What's Meghan's apparent attitude toward ethics? What does the poet think of her attitude? Is Meghan's attitude toward class and her social role as a student ethical? Why or why not? Is Meghan a potential Stephen Glass? Explain.
(Don't treat this as just another task to get through. Use some thought. I don't wish to read anymore any three- or four-line responses submitted at the last minute.)
Please respond by 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 22.
TO MEGHAN, ASLEEP IN ETHICS CLASS
As if what people are is all they’ll ever be
you close your eyes
and it’s suddenly night everywhere and always
nothing can reach you not even
the agitated ghosts of ancient philosophers
swirling around our hot basement classroom
but to you it’s just words love death etc.
so why wake you to see the firelight
beating frantically on the walls of Plato’s cave
when your sleeping face is beautifully composed
like that of a fairy-tale princess
with a piece of poisoned apple caught in her throat
Teaching Notes
You must become the flame on the candle. - Thich Nhat Hanh
Sunday, September 19, 2010
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Is Media Ethics Education DOA?
It sounds like a joke Jay Leno would tell during his opening monologue on The Tonight Show. Hear about the graduate students at the prestigious journalism school? They got caught cheating on an ethics exam. Ha ha ha. Except that’s actually what happened at Columbia University
No one admitted cheating despite pressure from the school’s administrators and pleas from classmates, who feared the scandal would damage the market value of their degrees. Meanwhile, the teacher of the course, New York Times columnist Samuel G. Freedman, refused to comment. But if the disgruntled posts on RateMyProfessors.com are any indication, his students hadn’t exactly been soaking up knowledge. “Maybe he could e-mail his ‘speeches’ to the students instead of making everyone suffer through the most wasted class in j-school. . . ,” one read.
There’s an old cowboy saying that goes, “When your horse dies, get off.” Journalism ethics education is a dead horse. Or else those aren’t vultures circling in the sky.
No one admitted cheating despite pressure from the school’s administrators and pleas from classmates, who feared the scandal would damage the market value of their degrees. Meanwhile, the teacher of the course, New York Times columnist Samuel G. Freedman, refused to comment. But if the disgruntled posts on RateMyProfessors.com are any indication, his students hadn’t exactly been soaking up knowledge. “Maybe he could e-mail his ‘speeches’ to the students instead of making everyone suffer through the most wasted class in j-school. . . ,” one read.
There’s an old cowboy saying that goes, “When your horse dies, get off.” Journalism ethics education is a dead horse. Or else those aren’t vultures circling in the sky.
A Question for Socrates
The question of how ethics is learned, or even if it can be, is as old as Western philosophy. In Plato’s dialog Meno the title character asks, “Can you tell me, Socrates, whether virtue is acquired by teaching or by practice; or if neither by teaching nor practice, then whether it comes to man by nature, or in what other way?” Of course, Socrates, being Socrates, resists giving a definite answer. But we can’t. The sad fact is, students had better get an effective ethics education now or they may never.
Last summer I conducted an ethics workshop for some reporters and editors at the Poughkeepsie Journal, a small daily in upstate
But what I remember most is the air of defeat that clung to the staff as we sat on hard plastic chairs in the break room discussing the cases. I could hear in their voices the bitterness and cynicism of employees forced to follow corporate policies they despised. Recently, for example, the paper had started running display ads on the front page and section fronts, a much more grievous ethical lapse, their mumbled asides suggested, than anything the case studies might have to offer.
I don’t want my students to ever wear the gray, defeated expression I saw that day on the faces at the Journal. But given the downward direction in which the media are moving, and fast, how in the world can I prevent it from happening?
Teaching Media Ethics by Telling Stories
A friend of mine who teaches at a big Midwestern university recounts in class the events of her first week as a reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune. She was sent to Duluth to cover Democratic presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey on the campaign trail. When they were introduced, Humphrey vigorously shook her hand. “Oh yes, Susan,” he said, “I read your stuff all the time.” He couldn’t have read her stuff, though; she hadn’t written anything yet. “Just a few words,” she explains to her students, “but words that taught this fledging reporter a great lesson about pols and the little lies they tell.”
