I should be writing a final paper for my political philosophy class right now. Okay, scratch that. I should be sleeping right now, but my mind won't let me. I keep thinking about all the things I need to do tomorrow (well, technically today). I need to do laundry, clean up the kitchen, dining/living room and bathroom (if not the bedroom also) and I need to cook for shabbas. I think I'm going to take the easy way out and just cook up some hamburgers on the George Foreman. This is the last shabbas we're going to be in town for a while anyway and I don't want to have leftovers.
Enough about dinner though, I have a final paper due on Tuesday and I'm having a bit of trouble putting my thoughts together. The question is "What is the proper starting point in politics; justice, freedom, equality or form of government? (While the professor knows there are many other possibilities he also knows the most popular ones. He was actually cutting us some slack by giving us options -- and making the paper 3.5 pages MAXIMUM!)
In my opinion, the answer is justice, without a doubt. If there is nothing just in politics (which there arguably is not), then it simply cannot exist. I can't seem to explain this in an essay form though. I know I want to bring up examples from Plato's 'The Republic' (which we read this semester) and I can probably find things in the other two books we read this semester (John Locke's 'The Second Treatise of Government' and Hannah Arendt's "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil"). This happens before most of my papers though. Once I take a chunk of time and just force myself to write the thing, I'm able to finish it in less than a half an hour. And I don't get bad grades either. In this class the first assignment I got a B, second A-, midterm A, 3rd assignment A-, 4th assignment B+... not too shabby if I do say so myself... and I do. Hm... I seem to have forgotten the purpose of this... ah yes, I wanted to attempt to clear my head so I could completely focus on my paper. Now that I've cleared my head though, I think I'd rather go to sleep...
//Blog title = "Walking After You" by Foo Fighters
- Jessica
- Everything you need to know about me you can find out here and on my new blog.
7 comments:
Do you really think it's justice as opposed to form of government? I'd be inclined to disagree; Plato's notion of politics always seemed sort of irrelevant to me in a more modern context....
I always thought that the short papers were the hardest. I could never make a coherent argument in fewer than eight pages!
This always happens to me with papers. I just type all my quotes that support my argument into a word document, and build a paper around that. Makes it as easy as possible, and I feel a little accomplished before I even start writing. Speaking of which, I need to go finish a paper . . .
miri - I just feel that without justice, no government even has a leg to stand on. I do think that the form of government is important, but I don't think its the starting point. It feels to me more like an ending point. I felt that way about Plato's politics when we read him in class, but now that the class is nearly over I'm able to actually apply his philosophy to today. I'm not really sure how, its just the way my mind works.
ahuva - I'm the exact opposite. I can write down all the information and my thoughts on whatever I'm writing about in less than 2 pages (under normal circumstances). For some classes its a gift, others a curse.
funky - Usually once I get my opening paragraph onto the screen I'm able to write the entire paper. This time I'm having trouble just figuring out the first sentence.
I just wrote my first term paper ever, handed it in on thursday. I could have used some tips I didn't know how to organize it at all! It was kinda fun though adding sophisticated quotes here and there. I'd post a copy on my blog but not sure it'd be a crowd pleaser.
Jessica-
I hear you point, but basing a government around this amorphous concept of "justice" is a little vague for me. I mean, who is it that gets to decide exactly what justice is and isn't? That's where form of government comes in.
flatbushgal - I remember when I first started writing term papers (or any paper, really) I HATED it. Then I realized that if I just stopped worrying about how to write a good essay and just wrote the thoughts that came out of my head (in a more organized fashion, of course)that papers actually became enjoyable.
miri - I definitely hear that, but then again, who decides what form of government should be used?
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