Suggestions for Writing

Politics

Now that you have examined a number of texts that focus on politics, explore one dimension of this topic by synthesizing your own ideas and the readings. You might want to do more research or use readings from other classes as you discuss and prepare for the following projects.

  1. Read the following section from a translation of an ancient text, the Tao Te Ching by Lao-tzu, a Chinese philosopher who lived in the sixth century b.c. Then write an essay in which you support or refute Lao-tzu’s claims about political leadership. Use your knowledge of history and current events, and refer to the texts in this chapter to support your argument.

    When the Master governs, the people

    are hardly aware that he exists.

    Next best is a leader who is loved.

    Next, one who is feared.

    The worst is one who is despised.

    If you don’t trust the people,

    you make them untrustworthy.

    The Master doesn’t talk, he acts.

    When his work is done,

    the people say, “Amazing:

    we did it, all by ourselves!”

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 13 - Suggestions for Writing: Read the following section from a translation of an ancient text, the Tao Te Ching by Lao-tzu, a Chinese philosopher who lived in the sixth century b.c. Then write an essay in which you support or refute Lao-tzu’s claims about political leadership. Use your knowledge of history and current events, and refer to the texts in this chapter to support your argument. When the Master governs, the people are hardly aware that he exists. Next best is a leader who is loved. Next, one who is feared. The worst is one who is despised. If you don’t trust the people, you make them untrustworthy. The Master doesn’t talk, he acts. When his work is done, the people say, “Amazing: we did it, all by ourselves!”
  2. Henry David Thoreau’s objections to slavery and to what he saw as unjustified war prompted the writing of the essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience”, which strongly influenced both Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. as they opposed injustice. In “On the Rainy River”, Tim O’Brien considers civil disobedience as a response to what he also considers an unjust war. Reflect on the state of our society today, and write an essay in which you apply Thoreau’s ideas to our time. Is civil disobedience an appropriate response to perceived injustice today? Why or why not?

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 13 - Suggestions for Writing: Henry David Thoreau’s objections to slavery and to what he saw as unjustified war prompted the writing of the essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience”, which strongly influenced both Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. as they opposed injustice. In “On the Rainy River”, Tim O’Brien considers civil disobedience as a response to what he also considers an unjust war. Reflect on the state of our society today, and write an essay in which you apply Thoreau’s ideas to our time. Is civil disobedience an appropriate response to perceived injustice today? Why or why not?
  3. Assuming the voice of one of the contemporary writers in this chapter, or in your own informed voice, write a letter to one of the earlier writers (for example, Red Jacket, Henry David Thoreau, Abraham Lincoln, Virginia Woolf) about political issues. In your letter, refer to current political problems that would interest the earlier writer. Your letter may take the form of a request for information or guidance, a complaint or polemic defending or challenging the writer’s views, or a complimentary letter telling the writer how prescient he or she was.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 13 - Suggestions for Writing: Assuming the voice of one of the contemporary writers in this chapter, or in your own informed voice, write a letter to one of the earlier writers (for example, Red Jacket, Henry David Thoreau, Abraham Lincoln, Virginia Woolf) about political issues. In your letter, refer to current political problems that would interest the earlier writer. Your letter may take the form of a request for information or guidance, a complaint or polemic defending or challenging the writer’s views, or a complimentary letter telling the writer how prescient he or she was.
  4. In paragraph 3 of “Shooting an Elephant”, George Orwell says that the incident of shooting the elephant “in a roundabout way was enlightening. It was a tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real nature of imperialism—the real motives for which despotic governments act.” He implies that governments act from the same petty impulses that drive human beings in response to pressures. Write an essay in which you support, refute, or qualify Orwell’s position concerning despotic governments. Use evidence from your knowledge of history and from other readings in this chapter to support your position.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 13 - Suggestions for Writing: In paragraph 3 of “Shooting an Elephant”, George Orwell says that the incident of shooting the elephant “in a roundabout way was enlightening. It was a tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real nature of imperialism—the real motives for which despotic governments act.” He implies that governments act from the same petty impulses that drive human beings in response to pressures. Write an essay in which you support, refute, or qualify Orwell’s position concerning despotic governments. Use evidence from your knowledge of history and from other readings in this chapter to support your position.
  5. Consider the importance of appealing to ethos in political writing. To take four examples, Virginia Woolf, Chris Hedges, Laura Blumenfeld, and Tim O’Brien all write from personal experience. How important is that experience to the relationships established among the speaker, the text, and the reader, as illustrated by Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle? Would ethos be equally served if these four writers had not personally experienced what they report but instead had based their writings on research or on the accounts of others? Referring to at least two of the texts, write an argument about the importance of personal experience as support for an argument.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 13 - Suggestions for Writing: Consider the importance of appealing to ethos in political writing. To take four examples, Virginia Woolf, Chris Hedges, Laura Blumenfeld, and Tim O’Brien all write from personal experience. How important is that experience to the relationships established among the speaker, the text, and the reader, as illustrated by Aristotle’s rhetorical triangle? Would ethos be equally served if these four writers had not personally experienced what they report but instead had based their writings on research or on the accounts of others? Referring to at least two of the texts, write an argument about the importance of personal experience as support for an argument.
  6. Write a thoughtful essay on the relationship between the citizen and the state in our time. Refer to at least three of the texts in this chapter to support your position.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 13 - Suggestions for Writing: Write a thoughtful essay on the relationship between the citizen and the state in our time. Refer to at least three of the texts in this chapter to support your position.
  7. About the legacy of George Orwell, political commentator Christopher Hitchens writes:

    His importance to the century just past, and therefore his status as a figure in history as well as literature, derives from the extraordinary salience of the subjects he “took on,” and stayed with, and never abandoned. As a consequence, we commonly use the term “Orwellian” in one of two ways. To describe a state of affairs as “Orwellian” is to imply crushing tyranny and fear and conformism. To describe a piece of writing as “Orwellian” is to recognize that human resistance to these terrors is unquenchable.

