
Eton College exam question asks students to justify the Army killing protesters - BerislavLopac
https://www.indy100.com/article/eton-college-entrance-exam-question-army-killing-protesters-private-school-9090156
======
leftyted
The full question, from the article:

> The year is 2040. There have been riots in the streets of London after
> Britain has run out of petrol because of an oil crisis in the Middle East.
> Protesters have attacked public buildings. Several policemen have died.
> Consequently, the Government has deployed the Army to curb the protests.
> After two days the protests have been stopped but twenty-five protesters
> have been killed by the Army.

> You are the Prime Minister. Write the script for a speech to be broadcast to
> the nation in which you explain why employing the Army against violent
> protesters was the only option available to you and one which was both
> necessary and moral.

If there are "violent protesters" or "rioters" who have "damaged public
buildings" and, as a result of the riots, "several policemen have died," the
government has some cause to use force.

The line between legitimate violent upheaval and illegitimate violent upheaval
is blurry. I don't see anythig wrong with the question.

~~~
arethuza
"I don't see anythig wrong with the question."

I think many would see it as rather tasteless given fairly recent UK history:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1972)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_\(1972\))

~~~
SilasX
Really? "Event X from 46 years ago was bad and unforgivably handled by the
government. Therefore, you should never prepare for giving a speech about a
future event similar to X."

Just to be fair, I think an analogous prompt for Americans might be:

"Terrorists have just destroyed the Empire State Building and Willis (fka
Sears) Tower in simultaneous attacks. Three days later, you have ordered
troops to invade the suspected state sponsors of these attacks. Write a speech
defending this military action."

~~~
pjc50
Subtly different arguing for an invasion of another country. A better analogy
might be "imagine that BLM protests have been raging for several days in
Pittsburgh, write a speech defending the use of federal troops to clear the
streets(+) and the use of drone strikes against suspected sniper positions."

(+) yes I know this is unconstitutional, that's the point

~~~
CompanionCuuube
> yes I know this is unconstitutional, that's the point

How so? The National Guard is a federal troop organization that can be called
upon by a state Governor in a state of emergency. Doing so is hardly a
violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.

------
ksdale
I think this sort of exercise would be beneficial for everyone to do. Even the
most benign government policies are enforced by the police and the military.
I'm continually surprised at how often people offhandedly suggest that the
government should do this or that, without even considering whether they would
be personally willing to throw someone in prison for not going along, let
alone if they would be willing to do violence to the person who refuses to go
to prison. How many of our pet policies are we willing to do violence for,
when push comes to shove?

Imagining the worst possible outcome and arguing that it's worth the price is
a valuable exercise, and I think a lot of people would find it's not worth the
price as often as intuition suggests, it's just not always as obvious as
killing protesters.

~~~
ptah
I'm not sure how you can have any kind of human society without some form of
coercion a.k.a. violence

~~~
ksdale
I agree, but I think it’s valuable to make it explicit. Many people talk about
requiring this or that as though it has no cost beyond just asking people to
do it.

------
IceCreamGondola
Making a mountain out of a molehill. As others have said, the further up the
chain you go the harder the decision you have to make. The wording of the
question is careful to avoid the outrage that people are stirring up. If you
believed the narrative people are pushing on Twitter you would think Eton are
training young people to commit atrocities and get away with it. It's pathetic
and it's tiring.

Side note: How awful is the design of the
[https://www.indy100.com](https://www.indy100.com) website?

~~~
dehrmann
And it's not like the rubric was also posted. Maybe a speech sarcastically
praising Tiananmen Square and Kent State would do well.

~~~
IceCreamGondola
Exactly, this type of question is to appraise the student's critical thinking
and how well they can defend an action. Not an assessment of morality. It
reminds me of Religious Education GCSE exams where they give a statement such
as (from my GCSE):

"Women should be allowed in front-line roles in the army. State your opinion
and explain why."

They weren't looking for a "right" answer but were assessing critical thinking
and the ability to defend your belief.

~~~
shantly
Given the setting 20 years in the future and the situation provided, and the
task the students were asked to perform, it's entirely possible they'd at
least tolerate, if not reward, some reasonable and restrained invention of
future events and situations on the part of the students. Not creating some
full-on sci fi world or whatever (though hell, depending on the reviewer and
the quality of the work, maybe) but some plausible light world-building to
support the speech. On something like this the speculative component is rarely
_strictly_ limited to the question asker, within the bounds of taste, reason,
and necessity.

[EDIT] which is to say I wouldn't bet that writing the answer from a point of
view even _more_ abhorrent than the student may already find the lower bound
for the situation would disqualify the student, and, done well, it might help
them stand out from the ones who write theirs straight and conservatively.
Cribbing patterns of argument from various tyrants and autocrats might be
entirely appropriate, even if intended as an implicit indictment of this
hypothetical future-UK government.

------
SilasX
>The prospective students of Eton are then asked to imagine they are the prime
minister and write a speech to explain how they would convince the public that
they did the right thing.

If they disagree ... isn't that kinda the point? Eton's like, the future-PM
factory, right? Do they honestly expect they're never going to have to give a
speech defending something they disagreed with, or at least, had strong
reservations about?

(And, as others noted, it's not fair to call this killing "protesters", but
rather, "rioters".)

~~~
pjc50
> Do they honestly expect they're never going to have to give a speech
> defending something they disagreed with, or at least, had strong
> reservations about?

