Politics
1. What is Obamacare, its purpose, and why it's so controversial?
2. What are some reasons given for why the US political system may be failing?
3. What is the purpose of spin doctors and why are they useful to politicians.?
4. Explain what gerrymandering is and its consequences.
5. Can you compare the US to any historical empires?
6. In whose interest do politicians seem to be acting for?
7. How does a system with under 10% support survive?
Personal Relations
1. Has sexting replaced old-fashioned love letters?
2. How have relationships between teens changed in the age of the Internet?
3. Why do people cheat on their partners and is it ever justifiable?
4. What are the stereotypes surrounding cheating women?
5. Are people more lonely now than in the past?
6. What should be done about the loneliness epidemic?
7. Is loneliness only a problem of the elderly or does it affect all age groups?
Lifestyle
1. Does technology have an influence on our relationships with our exes?
2. Does money have a bearing on lifestyle choices?
3. Does one's wealth influence their relationships?
4. What are the elements of a healthy lifestyle?
5. Do you believe that your generation is more stressed than previous ones?
6. Do business meetings have to necessarily entail sitting in the office?Tourism
1. What is Dark Tourism?
2. What are some of the motivations or reasons for visiting such places?
3. What are the consequences and outcomes of dark tourism for the places visited?
4. Do you think it's educational for children to visit dark tourism locations?
5. "Some countries open up, others shut down. And some countries have yet to earn their place on the traveler's map." What do you make of this quote?
6. What are the circumstances that make a region particularly dangerous or unpopular among regular tourists?
7. Why is the rewarding feeling of travel only achievable from the perspective of looking back? What do travelers feel at the time of their trip?
Technology
1. What technologies have been featured in movies that have become or may become a part of our lives?
2. How has the boundary between our public and private lives become blurred by social networking sites?
3. To what extent has technology influenced your life?
4. What are some of the negative consequences of wearable technology?
5. What kind of technologies are predicted to become or you'd like to see become a part of our lives?
6. "Necessity is the mother of all inventions" - Does this proverb apply to today's technology?
Media
1. Is the image of any particular event presented in the same way in the media all over the world?
2. What media sources do you trust for getting information?
3. What are the negative consequences of concentration of media ownership?
4. How do you think the media influences people's lives and opinions?
5. Do Disney movies set a bad example for young girls?
6. Are women objectified in the media?
7. What is the backfire effect and could you give an example?
Ethics
1. Should sociopaths be forced to get treatment?
2. What are some of the causes of sociopathy?
3. How do you recognize a sociopath?
4. Is torture ever justifiable?
5. Do you see yourself as more a moral absolutist or consequentialist?
6. Would you bend your moral beliefs if someone close to you was in mortal danger?
7. Is whistleblowing morally right or is it wrong?
Education
1. Is standardized testing a valid way of measuring young students' progress?
2. Who should decide about book contents/school curricula?
3. Does religion have a place in the classroom?
4. How do you feel about Singapore's system of streaming student at an early age?
5. Is the role of higher education to create employees or creative thinkers?
6. Are university quotas a good idea?
Art and Culture
1. On what basis should art classes be assessed and why?
2. Do you consider yourself an artistic person?
3. Can anyone be an artist?
4. What is your definition of art and what are the basic functions of art?
5. Can street art be considered genuine art?
6. Should art classes be removed from school curriculums? If so, what are some possible consequences, if not what benefits could they provide?
7. Should art serve a social purpose?
Hint for politics #7, from the 2nd article:
ReplyDelete“The American citizen thus lives in a world where fantasy is more real than reality, where the image has more dignity than the original,” Daniel J. Boorstin wrote in his book “The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America.” “We hardly dare face our bewilderment, because our ambiguous experience is so pleasantly iridescent, and the solace of belief in contrived reality is so thoroughly real. We have become eager accessories in the great hoaxes of the age. These are the hoaxes we play on ourselves.”
Culture and literacy, in the final stage of decline, are replaced with noisy diversions and empty clichés. The Roman statesman Cicero inveighed against their ancient equivalent—the arena. Cicero, for his honesty, was hunted down and murdered and his hands and head were cut off. His severed head and his right hand, which had written the Philippics, were nailed onto the speaker’s platform in the Forum. The roaring crowds, while the Roman elite spat on the head, were gleefully told he would never speak or write again. In the modern age this toxic, mindless cacophony, our own version of spectacle and gladiator fights, of bread and circus, is pumped into the airwaves in 24-hour cycles. Political life has fused into celebrity worship. Education is primarily vocational. Intellectuals are cast out and despised. Artists cannot make a living. Few people read books. Thought has been banished, especially at universities and colleges, where timid pedants and careerists churn out academic drivel. “Although tyranny, because it needs no consent, may successfully rule over foreign peoples,” Hannah Arendt wrote in “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” “it can stay in power only if it destroys first of all the national institutions of its own people.” And ours have been destroyed.
Sensual pleasure and eternal youth are our overriding obsessions. The Roman emperor Tiberius, at the end, fled to the island of Capri and turned his seaside palace into a house of unbridled lust and violence. “Bevies of girls and young men, whom he had collected from all over the Empire as adepts in unnatural practices, and known as spintriae, would copulate before him in groups of three, to excite his waning passions,” Suetonius wrote in “The Twelve Caesars.” Tiberius trained small boys, whom he called his minnows, to frolic with him in the water and perform oral sex. And after watching prolonged torture, he would have captives thrown into the sea from a cliff near his palace. Tiberius would be followed by Caligula and Nero.
Hint for politics #2 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/07/the-13-reasons-washington-is-failing/
ReplyDeleteHint for technology #5 - http://www.lasvegassun.com/vegasdeluxe/2014/jan/07/ces-2014-gadgets-sony-valve-lg-4k/
ReplyDeletesorry to bother, but which article does no 6 from politics refer to? I can't get my head around it...
ReplyDeleteNo bother at all. It's not really exactly related to any article, I think it mostly came from class discussion...I agree though, it's a bit tough and takes some thinking. I guess I'd think about talking about their focus on themselves (personal gain, re-election etc...) instead of what their supposed to be doing (acting for the public). Instead of the business of governing, they (US politicians in particular) spend most of their time raising money for the next election - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/08/call-time-congressional-fundraising_n_2427291.html
ReplyDeletethanks a bunch! I think there was also something about acting for the upper strata of society only and further grinding the faces of the poor?
ReplyDeleteYeah, exactly. You could get some cold hard facts about how the US congress is only responsive to the desires of the rich while ignoring the middle class and poor from here and other places - http://billmoyers.com/2014/04/21/government-protection-racket-for-the-1-percent/
ReplyDelete