities of man and nature, forcing only the strongest, the smartest, the most capable to survive. Without selfish, self-serving thoughts and ideas, businesses and invention would not be. To analyze the same question from de Waal, “Are we naturally good? And if not, whence doest human goodness come? Is it one of our many marvelous inventions, like the wheel and toilet training, or could it be a mere illusion? Perhaps were are naturally bad, and just pretend to be good?” (de Waal) Here, de Waal seems to be resentful of human invention, which without such a thing he’d be unable to study primates and write his book, and then have it printed on printing presses, invented by Man’s mind, not his heart. Only through selfish profit do the innovations like computers, the use of electricity, automobiles, and aircraft change the world. Companies that sell these things don’t do so in order for other humans to feel better about themselves. Instead, they sell things in order to profit from their own actions and achievements. Without the drive to succeed and prosper; without the drive to produce the best possible product to sell and profit from, human beings would lack nearly all of the advancements that the world enjoys now. More than likely, the world in which the kindest survive would only exist in a Dark Age, only achieving advancement by pot luck, where as the lives of human beings in our Modern world are assisted by new advancements every day.

The life human beings live now would be quite different from the life lived in the imaginary Society of the kind. Without the “evils” of competition and selfishness, human beings would, perhaps, live in a crime-free world. The poor and depraved would be taken care for, and love. The entire society could live as complete equals in every way, all equally loved and cared for, and perfectly in harmony with nature. However, such a word can be coined for such a society: stagnant. Without the “evils” of competition and selfishness, nearly all change and adaptation would not exist. Modern appliances, automobiles, computers, motocross bikes, airplanes, or the use of electricity would not exist in such a world. And the altruists of the Modern world are in denial. Instead of performing ‘good’ actions simply because of the results, they take selfish pleasure in doing those deeds. In the world of Michael Ghiselin, “Scratch an ‘altruist’ and watch a ‘hypocrite’ bleed.” (de Waal) Yet, there is some truth to de Waal’s theory. Kindness has evolved into the social structure of many creatures: But only to make them the most fit to survive. “Instead of seeing morality as a radically new invention, I [de Waal] tend to view it as a natural growth of ancient social structures.” (de Waal) Which is exactly how it formed: kindness and morality only evolved to better suit creatures to survive against the environment around them. The fittest creature to survive this time is not the lonesome, strong, cruel, and violent animal. Instead, the fittest creature is the one that can coordinate and work as a team, and kindness is the bonds to hold the team together. To include the thoughts of Charles Darwin, “That our species moderates its selfishness with a healthy dose of fellow feeling and kindness.” (de Waal) Kindness may be the result of evolution, but it is not the driving force behind it. Change and competition force evolutionary change, and breed only the fit to survive. “The Survival of the Fittest” still stands as the best theory, though slightly modified in the definition of “fit.”

Evaluating Student Essay #7: C+

This is a promising first essay. Joe has a strong voice and develops an interesting project focused on de Waal’s suggestion that perhaps we really only pretend to be good to others in order to achieve our selfish ends. However, because he is not quite in control of his project from the outset of the paper, Joe received a C+ rather than a B. A hallmark of a paper that is not in control of its project is one where the opening paragraph ends with a string of questions rather than a clear statement of how the student will answer those questions (as Joe’s does). Of course, Joe’s essay does try to answer those questions, but the answers only emerge in the course of the paper and are not announced for the reader at the outset.

The complications that Joe takes on are quite interesting and there are many signals that he is trying to develop an idea rather than to summarize the text or write a report. We like to say that the simplest writing uses a lot of additive phrasings (“and,” “also,” or “as well as”), somewhat more complex writing uses comparatives (“or”), and still more complex writing will use qualifiers (“but” or “however”). Joe’s writing is full of qualifying phrases and his argument depends upon one: yes, animals act in ways that are kind, but it’s only an act. Student writers need to recognize, however, that such qualified writing needs careful revision so that, in the end, it does make a clear point that is not qualified into ambiguity or self-contradiction. One hallmark of the difference between C+ and B is that the C+ writer may use a string of “but” phrases one after the other (notice, for example, that Joe has two paragraphs in a row that begin “however”), while the B writer will work to clarify whatever complications he or she introduces. Both C+ and B papers begin to deal with complexity, but the difference between C+ and B hinges on coherence, clarity, and control. The B (or better) writer is able to set forth a thesis from the outset and then develop it in a unifying way.

Student Essay #8: Joe’s Second Paper

Peace over Righteousness

The human mind is very complex, having created many abstract ideas, to which Man has given life. One of these ideas is Government, which started out as primitive, barbaric dictatorships to the civilized democracies of today. However, the role of such a Government in the lives of people has been hotly debated, enough so that a large number of wars have been fought over a single abstract thought. Lani Guinier is a lawyer, who represented black minority voting blocks, has her own view on the role of government, and more importantly, democracy. “The values of self-government, fairness, deliberation, compromise, and consensus that lie at the heart of the democratic ideal.” In her essay, “Second Proms and Second Primaries: The Limits of Majority Rule,” she shows the inequalities of democracy, and suggests that all governments should be fair, and inherent with the values she claims democracy is all about. Frans de Waal, a primatologist and author of Ape and the Sushi Master, he suggests a change in the way evolution it is now understood; that animals and humans have genuine kind and good intentions towards their fellow animals or men, instead of Charles Darwin’s cut-throat competition. Perhaps de Waal would agree with Guinier and her prospect of government’s role in the lives of its citizens, and the way it functions. However, democracy was not forged to accept these ideals, in which the Rights of its citizens are to be upheld more than anything.

Many great leaders and thinkers have thought that government should play a large part in the lives of the people it governs. “Mencius [a lesser known Chinese philosopher] had a revolutionary bent in that he stressed the obligation of rulers to provide for the common people.” (de Waal) In Guinier’s opinion, democracy is a government by the people; and so, it should act like a cohesive governing structure of the people it represents. In de Waal’s Ape and the Sushi Master, he suggests that animals and humans are naturally kind, and coexist with a set of motives called ‘functional altruism.’ He would most likely come to this same conclusion as Guinier: “You cooperate when you lose in part because members of the current majority will cooperate when you win and they lose. The result will be a fair system of mutually beneficial cooperation” (Guinier). In fact, several governments have already been formed under the ideals of equality, fairness, and compromise. The D.D.R. (German Democratic Republic) was founded on those exact principles, as was the U.S.S.R., and several of its satellite countries. If the leaders of such a government can remain true to their causes, then the citizens beneath it would surely prosper.

