Social Contracts
Thanks everyone for the great presentations and questions on the social contract exercise. Use this as a thread for suggestions, complaints, various other comments and reflections on the experience and how if might be improved in the future.
I'll start: here's a couple of my ideas.
1) As some of you suggested today, have the presentations a little earlier, 1-2 weeks before the final draft is due, so you could incorporate a bit from the experience and questions you get.
2) Perhaps know the identity of your interrogators earlier on? (Although I kind of like the curveballs they were throwing you!)
3) Instead of emails to exchange ideas and drafts, I'd set up a separate blog for each group, and invite you to join the blog as "co-bloggers." Then, you'd post your draft on the due date, and your group members could give their suggestions and feedback through comments. I could construct the blog such that only other members of the blog (and me) could comment, but then, when you post your final version, we could open comments up to the rest of the class. Or not. Just a brainstorm on how to do this without cluttering up your inboxes, keeping everything in one place, etc.
Good ideas? Bad ideas? Other ideas?
Thanks everyone for a great class. Good luck on your final studying; feel free to send me your questions up to 24 hours before the scheduled final time.
posted by David Watkins @ 12:23 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Well...I think the way you set it up was just fine. I'm thinking that the more direction you give to this subject, the more you distort the result. I'd not change it.
Thanks Tessa (and anonymous). I don't know if or what I'll end up changing, but it's fun to think about. Here's another idea: a few supplementary readings with ideas and arguments about your section of the contract. (Don't worry about additional work-load concerns, just assume I'll adjust the workload in the course elsewhere to make up for it). Here's how it would work: I'd assemble a few short readings for each section (property, DofL, Individual Rights, Group Rights, and government) that had some clever idea for solving the problem. You could then agree or disagree with them, or modify their suggestions, or whatever. Of course, this goes directly against anon's suggestion that I step back and let the contracts unfold, and not worry about excessive direction. Anon's point is well taken. On the other hand, I get the sense that many of you felt a little lost as you began the project and would have liked a bit more direction.
Here's an example, on property. In a couple of important philosophical articles about equality and fairness, Ronald Dworking suggested the idea of a clamshell auction for distributing desert island resources fairly. In other words, if we were all stuck on the island, we should give everyone 100 (or some equal number) of clamshells (or something) and hold an auction--for stuff from the ship, for private property on the island, etc. This would use a quasi-market like mechanism to determine who gets what based on their own interests and values (like fish and views? Bid on a small waterfront lot! Like privacy? Bid on a place in the hills! Alcoholic? Bid on the wine!), and yet has an equal starting point.
Now this idea is very clever (and some of you came up with distribution ideas that were not entirely dissimilar from it) and it is also fraught with problems and complications. But it might have been fun to grapple with it.
I probably won't do this, but it's just an idea that popped into my head. Maybe just list a few readings that people can consult if they're struggling to get started and make them optional. Really, I'm just using this thread to store ideas about the SC exercise in one place so I don't lose of forget them.
More feedback please!
I agree with many of these points. No on having the presentation too far before the due date. Yes people will in essence "copy" parts of other SCs that addressed an issue better than their own.
Yes on creating group blogs. This is jsut as easy for those who actively emailed, and those who did not will probably just not use the blog either, oh well thats the flaw in group work.
An auction? That is actually a fun idea and I like it.
A suggestion not mentioned: Make a rule that the contract may not be similar to that of the United States. It was boring to hear "checks and balances" etc, etc. The assignment is too easy if you merely copy the U.S. Constitution and apply it to Island Society. People shold be urged to do more work than copy another document and it also makes it more interesting.
I think it was kind of fun to be able to take the groups by surprise with wacky questions but I agree that it would really help people in the making of their contracts if they had known the different identities ahead of time. I know i would have like for our group to have had a heads up about the identities in the making of our Social Contract.
--- Jen P.
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