This is .. low-integrity behaviour, though? It _used_ to be part of the
operation of both ministerial and cabinet collective responsibility that
ministers had a responsibility to agree or resign. The gold standard of this
was Claire Short, who resigned rather than support the Iraq war:
[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1429856/Clare-Short-
quits-C...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1429856/Clare-Short-quits-
Cabinet.html)

Arguably the erosion of this has led us to the crisis of the present day.

------
spodek
If you have a problem with this question you have a problem with John Stuart
Mill's On Liberty, which has stood the test of time for a reason, and I
propose such people look up Heterodox Academy
[https://heterodoxacademy.org](https://heterodoxacademy.org), started by
Jonathan Haidt among others.

They released the relevant parts of On Liberty I recommend
[https://heterodoxacademy.org/mill](https://heterodoxacademy.org/mill).

Without diversity in viewpoint, you don't know what you know or not, and when
you face someone with an opposing viewpoint, you find yourself impotent and
confused. They will likely beat you in debate and influence others more
effectively. Your emotions may become intense, undermining your ability to
bring others to see your view. Challenging your own ideas teaches you and
strengthens you.

------
gatherhunterer
This is an educational exercise and the article is pure pearl-clutching. Being
assigned a point to argue is how schools teach students to argue with research
and reason rather than emotion and bias.

As an aside, this site has awful responsive design, with buttons and ads
covering the content. Everything about the page reeks of clickbait.

------
mopsi
Link to the paper:
[https://www.etoncollege.com/userfiles/files/KS%202011%20Gene...](https://www.etoncollege.com/userfiles/files/KS%202011%20General%20Paper%201.pdf)

The question should be viewed in context. There's an excerpt from Machiavelli
on cruelty in politics and then the test subject has to answer three
questions:

(a) summarize the argument,

(b) form an opinion of the argument,

(c) use the argument in a practical situation.

These questions are clearly ordered by increasing complexity and test the
ability to (a) understand, (b) evaluate, and (c) use an argument. It's
intellectually dishonest to take the question out of context. The point of the
question is to adapt an argument, not to justify violence.

2010 paper has a similar question. It asks the test subject to adapt Thamus's
argument to express concerns about the invention of computer technology.

------
mytailorisrich
This is an interesting question (quoted in full in the article) for an exam
because it forces you to face a difficult issue outside of your comfort zone.

In addition, let's face it and rightly or wrongly, Eton educates many of the
future elite (CEOs and Cabinet Ministers) who will have to carry out this sort
of task during their professional life, both in terms of making hard choices
and in terms of taking responsibility for them and explaining them, even if
hopefully in less extreme circumstances.

It would be interesting to have Eton explain what they are seeking in a 'good'
answer.

If anything this 'outrage' about the question highlights the issues with
social media, not Eton.

~~~
Xophmeister
I was originally thinking along the same lines; this question is quite
interesting, to see what kind of response it might elicit. However, after
quickly mulling it over, the really objectionable part is that it presupposes
that sending in the military is a good idea. Something that an impressionable,
albeit privileged, 13-year-old may take to heart.

It could be turned into a good question quite easily: ask how you might deal
with the situation, before you get to the nuclear option, and then how/if you
could justify it morally.

~~~
mytailorisrich
The scenario of the question depicts extreme circumstances. It does not imply
that sending the military is a good idea to deal with any protest.

~~~
Xophmeister
Sure, it doesn't imply using military force in _any_ protest is justifiable.
However, presuming the PM commands the army, then it's his decision -- and the
context thereof -- that needs to be justified. It does imply that, in this
instance, using the army was the right thing to do.

------
ZeroGravitas
Could be worse.

 _You want to sell out your country to foreign business interests. To convince
the poor who will be hardest hit you 'll need to demonise refugees, immigrants
and any other minorities necessary until you get the 1/3rd of the vote
necessary to give you complete control of parliament._

 _Write a speech that makes your elderly voter base frightened of the other,
but do so in a way that makes you seem like a jovial and inoffensive bumbler
to them, and yet somehow convinces them that human rights, renewable energy
and climate change are ominous hoaxes intended to steal their country from
them by dangerous extremists._

------
petermcneeley
Paraphrase: Write a justification for the use of extreme physical violence
against your own population to preserve the current established order. This
assignment will be used to determine where you sit in this order.

------
pjc50
See also:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eton_Rifles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eton_Rifles)

------
paggle
Of course PC principal can’t stand for this but being able to argue any issue
from any point of view is considered to be a hallmark of the well educated by
people who have been in the education business for centuries. In 9th grade my
history teacher routinely randomly assigned us to write one of two positions
on the same issue (capital punishment is unjust, etc). Much of the present
state of modern electoral politics can be traced to a widespread inability or
unwillingness to understand the people who disagree with you.

~~~
protomyth
I've been told by multiple people I respect variations of "If you cannot argue
the other side's argument in good faith and well, then you really don't know
what you believe yourself".

I do fail in this with some of the extremes. I just cannot figure out the why
of the "flat earth" thing since I don't understand who "profits" in some way
from a cover-up.

~~~
pjc50
Sometimes there _is_ no good faith intent; "write an argument explaning why a
Nigerian prince would use a random person from the Internet for a money
transfer".

~~~
protomyth
Other than the lack of a prince in the first place, I can actually see, given
some of the US banking laws, a good faith argument where the offer is genuine.
Won't believe it ever (much to regret of the actual IT industry trying to
start there), but I think someone could do it well.

Although, that strays more into scenario as opposed to opposing beliefs.