Unfortunately, such ideals incorporated into government are often delusional or misplaced. The intentions of the leaders who spout such things are best described by Michael Ghiselin, “Scratch an ‘altruist’ and watch a ‘hypocrite’ bleed” (de Waal). It is also said, “The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions.” These intentions of equality, fairness, and compromise do not often lead to prosperity in the citizens of a government. The D.D.R., or East Germany, completely failed in its quest for equality, resorting to a police state in order to keep the population quiet and under control, as its citizens fled the borders like rats fleeing from a sinking ship. The same cases are true for the U.S.S.R. and its satellite countries. Such governments, which were praised for equality and fairness, had its citizens live in abominable conditions; often without running water or electricity. And for the leaders of countries who aren’t ‘pure’ of heart, and enforcing Guinier’s ‘values’ of democracy, another saying can be given to them: “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” In the history of all the governments in Mankind, most people in positions to control other people have become radically changed; losing contact with the people they had once sought to govern, and now control. To use the U.S.S.R. as an example, Joseph Stalin, having risen to power within the Soviet Republic, turned what was a failing Communist state into a militaristic dictatorship, which was headed by the Communist party, and of course, himself. To his credit, he’s been acknowledged to have murdered nearly 20 million of his own citizens, sealing off and starving a countryside as large as Pennsylvania. After the U.S.S.R. and German invaded Poland in the late 1930s, Stalin ordered every officer in the Polish army murdered, including the officer’s family. This, alone, should be a horrible example of the detrimental affects of power on the human mind.

The United States Government was formed with the bitter taste of the misuse of power recent in its memory. Also, this new government was forged on a completely new idea: the Rights of Man. Instead of rivaling factions of people fighting to gain either land, power, wealth, or resources, (as most wars and governments were fought over) the U.S. was created upon an ideal: not of a government granting rights to a people, but the people granting rights and powers to it. The people secured their own future through rational thought; not through kindness and fairness, but a set of equality, though only under the law. The role of such a government was three fold. First, to create a law-making body, whose sole purpose was to create laws to better protect the rights of individuals, not their well being. Second, to create a set of Courts in order to protect the rights of individuals from deception and threat, and enforce the laws set by the Congress. Third, to create an office whose decree it was to protect the rights and lives of individuals, and protect the citizens in case of war. All three branches were formed in such a way so that neither branch could overpower each other; neither could control the people. In this type of government, the people are responsible for themselves, avoiding the risks of altruistic hypocrites and tyrannical dictators. To some, the values of democracy are protecting the rights of the people, not compromise or fairness.

The role of government in the lives of Man has been ever evolving, from primitive religious theocracies to dictatorships, from monarchies to republics, from anarchy to communism. But what role should it have? If the threats of misuse of power are so great, should the people limit its power, so it can do little more than protect them? Absolutely. The abuse of power has cost the world many millions of lives, and the names of infamous dictators still can still ring horror in the ears of some. Hitler. Stalin. Pol Pot. Castro. The government’s role is not to be fair, nice, or heartfelt. Its role in life should only be to protect the rights of the people who granted it such a power, because to give a government any more power is to tempt fate with the idea of another infamous dictatorship, or a failed experiment in kindness.

Evaluating Student Essay #8: NP

Though Joe’s essay has a promising start that puts Guinier into dialogue with de Waal, it quickly degenerates into an anti-communist rant that leaves the readings too far behind and does not resolve any of the potential questions that it raises. While we want always to encourage our students to explore their own ideas, we also want them to be responsible to the rules and goals of conversation in doing so. This paper does not engage sufficiently with the assigned readings and does not work enough with the text in developing its points. To quote the grading criteria, the paper “privileges the student’s ideas without being responsible to the readings” and “does not follow through on relations the student tries to establish between his or her own position and the readings, or between the readings themselves.” I would point out to Joe that the readings he was asked to discuss simply disappear from his paper. In a way, it’s as though Joe had started a conversation with Guinier and de Waal and then just walked away—or (just as bad in real world conversations) gone off on a long monologue that completely left out his fellow discussants.

Student Essay #9: Joe’s Third Paper

“War! Huuh! What Is It Good For? All—most Nothing!”

Human beings, in spite of their ability to cope, work together, and survive as a group, have given birth to one of the most destructive and horrible concepts ever: War. Such an idea slaughtered hundreds of thousands in World War I, tens of millions in World War II, and continues to add nearly five million to the body count every decade since 1948 (Kaldor). In an essay by Mary Kaldor, Professor and Director of the Programme on Global Civil Society, called “Beyond Militarism, Arms Races and Arms Control,” she addresses the problems and causes of the despicable act of war. And her solution, the use of Humanitarian Law, may be the favored method of another female activist, Lani Guinier, and her work of “Second Proms and Second Primaries: The Limits of Majority Rule,” and her main ideas of reciprocity and equality within Mankind. Frans de Waal, a famous primatologist, also suggested the ideas of a “functional altruism” guiding Mankind’s deeds and actions, correlating with the idea of a Humanitarian Law system. However, with new threats arising from intangible enemies, how does such a solution prevent acts of terrorism? Many believe that wars in the world today are unwinnable; that new solutions and ideas are needed to stop the flows of violence. War only breeds more violence and problems, and there must be a better alternative to such violence. However, sometimes war is the last option, realistically speaking, and the goals of people who do not understand this reality sometimes have ulterior motives that are not about promoting peace but about promoting their own interests.

The aspect of war, in itself, is evil enough for most people to think of a new solution. However, war over the last fifty years has changed drastically; from organized, structured militaries to fledgling, loose knit terrorist units. Casualties in war have also changed, as Kaldor explains, “In the new wars, battles are rare and violence is directed against civilians” (Kaldor). Militaries and terrorist groups, instead of targeting each other, now consider civilians ‘fair game.’ “Violations of humanitarian and human rights laws are not a side effect of war but the central methodology of new wars. Over 90% of the casualties in the new wars are civilian and the numbers of refugees and displaced persons per conflict has risen steadily” (Kaldor). In the United States of America, the aim of victory is to control territory and destroy the threat, using ‘smart’ weapons to minimize the effect on the civilian population. Unfortunately, new terrorist groups and factions openly target civilians for maximum political and body count effect. “The strategy is to gain political power through sowing fear and hatred, to create a climate of terror, to eliminate moderate voices and to defeat tolerance” (Kaldor). These new factions cross from country to country, and operate without a uniform, flag, or a tangible military to destroy. As Kaldor, and most people in the world can conclude, “new wars are very difficult to contain and very difficult to end” (Kaldor).

