CC0003 / Ethics and Civics in a Multicultural World

Sem 1 AY22-23

Mock Panel Topic for Week 3: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

Instructions

Assessment rubrics for the panel team assignment can be found in Appendix 3 and 4 of the
CC0003 course outline posted on NTULearn.

Panel discussions will be held to sharpen your argumentation skills and to allow you to learn from
your peers through their own challenges to your arguments. In disagreements, we often learn far
more than when we are in a room with people who agree with us.

Accordingly, a panel discussion will be a team-based assessment in this course. It will be worth up to
30% of the total grade. The general structure of the panel discussion is as follows.

• Two teams of students (Red and Blue) will present on a topic set in advance by the instructor.
• Each team will have 3–4 members.
• The panel will be held during class.
• The total duration of the presentations by the teams will be about 30 minutes. 15 minutes per
team.
• Every student participating in the presentation is expected to speak for a roughly equal amount
of time.
• During this presentation, each team should present only one coherent argument overall to
support their side of the panel discussion.
• Each team are to distribute the following presentation roles among themselves (but each role
must have at least one member assigned):

R Present the overall argument,

R Present further supporting reasons for each premise of the overall argument,
R Present replies to anticipated objections to the overall argument.

• Both teams should support their arguments with examples. Hypothetical examples are
acceptable, but real-life cases would be valuable as well.

• Following the presentations, the class will present their own replies to the teams. These can
either be objections or helpful elaborations. The teams will respond to the replies accordingly.
This will be moderated by the instructor. This part of the activity will NOT be graded.

• The panel discussion will proceed in 6 stages:

(1) Red Presentation: Presentation by all members of the Red Team,

(2) Blue Presentation: Presentation by all members of the Blue Team,
(3) Floor Preparation: Preparation time for the floor to consolidate their questions, views,
observations
(4) Floor Replies: Replies by the members of the floor for Red and Blue Team,
(5) Red & Blue Preparation: Preparation time by Red and Blue team to consolidate their
rejoinders to the replies,
 (6) Red & Blue Rejoinders: Rejoinders by Red and Blue team to the floor.

• Panelists will be given time to prepare after the replies from the floor are presented. Please
do give anyone speaking your undivided attention, and please do not make noise while they
are speaking.

 
The panel discussions will be treated as a learning exercise, not a competition. No “winner” will be
announced. Indeed, it is possible for teams facing on both sides of a panel discussion to get the exact
same grade. Your main objective in the panel discussion is not to defeat the opposing side, but to
help the whole class achieve a better understanding of the position for which your team will argue.

Panel Topic Context:

The award-winning sci-fi/fantasy writer Ursula Le Guin writes in "The Ones Who
Walk Away From Omelas", of a city called Omelas. It is a city of happiness and
celebration. It is an idyllic, almost magical place, where people are joyful, there is no
need for a king or rules, no weapons, no stock exchange or secret police.

But, she tells us that “In a basement under one of the beautiful public
buildings of Omelas, or perhaps in the cellar of one of its spacious private homes,
there is a room. It has one locked door, and no window.”

In this utter depravity, is kept a child. It is malnourished and sits in its own
excrement - covered in painful sores. No one is allowed to speak kindly to it. All it
remembers of the world outside is "sunlight and its mother's voice".

“They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas,” Le Guin writes. “Some of
them have come to see it; others are content merely to know it is there. They all
know it has to be there...the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships,
the health of their children ... depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery.”

That is the social arrangement in Omelas. One child suffers wretchedly so

that the rest can be happy. If the child were freed or consoled, Omelas would be
destroyed.

Reference:

Le Guin, Ursula K. “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.” The Norton Anthology
of Short Fiction. Eds. Richard Bausch and R.V. Cassill. New York: Norton, 2006. 454-
458.

Panel Topic Question:

“Citizens of the flourishing city of Omelas should not interfere with the known, continuous
isolation and torture of a child, if the torture of the child is what secures the flourishing
and very existence of Omelas.”

Panel Positions:

 Red Team will argue that the citizens of the flourishing city of Omelas should not
interfere with the known, continuous isolation and torture of a child, if the torture of
the child is what secures the flourishing and very existence of Omelas.

 Blue Team will argue that the citizens of the city of Omelas should interfere with the
known, continuous isolation and torture of a child, if the torture of the child is what
secures the flourishing and very existence of Omelas.

Both teams should support their arguments with examples. Hypothetical examples are
acceptable, but real-life cases would be valuable as well.