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1. Background on this paper |
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< | In my Columbia admissions essay (relevant excerpts in bold) , I critiqued my undergraduate debate team for never encouraging us to inquire WHY we could defend both sides of any argument. I felt that this near-term investment in higher awareness would have won us more tournaments in the long run. |
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> | In my CLS admissions essay (relevant excerpts in bold) , I complained that my debate-team partners were not interested in inquiring WHY we could defend both sides of any argument. Instead, they worshiped winners "as though they had been visited by a muse," and mimicked their outward behaviors as though reproducing steps in a magic spell. I felt that our near-term disinterest in higher awareness was losing us tournaments in the long run. |
| | This semester I finally found premises
(Best,
Briefest,
First) |
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< | that would permit me, I believe, to write that account. But I want to play with magic just a little bit longer. In each section of this paper, I first paraphrase the model/narrative/world-view of a popular authority; then I defend strange positions in light of these models. |
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> | that permit me to write an account for why anything can be argued. I'll save that for my third paper. |
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< | Comment ruthlessly. Attack, defend, ruin my grade, ramble on a random inspiration. [Then email me, so that I can get the last word.] As always, I am trying to provoke, if not dispute, dissonance. |
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> | In this paper, I apply my four-step process. In each section, I first paraphrase the model/narrative/world-view of a respectable authority; then I announce a position that's defensible in its terms.
Comment ruthlessly -- attack, defend, ruin my grade -- then email me, and I'll defend my position in response.
As always, I am trying to provoke, if not dispute, dissonance. |
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< | Many people have commented that this is an unusual paper. |
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> | People have commented, inter alia, that they don't know what they're supposed to say. |
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< | POSITION: I know. I'm trying to save my less idiosyncratic paper idea for the third exercise -- in which the school encourages us to pretend not to be ourselves -- in which, as in sibling rivalries and pissing contests,
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> | POSITION: That's a valid response. Keep them coming. I'll give you a less frustrating paper in the third exercise -- the exercise that the school encourages to pretend to not be written by a person -- the exercise in which, as in sibling rivalries and pissing contests,
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| | Long peers learned to long
To be ranked by uniform
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< | Not in spite of it.
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> | Not in spite of it.
-- the exercise that you probably won't read anyhow. |
| | -- AndrewGradman - 31 Mar 2008
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Position:
1. [revised cover letter]: "That is why I want to work for Bristol-Myers Squibb: I trust their opinion, more than I trust the opinion of a private nonprofit with a private agenda, because it is the function of a publicly traded corporation to answer this question correctly.
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< | 2. Die Gedanken Sind Frei is the name for the competitor's antidepressant. |
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> | 2. Die Gedanken Sind Frei is the competitor's antidepressant. |
| | -- AndrewGradman - 04 Apr 2008 |
| | -- SandorMarton - 05 Apr 2008 [paraphrased by AndrewGradman - 06 Apr 2008] |
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< | Actually, I don't think that " the absence of profit motive helps us predict much. |
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> | Actually, I don't think that " the fact that there's no such think as a profit motive helps us predict much. |
| | The corporation appears to have a survival motive, like any legal person, because the opposite of profitability is death. I think that gives the act of Investing some moral weight: Investors tie CEO pay to some opaque algorithm balancing near-term and long-term stock price; then they increase the price of those stocks for which the CEO's rhetoric about present assets symbolizes growth in discounted long-term profitability. Investors are just gambling on the order in which corporations will die. |