With such consequences like mass slaughter, genocide, and destruction, it’s easy to see why some believe that war should cease to exist. In fact, it’s fundamentally wrong, for three reasons. First, because Man naturally has a desire to form something called ‘community’ with his brethren, because it increases chances his survival. Except when resources are limited, when Man wars with his kin, it does the exact opposite of what his genes demand of him: survive. One cannot increase one’s chances of survival if one is dead. Second, except in very rare cases, wars are usually pitted with one larger faction against one smaller faction. The more and more even both sides are, the easier both sides can resort to violence against civilians and non-military targets. This then creates a negative reciprocity, with both sides steaming over the new mass slaughter/genocide/civilian casualties and preparing to do much the same to the other side; to “punish negative actions with other negative actions—a pattern called a “revenge system” (de Waal). According to Kaldor, Bosnians in the recent clan war will say this, “The war had to be so bloody because we did not hate each other; we had to be taught to hate each other” (Kaldor). Those Bosnians had to learn the art of war without rules, which can swoop in raining death and destruction; only to leave unbridled hate in its wake. However, in wars where one side is incredibly disadvantaged both militarily and politically, the positive side of reciprocity fails to take hold, which the majority oftentimes slaughtering or overpowering the minority, without “the value of reciprocity: you cooperate when you lose in part because members of the current majority will cooperate when you win and they lose” (Guinier). However, this does not take place, in which the military majority often remains the majority. “When a prejudiced majority excludes, refuses to inform itself about, or even seeks to thwart the preferences of the minority, then majority rule loses its link with the ideal of reciprocity, and so its moral authority” (Guinier). In cases where the minority is able to overthrow, all too often are the minority faction becomes interested in taking part in negative reciprocity; getting ‘revenge’ for war crimes in the past. Third, war is not fair. In war, innocent civilians, victims of an oppressive government or regime, die. Land mines injure, maim, and slaughter. Misguided bombs hit marketplaces. Suicide bombers attack school buses full of children. People get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just like life, war is not fair. War is a despicable, disgusting concept brought about by man, and almost any course of action is better than war’s consequences.

However, even those alternate courses with good intentions may have hidden, unseen costs. One of Kaldor’s solutions to the new style of warfare is “the extension and application of international humanitarian law (the ‘laws of war’) and human rights law” (Kaldor). Such an idea can be easily attached to both the thinking of Lani Guinier and Frans de Waal. With Guinier’s ideas of positive reciprocity, if both sides of a conflict agreed to uphold the ‘laws of war’ then the world would not need to worry about incredible civilian casualties. Correlating this with the ideas of de Waal, “our species moderates its selfishness with a healthy does of fellow feeling and kindness” (de Waal). However, one of the consequences of such an idea is an increased power in a global, international government, much like a more powerful United Nations, which already imposes international humanitarian laws. But with more power, this powerful UN would wield an international majority against an international minority, with the same problems that can correlate with nations. More power in the hands of a global government, means less power in the hands of normal citizens, increasing the need of some to support a backlash against a system of government they have increasingly less control over, which is exactly the case with many of these radical new factions fighting their new war. Desperate people often then make desperate attacks. As Kaldor puts it: “Weaker states or groups develop WMD [Weapons of Mass Destruction] or other horrific techniques to attack U.S. vulnerabilities to compensate for conventional inferiority” (Kaldor). Kaldor expressed an obvious distrust in the nations of the world, but her idea of humanitarian law is for the most part, already in effect. However, to give more power to a system already corrupt and biased is not a solution; it will hurt more than it may save. Also, the creation of international laws does not stifle the problem of war. Creating an international law against murder is fairly redundant. 99.9% of all nations have laws against the unlawful killing of people or civilians. Creating another law, which these criminals or terrorists already understood when they broke it the first time, will not be deterred by two (or more) laws restricting their actions. Do suicide bombers really care how many laws they break? Only the innocent civilians, non-combatants and ones not willing to commit crimes will be detrimented; by increased laws to prohibit actions and decrease freedoms. The hidden costs of a humanitarian global power are the cost of individual power, rights, and freedom.

As disgusting and rotten as war may be, it can be justified. In the aftermath of September 11th, the United States demanded the culprit, Osama Bin-Ladin, from the current regime of Afghanistan. When this government refused to cooperate, the United States did exactly what was demanded by the rules of the United Nations: to pursue and arrest a known terrorist. When a faction or government wants nothing more than to harm civilians, with no demands or wants on the society around it, war is a necessary action. However, Kaldor is correct in seeing a problem with war. War is truly something Humans should avoid at almost all costs. I, for one, see a need to rethink such a problem; however, the task of finding such a solution is perhaps as old as war itself. Finding a solution may be long in coming, and unfortunately, society will be forced to deal with the prospects of new war until a proper solution arrives.

Evaluating Student Essay #9: B

Joe recovers nicely from his failure to engage with the texts in the previous essay and is able to do all of the things necessary to get a B. He has his own idea (that war is necessary, despite the downside) and he is able to dialogue with the texts in developing and supporting his idea in a way that unifies his essay. His essay is not better than a B because he does not develop his argument as carefully as he could with specific reference to the text, nor does he explore the most interesting issue that his essay raises (that those who seek peace often have their own agendas), which recalls the argument that he made in his first essay. However, the paper suggests that Joe has made significant progress and now has the skills necessary to achieve any grade in the final three papers.

You can see Joe’s final paper for the course if you look at Student Essay #11.

Student Essay #10: Jan’s Sixth Paper

The Better Way

We have come a long way when it comes to technology, especially now that we have just entered the 21st century. Several changes have been made with everything in our country. The United States has been known for having a faster pace when it comes to advanced technologies unlike other countries. But other countries adopting American ways has its negative and positive effects. In his text “The Ganges Next Life,” Alexander Stille explains the outcome of putting together the religious and traditional ways with more western and modern ways. Malcolm Gladwell, in “The Power of Context,” points out the idea of “power of context,” the idea that the environment is what makes a person behave certain ways. He proposes that the effects of these changes might be caused by the way people are affected by their environment. Similarly, Eric Schlosser, in “Global Realization,” expresses the idea that people’s habits also change and are greatly influenced when other people’s cultures are spread or are incorporated by other cultures. The outcomes to these changes can both benefit and damage a country’s traditions and ways of life. Meshing our traditional culture with the modern technological culture can bring positive changes like expanding technology in some countries such as India, who has been struggling to use western technology in preserving their holy river, the Ganges. However, bringing together these two very different factors can also bring negative results including the damaging effect on the culture of countries like Germany and also can be a threat to their sense of tradition and history.

In trying to resolve some problem of other countries, they depend a lot on western technology to help with their problems, without interfering with their own customs and beliefs. It will all depend on how strongly a person believes in his or her own traditions. Stille was able to confirm this idea through his observations of the people in India while trying to save their holy river. They have been struggling for years to preserve this river by trying to make use of the western technology and trying as much as possible to maintain their own traditional ways. India has been very receptive of the aids that they get from other countries such as America in improving their knowledge and yet eager to keep their traditions intact. According to Stille, an approach that combines the two is best: “One attraction of the Oswald pond system is that it seems to combine modern science with traditional Hindu ideas, relying mainly on the self-cleansing properties of nature. Indeed, there is a curious parallel between Oswald’s descriptions of the self sustaining ecology of a pond system and certain traditional Hindu beliefs about the fundamental nature of the universe.” The people in India balance their acceptance of modern ways and keeping their own culture. They try to use their beliefs and are strong enough not to be influenced by others. The people can assimilate to their environment well enough to know when something is a threat in their religious culture.

