Every Problem is an Opportunity in Disguise
Spring 2015
You and your cohort – the current generation of university students, or the so-called “millennial generation” – will be confronted with existential problems on scale that no generation has ever faced, and many critics feel strongly that you are simply not up to the challenge. The essay should be based on my major (Graphic Design).
While this generation of college students emerges from a variety of cultural backgrounds, they tend to represent the most privileged classes within their individual cultures; it is certainly true that they emerge into adulthood from cultures defined by levels of economic and racial inequality on an almost unprecedented scale in modern U.S. history. And not only are they products of inequality, but they appear to be entirely comfortable with their inherited privilege in a world that is increasingly full of the underprivileged, and they seem largely apathetic to the inequalities from which they have benefitted. For example, in the U.S., the current generation of university students votes in public elections at historically low levels, and they appear to be more committed to pleasure-seeking, conspicuous consumption and material wealth than any generation since the those who emerged during the “Roaring 20s.”
As a species, the human race faces a number of serious existential problems, but many critics believe that you (and your generation) represent the most significant one.
Purpose
As a cultural practice passed down to us from ancient Greek roots, rhetoric – and specifically, the act of composing a logical essay – has long been a valuable tool for those who find themselves in need of responding to attacks and turning them aside with solid reasoning and evidence. Though essays still allow writers to refute attacks – see MLK’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” and Barack Obama’s “A More Perfect Union,” – one of the most common purposes to which we put the modern academic essay is to highlight significant problems and pose thoughtful solutions to those problems. This assignment challenges you to compose your essay with an eye towards both of these purposes – first, to respond to the direct attack upon you and your generation described in brief, above – that you are the problem humanity faces; second, to highlight a significant existential problem that may threaten humanity in the future, and explain how that problem could be solved. Your ability to turn this generational attack to your advantage in arguing for your solution to the problem you identify will demonstrate your proficiency with this genre of writing.
In your response to the attack upon your generation, you should identify specific critics and specific criticisms, and formulate a clear refutation of those attacks. Moreover, you should look for any and all opportunities to turn those critiques back upon the critics. Try to practice the techniques displayed by MLK and Obama in their respective essays to turn a perceived weakness into a strength.
In your presentation of a problem and solution, you should draw upon all you’ve learned about the technical side of essay writing, including source selection, research, pre-writing, thesis development, outlining, paragraph development, logical argument, critique, and counter-argument. At the thematic level, you should by now be able to frame an argument in an interesting and effectively manner, conduct research from appropriately scholarly sources and draw upon that research to synthesize information in a persuasive way.
Guidelines
Compose a ten-page argumentative essay in which you address a significant contemporary problem and propose a unified, complex solution to that problem. As you consider the rhetorical techniques appropriate to this task, you should also refer in some way to the opening attack against the millenial generation. You can choose any of the assigned sources you want, but must use at least six scholarly sources in your essay, with quotations cited and documented according to MLA Style.
Assignment Overview
While both men gave widely-praised speeches on the topic of race, Martin Luther King Jr. and Barack Obama also present us with exemplary demonstrations of two important practical uses for rhetoric in the modern era – turning aside an attack, and transforming a supposed weakness into a strength. Our in-class examinations of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and Barack Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” highlighted those writers’ effective application of traditional rhetorical techniques for a strategic purpose. Specifically, both men were subject to public condemnation and critique that threatened to frustrated their goals, but both men used the opportunity of public speech in response to this public criticism to do more than simply answer the charges laid against them – instead of accepting the critique, they took a strategic approach to these problematic situations in order to further their goals, turning a potential problem into an opportunity for further success.
For this assignment, you will have to follow the examples set by King and Obama. I have pointed ot the way that some critics have unfairly labeled you and your generation inadequate to the challenges you will face, and it is your task to answer this charge and prove them wrong by selecting an important problem that your generation will face in the coming years, and explaining how that problem can be solved or addressed.
Specific Writing Task
1. Select an example of a serious threat faced by humanity in the present moment, or in the near future. Examples could include global phenomena such as climate change or ocean acidification, biological problems such as the spread of infectious diseases or overpopulation, geopolitical crises such as the collapse of the global order or the rise of transnational terrorist groups, economic crises such as income inequality or the collapse of global capitalism, etc.
2. Whatever example you choose, and whatever position you take on the prompt, you should be prepared to draw upon reputable scholarly sources to define the crisis and to outline solutions.
3. Your essay should assert some first principles – ethical, philosophical, theoretical or political ideals – from which your argument will develop, and from which you will be able to support your solutions.
4. Finally, you should construct a thesis-driven essay, structured in a strategic fashion that answers the charge I have laid against you in such a way as to turn my criticism of your generation to your advantage as you pose your solution(s).
