My teaching staff and I make our students write five Ponderings over the course of their Ghostwriting Professional Designation Program (GPDP) journey. To pull that off, they have to write a persuasive case for one side of an issue, an equally persuasive case for the other side, and then let us know whether or not their needle moved and what they learned, if anything, from the exercise.
Sounds simple, doesn't it? It ain't. We expect them to use the four phases of Creative Analysis (aka Analytical Reasoning)—critical thinking, debate protocol, abstract reasoning, focused ingenuity—and to:
Demonstrate the ability to identify and distance from a topic’s appeal to emotion (logical fallacy); to identity/validate its core intent and perspective; to identify/validate the opposite core intent and perspective; to identify the missing elements or “dots” that would strengthen each side’s position; to recognize the possibilities (What if?) and importance (So what?) of the issue; to deliver all the above in concise yet effective prose that does not reveal your personal perspective; and to adhere to Basic Writing Conventions (1-5 BWC) and Chicago Manual of Style (1-6 CMS).
Max 300 words for each "Side" and max 300 words for the reflection.
Make sure your document has a template attached, styles applied, and contains a slug and page numbers.
GPDP is no "bird" course, i.e., nobody flies right through it, so if'n you run across a Certified Ghostwriter, show a little respect, will ya? Our grads earn what amounts to an unaccredited master's degree in thirteen-and-a-half rigorously packed months. But that's not really the point of today's Turtle Musing. What I really want to talk about are the five subject prompts.
1. Make a persuasive case for your religion. Make an equally persuasive case against your religion. Did your needle move? What did you learn?
2. Make a persuasive case for your political ideology. Make an equally persuasive case for the opposite political ideology. Did your needle move? What did you learn?
3. Make a persuasive case for the pro-life argument. Make an equally persuasive case for the pro-choice argument. Did your needle move? What did you learn?
4. Make a persuasive case for freedom over security. Make an equally persuasive case for security over freedom. Did your needle move? What did you learn?
5. Make a persuasive case for the validity of climate change. Make an equally persuasive case for the non-validity of climate change. Did your needle move? What did you learn?
We're thinking about changing that last one to—
“Make a persuasive case for the validity of human impact on climate change. Make an equally persuasive case for the non-validity of human impact on climate change”
… since hardly anyone's left who still thinks our global weather hasn't gotten a bit wonky. But I digress.
Because GPDP is the sole comprehensive, academically certified ghostwriter training in existence, our students come to us from all over the world and thus are of every possible gender, sex, nationality, race, religion, political persuasion, etcetera and so forth, what-all, and what-not. It's fascinating to read their point-counterpoint essays to see whether they can actually non-reveal their personal positions. Tain't as easy as one might think, especially since we kick back any Googled facts, statistical lists, and dogma. If any of those were actually persuasive, no subject would be controversial.
I may be wrong, but it feels like ninety-nine percent of all religion Ponderings are reframed to pro-v.-con-religion in general. We've seen a couple of atheism-v.-religion arguments, but the "anti-religion" are universally Christianity. Where are the disillusioned Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists? Is Christianity so deeply woven into its practitioners' emotions, thought processes, spirituality, and daily rationalizations they cannot envision it as separate from their own psyches? I gotta tell ya, as a secular, atheistic Jew[1], that blows my mind. Granted, most societal norms are eye-crossing to the uninitiated, but religion defined as Christianity, seems impregnable, regardless of race, creed, color, gender, nationality, or even disassociation. And yet nature assures us there is no such thing as a one-sided coin. Sadly, few (if any) needles move on this Pondering.
Can't say the same for political ideology, pro-life/choice, or climate change! Fascinatingly, those needles twitch, wiggle, and waver.
"It’s taken me years to see the other side of this argument, but yes, it’s there."
"I now better understand the reasons why people don’t want to accept climate change."
"My needle did move—and I discovered I was internally fighting against it."
Politics, women's/abortion rights, and who's responsible for the crazy-ass weather are emotionally charged, button-pushing, headline-producing topics, making them safe to research, deconstruct, and write about. And once we do that—once we accept this is a two-sided coin, we can identify the validity of ideas we oppose—we safeguard ourselves against the fear > shame > defensiveness > outrage pattern I riffed about last week.
And that's a good thing, at least for me. I hate being the only one in the room who recognizes the absolute reality that the only absolutes in life are the ones we decide must absolutely be. Did ya foller that? Not sure I did either, but I suspect we all got the point.
So if religion is sacrosanct and politics/rights/environment are violable, what then of security and freedom? Ah, welcome to consensus.
I've read some truly eloquent arguments for security being more important than freedom and freedom more vital than security, but in the end, in that third Reflection section, nearly every student arrives at the same conclusion: they're equally important. One should not, cannot substitute for the other. Lack of security puts freedom in jeopardy. Security sans freedom is too stifling to sustain human life.
I call on We, the People of Planet Earth to keep those Ponderings in mind as we watch the atrocities mount up in Europe, the Middle East, and the three-ring clown act formerly called the U.S. House of Representatives. Whether our first reaction is horror, glee, or hopeless anguish, let's non-kneejerk into unyielding fear > shame > defensiveness > outrage. There's been enough outrage. I defy anyone to produce a single-surfaced situation, a depthless circumstance, a point with no counterpoint.
"It’s taken me years to see the other side of this argument, but yes, it’s there."
What do you think?
[1] Not a unique breed, but with Jews accounting for barely zero-point-two percent of the world population, a miniscule cache of people, the atheistic/secular sliver of that sliver is infinitesimally small—likely as small a group as Freddy Mercury's Zoroastrianism clan. Then again, a Jew is still a Jew to the over 215 Nazi organizations around and the who-knows-how-many other groups who sing ♪ There's no hatred like Jew hatred, like no hatred I know! ♫