Gladwell believes that the environment has a great influence on people’s behavior and that we shouldn’t rely so much just on personalities of people. He says, “The impetus to engage in a certain kind of behavior is not coming from a certain kind of person but from a feature of the environment.” People’s ability to change can be manipulated by their own environment. The changes brought by these new modern technologies can have a big effect on a person but it would all depend on how a person accepts these changes.

These modernizations have also made some negative impact on other areas of some countries such as the downsizing of their economy. There are some places that have fought for the extinction of these American ways. The modernization has affected their economy and has been a threat to their cultures. An example would be the advancing of McDonald’s all over the world. It is now known that McDonald’s has millions of branches all over the world and has angered some people because they thought it would be a threat to their own traditions and customs. They have been unconsciously neglecting their own businesses for American businesses by supporting their products and services. People have been greatly affected by the idea of western technology being close to home that they want to be a part of this and find a better way of life. Schlosser states, “Becoming part of the larger world, however, has had its costs. Plauen’s economy has suffered as one after another, old and inefficient manufacturing plants closed, throwing people out of work. Since the fall of Berlin Wall, Plauen has lost 10 percent of its population, as people move away in search of a better life.” The idea of being able to achieve a better life in another country has driven people to leave their own ways behind a find a better one for their own. This might be because people do not believe in their own traditions as strongly as others and that they are influenced easily by other cultures. The ability of people to change has a lot to do with their environment because whatever happens in their surroundings has a big influence in their actions. Gladwell uses his idea of “power of context” by saying, “Broken Windows theory and the Power of Context are one and the same. They both are based on the premise that an epidemic can be reversed, can be tipped, by tinkering with the smallest details of the immediate environment.” He proposes that even by means of changing things as little as possible, it will have a big effect on the people. So putting as small as one McDonald’s restaurant in a small town outside of the U.S., people can bring a lot of changes in their lives. Just by using a more western approach in preserving the Ganges River can make a big influence on people’s lives in India, although Stille disagrees, in the case of people in India.

There are some beliefs and traditions that can never be changed are seen very separately by certain stronger beliefs. Religion is a big part of people’s everyday lives especially in countries like India as much as their culture. They try as much as possible to keep their religious beliefs while trying to modernize their ways. India has been a good example on practicing strong beliefs and keeping their faith to their religion. It helps keep their own customs as alive and strong as possible. Stille states, “This extremely open attitude towards the outside, however, has—so far, at least—in no way lessened that country’s intense religiosity. To a degree, Indians have adapted new technology to their own traditional purpose.” Instead of using these new technologies and forgetting their own natural and religious ways, they have used them to benefit the other. It shows that there are positive effects also that are brought about adapting to the western world. “And for a few hours the spirit of American West fills this funky bar deep in the heart of Saxony, in a own that has seen too much history, and the old dream lives on, the dream of freedom without limits, self reliance, and a wide open frontier” (Schlosser). These people used the western ways to develop a better view of life and use this way as a positive outlook in their lives.

There are both positive and negative results on trying to bind both the modern world with the traditional cultural ways. It simply depends on how people are affected by the changes that will be brought about by this meshing. In some cases, meshing traditions with modern ways would be a threat to losing their own customs and beliefs. The new modern ways might dominate the old ways and the fear of fully neglecting the old ways might be a threat. Others, however, like India has a very strong set of beliefs that will help avoid this problem. They are strong enough to overcome any threat to their ways. By benefiting from these changes instead of being overpowered by them, it has a great effect on their country. Some countries do not have as strong beliefs as India. There is an always a limit to how the modern ways should be adapted into the traditional ways, especially when the culture is not strong.

Evaluating Student Essay #10: C+

Jan’s final paper for the term represents a tremendous improvement over her early struggles with second-language issues. Though the paper’s syntax begins to break down a bit near the end, it is relatively well polished at the beginning (especially by comparison to her early work). The level of error is fully enough under control to receive a C-range grade. The structure of the paper is also much better than Jan’s earlier efforts and it projects an overall sense of organization. The point with which she concludes (that strong cultures can better withstand and absorb the negative effects of modernization than weaker cultures) represents a good emerging project, and it gives her essay some unity, though it is not forecast for the reader sufficiently to create a strong sense of coherence. Jan is not sufficiently in control of her project or of her writing at the sentence level to achieve more than a C+ by our grading standards. But she clearly carries with her all of the basic qualities needed to succeed at college writing and to continue improving.

Student Essay #11: Joe’s Sixth Paper

“A Mix of Poison and Food Is Still Deadly”

Looking back upon the history of achievements and innovations of Man, nearly all of his existence has been utterly stagnant. Thousands of years ago, the life of a human remained relatively unchanged for centuries on end. In the last two hundred years, however, mankind has begun to change; innovation and invention became more ideal as living conditions grew less harsh. In the last century, man came to grips with the changes and ideas these new innovations can bring, and their impact upon old traditions and cultures. New technology and old traditions brought the world into a new type of warfare: A World War. And not only one, but two of them. In Alexander Stille’s “The Ganges’ Next Life,” he discusses the mix of old traditions and new education from technology in a Hindu hydraulic engineer. This man bathes daily in a river, the Ganges, according to his old Hindu beliefs, which he knows to be horribly polluted and disgusting according to his education. Like this man, technology is creating conflict within those it ‘infects.’ Technology is sweeping the world at an amazing pace, and often faster than societies are ready for it. In “Global Realization” by Eric Schlosser, he shows the sweeping effects of globalization and technology upon society and culture, and oftentimes, the conflict it creates with societies not ready to let go of old, outdated traditions. Old traditions limit the scope and ability of technology, forcing it to be used in cumbersome ways, which detriment both the user and people around him. The conflict this creates, much like the conflict between religion and science, can sometimes turn hostile, as people resist change, and turn to the leading destroyer of old culture and traditions: Technological globalization. In Mary Kaldor’s “Beyond Militarism, Arms Races and Arms Control,” she discusses the new type of war brewing throughout the world, fueled by resistance to change. Instead of governments or states waging war, small groups attack symbols of what they perceive as instruments of change, blending technology and old traditions of holy war or otherwise in a destructive way. Technology and tradition are constantly at war with each other; its groups feverishly try to negate the other’s existence. In order for new ideas to be used effectively, old ideas must be shunned for being outdated. Either one must live in a technological culture, fueled by change and innovation, or live in a purely traditional or fundamentalist culture, fueled by tradition and intellectual stagnation. Any mix creates internal conflict and resentment, as people resist the unpredictable nature of change. This conflict may turn external, causing people to strike back in unconventional methods.

