Vanity: Need Ideas for English Paper

FreeRepublic ^ | July 16, 2014 | beaversmom

[beaversmom]

For my English 121 class I have to do a research/argumentative paper.

I don't want it to necessarily be about something like guns or abortion. I want something a little creative. It has to be something I can research. Something I feel passionate about (I know you all don't know what I'm passionate about, but I am passionate about conservatism). It doesn't have to be politically related/controversial, but those are the terms I generally think in. It can be something from the past or present. Also, I have to give the opposition's side.

Any serious/creative ideas, please post.

BTW, shockers of all shockers, my teacher is liberal. I don't think he will grade me harshly, though, for coming down on a conservative side of an issue. I think he will be fair.

[Jacquerie]

Keyword: 17th. You'll get dozens of links pro/con as to why the 17th amendment should be/not repealed.

[Stand Watch Listen]

It is with a strange feeling that those of us who come from the Soviet Union look upon the West of today. It is as though we were neither neighbours on the same planet, nor contemporaries -and yet we contemplate the West from what will be your future, or look back seventy years, to see our past suddenly repeating itself.

And what we see is always the same, always the same as it was then: adults deferring to the opinion of their children; the younger generation carried away by shallow worthless ideas; professors scared of being unfashionable; journalists refusing to take responsibility for the words they squander so profusely; universal sympathy for revolutionary extremists; people with serious objections unable or unwilling to voice them; the majority passively obsessed by a feeling of doom; feeble governments; societies whose defensive reactions have become paralyzed; spiritual confusion leading to political upheaval.

What will happen as a result of all this lies ahead of us. But the time is near, and from bitter memory we can easily predict what these events will be.

Excerpt from "West's Betrayal of Civilization" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

[beaversmom]

For instance; Jack Andraka was 15 years old when he devised a test for Pancreatic Cancer.

That is SO amazing. I've never had that disease in my family, but such a scary one! I'll have to look about Jack.

[zencycler]

Here’s my idea. Did the Enlightenment Go Too Far? (Or choose your own title, of course).

But the basic premise would be to review what role literature has played in the moral decline of our civilization. Putting religion aside, exactly why is it that what used to be considered secular virtues, such as optimism, are now viewed as a human failing, and what used to be considered secular vices, such as pessimism, are now deemed as a sign of a deep-thinking, complex, and all around superior person?

Now, of course there are exceptions in critically acclaimed literature, in which the main character is someone who embraces a traditional virtue like optimism. However, in most cases this is only done when that character has some other human failing that can be seen as both a cause for, and a reason to excuse, that virtue. For example, the optimism of Don Quixote is excused by him being delusional, or to take an example from popular movies, the optimism of Forrest Gump is excused by his mental deficiency.

Looking back at a review of poetry, novels, and other literature from the Enlightenment to today, how else has the this served to turn other virtues into vices, and vice versa (pardon, and feel free to use, the pun).

Anyway, that would be a subject that I would find both interesting, and one that would also promote conservative principles in a way that would not be politically divisive, and perhaps may also be persuasive, to your liberal Professor.

[pepsionice]

I think I would take an imaginary country...using all the current and accurate statistics...and tell a Paul Harvey-like story (”If I wanted to dismantle a society, this is how I’d do it”).

So you tell it from this prospective...that it’s not just 100,000 or 200,000....but that within five years...it could be a million a year.

So the federal government would manage this...by systemically moving them around. It wouldn’t make any sense to send them to California or New York state...so you send them onto Iowa, Mississippi, Georgia....and onto various voting districts.

You’d plot this out...taking over voting numbers of close Republican-Democratic districts. Then after a while, without telling your helpers...you’d then start to mass the groups in black districts and heavily black urban areas.

Your agenda doesn’t have anything to do with society...but with degrading what exists already.

