Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Group 1

Sandel definitely went into a lot of detail, whether good or bad who knows. The first six pages lost us a little bit because we couldn't tell where the book was going. It kind of took us by surprise that the book was about a young girl in this "art" class? Hopefully the book becomes less dense with meaningless detail and get more to the point. We didn't get a chance to discuss powers' book unfortunately due to lack of time.

5 comments:

  1. Had plenty to say about the lesbian couple who wanted a particular "trated" child though.

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  2. Umm... meaningless? I hope you don't mean Powers' "Generosity," which we're reading because it strikes yours truly as raising some of the most profoundly meaningful questions we face: questions about the very possibility of meaningful human experience as we move forward into our increasingly engineered, digitized, hive-minded, televised, entertained future, questions about our own authorship of the meanings of our lives, questions about fact and fiction and (sci-) fiction becoming fact...

    May I suggest that anyone who's having trouble with the density of this novel might consider giving a listen to the excellent audio version available at audible.com.

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  3. I've only started Sandel's book this weekend but got a good jump on Generosity before that. I do feel like tne conversation in Generosity is a little forced but raises excellent points. I'm hoping I can moves past the way the ideas are brought forward to enjoy the book more.

    I did like our discussion about selective design of our children. Ultimately, I'd see myself more of a naturalist in that sense and let the genes fall where they may as far as aesthetic decisions

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  4. Sorry, comments are messed up still. My above comment is to say that as far as likeness of the parent shouldn't be a decision, and certainly shouldn't be decided on based on a potential detriment to the child.

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  5. I agree with the above comments. Although I believe the gov't should keep out of this issue, I don't believe it is best for society to purposefully produce sub-par offspring. I think such decisions should be made with respect for the society that will inherit responsibility for the consequences of your actions. When we still have so much improvement to make as a society, why would one create more problems by intentionally bringing to life a human that requires special treatment (which requires money, time, and other resources that could otherwise be contributed to betterment of our current ills) in order for them to reach an acceptable quality of life? I believe this is a selfish desire.

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