Nearly all conflict in the world is created by two things: change, and the resistance to change. But more pronounced is change’s effect on the 20th Century, as change really took roots with increased innovation and invention, sweeping around the world with immeasurable speed, in “the process known as globalization. By globalization, I mean the increasing interconnectedness, the shrinking of distance and time, as a result of the combination of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and air travel,” (Kaldor). As change and innovation create numerous ‘friends’ around the world so quickly, it also creates enemies just as fast, in traditional or religious groups. Nearly all that tradition and religion stands for in their belief structure is negated by technological change and science, pitting both against each other; one demanding belief in things without fact, one demanding thought and development of fact. But more importantly, people fear the change associated with technology and globalization. Just as the Church resisted new ideas from Galileo because they defied teachings of the Bible, tradition resists new ideas, and had to be brought by technology into the 21st Century like a child in a tantrum: kicking and screaming. McDonald’s, a seemingly innocent symbol of globalization and change, is often seen as the most evil of threats, creating resentment in all cultures. “In France, a sheep farmer and political activist named Jose Bove led a group that demolished a McDonald’s under construction in his hometown of Millau. Bove’s defiant attitude, brief imprisonment, and impassioned speeches against “lousy food” have made him a hero in France,” (Schlosser). But his hero wasn’t truly against the ‘lousy food’ as he said he was. His fight was against change, probably because McDonald’s doesn’t serve sheep-burgers, and Bove would probably go out of business. But instead of blaming the outdated practice and traditions of Bove’s occupation, he blames the company that forced him to change. “McDonald’s has become an easy target” (Schlosser), because of its symbolic nature of technological and fundamentalist states in response to the unpredictable nature of change. Communism is one example, and the religious group the Taliban is another. But perhaps the greatest separation between old traditional ideas of thought and technology is the economic rift between the two. The most technologically advanced countries are the most prosperous in the world, while the most traditional or fundamentalist are oftentimes the least prosperous; but instead of blaming their plight upon old failing traditions, they place the blame on the new ideas of thought. All this resentment turns into internal conflict; internal pressure inside the mind, turning a person into a time bomb that waits to be used.

This time bomb, properly manipulated, can have devastating effects. The people disenfranchised by change and technology because of blind insistence on old beliefs turn, in many cases, the violence to solve their problems. In this sense, truly anyone can openly resist change and technology: “Farmers, leftist, anarchists, nationalist, environmentalists, consumer advocated, educators, health officials, labor unions, and defenders of animal rights have found common ground” (Schlosser). In fact, Kaldor’s New War focuses mainly upon groups opposed to change, with no real goal other to eradicate their source. These “networks are loose horizontal coalitions, unlike vertical disciplined armies of the past, a shared narrative, often based on a common identity, ethnic or religious, is an important organizing mechanism” (Kaldor). Leading the technological globalization is the United States, with the most groups actively plotting its defeat and destruction than any other civilization perhaps besides Rome. These groups, instead of accepting the message of change brought by technology, instead wish to kill the messenger: working civilians and corporations, in an attempt to preserve a most stable, less hectic way of life. Schlosser notes, “In 1996, Indian farmers ransacked a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Bangalore, convinced that the chain threatened their traditional agricultural practices” (Schlosser). In fact, so many corporations have been attacked; it makes it hard to list every instance. “The networks have understood that they cannot take territory militarily, only through political means, and the point of violence is to contribute to those political means” (Kaldor). The goal is only to stem the flow of technology, and more importantly, change. However, technology and traditions do mix, with devastating effects. Militant Islam, regarded by the U.S.S.R. as the biggest threat aside from the U.S., is slowly becoming a bigger threat in the world, by mixing a purely fundamentalist and traditional way of thought with the devastating effects of new technology. Holy wars, instead of consisting of ‘crusades’ on camel and with scimitar, instead constitute suicide bombings and genocide. Instead of embracing new technology, they work to undo its changing effects by destroying it with technology’s own weapons. The U.S.S.R. found this out firsthand in its war in Afghanistan. To some, this may seem a successful blend of tradition and technology; religious fanatics coupled with plastique explosive; the scimitar now a Semtex belt. “In the instructions found in a car of the hijackers in Boston’s Logan Airport, it is written: ‘If God grants any one of you a slaughter, you should perform it as an offering on behalf of your father and mother, for they are owed by you. If you slaughter, you should plunder those you slaughter, for that is a sanctioned custom of the Prophet’s” (Kaldor). To most, however, this mix is utterly devastating in its unpredictable and treacherous nature.

The beginnings of the war between technology and tradition go much farther back than the 20th Century. The Dark Ages, caused by the destruction of Rome, formed a more powerful traditional world, in opposite of the technologically advanced Rome; with religion, stagnation, and filth going hand in hand. Galileo, famous astrologer and scientist, felt the wrath of the ongoing war between tradition and technology as the Church called his telescope, “A tool of the Devil.” The Traditional State eventually dishonored and blackmailed him, to avoid the change that science would bring about: their downfall. With the invention of the rifle, many countries petitioned to have it stricken from the battlefield. Why? Because the invincible Knights were no match to black powder, and the Knights’ role in Feudal society was critical. It gave unparalleled power to a civilian with little or no training; whereas a Knight spent his entire life in service and training to his King. More recently, all wars involving Israel are all ward of tradition and religion, mixed with the stunning power of technology. The bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, several African Embassies, and the World Trade Center are also victims of these “new wars that are very difficult to contain and very difficult to end” (Kaldor).

People naturally resist change in order to preserve a more stable, less stressful way of life. Old traditions help to ease the stress out of ones life; to increase predictability. Traditions may be as simple as “Meatloaf on Tuesdays” or as complex as the Five Pillars of Islam. However, with the growing technological globalization, many feel their old traditions failing in light of new technology and change. Some wish to embrace the hope that innovation brings, while others shun the stress and work it demands, which creates conflict within society. This conflict may result in the extreme loss of property and life, or may be something as small as the stifling of new ideas. Old traditions force an old way of thought, limiting the scope of technology. Without change and technology; the power of Man’s mind; what good is Man? He has no other means to succeed in life, aside of his Mind. And to deny fact, logic, and innovation (through tradition or religion), is to deny Man life. Any mix of life and death is deadly and harmful.

