Assignment task:
If you had to restart society from scratch, what rules would you make? Who would be in charge? In this week's assignment, you will put yourself in the position of drafting a new social contract.
It might be helpful to conceive of this in the context of a fictional scenario. Imagine that you are enjoying a pleasant vacation on a cruise ship, only to find that a global nuclear war has broken out. The only survivors left on the planet are the few thousand passengers and crew on the cruise ship. Since governments, as you knew them no longer exist, it is up to the survivors to "restart" society.
In this fictional scenario, consider the following questions:
- What should the rules be?
- What kind of rights and protections would everyone have?
- What responsibilities would they have?
- Who should have the power to make decisions?
- Should society be divided into "groups" or "classes"?
- How would disputes be handled?
In other words, what kind of government should the survivors adopt?
In one single-spaced page or roughly 500 words, answer these questions. Make sure that you reference the lesson concepts covered this week. You should answer the questions in detail. Be sure to provide logical justifications for your answers.
Note that such a scenario is unlikely to ever occur, but it is useful in providing a conceptual springboard for this assignment. Don't get too caught up in the fact that the scenario is one of science fiction.