High schoolers’ assignment: Present argument in favor of the Holocaust

Come on, high school students asked to defend Hitler's final solution so the students can learn "a lesson in having to do things you don’t like, and in seeing the other side of an argument.”

Tell ya what, about asking students to defend Trump's wall and why sanctuary cities should be punished. How about defending Trump's temporary hold on visa for people from foreign countries? How about taking on the role on why public servants shouldn't be allowed to unionize? How about taking on the reasons why teachers can't get fired? How about asking these kids to defend traditional marriage?

Could anyone here imagine the hell that would break loose if we asked students to defend slavery, Jim Crow laws, or why women shouldn't vote or get equal pay?

Why didn't this teacher just come out and ask the students to defend the assassination of JKF or MLK as a good thing?

 

A great class assignment:

"Defend lynchings of blacks by the KKK in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Were they necessary? Were they stopped prematurely?"

 

This is one of those assignments that should have 3 or 4 different options to pick from, so those who are uncomfortable with one are not obliged, but I don't mind this being one of the options for those who are intrigued by the challenge. I like all of your suggestions as well. Its high school and hopefully these folk are mature enough to handle making a very unpopular or outragious argument. it always helps if we understand how these ideas are sold or rationalized.

 

Excellent lesson. Pick the most distasteful topic you can imagine then place the student in the scenerio. How does one go about defending the indefensible? Where was the morality? what could possibly justify such inhumanity? then try to spin that into a plausible case. It confronts the student's understanding of human nature and the power of words and ideas.

 

I agree with you. In high school I was chosen to defend witchcraft - could it be real, does it benefit society or the people who believe it and so on. But that's defensible, there is no defense for what Hitler did and the proof is all the Nazis who were executed after the war. Could you imagine what might happen to a kid if he was chosen to defend slavery? The way people are today the kid could have been killed.

In all fairness, and I'm not being snarky, why should the teacher be excluded in being made to feel outside his comfort zone? Picking on Jews is something much of the world doesn't have a problem with, but what about if the subject had been gays, Muslims, or even something more simple such as defending/prosecuting Obama as being a worthy president? Why couldn't the teacher's topic be tenure, jobs for life?

 

I would have tossed it right back in this teachers face by facetiously posing that WW2 probably wouldn't have happened if Hitler was only interested in exterminating Arabs or Africans.

Ohhhh ****, now whats up?

 

Well most substantive difference is that the assignment was about history and dead people and the morality was crystal clear. To venture into this type of assignment on contemporary politically "active" social issues would not be appropriate since its about "now" and emerging social/moral trends.

 

That is a stretch assignment because the average high schools student doesn't know very much about world history and 20th Century political events. Therefore the student would have to do some research to learn about the topic in order to present a reasonable analysis. It was a very good assignment for future college students.

A typical literate American adult should be able to give a dozen reasons why Hitler's final solution was a good thing. And remember, we put Jews into concentration camps and sent some to Nazi Germany so don't get all whiny and embarrass yourself.

 

If this is a true story and not some sky is falling Fake I will agree that using defending genocide is beyond reason and decency. It's defending murder.

 

Is war murder?

 

Um - because teachers are never required to do the assignments any more than math teachers have to complete page 34-39 problems 1-13, 25-46, and story problems A, F, and G. Teachers have enough to do.

I don't mind a kid trying to defend slavery either, but once again I would offer several choices so that no kid is ever required to defend slavery, or the holocaust or whatever.

 

Is execution murder?

 

Genocide is not war it maybe be a tool used in the act of war. Genocide is murder, mass murder.

 

The intent is to offer the students challenging assignements and to stretch their intellect. They have to do research about the topic and therefore they learn something new. If they never learn that skill how can they become successful defense attorneys, corporate and Presidential spokesmen, politicians, preachers, salesmen, or any other occupation that depends on selling BS to the herd? So when they can take a controversial issue and present a reasonable case for why it was a good idea and get people to at least consider it they will have learned a very useful skill indeed. That's the real intent of the assignment.

 

Of course not if you are executing criminals, Traitors, or spies execution is a tool to rid society if your country of evil therefore a good thing.

 

Such a drastic assignment may be ok for a college student especially for philosophy or law students. Lawyers are required to "defend" people who committ despicable acts.

 

How about "Why were the Crusades necessary, and did they go far enough?"

 

I get the purpose and I support every aspect you describe. You can do that by limiting the choices to those that will accomplish those goals without assigning just the holocaust or just slavery, or just segregation or just Mao Zedong's cultural revolution. It may be just a little much for someone who's great grandfather died at Auschwitz, especially with their parents, so that kid picks slavery or Mao's cultural revolution and your goals are still accomplished.

 

I think that's a great assignment. Defending a position you hate is a great exercise in improving ones ability to think, reason, and see the other side, even when the other side is wrong. In speech and debate in high school we usually had to be prepared to defend either side of any issue, with 15 minutes notice.

 

I'm not sure if you remember this, but this also happened years ago and (of course) our dear friend Jack Napier posted a thread defending it.

EDIT TO ADD: I think THIS was it.

 

In war the objective is to kill as many of the enemy as quickly as possible in order to make them stop fighting. Playing nice just prolongs the conflict and drains the treasury. And since the civilian population supports the enemy troops they are legitimate targets.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_war

 

I was required to take a critical thinking class in college. And that was topic that we had to address.

 

Outstanding find. Ya think he is incognito or is it simply the next in line mining the archive?

 

Depends on the context. In a philosophy class you discuss all sorts of stuff which the general public would find abhorrent. For instance, we were "made" to watch hours of Nazi propaganda in an aesthetics unit and comment on whether the repugnant nature of the ideology negates any beauty in Riefenstahl's cinematography.

To an outsider thay might look like Nazi indoctrination.

 

I dunno - I kind of doubt Jack's the type to try that. While I strongly disagreed with a lot of what he stood for, he didn't seem the type to make sock-puppets or suchlike. He was pretty honest about who and what he was, of course I could be wrong but making up a fake account just doesn't seem his style.

BTW, my opinion here is the same as it was in that other thread: While I understand the gist of the assignment and applaud the reasoning behind it, there's just some topics that are too emotionally charged to really work. Something else: there's also the issue that it doesn't really resonate with today's youth - I mean, maybe in the 1950's and 60's when people still thought there was a possibility Hitler was alive and hiding in South America somewhere, but today? Not really much emotional connection for most to the Holocaust. No kidding, many of the kids I have don't even know what a Nazi is or very much about Hitler. For this to really work, there has to be some hook that the kids could relate to in the present day.

Steve N. made a pretty good point: What if you asked some of these kids to write a page defending Trump and why they voted for him? Now if you REALLY want a firestorm and something that is current-event related, there you go.