Evaluating Student Essay #11: B

Joe has clearly made some progress from his earliest work. His paper has a clear project that he announces from the outset and develops in conversation with the texts. However, he is still not as fully in control of that dialogue as we would like to see for a paper stronger than B, nor is he able to take on the interesting secondary questions that his paper raises. Joe is the type of student who has strong ideas and a lot to say. He is still working on his ability to create an effective dialogue, but at least he is no longer writing monologues (as he did in his second paper). One sign that Joe needs to keep working on his ability to include other voices in the conversation is the way he fails to introduce quotations or fully integrate them into his argument. Too often, quotes “drop” into the paper (some teachers call them “drop quotes” for that reason) with no introduction and no direct discussion or explanation—as though the reader could finish the thought or make the connection complete. That’s a skill we might suggest Joe keep working on in the future. Although it may be that the desire to include other voices needs to precede solving the mechanical problem of introducing and discussing quotes, it could also be that by introducing and discussing quotes Joe will learn to value what other voices can add to his ideas.

Student Paper #12: Ernst’s Sixth Paper

The Fallacy of Consumerism

Altruism and selfishness have been in the lexicon of human behavior since the inception of our species. They have been selected through the process of evolution for their fitness surviving into our contemporary society, a society in which their fitness and manifestation have been altered, calling for the reevaluation (something not even possible in our more primitive state) of their place in society and their benefits and detriments on those who act through them on their own behalf and in the interests of others. I will be speaking mainly of selfishness in two senses, the first being the short-sighted goal of personal happiness (psychological selfishness), and the second being the excessive practice of consumerism (material selfishness) which is often used without consideration for its wider ramifications in an effort to fulfill the end of personal happiness sought by selfishness in the first sense. The commonplace nature and consequences of consumerism are described by Schlosser, (although, rather rhetorically), quoting members of the London Green Peace, stating, “the company (McDonald’s) ‘epitomizes everything we despise: a junk culture, the deadly banality of capitalism’” (Schlosser). Just why the banality of capitalism (a system of minimally regulated consumerism) is so virulent is something which I will go on to discuss later, but suffice it to say that such a triteness of something so allegedly deadly, lends particular importance to my consideration of why it is so commonplace and seldom seriously questioned, and whether it is indeed such a bad thing. I will be attempting to argue in this paper that beyond selfish and unbridled consumerism’s negative impacts on society as a whole, its attempt to fulfill the end (personal happiness) of selfishness in the first sense described is contradictory to that end because of its means. I will suggest rather that altruism (psychological and material) is, in addition to being something, which assuages the ill effects of consumerism and other social problems, infinitely more conducive to personal happiness than raw consumerism.

The Contemporary Struggle for Existence

Humans are members of a k-strategist species. That is, we produce relatively few offspring, and certain evolutionary controls have been put in place through natural selection to ensure that those that are produced are sustainable. One control selected to meet this need is our species’ strong kin-bond without which our species would have long ago died out, as not nearly enough of our offspring would have survived through infancy. This was particularly necessary during our species’ more primitive pre-agrarian state during which resources were particular scarce and the tendency for parent-offspring altruism had to be strong enough to override selfish considerations over the distribution of resources. This kin-bond was in De Waal’s view (and I concur) the original precursor of modern altruism. He writes, explaining the process by which altruism is extrapolated from the kin-bond, “from an evolutionary perspective, care for non-offspring may be maladaptive, but from a psychological perspective, it remains entirely authentic and fitting behavior for the species.” Here described, is not only the reason for the original extrapolation of altruism, but also the personal (psychologically selfish) reward reaped from the implementation of altruism, which gives incentive for its initial use.

Such a theory of naturally selected altruism is not however free from duality, in fact there are cynics who would claim that altruism is not a part of the natural state of humans at all, cynics like “Thomas Hobbes and Thomas Henry Huxley—who both preached that the original state of humankind, and of nature in general, is one in which selfish goals are pursued without regard for others.” And clearly Hobbes and Huxley are correct in their assumption that selfishness (material) is part of the natural state of man. Were this not true, it would not be so readily observed in society and nature, but their absolutist view and their assertion that these goals are invariably “pursued without regard for others” are misleading. Selfishness, like altruism, was selected in order for our species to perpetuate itself. It was necessary in our first stage of independent development in order to ensure that we were aware of our self-interests, our material needs (on a basic level, food and shelter). When it came time for reproduction it was then needed to amass material security, thus creating (optimally) an elevated status, one which would attract mating partners who would see the material abundance, signaling that here was a good mate who would be able to provide for offspring, making likely the perpetuation of the bloodline of both. Indeed, such material selfishness is pursued with regard for others. From an evolutionary perspective, such selfishness selected, is pursued in the interests of offspring, and more generally the interests of the species.

Such material selfishness is, however, no longer necessary for the perpetuation of offspring or of the species in our industrialized society. In fact such a tendency, still present, may in our time of technological advancement be the cause of the deselection of its carriers (our species), although it has yet to be seen. Few would refute a claim that the majority of our global problems (e.g., war, pollution, nuclear arms) are the products of no more than our greed combined with our industrial capacity, a capacity which, if untamed, could be the source of our demise.

The Carrot on the End of the Stick

There are two primary qualities of contemporary human behavior, which have been extrapolated from the naturally selected tendencies of altruism and selfishness. These are humanity and consumerism respectively. The contrast between the prevalence of the first in ours and in other species is referenced by De Waal stating, “it is only when we make general judgments of how anyone ought to be treated that we can begin to speak of moral approval and disapproval. This is an area in which humans go radically farther than other primates.” The sole reasons for this contrast, I submit, are our society’s advanced state of communication, and our advanced state of industrialization (in turn a product of communication). It is first of all easier for us to opt for humanity, since in our state of industrialized society there is an abundance of the necessities of survival to go around. Secondly, it is easier for us to recognize the altruism (or selfishness) of our actions if the joy or pain they cause is communicated to us. The place of communication in our moral decision-making is exemplified by Schlosser citing the McLibel controversy, stating, “One of the company’s undercover agents later had a change of heart and testified on behalf of the McLibel defendants.” It seems unnecessary to point out that the agents moral decision was the product of exposure to the defendants’ perspective, an exposure which showed her the immorality of McDonald’s stance, forcing her to opt for the more psychologically rewarding and altruistic course of action.

Consumerism is similarly extrapolated from the ends of natural selection, however it is further emancipated from the rewards and purposes (perpetuation of species) of it. Humanitarianism extends the ends of altruism from kin to non-kin, while fundamental consumerism confines the ends of material selfishness more directly to one’s self, alienating it from the evolutionary cause and leaving happiness to the caprice of one’s material status. Such absolutist consumerism is parable to Schlosser’s description of Las Vegas, as he quipped, “it is the ultimate consumer technology, designed to manufacture not a tangible product, but something much more elusive: a brief sense of hope. That is what Las Vegas really sells, the most brilliant illusion of all, a loss that feels like winning.” Similarly, that is what consumerism sells. There is a loss of any tangible tie with the purposes for which selfishness and altruism were selected, a loss that feels like winning (although only ever briefly) because of the entrenched nature of the drive for material wealth and status. It is a loss, which reaches for the extremes of excess, extremes which there is always someone else struggling for. It is a game, which no one wins, and whose only fulfillment is winning.

