Summer SAVY, Session 5 Day 3, “Utopia or Dystopia: The Nature of Power” (7th-8th)
Hello Families and Students!
Well, everyone, it is the middle of the week, and things in the Utopian universe are devolving fast! Today, we began thinking through different scenarios that we as country leaders might face and have to make difficult decisions about. We questioned why utopian ideals devolve into dystopian realities and what things dystopian societies have in common. To better investigate this, we held a series of debates about human nature. Are we, by nature, inherently good? Inherently bad? Some combination of the two? And what does it depend on? Is it our nature? Or does it have more to do with how we are nurtured or not nurtured?
We then read a short story version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm and held a Socratic seminar on the tactics of the despot. Ask your student what kind of strategies and plans Napoleon the pig deployed to gain control of the farmyard and rule over the other animals. How did this seemingly utopian democracy of finally unrepressed animals move from a society that valued equality and rights to one in which “some animals are more equal than others”? And what exactly is it about absolute power that is so easily and quickly corruptible? Are truly benevolent leaders and equal socialist systems impossible dreams that have no place in the real world? Can we find any real-world examples that come close?
In the afternoon, we finished up with Orwell and began to think more about power. How should it be concentrated? Who should lead, and what checks and balances should we put into place to ensure that our leaders do not become tyrannical? What happens when our choices are questioned or lead to bad outcomes for the people in our city-states? What happens when resistance and revolt rise? We explored this in our live role-play simulation, where we faced a difficult decision for our city-state. A neighboring state that suffered from severe drought and food shortage has moved to our borders, and we now have to decide what we will do with all of the displaced people. Will we accept them into our lands when we already have limited resources? Will we bargain and barter with them to see what benefit assisting them will provide? Or will we ship them off to Patrick’s moon to take part in a Truman-esque social experiment in exchange for a stake in his entertainment economy? Who knows what the results will be, but one thing is certain … we certainly have a few dictators arising in our midst!
Welcome to … ehem …paradise? 😐
Ms. Rho