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

Who's looking for a few good TAs if you're interested.

"Master Skywalker?" Korra began, barely remembering to bow. "I don't know that I did your test right." You know, considering her first comment afterwards had been about how the questions didn't make sense.

"Oh?" Anakin replied, arching up an eyebrow. "Why not?"

"I'm not sure," Korra shrugged. "I mean I tried to do it...but the questions, they didn't fit right, so I don't know I ended up where I should."

Of course, most of her life was feeling that way right now.

"Did you think you should be further ahead or behind of the other students?" Anakin wondered.

Another shrug. "Some of them seemed to suggest I should be further back, others further forward." For all she knew she might have ended up back in the exact same spot. "So I couldn't tell."

Anakin looked interested. "Do you have any suggestions for a way question could be worded more clearly, so that it felt like it applied to you?"

Korra tried to think of what Tenzin or Katara would say, they were actually good with the wisdom thing. She also tried to ignore the pang of guilt over the fact no one back home knew where she was.

"The first part of the second and the seventh kind of assumed we knew enough about what they meant here to compare there," she said eventually. "I mean I still don't know enough about how this school works to be sure what the equivalent back home would be."

Anakin nodded and began scrawling notes onto his sheet. "My own education was hardly standard," he offered. "We had higher learning, but it was more hands-on and much less book-centered. When your master said you were ready, you were. There wasn't a written exam or anything."

"Yeah, that's how bending training works back home," Korra said, nodding. "Scrolls are good so things don't get forgotten, but it's hard to learn properly from them." Not that anyone here had managed to ever accidentally set fire to anything that way. More than once.

"Is it how all children are taught, or only a certain few?" Anakin asked.

"All waterbenders at least learn the basics, more if they're good enough at it," Korra said. "At least in the Southern Water Tribe. And most everyone learns the non-bending stuff from the elders, and their folks, and others in the tribe." Unless of course, a not-as-secret-as-before society decided it'd be a really good idea to keep you in a compound for thirteen years for your own good and bring all your teachers in to you.

"Other places do it differently." She wondered if someone from Republic City would have the same problems relating to the questions.

Anakin nodded. "So would a fairer question be: was making sure you were educated in the ways of your people important to your parents or guardians?"

"I think so," Korra said after considering it. "It seems like it'd apply to more people and it's easier to understand if you're not used to schools like this."

He made a note of it. "There are dimensions, like this one, where education is a sign of money and upward mobility. What's a similar indicator in yours?"

Korra had never really thought about it before going to Republic City, because compound at the South Pole, and there hadn't been that time for figuring that out on top of everything else. "There's owning a Satomobile? One of the nice ones?"

"So having a lot of disposable income," Anakin wrote. He smiled. "I was never paid for my old job, so having money is still rather to to me."

"Yeah, me too." Not that she actually had any now. "But at the same time that mightn't mean either of us were actually poor, if they were still keeping you fed and clothed." Insights, Korra was sometimes capable of having them.

"Maybe a more generic 'never had to worry about money' since we didn't," Anakin replied. "Would you like to be my teaching assistant this semester?"

"Yeah, that, pretty much."

"Sure," Korra replied, then cleared her throat and remembered to bow again. "I mean, it'd be an honour Master Skywalker."

Anakin smiled and inclined his head slightly. "Thank you for your interesting thoughts this morning, Korra."

Ethics [Tuesday, August 28, 2012]

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