Ethics [Thursday, September 6]

[sith_happened]

Anakin walked into his classroom precisely on time and gave the students assembled there an appraising glance.

It wasn't possible to tell what he thought of them.

"I'm Master Skywalker," he said in a voice that was intended to carry, "this is Ethics, and we're going to skip the introductions--I'll figure out who you are--and move straight to our first discussion."

He paced around the room, cloak flaring out behind him, as he handed out the syllabus. "Today's topic," he said. "Self sacrifice: knowing the difference between saving people and being a pretentious twit."

"Any time I ask a a group of people what they would do to save someone they love, they all blither on about how they would set the world on fire, lie, cheat, steal, kill, die, et cetera, et cetera. I've been at this school too long to believe that half of you haven't already been put into this situation and I'm in no mood to hear adolescent ramblings about how wonderful you were or might hypothetically be. We're going to ground it in reality.

"A month ago there was a woman who was in charge of this school. She had been placed in power legitimately, was allowed to punish in accordance with that power, and began pushing the boundaries of her authority almost immediately. She called students to her office, punished them for slights genuine or imagined, and began escalating the severity and frequency of her punishments, going over the line into what was no longer acceptable."

Anakin crossed his arms over his chest, the scar across his face very evident in the light coming through the window. "It eventually took a team of highly qualified adults to take her out. Today's topic: when do you draw the line? When do you admit to yourself that a problem cannot be solved, that to sacrifice yourself isn't a statement, it's merely pointless? How long does it take for you to check your ego?"

Comments

Sign in [September 6]

[sith_happened]

...

Re: Sign in [September 6]

[notqueenyet.livejournal.com]

Aravis

Listen to the lecture

[sith_happened]

He says lecture, you might say rant...

Listen, take notes, pass notes.

Roll your eyes and he'll catch you.

Re: Listen to the lecture

[jedi-qui.livejournal.com]

Qui-Gon was amused to note that Anakin's ethics teaching style was no different in front of a class than it was one on one.

Re: Listen to the lecture

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

River might have smiled a little, if it wasn't that the subject was vaguely disturbing to her.

Re: Listen to the lecture

[wheresurgodnow.livejournal.com]

Haruhi wasn't paying attention. Lectures, she hated those so much. She traveled across the world into a completely different school-- with some crazy awesome people that she met, no less-- and she still had to listen to boring teachers yammer on?

Sleep sounded more appealing.

Re: Listen to the lecture

[sixstandingby.livejournal.com]

Gavin listened carefully and decided he would never, ever ask any type of girl question in this class.

Ever.

Ever ever.

But, he listened carefully.

Re: Listen to the lecture

[solo_sword]

Jaina highly doubted there was ever a lecture she wasn't going to pay attention to. Except somehow she was listening less to hear what Darth Vader would tell impressionable minds when he had an audience, and more to hear what he actually had to say.

Re: Listen to the lecture

[intraspective]

Why were all her classes first thing in the morning? Ino scribbled a few notes down before putting her pen down and just listening. The notes could wait.

Re: Listen to the lecture

[honoraryphd.livejournal.com]

Victor listened and held judgement of this Skywalker for now. He was predisposed not to care much for him, of course, because a von Doom never calls another "Master."

Kind of an ego thing there.

Re: Listen to the lecture

[im-fullmetal.livejournal.com]

The one good thing about this lecture was that Mustang wasn't giving it. Still Ed was writing leisurely notes that sort of disintegrated into drawings of arrays and half-formed ideas of some things he'd been researching.

Re: Listen to the lecture

[notafairmaiden.livejournal.com]

Gwynn how she once again got put into an ethics class, but at least this teacher wasn't quite as scary. She took notes while trying to figure out how to best answer that question.

Re: Listen to the lecture

[key-of-heart.livejournal.com]

Sora listened intently. He had sacrified quite a bit for the people he cared for, but.. .would he always?

Re: Listen to the lecture

[missed-the-gate.livejournal.com]

John took Prof. Skywalker's rant lecture very seriously and shockingly took actual notes. He might be trying extra hard for some reason.

Re: Listen to the lecture

[sarcasm-guy.livejournal.com]

Sokka listened intently and nodded along. Yeah, he wasn't going to sacrifice himself unless he really HAD to.

Re: Listen to the lecture

[sound-loyalty.livejournal.com]

Oh, please. Sacrifice yourself when you could sacrifice someone else instead? That was a duh.

Answer the discussion question

[sith_happened]

Feel free to react to other character's replies, too. This class is all about discussion. Make the threads as messy as you like.

Re: Answer the discussion question

[notqueenyet.livejournal.com]

"It depends on how many lives would be saved if I lost mine," Aravis replied quietly. "If it's not of benefit to the greater good -- even if the greater good means that just one other person might live because of my sacrifice -- then what is the point? Bold statements don't help you if you're dead. But if just one innocent person is saved, then yes, it's worth it and it's not an ego thing."

Re: Answer the discussion question

[moonbrain-tam.livejournal.com]

"My intervention would be dependent on an evaluation of my powers compared to those opposing me." As she had told Kerrigan the other day she could not openly fight the Alliance. She could not go against anyone using magic, that frightening yet tempting power. Give her a bunch of reavers any day.

Re: Answer the discussion question

[wheresurgodnow.livejournal.com]

Eventually Haruhi lifted her head, realizing that the lecture was over.

Right, she had to answer a topic question, didn't she? "Heh, problems, sacrifice, whatever," she muttered. "If you find yourself in such a huge problem, then maybe you shouldn't have been a dimwit and gotten yourself in that issue in the first place."

Re: Answer the discussion question

[sixstandingby.livejournal.com]

"I...don't really know," Gavin answered honestly. He figured honesty would be good here. "I haven't run into a pointless situation yet. Even if you lose a battle, lose friends, it's always led, for me, to a change in tactics, strategy, that allows us to better strike at the..." He stopped and shook himself of that. "It allows for things to be looked at differently."

Re: Answer the discussion question

[witchy-prue.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Anakin was talking to the chick who ended up getting herself killed to save only a handful of people. Prue was never going to check her ego, even in the afterlife.

"I'd do anything to prevent my sisters getting hurt. I don't care if it's pointless. Even if my death will only push back the inevitable then I'll still go through with it." she said. She really hoped she didn't sound crazy.

Talk to the TA!

[sith_happened]

Qui-Gon Jinn is the TA. This amuses the hell out of Anakin.

No, he won't tell you why.

Re: Talk to the TA!

[jedi-qui.livejournal.com]

Qui-Gon is there, being all Padawan-like.

Talk to Anakin!

[sith_happened]

Because he exudes those cuddly, smalltalk kind of vibes.

Re: Talk to Anakin!

[multi-madrox.livejournal.com]

No... Jamie isn't in Ethics. In fact he failed ethics. Why is he showing up to bug his old mentor and catch the last bit of the topic discussion?

Maybe its because he missed his office hours.

Or maybe he's just a glutton for punishment.

"You know I think a better question to ask rather than where a line should be drawn is what a person might actually do for a Klondike bar. The ethical dilemmas alone are mind boggling," Jamie said by way of greeting.

OOC

[sith_happened]

The class will always go up the night before and I'm fine with SP for any discussion threads you want to keep going. Have fun with it! But if you start an actual, fist throwing fight, Anakin'll drop you in detention faster than you could blink.

Re: OOC

[solo_sword]

Every time I see that icon I go "WHO'S A CUTE LITTLE ANAKITTY??" in a baby voice in my head.

What? He's already making the right face in response.