Learning, Altruism, and Violence

Megan Heller, Rutgers University, Summer 2002

Assignment # 3: Altruism and Universalism

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.  But 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 compromise an act’s 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.

Rough Draft (4 pages)
Final Draft (5-6 pages)

I will evaluate your paper by looking at:

1.   Your project: You should express and support your own idea about the assigned topic and use textual evidence from de Waal, Guinier, and Nussbaum to help develop and support your claim.

2. Your organization: You should express, explain, and explore a central claim in each paragraph. Your paragraphs should connect logically to each other. The paragraphs should all work toward developing your central project.

3. Your use of quotations and examples: Choose relevant concept quotations and examples. Explain the connections between these quotations and examples and your larger project.

4.Your sentence clarity and correctness: Proofread your essay carefully for grammar and spelling errors.

Assignment #4: Universalism and Local Tradition

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?  Consider Nussbaum's Central Human Functional Capabilities; do they apply to the Citadel?  What difference does personal choice make?  What about the Citadel's public financial support?  Remember to use at least three quotations per author.

Rough Draft (4 pages)

Final Draft (5-6 pages)

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 agressive, 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 which could potentially stir controversy:  Do you agree with Tannen?  Is such a change really necessary?  Remember to use at least three quotations per author (one per support; six quotations).

Rough Draft (4-5 pages)

Revised Rough Draft (5-6 pages)

Final Draft (5-6 pages)

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?  Make sure you use at least one quotation per author, per support (minimum 9 quotations).

Rough Draft (4-5 pages)

Final Draft (5-6 pages)

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