Dropping Out of the Hierarchy

For anyone who is currently mired in feelings of inadequacy because of your commercially ascribed status, on which consumerism is fed, my suggestion is your immediate withdrawal (psychological) from that system by which you are (as most consumers are) oppressed. It is important in doing so, I think, that you create your own attainable ends (free from the influence of consumerism) towards which to work, thus abdicated corporations’ power to arbitrarily attach a value to your social status. Stille illustrates this distinction between the empirical world and internal interpretation writing of Mishra, stating, “If his lower body is slow and awkward, from his broken thigh, his face is highly mobile and expressive, as if to underscore the Hindu belief that the body is but an imperfect vessel for the noble spirit.” True is that belief, not only of the body, but also of the world. It is, as well, an imperfect vessel, one that can be used towards your nobler ends, whatever they may be. I am confident that if separated from social status they will be ones at the least consistent with altruism, because besides being antithetical to consumerism, besides having the psychological benefits put in place by natural selection, altruism is the only honest way of rejecting a system which depends on society for personal status, a system, which is, as before mentioned, a product of the mating system. Altruism reminds us of our own sentience and inherent value, by acknowledging that of others.

Disclaimer

Although consumerism as an end in itself is not conducive to happiness or altruism, the globalization that it has created will, I believe, have the effect of increasing humanitarianism, by creating a common, homogenized culture through which we can understand each other, and by propagating the idea of human equality. I think this is something of which Schlosser was aware when he wrote, “and for a few hours the spirit of the American West fills this funky bar deep in the heart of Saxony, in a town that has seen too much history, and the old dream lives on, the dream of freedom without limits, self-reliance, and a wide-open frontier.” Like any facet of globalization (the increased abundance of food sources for example) this common culture is something, which could be used for the better. Or as Mishra states, “these things—satellite television, this Internet surfing—are with us whether we like it or not. They are means. They can be used in a beautiful way. It is as if you were riding a lion—you should be strong enough to tame the lion, or it will eat you.”

Because consumerism (at least the kind that lacks any tangible ties to other ends), apart from being detrimental to society as a whole (when unfettered), doesn’t even meet its goal of short-sighted (psychological) selfishness, it is absurd for anyone to pick this course of action over altruism when they are pitted against each other, because humanitarianism, in addition to being beneficial to society, does fulfill the goals of short-sighted selfishness because it makes people happy.

Evaluating Student Paper #12: B+

As papers reach the highest grading levels, students begin to exhibit styles and modes of argument that can make their papers unique. They may also be difficult to grade. Ernst is a student with a bent toward meditative and deliberative writing. It’s as though we were watching the way his mind thinks. The problem with such deliberative discourse, though, is that it may not forecast its conclusions as clearly as we would like. In many ways, this is a typical B+ paper since it seems to discover a secondary idea (that selfish consumerism may ultimately create the conditions to achieve altruistic humanitarian objectives) that is not accounted for in the stated thesis. But the way Ernst arrives at his conclusion seems quite logical and certainly interesting. Some may also say that Ernst’s sentences are run-ons or on the verge of running on in Faulkneresque fashion.

Student Paper #12: Aileen’s Fifth Paper

The Citadel: A Defective G.I. Joe Factory

Ideas of domination have varied throughout history according to the circumstances of time and culture. Disillusionment is often experienced by the patriarchs of the Old Way if their ideas are no longer dominant in society; they may even lash out with surprising vigor to defend whatever they have left. In Susan Faludi’s article “The Naked Citadel,” she details just such a controversy in which The Citadel, South Carolina’s public military college, mounts a truly Alamo-like defense against the admission of women. James C. Scott, in his essay “Behind the Official Story,” provides us with a “frame” for better understanding this situation. Two terms he introduces are key for analyzing the dynamic between dominant and subordinate. The “public transcript” is the open and visible interaction between opposing groups, and the “hidden transcript” is the discourse within a particular class, beyond direct observation. A surface examination of The Citadel’s public transcript may lead one to believe that they are a powerful force for male domination of women and of society. While this is true in many ways, it is also obvious. A deeper analysis, taking the hidden transcript into full account, reveals much weakness behind the bravado. Why did both the institution and cadet body seek to defend and maintain their hidden transcript with such fervor? It is actually because the kind of society which The Citadel upheld was subordinate to mainstream society.

The Citadel is the product of a particular kind of culture. Originally a fort to defend the plantations against a slave uprising, it became by the late 19th Century a school to “invigorate the masculinity of the South” by teaching “spoiled plantation boys the rudiments of self-reliance” (Faludi). Here I would like to introduce the term “southern patriarchal” as a blanket term to describe the set of values espoused by The Citadel’s hierarchy and cadets. Although the attendees of The Citadel are primarily middle- or upper-class white men from the South, the views they generally have do not necessarily coincide with those of the mainstream, i.e. of American society as a whole (Just as a note: the term “mainstream” does not take into account the great diversity of opinion in society, but does indicate the consensus of popular opinion). Because these values are not necessarily shared by the majority of mainstream, the cadets have become more and more secluded into their idealized microcosm. They created their own secret world of plywood and paste, in which their own beliefs can act as the dominant force. As Scott says, “the attempt by dominant elites to sequester an offstage social site where they are no longer on display and can let their hair down is ubiquitous.” But in this case, the cadets are a dominant elite only in their own minds. This is why they need to replicate their ideal patriarchal society within The Citadel’s walls—it simply does not exist in the real world.

The clear distinctions between masculine and feminine that have traditionally been a standard feature of American society have eroded over time. Many of these ideas are no longer socially acceptable. Though mainstream society does not have such extreme segregation of gender roles to the extent that southern patriarchal society does, there are many areas where the two overlap. Though treating one’s lady as a porcelain doll by holding her arm in escort may no longer be as commonplace as in the past, both mainstream and southern patriarchal societies share many concepts of manhood, such as being tough, being strong, etc. Though there is a significant overlap that does not need to be stressed since it is the differences which are being examined here. In the southern patriarchy, the ladies are to kept at a distance so they can be “respected” (Faludi). This could arguably be a good attitude if it actually did lead to “respect” of women outside of a few exceptions. But the brutality and misogyny displayed by such a high number of cadets naturally leads one to conclude that there is something very wrong with the southern patriarchal mindset exemplified of The Citadel.

