Nation Building and the Origin of Government, Period 5, Class 14, Thursday, 4-14

[glasses-justice.livejournal.com]

"Welcome back," Alex said, sipping her tea as the students filed into the room. "This is our last regular class together. Next week is your final." Which she had yet to write, and would need to consider carefully.

"So, for this week, we'll take it easy. Part of this week will be review -- if there's anything you'd like to cover again, we can. Beyond that, though, there's just one discussion topic, but it's a little big, so hopefully there's room for us to dive in."

Another sip of tea. "Last week, we talked about finding yourself a successor. This week, we're going to talk about the other half of turning over your empire. Let's say this is the last day of your reign, and you are such an incredible ruler that you managed to accomplish every last thing your heart desired. This also means you're superhuman, and possibly magic, but this is just a thought experiment, and we're going somewhere with this."

"The point is: what does this perfect empire of yours look like? You solved all the problems you wanted to address. Society is running in exactly the way you would have hoped. What exactly does that look like, for you? When they build monuments to you, what kind of accomplishments will they list? What is it that you did for this country?"

She shrugged. "I just want to see how it is that you're defining success."

Comments

Re: Discussion - Your Vision of Success - NAT14

[glasses-justice.livejournal.com]

"It's okay to be unrealistic," Alex said. "This is about what you'd like, regardless of how difficult it might be, asking the world to comply. And you would ask different people to at least tolerate one another's existences, regardless of whether they get along?"

Re: Discussion - Your Vision of Success - NAT14

[weetuskenraider]

"That's the least I can ask," Tahiri answered. "I was raised by a tribe that gave the human colonists on my planet good reason to fear them, and through some, um, complicated circumstances I'm a part of another pretty scary culture. If there was ever anything I would use my status to do, I'd use myself as an example of that."

Re: Discussion - Your Vision of Success - NAT14

[glasses-justice.livejournal.com]

Alex was nodding her agreement. "Put a human face on something people consider to be 'other,'" she said. "It's easiest to combat prejudice when you present people with someone they can't dehumanize. Someone they know and understand."

Re: Discussion - Your Vision of Success - NAT14

[weetuskenraider]

"I'd like to think they can't," Tahiri replied with a flash of humor. "I guess you could call it a textbook case of leading by example."