Assignment Instructions/ Description
SPRING 2021 HIST 1540 WK1 Instructions from syllabus: Since this course spans numerous movements, ideas, peoples, places, and times, some days will require more instructor-led lecture to facilitate understanding. To insure students remain active, there will be a total of two times throughout the semester where grades will be assigned to one-page student reflection, debate (respectful), and discussion questions. These reflections can be framed within the content covered in that given week’s unit, but students should also pull ideas in from other units, outside the class, current events, et al. If you happen to miss one, you can make up the points by turning in a one page argumentative analysis of the week’s readings. Please do not assume that you will receive all fifty points for the analysis; I grade by quality of content. Prompt: This week you read about the affluent society (among other important topics such as Cold War politics, the Korean War, international agendas, etc.). In class, we focused mostly on operational construction of the affluent society, from marketing to piecemeal wages to credit finance. We also spent time discussing critics of this society as well as their vehicles for challenging it. Herbert Marcuse, in the reading excerpt from One Dimensional Man, essentially asserts all of this evidences not only the socialization of individuals into easily controlled and sated one-dimensional lives, but the irrationality of it all. What do you think about his critique? Does advanced industrial society over-homogenize us? Does the lack of labor and consumer choice lead to marginalization of creativity, freedom, autonomous thought, etc.? Does even the expression of resistance end up as part of the "system?" If not, what do you think he's overlooking or wrong about?
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