fandomhigh | Ethics class, 8-10am Friday morning

Tara leans against her desk, smiling as she watches the students come in. Some of the faces she recognises, and gives a nod. The room is filled with soft, comfortable chairs, which are positioned in a circle. Each chair has a wooden insert in one arm, to lean on while writing, and each wooden insert has a blank piece of paper on it.

When everyone has taken their seats, Tara begins.

"The first rule of ethics class is that you do not talk about things that happen inside of ethics class. The second rule of ethics class is that you do not talk about things that happen inside of ethics class. Allow me to clarify: you may discuss your revelations, challenge your friends and mock the teacher all you like. But if anything said inside this class is ever used against another member of it, it will mean instant detention. You will, however, have the opportunity to explain yourself before I drag you before Principal Connor. This class cannot function if people are afraid to speak."

She looks around the classroom, stopping briefly on each face. "This school is very unusual. Yes, obviously the squid is a bit odd, but what's more interesting to me is that there are individuals sitting in this room" she nods to Angelus, "who identify themselves as evil. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what the first section of the course will be discussing. Evil, good, and what makes the difference between the two. Your evil classmates have perspectives you need to think about and consider. Don't ignore them in a mistaken belief that they have no ethics."

"Each class runs for two hours. Ordinarily this will be broken up into two sections: discussion and debate - today, however, there will be two discussion sections instead. The majority of your assessment will come through your involvement in class discussions. Every student is expected to participate every week. If you are painfully shy, write your thoughts down and hand them in to me. If I don't know what you're thinking, you don't get credit for it. After this week a formal debate will be held once a week. For those of you unfamiliar with debating, this means two teams of three students taking opposing sides on an issue determined by me. You will each be expected to debate three times during the term, with a week's notice to prepare for each one. At the end of semester a practical exam will be held. This will assess not what you choose to do, but how accurately you have come to an understanding of your own ethical code. I expect you to be honest with yourselves.

Friday and Monday classes are identical. Please feel free to switch between them if you have commitments that interfere with your regular attendance."

"I will want two teacher's assistants for this course, whose function it is to prompt discussion and challenge your thinking. These students will be expected to attend both Monday and Friday classes. Today's discussion will serve as your audition. If you are interested, please say so on your paper, or see me after class."

She smiles. "Alright, enough from me. Here's your first challenge: I want you to identify something you have done in the course of your life that another person might consider to be evil. I want you to explain to me why you did it, and whether you would make the same choices again if placed into a similar situation. You do not have to share this with your fellow students. Throw ideas around, talk about what different people consider evil, but write your final answers down on your piece of paper."

(Second challenge will be posted in the comments below. Discussion will be closed Thursday next week, for those who need to slowplay.)

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Elizabeth thought for a moment. "There are still evil things in the world. Torture. Rape. Genocide. I don't think even the removal of God can disguise the horror of those."

"But that's a matter of opinion," Angelus said. "Let's take torture. It makes one person getting it feel bad, sure, but why does their vote count more than the person who wanted to do the torture in the first place?"

"Well, would the person who's doing the torturing want to be tortured his or herself?"

"Maybe, maybe not," Angelus said. "Not my place to judge somebody's kinks. But there's plenty of people who would make somebody a hot fudge sundae who wouldn't eat one themselves. That doesn't make it wrong to open a soda shop. The question is who gets the ultimate say? If we're not allowing the gods to tell us what to do then it's down to us here on the planet. And if it's just us... what? Do we arm wrestle for it? Use rock, paper, scissors to decide that torture is bad, charity is good, and putting cheese on your hamburger means we get to vote you off the island?"

"I guess that's one of the reasons why religion has evolved to become such a focul part of our lives, whether we believe or not," she says, shrugging. "With a population of over six billion, I think we'd be getting a few draws with rock, paper, scissors." She grins wryly. "But then there's a lot which comes back to our primal behavior... we're supposedly genetically," she hesistates, "programed, although I don't like that word, to survive and spread on our genetic code... with exceptions such as suicidal tendancies, I know. Men especially, apparently, which is probably just some bright male anthropologist going "oh, I know what's a good excuse for cheating on my wife.""

"My guess is a lot of rules break down to variations on that theme," Angelus said with a grin. "That, and the arm wrestling again. You can't tell me women wouldn't have found a way so that they could be the ones in charge and having all the repercussionless sex that they wanted if not for the fact that thousands of years ago primitive man figured out that better upper body strength meant never having to say 'Sorry I just took away all your rights by hitting you with this club.'"

Elizabeth laughs. "God made man, and then thought "I can do better than that" and made woman," she grins, her eyes sparkling. "It took a heck of a lot of evolution to get us just to neanderthals, and if we change more, we won't be Homo sapiens anymore. But both men and women have their strengths." She grins again. "If you want anything said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman."

Angelus laughed, in total agreement with her. "I've always felt so. Though that does interest me. In my experience there's never been anything like the way a woman approaches a problem and fixes it. I honestly don't think I can compare. I do my humble best, of course, but it's the age-old issue of apples and oranges.

"So why," he said, with geniune curiosity, "do you think it is that our society leans towards the patriarchal? It doesn't even make sense when you come to think about it. You need fancy tests to prove who a father is, no doubt at all to know who the mother is. How did we get to a place where men are in charge and women still make eighty cents to their dollar, assuming their asshole husbands allow them out of the house in the first place?"

She laughed. "Actually, I think it's partly due to what you were saying about men being stronger than women. Whilst the club beating and dragging off by the hair is fiction, men would have been able to subdue both their wives, and also, they would be better at hunting prey. Added to that, when a woman is pregnant, she becomes almost wholely reliant on her husband, because if if she was theoretically able to hunt before, now she's twice the size. Because women need protecting when they're pregnant, because they're physically slightly and weaker, men seem to think that they need protecting, which leads to the patriarchal society.

Of course, I'm not an anthropologist, so I could be way off base!" she said, laughing again.

"If anything," Angelus said, "that just goes to show why gods aren't worth factoring in to the equation. If they did create all of this, I don't see why we should give them credit for making women so vulnerable when they're trying to perpetuate the species. If they're eating for two, shouldn't they be kicking ass for two as well?"

"It does seem odd," Elizabeth agreed. "And human children are dependant on their mother for so much longer than any other mammal or animal as well."

"And let's not even get started on how this whole walking upright thing is for the birds in terms of protecting the most vulnerable body parts."

"Nope. In fact, we are totally flawed when it comes to bodies."

Ethics class, 8-10am Friday morning

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