If the student does support the action, accurately anticipating the objections of the other side and explaining why the action is justified in a way meant to mollify them is also useful.
Bottom line, being able to (or attempting to) write a PR document at that level requires a lot of understanding and thinking, and being willing to forego your initial prejudices to explore an idea as fully as possible. That's exactly what a good student does, so I can see why they thought this might be a useful exercise. I don't think a writing exercise causes "obedience" in any way.
Truthfully, I'm much more worried about what I see as the common trend of only viewing and reacting to the surface level of any event or topic, and immediately seeking others lend support and credence to that interpretation rather than trying to understand the motivations and purpose. That's always happened, but it seems to have become much more common.
That seems like one of those things that has always been extremely common, but is difficult to see when reading history rather than news. People always justify their own thoughts and goals over trying to understand another point of view.
The main difference is that there are more people, they can interact more, and their opinions matter slightly more than in the past. Those things also allow us to understand the deeper motives and purposes far better than ever before, even if we still foolishly ignore them.
I did a Poli-Sci degree and this was a standard thing: write me an essay on a position. Cool, now write me a paper that is 100% against that position.
We had an instructor, a former US Navy officer, that required us to write an essay that was a 100% earnest defense of Al Qaeda's worldview. I ended up leaning heavily on "Jihad Vs McWorld" and "Clash of Civilizations", though I think the latter (Clash) isn't really valid or useful anymore.
> Bottom line, being able to (or attempting to) write a PR document at that level requires a lot of understanding and thinking, and being willing to forego your initial prejudices to explore an idea as fully as possible. That's exactly what a good student does, so I can see why they thought this might be a useful exercise. I don't think a writing exercise causes "obedience" in any way.
PR releases are as much about what you think about the issue, but also what you think that others will think about the issue. That does a good job of bringing out your prejudices, and challenges you to think about what their true goals are and why.
100% agree with you. But you are contradicting a point I never made. So... good job taking down your own strawman argument. It ironically really drives home the rest of your post.
> So... good job taking down your own strawman argument.
It would be easier to have a constructive discussion if you engaged with the point, rather than dismissed the argument out of hand. I think the points still apply, but since you've opted to either ignore them based on the assumption they don't apply, or have considered them and refuted them without explaining why, I'm now left to ask you which it is, and whether you can elaborate.
> It ironically really drives home the rest of your post.
Which part? That interpreting the position and arguments of others is hard work and requires skill? I agree with that. Hopefully you weren't implying I was only trying to to understand the position at a superficial level and looking for others to support me while being uninterested in what you're saying. I'm definitely not trying to do that, as evidenced by me replying to you, and engaging with you as to your meaning, and not just advertising to everyone else how wrong your position is without doing so.
In terms of other people's perspective, oh, I see the value. When I was in college studying psychology, it's actually something we're taught to do to relate to patients. I've had to empathize professionally with people whose actions would make your stomach churn, I'm very familiar with the concept and the psychological mechanisms at play and the need for such open mindedness.
I'd absolutely want to see this question brought up by a professor in a class, but I think it's not very well fit for a 13-14 year old's university entrance exam. You can't possibly expect someone of that age to provide a nuance balanced answer so I don't think it's a good quality signal for an openness trait. In fact there's test for openness that have been devised by professionals, so if the university wanted to select for it, they could more objectively measure it. Based on this, I think we can agree the question is not very good for measuring openness.
To be clear, for older people this can be a good entrance question since it shows whether their inherent openness was developed or not. Given the context (13-14 year olds) one of 3 reasons you gave for using it is mostly gone.
Then you're left with it's value as an intelligence estimation. IQ tests are the gold standard for estimating intelligence. Since this type of question doesn't appear on IQ tests (for reasons that to some of us are really obvious), it also stands to reason it's not a very good question for that. So we've removed the 2nd reason you listed to ask it in an entrance exam.
Last in terms of communication, it would seem this type of question will result in very biased grading from the professors. To test the ability to communicate most academics use non-controversial topics. So again, not very useful for the purpose you state.
There was a specific decision to choose a pro-authority question to use for an entrance exam. Could this be random? Possibly.
But it seems in line with a current trend to select for obedience over competence. Since it's not particularly useful to it's stated purpose (as we've gone over) it makes sense it raises eye brows and it makes sense people question it. If there was no such trend, or if professionally developed test designed to objectively measure openness or IQ tests didn't exist, you'd have more of a point.
Notice how my language uses words like 'seem', 'appears', 'it would be reasonable', etc. I'm not saying I'm 100% right. I have a very nuanced and probabilistic point of view. But the parent comment I was answering to if you RTFA and RTFT and follow the conversation that you are jumping into, suggested that even thinking such a question to be controversy is mere 'ignorance'.
I believe I provided a reasonable argument against what I was answering to. And instead of continuing the thread with the kind of carefully crafted language and nuanced that I present, you ironically and sort of pedantically explained why it's important to consider other points of view without really getting my point. If someone doesn't agree with you, or if someone doesn't laugh at your joke, it isn't always because they didn't get it.
I highlighted the fact that you used the word 'causes' since it seems to highlight your lack of through thought toward answering my point, which to me qualifies as "reacting to the surface level of any ... topic". You seem more ready to answer than to understand. That's why I found it ironic and limited my original response to that part. Now since you insisted, you have my full perspective.