    Write an essay in which you apply Hitchens’s second definition of Orwellian to “Shooting an Elephant” and to at least two other texts in this chapter.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 13 - Suggestions for Writing: About the legacy of George Orwell, political commentator Christopher Hitchens writes: His importance to the century just past, and therefore his status as a figure in history as well as literature, derives from the extraordinary salience of the subjects he “took on,” and stayed with, and never abandoned. As a consequence, we commonly use the term “Orwellian” in one of two ways. To describe a state of affairs as “Orwellian” is to imply crushing tyranny and fear and conformism. To describe a piece of writing as “Orwellian” is to recognize that human resistance to these terrors is unquenchable. Write an essay in which you apply Hitchens’s second definition of Orwellian to “Shooting an Elephant” and to at least two other texts in this chapter.
  8. From one of the texts in the chapter (a piece by Kincaid, Thoreau, Blumenfeld, Vowell, O’Brien, or Orwell, for instance), select a narrative section. Then create a graphic novelization of the events in the passage you select, writing captions and dialogue to accompany the illustrations.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 13 - Suggestions for Writing: From one of the texts in the chapter (a piece by Kincaid, Thoreau, Blumenfeld, Vowell, O’Brien, or Orwell, for instance), select a narrative section. Then create a graphic novelization of the events in the passage you select, writing captions and dialogue to accompany the illustrations.
  9. Compare Kincaid’s characterization of Christopher Columbus in “On Seeing England for the First Time” (para. 10) with the Christopher Columbus revealed in his letter to the Spanish monarchy.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 13 - Suggestions for Writing: Compare Kincaid’s characterization of Christopher Columbus in “On Seeing England for the First Time” (para. 10) with the Christopher Columbus revealed in his letter to the Spanish monarchy.
  10. This chapter, which includes an image of Guernica along with the magazine covers from Harper’s and the New Yorker, “The Veil” from Persepolis, and the Christiansted travel brochure, is particularly rich in visual material. Write an essay that explains how the visual texts have helped you to gain an understanding of political issues raised in this chapter. Refer to at least three of the visual selections as well as to other texts in the chapter.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 13 - Suggestions for Writing: This chapter, which includes an image of Guernica along with the magazine covers from Harper’s and the New Yorker, “The Veil” from Persepolis, and the Christiansted travel brochure, is particularly rich in visual material. Write an essay that explains how the visual texts have helped you to gain an understanding of political issues raised in this chapter. Refer to at least three of the visual selections as well as to other texts in the chapter.
  11. Go online and watch the TED Talk by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adiche called “The Danger of a Single Story.” Then write an essay about the danger of the “single story” as Adiche characterizes it. In your essay, refer to several of the pieces in this chapter for support and illustration.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 13 - Suggestions for Writing: Go online and watch the TED Talk by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adiche called “The Danger of a Single Story.” Then write an essay about the danger of the “single story” as Adiche characterizes it. In your essay, refer to several of the pieces in this chapter for support and illustration.
  12. Each of the following statements addresses the nature of politics. Select one that interests you, and write an essay defending or challenging its assertion. To support your argument, refer to your knowledge of history and to the selections in this chapter.

    No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.   —Hannah Arendt

    We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.   —John F. Kennedy

    In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics.” All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.   —George Orwell

    Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.   —Martin Luther King Jr.

    Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.   —Edmund Burke

    Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could.   —Abigail Adams

    What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.    —John Ruskin

    If we are to survive, we are to have ideas, vision, and courage. These things are rarely produced by communities. Everything that matters in our intellectual and moral life begins with an individual confronting his own mind and conscience in a room by himself.   —Arthur Schlesinger Jr.

    Question

    uZxg83qH9uNZ3NUqyV8wT7hdxc9/5MQeJeZaOsQNhvI0w6Xk3EOeDQ1B873FE1s7
    Chapter 13 - Suggestions for Writing: Each of the following statements addresses the nature of politics. Select one that interests you, and write an essay defending or challenging its assertion. To support your argument, refer to your knowledge of history and to the selections in this chapter. No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.   —Hannah Arendt We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.   —John F. Kennedy In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics.” All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.   —George Orwell Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.   —Martin Luther King Jr. Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.   —Edmund Burke Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could.   —Abigail Adams What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do.    —John Ruskin If we are to survive, we are to have ideas, vision, and courage. These things are rarely produced by communities. Everything that matters in our intellectual and moral life begins with an individual confronting his own mind and conscience in a room by himself.   —Arthur Schlesinger Jr.