fandomhigh | Ethics [Tuesday, August 28, 2012]

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."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"If one of your parents or guardians was unemployed or laid off, not by choice, take one step back."

Edited 2012-08-28 08:36 (UTC)

Atton stuck around where he was. Did so during the next one, too.

There was always work of some kind to do in the village, at least that's what Mom and Dad said, so Korra stayed right there.

Peeta stayed where he was, though by now he was feeling increasingly more guilty and he had only moved once during the entire exercise.

Yeah, there Sparkle went, stepping back again.

Jim stayed where he was. No need to move at all for this one.

Alec ~~didn't really know that this one was true yet~~ was sure that this one didn't apply to him, so he stayed put.

Matt frowned again and took another step back. Even though there wasn't anyone around staring at him this experiment wasn't something he'd like to admit to other people.

Chaz considered this, decided against taking a step for each guardian, and took one step back.

Sholeh wasn't even sure what that meant. So she stood still.

Sia paused. Well, technically...

She took one step back and hated it.

Nope, not that he could think of; Anakin stayed where he was.

... Well, his father had started to take mistresses in the years before his mother's death? Again, he had to wonder if that counted, and after some thought stayed where he was.

For all his worries about being laid off, Rob never actually lost his job that Bucky could remember. Not that his memory was any good.

So he stayed where he was.

Business issues or jail. Again, which dad didn't matter. Jess stepped back.

Ethics [Tuesday, August 28, 2012]

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