I usually find occasion during the semester to quote I. F. Stone’s dictum, “Every government is run by liars and thieves, and nothing they say should be believed,” to make the same point. But Susan’s story makes the point better. That’s because it has existential force. Her story vividly captures in a way a secondhand quote can’t the realities of a reporter’s life.
Some might think telling “war stories” is a waste of precious class time. I’ve a colleague who didn’t want to fall into the “trap” of regaling students with stories ad nauseam (“which, let’s face it, is easier than teaching or grading,” he said). So one semester he kept track. When he toted it all up at the end, he was surprised that he’d used less than an hour - out of 45 – talking about his newspaper experiences. And yet, he admitted, it was his stories that students seemed to remember most.
“Stories teach us how to live,” Daniel Taylor said in his essay, “The Ethical Implications of Storytelling.” What he meant was that stories preserve our experience for contemplation and evaluation. Although not all stories carry a heavy message, there’s an entire category of stories, so-called “exemplary tales,” that are told to convey a moral.
Our war stories are potentially just such tales. They can provide evidence, in ethicist John Barton’s words, of “how real human beings live through various crises and trials and remain human.” My colleague who kept tabs on his storytelling has described his stories as cautionary. Most, he said, deal with “screwups I learned from.”
But sometimes the storyteller and the audience can’t agree on what exactly the moral of a story is.
When Susan was a cub reporter on the Tribune, she interviewed the Beatles, who were on their second tour of the States. She got into their hotel room by dressing up as a waitress in an ugly, mustard-colored uniform and accompanying an actual room service waiter upstairs. Ringo took one look at her little plastic name tag – it read “Donna Brown” – and snorted, “What kind of name is that?” The waiter nudged her in the side. “Tell them what you real name is,” he urged. She did, as well as her reason for being there. Rather than throw her out, the Beatles politely answered her questions. They even let her phone for a photographer. The next day her story ran on the front page, with a photo of John sitting at a table and looking up at her and laughing as she poured coffee in his cup. She still has a glossy print of that photo somewhere.
Many of Susan’s students think she’s nuts for not having the photo hanging up in her office. They also think she’s nuts for saying she’d never participate in the same kind of stunt today. To her celebrity-struck students, disguising herself as a hotel waitress to get an interview with the Beatles seems soooo cool. They lose all sight of the fact that it wasn’t a story of vital public interest that demanded undercover methods.
Susan intends one lesson when she talks about her hard day’s night, but her students, living in a paparazzi-saturated culture, draw another. “It may be a lost cause,” she remarked to me.
Or maybe not. Negotiations over what the point of a story is can be part of the point of the story. In the process of negotiating, we test different interpretations, try out different themes. This is helpful. This is educational. Lawrence Kohlberg, the Harvard psychologist famous for his research on the stages of moral development, contended that “the teaching of virtue is the asking of questions. . . not the giving of answers.” Stories don’t necessarily have to yield clear moral rules to be of value. It’s enough sometimes if they just give us something to think about.
24 comments:
Her attitude toward ethics is almost non-existent because she is completely unaware of her surroundings, cutting off contact with the world of knowledge around her as she sleeps. Her attitude is complacency for how the world is, she cares not to learn how to act in a moral sense, but would allow the whole system of unethical behaviors in the media to continue. "As if what people are is all they'll ever be," sums up her attitude toward ethics and the quest to better the profession. The poet sees Meghan's attitude toward ethics as sad, because it is just another possible journalist perpetuating the cycle of laziness and unethical behavior because she was too dismissive to learn anything in class.
In Meghan's social role as a student, the sad truth is that her attitude toward class is becoming an all too common one, probably the "coolest" or most accepted behavior for a student, but in no way is ethical. Even if the class had nothing more to give to her as a student, and this one bad class never affected any decisions in her future as a journalist, the ethical thing to do would be to show respect to those trying to make you better, and the profession as a whole better, and not distract the class.
