Janet Meyers explained that today was “Senior Ditch Day” so the students were unable to attend
to read their essays. However, their essays are attached to the email with this newsletter. Janet did read the guidelines for the essay as presented by their teacher:
Using your open-ended questions, your research and the power of inquiry from last week’s unit, develop an ess on the topic of “Peace”.
How can the power of peace help us channel our moral fury in constructive ways? Discuss this excerpt from The
Art of Waging Peace:
“When people tell us about a truly unjust problem they are having, the moral fury within us can erupt like a bur ing flame. A flame is calm, but it is also intense. It is soothing, but also fierce. The flame of moral fury can be calm and soothing to those treated unjustly, while intensely and fiercely opposing the forces of injustice”.
Moral fury is an emotion, and people with empathy and conscience often instinctually feel this emotion when they witness injustice. This is a good thing. But moral fury is not a strategy. It is not a plan or roadmap for over coming the root causes of injustice. When people criticize activists for being outragted by injustice and trying to solve problems with emotions rather than reason, we should keep in mind that feeling moral fury about injustic is not the problem, and the world would be better off if more people felt outraged by the injustices that so man ignore. Instead, the problem is when people mistake the emotion of moral fury for a strategy. Moral fury is fue that can propel a strategy toward practical solutions for reducing and ending injustice.
Peace is not the absence of war but is a state of mind: individual or collective, peace is social, cultural, political, and economic harmony, Peace can also be seen as a way of being and a way of living. Intellectual dialogue should be among civilizations and should empower the youth of today. Therefore, use the prompt(s) below and support your ideas with concrete proposals to the questions at hand. But also recognize the number of existing obstacles for the realization of a true culture of peace.
In this essay, you will develop the following open-ended questions:
- What does the word “peace” mean to you and how does one promote peace in one’s community?
- Do you think humans are naturally peaceful? Why or why not?
- How can the power of peace help us channel our moral fury in constructive ways?
- How can you promote peace within your community?