The MS13 drug crowd? You kinda get to the end of your paper and just laugh....as you were paid by MS13 to make all this political agenda stuff happen, but it really doesn’t have anything to do with democracy or saving the kids or violence in Central America, or even with rigging up Democratic votes. It’s all done...to make MS13 a household product and name in America. Tell the story as Paul Harvey would tell it.

[beaversmom]

And what we see is always the same, always the same as it was then: adults deferring to the opinion of their children...

Last paper was a topic teacher picked regarding Ken Robinson and education, then he also added Paulo Freire to the mix. That was the idea I got from the limited reading I did about Freire...he wanted the line blurred between adults and children. So I added that to my paper. Referenced an article by Dennis Prager and the left's infatuation with the thoughts of children.

[beaversmom]

(”If I wanted to dismantle a society, this is how I’d do it”).

Richard Lamm's writings would be a good source to consult for that.

[mountainbunny]

Whether, without regard to if GMOs are good/bad/other, the public has a right to know if their food is GMO or not.

[beaversmom]

Wow, you are a thinker! I don’t know that I could do that paper. If you do it, would you let me read it! Seriously.

[zencycler]

Thanks - maybe in 10 years when I retire!

[beaversmom]

I have to go to English class in a few hours. I’m so tired. But I S000000 much appreciate the ideas for consideration. You all have got my wheels turning. I will have to pick a topic, but I want to learn more about the things you all have posted. My brain is already hurting thinking about it! :) Thank you everyone.

And if others come upon this thread and would like to add their ideas, that would be wonderful. I think this thread could be good for others just as a general topic to learn from, too.

[beaversmom]

I have a feeling you want to do a book...not just a paper. :)

[wardaddy]

Contrast Shakespeare's political and philosophical opinions that permeate his works with modern perceptions

My major adviser considered Bill a conservative by relevant standards

Or use Burke in relation to today's arguments

Or if leaning trendy.....discuss the decline of high English in light of ebonics or wi$$er slang or just as portrayed in modern media from Housewives to any other whack reality

Note I'm focusing on English....not you giving a political essay which is save for poli sci

Folks here might not believe it but I did a paper in English 102 of how transcendental the lyrics of Jackson Browne were in 1976....my Sapphic professor gave me an A

Too weird in hindsight no?

[beaversmom]

I love that idea of doing it as a fictional country. I don’t think it would work for this particular assignment, but it would be great as a creative piece.

[Stand Watch Listen]

1) "It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong."
Thomas Sowell

2) economists Cloward / Piven strategy

3) The current controversy of Hollywood receiving financial incentives versus the 'celebrities' ""Preaching" how we, in flyover country, should be conducting our finances/water usage/utility usage/guns (versus their bodyguards/home size/limousine's/private planes....etc

4) 1974 -1989 Coming ice age versus 1992 - 2011 global warming (also when global warming became a punch line...then it evolved to 'climate change' (which ANSWERED ALL weather conditions).

[aquila48]

Do one on Conservatism.

1. What is it? (see Mark Levin’s books, Edmund Burke)
2. It’s history
3. It’s values
4. Key conservatives in American history
5. How it contrasts with liberalism and why it is better for the personal pursuit of happiness

[beaversmom]

Thanks WD. It can be politically related, but I like your ideas regarding English. I wish I had more knowledge...wish I was more of a reader.

Shakespeare sounds interesting, but I just don’t have that knowledge of his works I’m embarrassed to say.

[beaversmom]

4) 1974 -1989 Coming ice age versus 1992 - 2011 global warming (also when global warming became a punch line...then it evolved to 'climate change' (which ANSWERED ALL weather conditions).

Loving all your ideas, but this is another one that is interesting to me. Could consult Lord Monckton and the founder of Greenpeace.

[Bullish]

Maybe do one on how a certain group in our population has decided to speak in a gutter dialect called ebonics. That they’ve decided to bastardize English just so they don’t sound ‘white’.

Yeah, that would set your liberal teachers hair on fire and earn you straight ‘Fs’.... So, never mind.

[beaversmom]

lol...wardaddy suggested that one, too. :)