If one wants to take a way too in-depth look at her behavior in the microcosm of one class and stretch it over a prolonged period of time, yes, Meghan is a potential Stephen Glass, shirking responsibility and ethics for the easy way out.
Meghan's attitude towards ethics is clear: she doesn't care. Falling asleep in an ethics class has a lot of irony in it anyway - is it ethical to fall asleep in class? Especially one that is supposed to help develop our thoughts on what is right and wrong? She seems to be a close-minded person, shutting away her surroundings and whatever is being taught to her [at least in the class] which can be of most value to her.
The line, "As if what people are is all they'll ever be," is an interesting way to open the poem. It's like saying, "What's the point if no one or nothing is going to change?" so I'll just go to sleep and ignore. I know this may make me look like the fool, since I did say "What is the point?" about discussing the issues of editing photos for fashion magazines, but at least I'd participate and say my piece.
The attitude of the poet is mad, yet almost gives up on the student. What's the point in waking her if she fell asleep in the first place, clearly not interested in the lecture or the idea of the class. It's a pretty depressing and worrisome idea to think that she may go out in the world and be a part of a field where ethics are extremely valuable and important, yet she didn't bother to pay attention in one of the most important classes for her field.
Stephen Glass is a good example of poor ethical behavior and one who doesn't follow standards - but is that implying that anyone who doesn't pay attention to an ethics lecture/discussion going to do the same? It is quite possible, but not always the case. Can we have hope that she would do better than that? Yes. But, if someone is taking their time to explain the importance of ethics, especially in the workforce later on, they should use these guidelines when approaching their future work. We'll just have to hope that she has some ethical standards in the back of her mind and she'll be ethical.
Since ethics and behaving ethically can never really be enforced, its one of those kind of things that's more internal. Its a standard you either hold yourself to, or don't. Its kind of like honor, pride, or integrity.
Meghan's actions say a lot of things. They say she does not care much about herself, her time, or the time and money of her parents, professors, and peers. There's nothing ethical about wasting everyones time. But again, you can't enforce it- you can't make someone like Meghan care. You can't instill a sense of pride in her enough to allow her to at the least keep her damn eyes open in class. And unfortunately not just Meghan will pay the price for her shortcomings. She will graduate, and enter into the workforce and become another mid-less suit with no real sense of pride or moral obligation to something like ethics, and inevitably have nothing of value to really offer the world.
This disregard for personal integrity and personal pride is what makes Meghan a potential Glass. Glass wasn't stupid, he just didn't care. He had no attachment to any sort of ethical code. But if this girl can't be bothered to keep her eyes open for it obviously she does not care either. That is what makes her dangerous to the world- like Glass
The imagery of all of this meaningful information sort of swirling around outside of her head but never actually getting in shows that the poet does not approve of what they see. That last line.."with a piece of poison apple caught in her throat" clearly shows the displeasure with watching the girl knowingly dismiss all of the information and knowledge she should be soaking up- its that final kinda fuck you. It shows the anger in a very deviously subtle way.
Like the previous posters mentioned, it seems Meghan could care less about ethics in the classroom but her behavior says a lot when metaphors come into play. How could she know what she’s missing if she’s sleeping? Furthermore, how could she know what ethics is without identifying it as something she’s already learned before? Either she thinks she’s got ethics down to a T especially in terms of media ethics, or she doesn’t know how to relate classroom discussions on ethics to her own reality or phrase how any of it affects her life so she sleeps instead. In my opinion, she’s actually harming herself by allowing herself to daze off in total ignorance. Meghan will “die” like Snow White unless her Prince or just Dr. Good wakes her up to join in the many definitions/scenarios of media ethics. Most importantly, in a weird way of looking at it, if she doesn’t try to understand in class, then how will she react to the ethics in her future career? Her attitude is rude because class is not for sleep time but it’s little hard to define if it’s ethical because some professors simply accept it, some wake the students up or some leave them in the dark until they wake up so it’s up to Meghan how she plans to spend this time unconsciously. She may not be aware that she’s asleep in class, I’m not sure the specifics and although I disagree with sleeping in class, it’s unavoidable sometimes. I don’t think she’ll be a Stephen Glass if she falls asleep in just one class. I also believe Glass knew about the ethics he was fighting against when he wrote for entertainment and acceptance. He was portrayed as a nutcase in Shattered Glass; someone who visited his former grade school teachers and lied to his closest allies, not a potential journalist/PR associate/ media manager who was caught sleeping during an afternoon media ethics class.