There is something to be said about the strong devotion and dedication to The Citadel by these cadets usually have. The struggles that all of the cadets face together are a major influence in the bonding and loyalty they have for each other. They all at one point must go through the knob initiation where they all endure beatings and are degraded by the upperclassman. But oddly enough, the same people that brought them down are the same ones to bring them back up with open arms. This observation is most clearly apparent on Recognition Day, when the knobs are forced to exercise until they drop. “At that point, the upperclassmen calls the knobs by their first name and embracing them for the first time, as their brothers” (Faludi). These knobs feel not only a strong connection with their fellow subordinates, but also with their saviors. As Faludi writes:

The bombast masks a deep insecurity about employment and usefulness in a world where gentleman soldiers are an anachronism and a graduate with gentleman’s C’s may find himself busing tables at Wendy’s (Faludi).

This quote can also be related to the breakdown of their culture, which produces insecurities and a dire need for security. This is a main factor for why these men find a need to produce a microcosmic society that replicates their ideas of dominant and subordinate. This is their only chance for glory. The only time when they will be on top.

The further mainstream society diverged from the southern patriarchal, the greater extremes The Citadel went to in reactionary defense against the perceived threat. In the process, they become caricatures of themselves, exemplifying perhaps some of the best qualities attributed to males (strength, discipline, etc.) but also the worst. And yet the perceived assault on masculinity itself provokes them to exaggerate stereotypical features attributed to manhood.

They are safe within The Citadel’s walls from the burden of traditional masculinity, but only to the extent that they are not seen from the outside. What is it that they are trying maintain secret? Public disciplining (getting yelled at, calisthenics, and the like) is not kept secret as a whole. For the most part, the day-to-day discipline at The Citadel is not seen. But women have been spectators, and the existence of such discipline is common knowledge (I would venture to say that most people have seen at least one movie depicting boot camp). The shame of the lowerclassmen is that of being seen in a feminine light, being put in a female role in front of other women, or at least in a demasculinized role (Faludi). They do not wish to be seen falling short of “what a man’s supposed to be” in front of women, particularly those of their own society. Like Orwell in Burma (Scott), the cadets do not wish to be embarrassed in front of those they are supposed to be in power over.

The public display of masculinity that The Citadel upholds is highly ritualized, full of parade ground pomp and ceremony. As Scott notes: “Those forms of domination based on a premise or claim to inherent superiority by ruling elites would seem to depend heavily on lavish display” (Scott). The catch is, they are no longer a ruling elite. It is actually because their ideas of masculinity are not dominant any longer that such display becomes necessary for them, as if reliving some fantasy. They are now subordinate so they respond with an exaggerated emphasis to compensate for a lost dominance. And thus the martial showmanship:

In the late-twentieth-century setting of The Citadel, in a time when extreme insecurity and confusion about masculinity’s standing run rampant, the Corps of Cadets once again seeks to obscure a domestic male paradise with an intensifying of virile showmanship and violence (Faludi).

Because they are at the forefront of this culture war, and at a time when their views are becoming increasingly frowned upon, they are forced to defend their group’s honor the only way they know how. Unfortunately, the defense of their principles is couched in martial language and military imagery. Though there is not necessarily anything wrong with that, it does cultivate a culture which promotes violent outlets for frustration. The problem is that public violence is not tolerated in American society; the result is that they are not allowed to openly display their more violent tendencies in the public transcript. Consequently, there is a dangerous buildup of tension. As Scott argues, the necessity of “acting a mask” in the presence of power produces, almost by the stain engendered by its inauthenticity, a countervailing pressure that can not be contained indefinitely (Scott). Since this pressure is not allowed to “burst” outward into society, it is directed inward. The sad result is a litany of physical abuse inflicted on the underclassmen by sadistic upperclassmen, as described by Faludi.

If the hazing which went on behind The Citadel’s walls became widely known, i.e. the hidden transcript became public, mainstream (dominant) society would not tolerate it. The result is that the cadets put on a public face which appeals to the more benign image of military schools common in the public mind, an image of young men who, however tough and disciplined they might be, are certainly not sadistic. As Scott puts it,

With rare, but significant, exceptions the public performance of the subordinate will, out of prudence, fear, and the desire to curry favor, be shaped to appeal to the expectations of the powerful (Scott).

And so they march around in neatly pressed uniforms, carrying empty rifles and executing parade ground movements with expert precision. This is their publicly acceptable face, but it actually a mask of subordinacy since their true way of life with all its brutality would not be accepted. They parade around as dominant males, but their true weakness is starkly revealed when The Citadel came under assault.

The conflict between The Citadel and Shannon Faulkner is what really made it apparent that The Citadel vision of society was subordinate to the inclusive values of the mainstream. She was a threat because she represented the eroding distinction between male and female roles that southern patriarchal society is so against. At least, at The Citadel, they could structure gender as a replication of their ideal society, and as guardians of southern patriarchy, they could act in ways that they would
not outside the walls in the public transcript. If questioned by those outside the walls, they would have “. . . to admit that a woman like Shannon Faulkner would have to be a mannish aberration from her gender” (Faludi). But for all their vigorous opposition, The Citadel was eventually forced to allow Shannon Faulkner into the Corps of Cadets, because they were ultimately subordinates to the larger society’s view of women. As Scott writes:

The capacity of dominant groups to prevail—though never totally—in defining and constituting what counts as the public transcript and what as offstage is, as we shall see, no small measure of their power (Scott).

Behind closed doors, some of the abuses that used to prevail at The Citadel may still occur. But if they do, it would probably be nowhere near what they were. With the admission of Shannon Faulkner to The Citadel, the major battle to break what power the old southern patriarchy still had had been won. As one of their professors said, it was “an inevitable turning of the tide” (Faludi). For all their fantasies of male domination, the southern patriarchs of The Citadel were quite impotent in successfully resisting the changes imposed on them by mainstream society. They were subordinate; and, considering the implications, it will hopefully stay that way.

Evaluating Student Essay #13: A

Aileen uses Scott’s ideas as a frame for analyzing Faludi’s example, but she does not mechanically apply the frame (as a B-level paper might) to argue that only sexist views are allowed within the “public transcript” of The Citadel. Rather, she raises the complexity of her project in arguing that the public transcript within the walls of The Citadel is actually the “hidden transcript” in relationship to the dominant discourses of mainstream society. It’s as though she “upped the ante” here: to enter this paper is to accept, already, a larger framework for understanding society. Upping the ante is the hallmark move of an A paper. What’s more, Aileen not only sets forth a complex idea, she is clearly in control of it from the outset, to the point where she is able to talk about her project on a meta-critical level. Though she is in dialogue with the readings, she is not finally subordinate to them but is able to assert her own larger argument. And in asserting that argument, she often works to craft or invent terms to help her explain her argument fully. Overall, this is an excellent paper with a remarkably well-crafted and well-sustained argument.

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