Contemporary Theory
Spring 2009

Please answer one question in a 2-3 page typed response. They will be due on Monday, March 9, 2009.

1. Sartre argues that religious and cultural rules of morality cannot be assumed to be true and are used as a way for humans to "soften the harshness" of the existential choices that they are faced with since these moral frameworks provide a frame of reference to guide human behavior. But, Sartre also argues that it is still possible to lead a moral and meaningful life since the meaning given to each person's life is the sum of all of the individual choices and actions that person made. Other people can gain hope by looking at the example that each person sets as s/he plays her/his role out on 'life's stage'. What do you think? Do you agree or disagree with Sartre's assertion? If so, why? If not, why not?

2. Simone De Beauvoir argues that the models for social change available to other groups will not work for women because of their unique relationship with men. For example, she argues that class consciousness and solidarity will allow workers to organize against owners and collectively fight for greater economic power, but because women live intimately with men, their “enemy”, and have great empathy and commonality with them through family, race, religion, ideology, etc., that simply being female is not enough to base a movement on. Women are too diverse across other criteria to have any commonality. Is she right about this, in your opinion? Why or why not? Explain your response.

3. One of Sartre’s central points is that each individual is responsible for the choices s/he makes and doesn’t make, regardless of the amount of knowledge about the consequences that s/he has in advance.  This responsibility to be forced to make choices and suffer the consequences of them is what makes the human condition so painful. Sartre’s definition of responsibility is very broadly defined- in fact, he would hold a citizen of a nation responsible for the actions of his/her government, ultimately. Some would argue that this type of responsibility is a type of egoism and falsely assumes that people have options open to them that they really do not, that things are much more structured than Sartre assumes. Where do you place yourself in this debate? Explain your response.

4. DeBeauvoir argues that in a male-dominated world, women have three options open to them. They can “embrace” their femininity and conform to the cultural expectations of what it means to be female, they can become surrogate males, or they can seek to transform what it means to be female by organizing with other women. Please analyze Hillary Clinton as a political figure through the prism that DeBeauvoir offers. What strategy is she pursuing? Why is she such a polarizing figure? Does the interpretation of her either confirm or disprove DeBeauvoir’s theory?

5. many critics of contemporary hiphop argue that the ideas of what it means to be male which is shown in current hiphop culture is not only derogatory to women and reduces them to sexualized objects, but is even more dangerous for males themselves. They aregue that males are presented with a version of masculinity which is based on caricatured images of violence, domination of others and the real life example leads to higher rates of violence, injury, and death.  DeBeauvoir would argue that the construction of what it means to be masculine or feminine determines the other, since male-female is defined in opposition. Given this idea, please explore the carcatured constructions of both male and female in commercial hiphop and show how constraining this would be for both young men and young women. What would an alternative construction of each sex or both sexes look like?