First off, that is a brilliant poem and I'm so happy to finally read it. I look at this in a couple ways. Either her attitude towards ethics is non-existent like others have said, or, she believes that she already has a good enough idea of her own ethics and the proper ethics of the world so she can use the class to rest and sleep. I realize now how absurd the latter argument is, so I will just go with the fact that she doesn't care about the class. It is ironic that she should choose an ethics class to demonstrate a sheer lack of ethical behavior. She is a student and therefore has a role within the ecology of the classroom that she is clearly ignoring by sleeping. Although, every dark cloud has a silver lining. Without this event occurring we would have never had the chance to discuss this as a case. And to quote Daniel Tosh, "And for that we thank you" Meghan.
Meghan's attitude towards ethics is very unenthusiastic and basically nonexistent. Sleeping through ethics is a very blatant way to seem apathetic towards both the class and the subject in general. She clearly does not care enough to give her teacher and ethics in general her focused attention for even the duration of her class time.
Meghan's attitude is unethical because although it may be unintentional, she is disrespecting her professor and the important and applicable subjects he or she is explaining to her. Her social role as a student is to actually pay attention and participate. If she is sleeping in class, there is no way she is retaining any or all of the information, even if she may think she knows it already based upon her own moral codes and her individual opinions of ethics.
The poet seems to think of her as a lost cause. The sarcastic tone shows her as just another student that fell between the cracks of the flawed educational system that our society has created.
As far as Meghan's potential to be a "Stephen Glass", it would make sense. Skipping out on her responsibilities and obligations as a student can easily indicate an inclination toward cutting corners and taking shortcuts in the future.
Meghan’s attitude toward ethics seems to be the absence of attitude. She seems to simply not care about the topic of the class, or what the professor or other students have to say. I agree with the previous comments that it’s possible that Meghan may just think that she is an ethical person and knows all there is to know about ethics. If she even cared a little bit, she would not just fall completely asleep. I have been in classes where I was running on two hours of sleep and was fighting so hard against letting my eyes close. And although I may have looked like a demon with my eyes opening and closing constantly, I was trying to stay awake because I wanted to hear what was going on and I wanted to learn.
I feel as though the poet is angry, sad, and disappointed. I think that the poet looks at Meghan and thinks well if she doesn’t care now, why will she ever care? “so why wake you to see the firelight” The poet although not happy about Meghan sleeping does not wake her up. Maybe this is not his place to do so, however, I think that if the poet cared enough about making the student wake up and participate then her would have woken her up.
I do not think that Meghan’s attitude towards the class and her social role as a student is ethical because of the fact that part of your role as a student is to engage in the class. It is to listen, take it in, apply it to real life, and discuss it among your peers and with your professor. If people are falling asleep in classes all the time then what is the point of going to a class in the first place? I do not think it is ethical and that is why it does not happen with all students all the time.
I think there is a slight possibility that Meghan is a potential Stephen Glass but I also think that is sort of a radical take on this. As it was pointed out earlier, Stephen Glass’s decisions were deliberate and in my opinion not the result of falling asleep in class. If Meghan was the next Stephen Glass, maybe she would stay awake in class and argue in favor of unethical practices?
