Ethics Class #5, Monday, 2-4pm

[brambless.livejournal.com]

"Last week we looked at power and responsibility. The first hour is an extension of that. I want you to divide into two groups. If your name has an odd number of letters, you're in Group A." She waves to one side of the classroom to indicate that the group should congregate there. "If your name has an even number of letters," waving to the other side of the classroom, "you're in Group B. Go."

Comments

Before class starts

[brambless.livejournal.com]

Tara watches as the students arrive, noticing a few of her Friday regulars have come to this class instead.

Re: Before class starts

[egyptianlove.livejournal.com]

Evelyn shows up and signs in. She looks tired, but also as if something is on her mind.

Re: Group B

[forlornslayer.livejournal.com]

Buffy signs in and smiles at Tara before taking her seat.

Re: Before class starts

[apocalypsesoon.livejournal.com]

John stumbles in, coffee in hand.

Re: Before class starts

[shane-mcc.livejournal.com]

Shane is seated at her usual desk, drumming her pen on the desktop, looking somewhat distracted. Since the last class, it looks as though she's gone through a few changes... some of them, possibly, more drastic than others. The most noticeable is her hair - last Monday, it was almost shoulder length, and now it's been cropped so short that it barely covers her ears. Her small wire-framed glasses sit perched on her nose and she pauses occasionally to write something down in her notebook.

Re: Before class starts

[fh_jackass]

"Hey," Logan says. "Had to go back to California on Friday. It's cool if I sit in on this class for a makeup, right?"

Re: Before class starts

[notstakedyet.livejournal.com]

"Hey, teach," Angelus said when Tara had a moment. "What's my name doing on the voting list for masters?" He grinned. "You know, if you wanted me to do it so bad you could've just asked."

Re: Before class starts

[actingltcrumpet.livejournal.com]

Archie slips into the room as quietly as possible, his arms loaded with books, and signs in.

Re: Before class starts

[bridge-carson.livejournal.com]

Having missed Friday's class, Bridge wanders in to the Monday class after Geology finishes. He's about a half hour late, but figures that's better than not showing up at all.

Re: Before class starts

[kawalsky.livejournal.com]

Kawalsky signed in on time, as opposed to Friday's lateness.

Group A

[brambless.livejournal.com]

[ooc: If your name has an odd number of letters, you're in Group A. If not? Don't you be reading this until you've answered your own question, okay?]

"Okay folks, this is your scenario. Your loved one is suffering - a horrible event or memory that is tearing them apart. You have the ability to remove the memory of that event, excising it from their mind like a cancer. Assuming you must make this decision on your own, without any cue of what your loved one wants - what do you do?"

Re: Group A

[forlornslayer.livejournal.com]

Buffy gives the same answer she had given on Friday.

"I do not mess with their mind or their memory. We supposedly grow stronger from pain and we learn from it. As much as I may...love...the person that is being torn apart by this event or memory, I don't have the right to mess with their mind in such a personal way. It'd be a violation of trust."

Re: Group A

[shane-mcc.livejournal.com]

"No... you -- you can't... you can't do that," Shane murmurs, frowning a little. "I wouldn't do that. Memories... make us who we are... even the bad ones. Even the ones that hurt. Even the ones we wanna forget. But I'd never take part of who my loved one was away from them. I don't... I don't have the right to do something like that. I don't know if anyone does."

Re: Group A

[fh_jackass]

Logan considered this. "Erase it," he said finally.

Re: Group A

[stykera]

It's hard. Very hard. You don't want to watch someone you love suffer. No one wants that. But I could never, never do that. It would be worse than the suffering, having someone violate your mind. Memories are one's own. No one has the right to take them from anyone, for whatever reason.

It hurts to watch a loved one suffer. It would be worse, much worse, to do something like that. It would only hurt them more.

Re: Group A

[allie-cameron.livejournal.com]

"It would depend on what the event or memory was and if I thought my loved one would want it removed."

Group B

[brambless.livejournal.com]

[ooc: If your name has an even number of letters, you're in Group B. If not? Don't you be reading this until you've answered your own question, okay?]

"Alright, here's your scenario. You discover that someone you love and trust has erased a portion of your memory. You do not remember giving consent to this, and you have no knowledge whatsoever of what it was they removed. What is your reaction? How do you feel?"

Re: Group B

[egyptianlove.livejournal.com]

"I think that I would feel horribly betrayed."

Re: Group B

[defiantlyyours.livejournal.com]

[OOC: Well, his *number* is even]

"They had no right and are quite obviously plants working for our captors, seeking to disorient me in order to gain my compliance. They will not succeed. My life and my memory are my own."

Re: Group B

[apocalypsesoon.livejournal.com]

"I feel hurt, betrayed. I try to figure out what it was that was taken. Except I don't go all Paycheck"

Re: Group B

[miss-monochrome.livejournal.com]

I'd feel really really *really* angry and betrayed. *Nobody* has the right to frell with my mind, and if they...they really were somebody I loved and...and trusted then they should *know* how much I would hate having that done to me and I never woulda given consent to it. Your memory is...is what makes you you, it's what affects what choices you make in the...in the present.

Re: Group B

[chasingangela]

"Awful. Betrayed. Horrified," Angela says. "My boyfriend is going through something like that, and it's one of the worst things I can imagine. If I knew someone he cared about had done it..." Her voice trails off. "I don't think I would ever trust the person who did it again."

Second Hour

[brambless.livejournal.com]

"Time's up, folks. Back into a big group, and we're discussing your respective scenarios. This one is a class discussion - I want you talking with each other, not with me."

[ooc: which means replying to the last comment in the main thread (although I expect there to be some breakoffs for individual discussion and argument) instead of replying to this one.]

Re: Second Hour

[chasingangela]

"My group talked about how we'd feel if someone erased a memory," Angela says to start the discussion. "I think we all said we'd be betrayed and hurt by it."

Emo Closet

[brambless.livejournal.com]

No-one needed it on Friday. Will Monday's class fare any better?

OOC Discussion

[brambless.livejournal.com]

As always, if this hits any of your RL buttons, as opposed to your character's buttons, I need to know immediately. Failing that, feel free to direct your snark and peanut-gallery-ness here.

Re: OOC Discussion

[chasingangela]

Are we counting the letters in first name, last name or both? Thanks.