Ethics [Tuesday, August 28, 2012]

[sith_happened]

When Ethics began, the desks, instead of being set up in the usual rows typical of a classroom, had been shoved to the sides, and a long line of white tape had been stuck down the middle of the room. The instructor was also nowhere to be seen.

This served a purpose: breaking the students' preconceived idea about what a class devoted to ethics might be about, and setting them up for nervous chatting before Anakin arrived.

He did, precisely two mintues late, clicking the door shut behind him. "Welcome to Ethics," he said. "I'm Master Anakin Skywalker. Please set yourselves up along that white line."

He waited until all of the students were lined up before explaining. "There's a philosopher from this world named John Rawls, who believes that most reasonable principles of justice are those everyone would accept and agree to from a fair position. In Fandom especially, we are coming from a variety of cultures and traditions to examine ethical dilemmas, and so the idea of a 'fair position' is a bit of a moving target. The choice that might be right for you might be completely contrary to my own life experiences, but that will not make your point of view less valid."

Anakin began pacing, his cloak swirling around his ankles as he did so. "Rawls believed that to come to this fair position, a magical 'veil of ignorance' must be put into place in order to erase everyone's knowledge of their places in society." He smiled a little wryly. "I'm not saying that at some point, Fandom might not do that sort of work for us and erase your memories of who and what you are, but today we're going to conduct an exercise that's slightly less drastic--one that will make you examine the parts of your life you might take for granted, and how that affects your view on the world."

He glanced down at a piece of paper. "Let's begin."

Comments

Re: Experiment in Privilege - 4

[sith_happened]

"If there were more than 50 books--or the technological equivalent in your universe--in your house when you grew up, take one step forward."

Re: Experiment in Privilege - 4

[suitably_heroic]

Staying where he was. Let everyone think he was an ordinary street rat; Atton was fine with that.

Re: Experiment in Privilege - 4

[failsatspirit]

Korra didn't remember if there'd been an entire fifty books and scrolls in the compound at any one time, but she was pretty sure there'd been more there over the years than in the rest of the village, so she took a step.

Re: Experiment in Privilege - 4

[district12baker.livejournal.com]

Yep, Peeta stayed where he was.

Re: Experiment in Privilege - 4

[myownface]

Sparkle just rolled his eyes and shook his head. Nope. He wasn't moving an inch.

Re: Experiment in Privilege - 4

[pursuedthestars]

Well, the books hadn't been his but his dad and his mom had a pretty impressive supply, if he remembered correctly.

So, Jim took his first step forward.

Re: Experiment in Privilege - 4

[nottrivial]

Another step forward. That was simple enough.

Re: Experiment in Privilege - 4

[3girls-1core.livejournal.com]

Sholeh had planned to stay where she was. The books she'd borrowed growing up hadn't been hers, after all. But then Zeela reminded her of the journals that belonged to the leaders before their mothers and in the end, they decided that between the ability to borrow so many and the journals, Sholeh came out ahead. She took a step forward.

Re: Experiment in Privilege - 4

[nonelikemesince.livejournal.com]

It wasn't as if Anakin couldn't have gotten a hold of any literary work he felt like downloading into his datapad more or less whenever he wanted to, so another step forward it was.

Re: Experiment in Privilege - 4

[notconflicted]

Sia had never counted, but felt she could step forward on this truthfully.

Re: Experiment in Privilege - 4

[nomelancholy.livejournal.com]

His father did have a rather extensive library. Not that Christian IV could be bothered to actually read the books he owned. Which Ulrik supposed made it worse, in a way. So he stepped forward.

Re: Experiment in Privilege - 4

[monkeymonkeydie.livejournal.com]

Bucky grimaced and walked a human-step-length forward. How did BOOKS count as anything special?!?

Re: Experiment in Privilege - 4

[craftyladyparts.livejournal.com]

Well, Jess was created in a lab full of crazy science, so probably?

She stepped forward.