Megan holds a strongly apathetic attitude towards ethics and it shows through her actions of falling asleep. Her careless act shows that she has little to no character and no respect for her professor when she is wasting his time. The poet doesn't show any remorse, he doesn't choose to wake her up because he knows that if she doesn't care now, she may not care in the future. Her behavior is unethical, being that it sets a negative undertone for her role as a student. It shows her lack of motivation and the fact that she probably doesn't take most other things seriously. I also don't believe that her one action will lead her to be a potential Stephen Glass, although it may hinder her when she is dealing with any ethics related cases. Glass knew what he was doing when he lied and fabricated his stories.
I feel like Stephen Glass and Meghan are two different kinds of wrong in the world of journalism. Meghan seems to just not care, to the point where she falls asleep and seems to just not care. Even if she had a valid excuse for falling asleep, if she knew she was tired or sick or unwilling to learn, why show up to class at all? Why even bother going to school? This is her money she's sleeping on and she's an idiot for not realizing that. The author obviously has pity on this girl, relating her to Plato's cave, assuming she knows know other way than laziness and carelessness.
I feel like Stephen Glass knew what he was doing all along. I think he cared a lot, but not for journalism ethics but for himself and his popularity. He was probably a very active part of his ethics classes but knowingly forming his own rules of ethics and seeing nothing wrong with how he conducts himself in the journalism world.
I don't think Meghan has he energy or ability to become Stephen Glass, it's obviously too much work for her.
I think what the poet tries to convey in the first excerpt is that you have to want to be ethical in all situations before you are. “As if what people are is all they’ll ever be.” That even if you think your ethical there’s still more that can be learned, and to turn a blind eye is ignorant. “You close your eyes, and it’s suddenly night everywhere and always.” You can close yourself off from the world, but that doesn’t mean your decision to do so, doesn’t affect others.
“Nothing can reach you not even, the agitated ghosts of ancient philosophers, swirling around our hot basement classroom, but to you it’s just words love death etc.” Not even the wisdom of people whose words and ideas have been proven correct centuries later can make you care enough to pay attention.
“So why wake you to see the firelight.” Why pay attention to the current ethical dilemmas plaguing society? “Beating frantically on the walls of Plato’s cave, when you’re sleeping face is beautifully composed, like that of a fairy-tale princess.” It’s calling on the philosopher in all of us to come up with solutions, but you’re too caught up in a state of temporary relaxation to care. “With a piece of poisoned apple caught in her throat.” I think this line conveys the poet’s extreme disaffection with the student.
Meghan doesn’t seem to care very much about ethics from this snapshot. The poet shows extreme dissatisfaction with her attitude. No, Megan’s attitude is of ignorance and lacking respect for the professor trying to teach her and she’s not fullfiling her social role as a student. Why come to class if you’re that tired? I don’t know her enough from this poem to judge whether she’s a potential Stephen Glass.
Meghan's attitude towards her ethics class is like that of many students towards their courses, which is apathetic. To Meghan, ethics is just another grade, not something she should learn and reflect upon. When the poet says, "As if what people are is all they'll ever be," he is inferring that Meghan does not see value in her beliefs because she feels her opinions are meaningless. In general she thinks the whole topic of ethics is jaded. The line "why wake you to see the firelight," suggests that the poet believes that the student is hopeless. No matter how complex or thought provoking classroom discussion or debate may get, Meghan will not be fazed or riled up. To her it is just content and she makes no meaning of it for herself. This distresses the poet because all he can do is watch Meghan dismiss moral reasoning from her education as she inches towards becoming a professional.
Meghan's failure to see ethics as an important part of her thought processes is completely unethical and unnerving. The type of professional she will become has the potential to lack all moral competency and no respect for right and wrong. Her decision to block out her professors lectures have left her with no way to make, with ethical basis, good decisions. As a student she is failing her duties and commitment to the class. Depending on the type of person she is, Meghan has some potential to be like Stephen Glass. Glass was the type of person who did what was best for him and the story. He did not value ethics as a guide for being a good journalist. If Glass took an ethics class in college, he did not hold it with much importance and possibly like Meghan dozed off.
