DEBATE: Is “global citizenship” the best way forward in the 21st century? Take a stand.
THINKING QUESTIONS associated with debate prompt:
- (Local) What work does SMC’s educational commitment to “global citizenship” do? How does it relate to other “diversity” work at SMC?
- (Global) What does the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord indicate?
- What “real world” problems call for “global citizenship”?
Write a 800-900 word essay to persuade others in the class debate.
- State your position/thesis/conclusion for/against “global citizenship.”
- Define & explain “global citizenship” using one or more of the following:
- UN Declaration of Human Rights
- Earth Charter
- Kant’s “Perpetual Peace”
- Singer’s “Animal Rights”
- Leopold’s “Land Ethic”
- “Sustainable Development”
- A procedural, rather than substantive definition
- Use a course FILM: Focus one global problem throughout your paper in order to argue for your thesis. Draw support for your grasp of the problem from films assigned.
- Climate Change or other environmental problems
- Poverty
- War
- Economic Injustice
- [Another Problem?]
- What’s at stake? Explain the consequences for the future based on the values in conflict in your argument.
- Make at least one argument for your position drawing support from at least one of the arguments in the course readings.
- Make at least one argument against your opposition’s best argument. You must select your opposition’s argument from lectures or course readings.
NOTES:
- Be sure you read & understand the intro to this unit, pp. 385 – 387.
- “Global citizenship” can be defined in a number of different ways. Part of the challenge of the essay is for you to make it clear what it means to you, based on the readings for this course, and the way you put it to to work in your essay.
- Making your case on a global problem does not mean you should ignore the local implications. The persuasiveness of your case depends on bring the global home.
- This is not a paper about the efficacy of ethics, i.e. whether ethics can or cannot solve our problems. Rather it is about the ethics/values you believe are essential for solving the problems. Hence, you would be missing the point if you argued that ethics cannot save us.