Our goal is to work in reverse. Generally, we want to take a topic or event and discuss ideas within that – discussing the topic first, then the ideas within that. In this assignment, we want to work from the ideas first, then eventually arrive at several material contexts or events. Follow the steps below to get an idea on how to do this.
- Prioritize your ethical idea:
- Identify a theoretical concept or idea that you see as relevant to create an original take on. This could be an original idea of your own that stems from something we’ve read or discussed in class, or something that we’ve explicitly discussed or read. I would suggest being as creative with this as you can. Ideas like straight up ‘utilitarianism’ doesn’t leave a lot of room for growth.
- Identify this idea’s ideological location – where in the way the world is does this idea have a thought space? This part of this is your focal point. Think of this as the battleground this idea is in.
- To help you think of this, reflect on how your ethical idea hits home to you. What part of you does this call to?
- Then the topics and the events in our world that this relates to:
- Identify some contexts that illustrate the points above. We’re using this as ammunition for discussion on your idea
- We’re not doing a deep dive on a specific event or a topic, but rather smaller points of contention around your idea.
- You may get the urge to make your entire submission about these topics. Successfully executing this method will result in your ideas transcending several events and topics.
With this in mind, the finished product of this assignment will be an effective development of a concept, resulting in a piece of analysis that creates a new conversation on an idea. This should not result in something like an explanation on why social media is bad or that there’s an injustice somewhere. You aren’t here to explain why, you’re here to dig deep into something about ourselves.