Meghan's attitude regarding ethics is most clearly one of indifference. Not only is she choosing to ignore any lessons about morality, but she is also practicing unethical behavior by falling asleep during class to begin with. Because Meghan believes "what people are is all they'll ever be", she chooses to go to sleep, to waste her time, her parents' money, her professor's time and effort, etc. That is not ethical. As a student, she should be obligated to pay attention; to try and better herself, her future, and, eventually, the media industry. While the poet is obviously not happy with Meghan's behavior, he is also, in his own way, indifferent to her (or at least he'd like to be). He cannot see the point in trying to reach someone who is already so far out of reach, someone for whom it is "suddenly night everywhere and always". The poet knows that Meghan is only fucking herself over by going to sleep and disregarding everything that she could potentially be learning; he sees the "piece of poisoned apple caught in her throat" but at the same time, he realizes that only she is capable of waking up from her perpetual "coma," so to speak.
Meghan's attitude, while both unsettling and pretty sickening, is all too common today. When I enter a classroom, I know that I am there in order to become a more intellectually developed individual. I know this, even if I don't necessarily participate all the time; I still take in every word, and think about each one. So, its always irritating to see people who clearly don't give a shit, who are so mindlessly content with the way things are to even listen to what the professor is saying. Those are the people, I feel, who, even if they end up getting jobs where they make lots of money, are going to be ignorant and incomplete for the rest of their lives -- unless, of course, they choose to change. Meghan, and all of the kids who fall asleep in class, therefore, are potential Stephen Glasses. Glass is someone so wrapped up in himself that he could hardly even grasp reality. Meghan is certainly on the same track. Ignorance may be bliss, but it is also the downfall of society today, especially within the media.
Meghan has a very “it is what it is” attitude towards the way the universe unfolds. It’s as though whatever happens is unchangeable, un-debatable and unfixable. As a student in an ethics class, we begin to realize that the people we depend upon for honesty are not always honest due to their own personal motivations and agendas. When the general public puts forth their trust on the media to expose conflict and fundamental issues, they are frequently misled by false exaggerations and distortion of facts. For this reason alone, I believe Meghan is warranted in having an unconcerned and detached feeling to the topic of ethics. I believe the poet is making a significant argument in the poem, which in lamer terms sounds like, “stop accepting this bullshit, it’s people like you that are perpetuating the problem!” I think Meghan represents the naivety that a lot of uninformed people possess, and it is her social role as a student to become informed and aware.
The poem says, “…when your sleeping face is beautifully composed like that of a fairy-tale princess with a piece of poisoned apple caught in her throat.” I interpreted that sentence as such: A person can allow themselves to live in a make-believe world without any interest as why it appears that way, but it is impossible to ignore truth forever.
In Meghan's lovely closed eyes, everything will stay the same, so why bother? Why bother keeping up with the news if you already know what it is? And so, Meghan, like many young adults of my generation, are called apathetic, because quite frankly, we don't care. She is blinded by her own fairy-tale, she forgets about the big picture. She sleeps, unaffected, while the world slips by. Like George Orwell wrote, "Ignorance is Bliss."
I think that the poet's attitude toward Meghan is pity for she, who dreams in peace unaware of her faults. In regards to her role as a student, her actions are definitely unethical. If you don't seek truth when you are learning how to, then you won't seek it when you already know. This can relate to our class discussion on motivation. Meghan lacks motivation in class, when you should be more eager. A few years later, will her journalistic work be trustworthy? Meghan can be a potential Stephen Glass, a fraud. Maybe in her daze, she'll make up a story, that the world will believe, but that's already happening.
I see Meghan as not being very interested in the class material she’s studying. She probably knows it’s important, but can’t bring herself to care about it. She goes to class, which she probably feels will help her learn something, but she doesn’t put any effort once she is there. She’s basically a warm body (presumably) the back of the room. The poet seems pretty pissed at her, and most likely judges her for not staying awake. The line about looking “like a fairy-tale princess with a piece of poisoned apple caught in her throat” seems kind of malicious, saying that she’s nice on the outside but not so much on the inside. I’m assuming the poet is her professor, so of course he or she would be annoyed by someone sleeping in class.
