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The full question, from the article: > The year is 2040. There have been riots in the streets of London after Britain has run out of petrol because of an oil c

• arethuza 7y ago
  "I don't see anythig wrong with the question." I think many would see it as rather tasteless given fairly recent UK history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1972) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1972)
  • larnmar 7y ago
    Taste is a middle class concern. If you want your kids to be middle class drones obsessed with not offending anyone then you can send them to another school. That’s not what Eton is about.
    • esotericn 7y ago
      Not sure why you're being downvoted here; I think it's a fairly important distinction to make. Different social classes operate differently.
      • merpnderp 7y ago
        Citation needed. Because in the US it’s considered some straight up age old bullshit that being rich makes you some kind of high minded philosopher smarter than the joe.
        • larnmar 7y ago
          The US doesn’t really have a class system though — it has a middle class and an underclass. The fact that some middle class Americans are very wealthy doesn’t change the fact that they’re essentially middle class in behaviour and outlook. The British, on the other hand, have a very complex class system and a meaningful upper class. I wouldn’t recommend trying to transport your understanding of “class” across the Atlantic.
          • merpnderp 7y ago
            The wikipedia page on the UK's class system says it is mostly wealth and education, but you make this case for behavior and outlook, which I'm guessing you really mean is ideological. But really would like some clarification.
        • esotericn 7y ago
          I think you're talking about something entirely different. The working, middle and upper class in the UK behave in very different ways, it's definitional. This article is the citation. I would bear in mind that British class is quite different to American class. It's far less to do with money here.
    • wbronitsky 7y ago
      You could have so easily made the point that Eton aims to train the elite without being viciously dismissive and condescending. Coming in here and attacking using a throwaway account undermines the ability for the community to have a discussion.
    • orf 7y ago
      I guess you're implying the white, priviledged, and uniformly similar kids with the same opinions and the same upbringings who attend Eton are somehow not drones. Yeah, not so sure about that.
      • esotericn 7y ago
        It's more interesting that in the UK there's sort of a bell curve of passivity. The working and upper classes have more similarities socially than do the middle and upper classes in a lot of ways.
        • shantly 7y ago
          Interesting. Fussell, in his Class, also calls out the US middle class as a kind of outlier from the rest of the class system, cursed with an abundance of class anxiety but also a distinctive class identity and slew of misconceptions about the higher classes that often leave them looking silly in their attempts to imitate the higher classes (which they're very interested in doing thanks to the aforementioned intense class anxiety), including on matters of what proper or polite behavior & activity looks like.
        • larnmar 7y ago
          It probably just seems that way from a middle class vantage point. Outgroup homogeneity bias — they’re both unlike us, therefore they’re both kinda the same!
          • esotericn 7y ago
            Bad assumption.
  • lordnacho 7y ago
    So you're saying that a PM has actually been in this situation? Do we need a better reason for Eton to ask for arguments supporting the government's position? If you look at UK history, it has actually happened on several occasions. Peterloo, Amritsar. Why shouldn't we think about what to say?
    • arethuza 7y ago
      It has happened so infrequently that it rather highlights it as an unusual choice of question - why not a terrorist incident, foreign war, natural disaster or incident with a Royal? You would almost suspect that they are trying to select individuals who have a natural instinct to maintaining current power structures, but clearly that is nonsense and what they are looking for is a carefully reasoned response.
    • rgblambda 7y ago
      In the real life situation above, the solution was; to cover up the atrocity (by planting weapons on the bodies), claim the soldiers were fired on (they weren't), and prevent the only MP in the House of Commons who had personally witnessed the event from speaking on the floor (in contravention of parliamentary tradition).
    • bloody-crow 7y ago
      I think the point is that a political undergrad should be able to white a speech justifying any position, since this is a generally useful skill for a future politician. Defending and justifying a position you don't personally hold is an especially useful exercise imo.
      • arethuza 7y ago
        Eton is at a high-school level though.
        • bloody-crow 7y ago
          Ugh, missed that. Still, the point stands, I believe.
  • SilasX 7y ago
    Really? "Event X from 46 years ago was bad and unforgivably handled by the government. Therefore, you should never prepare for giving a speech about a future event similar to X." Just to be fair, I think an analogous prompt for Americans might be: "Terrorists have just destroyed the Empire State Building and Willis (fka Sears) Tower in simultaneous attacks. Three days later, you have ordered troops to invade the suspected state sponsors of these attacks. Write a speech defending this military action."
    • arethuza 7y ago
      Given the role of Eton in this country and given the sensitivity of the political situation in Northern Ireland I would say it does look somewhat crass.
    • tom_ 7y ago
      It's not analogous at all. It omits the key factor: the domestic deployment.
    • pjc50 7y ago
      Subtly different arguing for an invasion of another country. A better analogy might be "imagine that BLM protests have been raging for several days in Pittsburgh, write a speech defending the use of federal troops to clear the streets(+) and the use of drone strikes against suspected sniper positions." (+) yes I know this is unconstitutional, that's the point
      • CompanionCuuube 7y ago
        > yes I know this is unconstitutional, that's the point How so? The National Guard is a federal troop organization that can be called upon by a state Governor in a state of emergency. Doing so is hardly a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.
