Honors section discussion questions -- Feb. 2
We missed last week because of my emergency Minnesota trip, so we have a little catching up to do. Here are a couple of questions related to the material we started the semester on:
- Is there anything to be said in favor of the political ideas put forward by Thomas Hobbes and Robert Filmer in your online reader?
- Why do people obey the commands of government representatives (including the police), especially when those commands seem unjust or mistaken?
- What are some similarities and differences between the values children are taught in present-day schools and those taught in the New England Primer?
posted by Jeff Pasley at 5:09 PM
1 Comments:
In response to the 2nd question:
I think people go along with government commands (even those that seem unfair) because it's a scary thing to stand up to a giant. In answering this question, I thought back to segregation and Martin Luther King, Jr. King and his followers submitted to the government, even though it was clearly unfair. Had they fought the government, they would have been deemed "troublemakers." So they fought the government in their own subtle ways. Sometimes it's difficult to be the first person to say that something is unjust or unfair. There is a fear that if you stand up for someone else, you could be subject to persecution.
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