Meghan’s attitude is wrong, but one I can completely relate to. I’m sure most people have taken a class that they hate, but need to get through for whatever reason, so they put the minimal effort into it, just to get by. They frequently miss class, and when they do show up, they contribute nothing. I’m wrapping up my final GE requirement this semester, with a class that meets at 9:25 three mornings a week. I have no interest in the subject matter, but I need to fulfill the requirement, so I’m taking the class. I show up, but I never raise my hand, nor do I take any notes. In all honesty, I’m wasting my time, but I don’t see much of an alternative. Wrong? Yes. Going to change? Probably not.
One different I see between Meghan and me is that, in the subjects pertaining to my major, I pay attention. In the ones I see helping me pursue my career, I focus, and put my best effort into. If she’s taking an ethics class, it’s probably because it’s required by her major, so it would behoove her to pay attention. I don’t see her being a potential Stephen Glass. Falling asleep in class (even one where the subject matter is important) doesn’t make a person malicious. Glass lied to cover himself numerous times. He had no sense of ethics. Meghan just isn’t interested in learning about someone else’s.
Meghan falling asleep in ethics class is a representation of an attitude that is almost universal. It is an attitude of not caring. It is the representation of the “so what?” attitude that many in our world carry on their shoulders even when chaos or something that truly deserves attention is right in front of them.
The poet seems angry and disappointed in Meghan. Throughout the poem, I felt fear- the fear of another journalist walking in the dark, unaware of their surroundings and ethical requirements. “You close your eyes and it’s suddenly night everywhere and always,” said the poet as way to express that Meghan is making a sad choice nobody can undo, not even the most respectable people in history. By describing Meghan’s uninterested attitude, the poet expresses a loss of hope. I think that Meghan is a potential Stephen Glass figure because she does not care to learn or make a difference.
In addition, Meghan’s social role as a student is unethical because I think students should want to be informed. For Meghan words are just words with no meaning-words put her to sleep. For a student, words are effective, powerful and inspirational.
Meghan's attitude toward ethics is indifferent non-existent. The lines 'nothing can reach you not even the agitated ghosts of ancient philosphers' to me is pretty powerful. People take ghosts as something that would wake you up even in the most dead of sleep, but for Meghan she is so oblivious and thoughtless towards ethics, it doesn't even phase her. I also enjoy the first line of the poem, 'as if what people are is all they'll ever be'. It sums up the entire idea of the poem, and also a lot about ethics. People tend to not care about subjects revolving around their lives because they feel 'you know what, nothing ever changes, it's all bullshit, so just let it just pass you by'. That kind of thinking IS bullshit, because if you don't care about your environment or society or life, then what the hell is the point to anything at all?
Her attitude toward class as the poet puts it 'it's just words love death etc', emphasizes the point that all she hears in ethics is 'blah blah blah'. As a student, I can agree that many people just let college pass them by, disregarding the education they are receiving. The typical 'i know everything i need to know' attitude that gives a lot of college students a bad rep. So many people I know think they know so much about politics, social ethics, global issues, etc, but when you really ask them about why they believe something or what info they have to back it up, there isn't an answer. Her role as a student isn't ethical, not even close. The title student should be used loosely.
Often times I wonder why some people are attending college. Is it just a time to spend away from home? Or is it a time to live and grow up and educate yourself? Is it both? So many people take this time for granted and use it to just get by early adulthood. So in a sense, yeah Meghan is a potential Stephen Glass. If she is cutting corners now, she will most likely keep repeating the trend into her later professional years.
I feel for the professor in this poem. It must suck watching a student not give a shit about something that really relates to life, and more importantly, something that they really care about. I enjoy the last line a lot. It's like a literary slap in the face to Meghan about her poor judgment regarding ethics.
My interpretation of the poem is that Meghan’s attitude towards ethics is too simplistic and she is very close-minded. The poet pities Meghan because she is so stubborn and questions, “why wake you to see the firelight,” because everything is just black or white – to you it’s just words love death etc.
