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Right. I don't understand why you were downvoted. I don't think Eton College was trying to imply that such a brutal intervention was moral or even necessary, b
by farrelmahaztra 7y ago
Right. I don't understand why you were downvoted.
I don't think Eton College was trying to imply that such a brutal intervention was moral or even necessary, but they simply wanted to test a student's ability to argue and reason that it was despite how difficult and internally conflicting such a stance would be to most people.
The difficulty was the point, no? They could've chosen a less controversial prompt, I suppose, but why not this one? What difficult stances are not controversial?
- wbronitsky 7y agoI think it is pertinent to highlight that this question was posed to 13 and 14 year olds. I don’t think anyone at that age can properly address this question.
- farrelmahaztra 7y agoI mostly agree, but wasn't this part of acceptance into a scholarship program? I'd imagine they want to see aptitude beyond their age.
- wbronitsky 7y agoThere are many ways to try and measure the aptitude of a 13 year old without putting the idea of supporting state sponsored murder into their heads and forcing them to defend it. I would argue that the possible damage done to a person at a very impressionable age by asking them to justify murder outweighs the vetting process for a scholarship.
- lucozade 7y ago> I don’t think anyone at that age can properly address this question I guess it depends on what you mean by "properly" but there's absolutely no reason why a reasonably well educated child of that age shouldn't be able to both understand the nature of the question and make a decent stab at an answer.
- pjc50 7y agoIf the Eton cadet force is like the one at my private school, that age is also when they start training you in the use of an actual rifle ... (heavily locked down on a range, but you're definitely primed to support the military in this context!)