(no need to read every sub-section of the article) to Please think carefully about the questions, read and reflect on the readings and write multiple drafts of your quiz. It is probably best to spend at least two days thinking about the questions-- they are complicated. I hope that everyone will read carefully, think analytically, and write solid, formal prose. Please also enjoy the process and avoid writing the very first things that come to mind-- I want everyone to be logical, rather than repeat some of the stuff we all hear on a college campus these days. Please be honest, logical, irreverent and playful!
337,
2 Pages each
--Write your best formal prose, quote the text often to make your case.
--Follow the style guidelines on the syllabus, including use of informatory footnotes, embedded quotes and block quotes.
--Try to manage the process-read early, think about the material and take good notes.
--Always read your draft out-loud slowly to someone to find bumps and awkward spots; you should never turn in a first draft. A first draft is by definition a rough draft.
--Please answer all parts of each question as thoroughly as you can, and return this by the due-time as ONE regular E-mail attachment (no problem if it makes the footnotes consecutive from one question to the next)
--We are not focusing on citation style so the only thing you need to do is provide the page number when quoting our text-don't worry about publication information. Instead of that, we are working on detailed, informative footnotes this semester. I would rather have you spend your time on these more robust and useful footnotes.
Q1- link is given
Based on your close-reading of the text, please answer the following TWO questions:
Question 1: Ch. 18.This question is drawn from Ch. 18 but uses the two links and the following quote. Please read the two links familiarize yourself with both the practice and the situation in which the British found themselves-a real-life example of "Do I allow a cruel cultural practice?" Please pay close attention to Napier's argument (quoted below) and respond to his argument about having just as much of a right to hang men who burn women, as men have to burn women in the first place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sati_(practice)#British_and_other_European_colonial_powers
A story for which Sir Charles James Napier, is often noted involved Hindu priests complaining to him about the occupying British interfering with their cultural practice of Sati (the custom of burning a widow alive on the funeral pyre of her husband).Napier replied:
"Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs."
Napier is arguing that we cannot say a culture has the right to socially pressure women into burning themselves (and very often force them onto the flames) and also demand other cultures to respect that, UNLESS we are prepared to accept the British custom of stopping things like this. If we must respect the Hindu practice, do we not also have to respect the British practice? We cannot say "the Hindu culture accepted it" because some did, some did not, and there was social pressure on young women. It is very fashionable in academia to be ‘open minded' and say that cultures may do what they want. Napier, in an ironic way, turns this argument on its head and claims the same privilege for his country's decision to ban this cruel practice. Please describe the situation involving Sati in British India, restate the logic of his argument the very best you can, and then analyze his conclusion-including the implications. What does it imply for people who attempt to be open minded and say "any culture may do what it wants?" Is that convincing? Or is it sophomoric? Dogmatic? Hypocritical? (That is, why can't Napier's culture then stop any practice it wishes?)If you disagree with Napier, what flaw do you see in his logic? If you agree, state why is analysis provides a rebuttal to extreme cultural relativism. Finally, please practice using counter-argument. What would a logical person who disagrees with you state? (you might begin that part by, "On the other hand, one could argue...."). There are several sub-questions here but they all work together to have you revisit your discussion of whether any culture has the right to do what it wishes, and where, ultimately, notions of right and wrong come from. Please spend at least two days thinking this over before you write. This is one of the hardest questions of the semester. The questions are intentionally open-ended because I want you to think and analyze, not simply ‘answer'.