Writing this week's blog

This blog assignment asks you to read Wendell Berry's essay "What Are People For?" and a selection from Bill Thomas's What Are Old People For, and then identify three points of agreement and three points of disagreement in the two pieces.

 In this blog, I want to focus not on the content of what you will write, but on the way you should go about writing this.  First, make sure that you have done the reading carefully and understand their overarching arguments as well as the details they use to support those arguments.

Then, identify the points of agreement and disagreement and make sure they are accurate.  Look for claims with some substance, not just vague or very broad points.  Throughout, focus on the ethical dimensions of these writings.  Neither author is an ethicist but both pieces are very relevant to the big questions we ask in social ethics:  what is a good society?  what obligations do we have to others?  What makes a human life good, valuable, and worthwhile?  And so forth.  Feel free to go back to Weston for some reminders about these points.