sheep
Tonight our family sat around and had a discussion about the book Animal Farm. Aileen has a seminar tomorrow where she has to take a position on a statement that says (basically) "The weak are always exploited by the strong, which is unfair." Bob and I were trying to convince her to take the position that the weak deserve to be exploited.
It turned into a great conversation. We talked about what makes people strong or weak, the different kinds of strength and weakness, and whether people have choices about how to live their lives and where they end up. We talked about getting things done, and even horrible people like Stalin could be successful at getting their goals accomplished. It's just that the goals were flawed.
We talked about how society exploits people, and how lots of people seem to prefer to be told how to think, what to buy, what to believe, who to vote for, what type of soda to buy....you get the point. Most people are like the sheep in Animal Farm or the plebians in Julius Caesar. I asked Ali, would you rather be manipulated in an obvious way, like by Napoleon in Animal Farm, or tricked into thinking you weren't being manipulated? Led to believe you had choices or power you didn't have? Don't we need the weak in order to carry out the plans that the higher ups create? Don't we all secretly really want a troupe of minions to carry out our orders?
The fun of these discussions is that Ali sees that you can take one book like Animal Farm and pick textual evidence to support two completely opposite positions.
When the conversation was almost over, Jed piped up: "I don't think the weak should be exploited. I think the weak should be shown how to become strong."
"Do you even know what exploited means?" asked his sister.
"Sort of. It's like being taken advantage of." (which is right on, is his mother's humble opinion)
All in all it was a great family discussion. Good bonding. Jed asked Ali to tuck him in and she agreed and went and snuggled him and all is well.
And Ali has some choices to make about the position she takes in her seminar tomorrow. I think she should set out to convince her classmates that the weak deserve to be exploited by the strong. And if she wins and convinces them to change their minds, she's proved her point.
It turned into a great conversation. We talked about what makes people strong or weak, the different kinds of strength and weakness, and whether people have choices about how to live their lives and where they end up. We talked about getting things done, and even horrible people like Stalin could be successful at getting their goals accomplished. It's just that the goals were flawed.
The fun of these discussions is that Ali sees that you can take one book like Animal Farm and pick textual evidence to support two completely opposite positions.
When the conversation was almost over, Jed piped up: "I don't think the weak should be exploited. I think the weak should be shown how to become strong."
"Do you even know what exploited means?" asked his sister.
"Sort of. It's like being taken advantage of." (which is right on, is his mother's humble opinion)
All in all it was a great family discussion. Good bonding. Jed asked Ali to tuck him in and she agreed and went and snuggled him and all is well.
And Ali has some choices to make about the position she takes in her seminar tomorrow. I think she should set out to convince her classmates that the weak deserve to be exploited by the strong. And if she wins and convinces them to change their minds, she's proved her point.
Comments
and what point did Ali argue and how did it go?
and for the record, I saw pastel colored eggs.