  • sdinsn 7y ago
    Do you think colleges should prioritize being tasteful instead of being thought-provoking?
• shantly 7y ago
  This kind of role-playing is a big part of certain types of education. It's basically the whole point of model UN and various games-based massive exercises that kids with a serious interest in government or international relations or whatever usually end up participating in during secondary school. Asking a student to take a perspective and work from there is not remotely the same thing as endorsing that perspective and it'd be crippling to take away that tool or only use it to examine "acceptable" perspectives. [EDIT] I should add that it's incredibly powerful and probably under-used outside the Poli-Sci department and perhaps business schools. Trying it for, say, some position you aspire to, like development lead or CTO, for example (I've been hired, it's day one, orientation's over, what do I do first? What's important? Who do I talk to? What info do I need? Who has it? What systems might exist to get it? How should I present myself to others in various positions?) can quickly expose gaps in your knowledge or education, suggesting what to focus on first to get there. You can also use it to figure out how to interact with people in other positions to be as helpful to them as possible while keeping them off your back (because you're giving them what they need to do their job) especially if they're not great at what they do. It's damn useful.
  • eesmith 7y ago
    Why does it need to be so conformist with the existing power structure? That is, when this came up on August, one commenter at https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2019/08/29/but-it-isnt-even-a-question/#comment-2009081 https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2019/08/29/but-it-is... posed a roughly equivalent problem: > “you’ve just overthrown the government in a socialist workers’ uprising. The royal family and all members of the nobility have been executed by firing squad. As the recently elected chairman of the Greater London Soviet, explain why this was both necessary and moral.” Surely that's equally "acceptable" perspective for a role-playing exercise, yes? In your edit you commented that it's an exercise for practicing for "some position you aspire to". Doesn't that imply that someone who aspires to be a PM should practice concocting excuses to explain why it was "both necessary and moral" to kill protestors? Wouldn't better practice for a PM in this case to be to express sorrow about the deaths, announce the start of an independent investigation into the issue (and not be people with ties to the government), etc.? Doesn't this sort of exercise also reduce the number of people who enter political science simply because they don't want to spend time to defend a some positions they believe to be unconscionable? I took a foreign language class once and we were asked to practice by having a debate on some topic. I don't remember what it was, so let's say "for or against smoking in public restaurants". I was assigned the task of defending the ability to smoke in a restaurant - something I am very much against - and refused to do it. Just like a social activist teenager with a history of going to demonstrations might be against needing to justify the morality of killing protestors. Or the teenager from the ranks of nobility might not want to justify killing his or her family for the needs of the Greater London Soviet.
• pjc50 7y ago
  The problem is not so much "justify a controversial position as a thought exercise", but the choice of the position (armed defence of the elite) and that they would never choose or perhaps even allow the corresponding left-wing controversial position. e.g. "The government has announced the banning of a large opposition party, and that its leaders will be subject to internment without trial. A peaceful demonstration was organised, but the Army fired randomly from sniper positions into the crowd, resulting in thirteen people dead. Write the speech you would give calling for a general strike to shut down the government until democratic representation and human rights can be restored." > If there are "violent protesters" or "rioters" who have "damaged public buildings" and, as a result of the riots, "several policemen have died," the government has some cause to use force. This is more or less the exact argument of the Chinese Communist party against the HK demonstrators, by the way. Edit: I see my example controversial position is controversial on here, too.
  • kazagistar 7y ago
    If you add that the banned party was popular and democratically elected a month ago before being ousted by the current government which is primarily sponsored by the army and usa intelligence community, then you have Bolivia, and the people answering the justification question are news organizations like the New York Times.
  • leftyted 7y ago
    You can't imagine a situation in which a government is justified in using force to suppress protesters. It's hard for me to view that as anything but a failure of imagination. Your perspective also demonstrates over reliance on analogy: hypothetical violent riots over gas prices are equivalent to pro-democracy riots in HK.
    • pjc50 7y ago
      Please explain, with examples, how the use of lethal force against unarmed demonstrators is compatible with ECHR.
      • 7y ago
• clucas 7y ago
  I think that you are correct, there isn't anything wrong with the question in itself, but Eton would be serving its students and its nation much better if, after asking that quesiton, it then asked "Now, you are the leader of the opposition. Write the script for a speech to be broadcast to the nation in which you explain why the government's actions are unnecessary and immoral, and how you would have handled the situation." One of the best exams I ever took was a two-part exam, 90 minutes per part - the first part gave a narrative of a set of facts and the disposition of a lawsuit arising from the facts, then asked us to write the majority opinion for the appeal. The second part (which was handed out after we turned in our answer to the first part) simply said "Now write the dissenting opinion." These sorts of questions force to you use the best arguments of ideologies you may not agree with. I think that is very useful, particularly in today's political climate.