Reference no: EM132583518

Assignment - Choose TWO from the following list of four questions below and answer each with a 1500-word essay.

Question 1 - "[G]reed is good.... Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit." - Gordon Gecko in Wall Street (1987).

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages." - Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations

Is greed good? Your answer must make reference to (and cite) key readings for the unit.

Key Readings:

Harari, Y. 2014. "Chapter 16: The Capitalist Creed," in Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, 341 - 373.

Pinker, S. 2018. "Chapter 8: Wealth," in Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, 65 - 76.

Schumacher, E.F. 1973. "Chapter 3: The Role of Economics" and "Chapter 4: Buddhist Economics," in Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if People Mattered, 26 - 46.

Question 2 - For the consumer, does convenience take precedence over privacy with regards to our personal data? Your answer must make reference to (and cite) key readings for the unit.

Key Readings -

Harari, N. 2018. "Liberty: Big Data is Watching You," in 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, 44 - 72.

Carr, N. "The Church of Google," The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains, 134 - 156.

Panel Discussion, Day 1 of the Future Investments Initiative 2017: 56 mins.

Question 3 - "[A Nation] is an imagined political community - and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign." - Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities.

"A Nation is a soul, a spiritual principal. Two things....constitute this soul.... One is the past, the other is the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present consent, the desire to live together, the desire to continue to invest in the heritage that we have jointly received." - Ernst Renan, "What is a Nation"

Can the "nation", as defined by Anderson and Renan, be questioned from within? Your answer must make reference to (and cite) key readings for the unit.

Key Readings -

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, Introduction.

Ernest Renan, 'What is a nation?', text of a conference delivered at the Sorbonne on March 11th, 1882, in Ernest Renan, Qu'est-ce qu'une nation? , Paris, Presses-Pocket, 1992. (translated by Ethan Rundell).

Sumathi Ramaswamy, 'The Goddess and the Nation: Subterfuges of Antiquity, the Cunning of Modernity', in The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism, edited by Gavin Flood (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), p. 551- 568.

Question 4 - Discuss the critical role that storytelling must play if we are to fully come to terms with the Anthropocene and its implications for us as a species. Your answer must make reference to (and cite) key readings for the unit.

Key Readings -

Hamilton, C. 2017. "Chapter 1: The Anthropocene Rupture," Defiant Earth: The Fate of Humans in the Anthropocene, pgs. 12-33.

Hamilton, C. 2017. "Chapter 2: A New Anthropocentrism," Defiant Earth: The Fate of Humans in the Anthropocene, pgs. 1-14 (15-25 optional).

Kingsnorth, P. and D. Hind. 2009. Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto, 1 - 11.