Write a 1600-2000 word, thesis-driven essay that follows MLA rules & responds this prompt.
Choosing two to four major areas of American life (such as the kind mentioned in the Newsroom quote e.g.: economics, education, healthcare, standard of living life-expectancy, science, crime) discuss whether America seems to be doing well or seems to be faltering. Is America Exceptional? Ordinary? The Gold Standard of Excellence among nations? Below the norm among developed nations?
1. For this paper you are required to use at least eight incorporations (quotations, etc.) from the documents and articles found by doing independent research.
2. Include proper works cited page that shows ALL sources used for the writing of the essay.
READINGS:
Various articles published on our Canvas class space, esp.
“Why the Rich are Getting Richer & the Poor Poorer”
“The Myth of American Exceptionalism”
by Robert Reich canvas
by Steven M. Walt canvas
You Must Find More research beyond what has been put in the module
HINTS:
The speaker in the Newsroom quote emphasizes the word “evidence” and I will be looking for exactly that as I read through your papers. Critical thinking is not about what we wish to say but about what we can say with solid proof or support.
In the first Episode of an HBO television show called Newsroom a famous National news anchor is asked while visiting a university to say why America is the greatest country in the world. He answers flippantly until he is harassed and then he fires out this toward the young woman who originally asked the question:
And, yeah, you… sorority girl. Just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there are some things you should know. One of them is: There is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we’re the greatest country in the world. We’re seventh in literacy, twenty-seventh in math, twenty-second in science, forty-ninth in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, third in median household income, number four in labor force, and number four in exports. We lead the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next twenty-six countries combined, twenty-five of whom are allies. None of this is the fault of a 20-year-old college student, but you, nonetheless, are without a doubt a member of the WORST-period-GENERATION-period-EVER-period, so when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about! Yosemite?
Now, his answer isn’t technically accurate on all issues, but is his answer right in spirit? All the presidential candidates claimed that America is “exceptional”; they only differed in a few details about what makes it exceptional. But it doesn’t take much research (or listening to daytime radio or liberal TV (MSNBC) or conservative TV (FOX News) to hear the doublespeak-the people who say out of one side of their mouth that America is great and out of the other that America is greatly messed up.
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