I don’t think Meghan’s attitude toward class and her social role as a student is ethical because she has to be able to approach situations from many different angles. I believe that classrooms guide our thoughts but it is ultimately up to us to think outside the box. For Meghan, the poisoned apple is her stupidity and stubbornness, her inability to think outside the box.
I wouldn’t compare Meghan to Stephen Glass because her ethical viewpoints are not flawed. She sees things as either right or wrong so hopefully, she’ll do the right thing.
The irony derived title of the story allows for the reader to implied that Meghan’s attitude towards ethics are very unenthusiastic as she is asleep in a class aimed to create more ethical individuals. The topic of ethics doesn’t interest Meghan as they are “just words” being spoken to her and rather than listen to them. When Meghan closes her eyes she is allowed to travel into her own world where ethics have no place. She has a narcissistic attitude on life as she is not paying attention to what is only in place to better her mind as a person. This is nobody’s fault but Meghan as there is no way to enforce that she retains the information being taught as this is more of an internal issue for her. This may pose more of a problem than we see from reading the text as many students may be “sleeping in their ethics classes”. People are constantly placed into situations where they must make decisions that have ethical implications to them and if people are sleeping in their ethic classes, what hope do we have that these students who will assume leadership roles in our society are making ethical decisions when half of them do not pay attention to them.
The issue here is that Meghan doesn't have an apparent attitude toward ethics — she's asleep. But not having an attitude about ethics is indifference, which my father always taught me is the opposite of love. So it would make sense that Meghan doesn't care about things on that plane of consciousness: love, death, ethics, etc.
I think that's along the lines of what the poet meant when he said, “to you it's just words, love, death, etc.” It's a pretty sarcastic line. “Oh, Meghan, don't worry. We're not talking about anything important here. 'Utilitarian,' 'epistemic,' 'love,' 'death,' 'truth,' 'life,' nothing too serious here.”
The poet is pretty frustrated. Sounds like he's felt this way before Meghan came along, judging by his sardonic tone. She probably fell asleep in the same lecture we had last class, where Prof. Good wrote “Seeing is believing” on the whiteboard, and then called the statement “bullshit.” “You close your eyes and suddenly it's night everywhere and always,” is just another way to say that. I can just hear the poet. “Like, isn't that fucking stupid. Of COURSE it's not always night when you close your eyes... How can you only focus on the surface of your eyelids, when there is so much more behind them?”
The poet also seems to think so lowly of Meghan that he likens her to a prisoner in Plato's cave who isn't even awake to see her perceived “shadow-puppet” reality. Plato's cave, where prisoners spend their whole lives strapped to a chair, watching shadow puppets dance on a fire-lit wall. All they perceive their whole lives is this one material thing. The poet is pretty positive Meghan won't be the prisoner to escape and see sunlight or nature, to see life's bigger picture. And even if she does, the poet seems pretty sure she'd be too scared to comprehend the idea of a new idea. Meghan would be too comfortable in her own little world, her perceived reality, nowhere near enlightened enough to understand Forms, let alone ethics. (Thank Prof. Jeff Miller for my knowledge of the Forms/the Cave)
Meghan's actions beg the question: is not caring about ethics unethical? Does an unethical action have to be intentional? I don't think so. It seems to me more and more in this class that actions are the greatest indicator of character. Falling asleep in ethics class, even if it was just because she had a rough night, is so oxymoron-ic and disrespectful that I can't help but think it unethical. Meghan doesn't have to be an unethical or bad person to commit an unethical act.
To sum it up, everyone's a potential Stephen Glass, because we truly know no one's intentions. Through this poem, I'm not sure if Meghan really does or does not have good intentions. Maybe she really did just have a bad night. But if she really didn't care, if she was really so bored in Prof Good's ethics class that she would fall asleep, then absolutely. If you can truly bring yourself to sleep in Prof Good's class, there must be some sort of internal light switch stuck downward, some sort of poison apple in her throat.
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