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Part I of X
Choose one of the following two propositions and argue for its veracity/legitimacy. You must argue for one or the other, not against one or both. (The reason is obvious: the assertions themselves are directly opposite mutually exclusive propositions.)
Note to all who actually put in the effort to develop and share a well-developed/well-considered argument:
Here is my argument:
Affirmed: When the smoke clears, the lack of adequate pay is not the real problem for the middle class.
The lack of adequate pay is not the real problem for the middle class because the lack of adequate pay is s a symptom of the very same two phenomena -- one internal to the individuals and one cultural -- the U.S. and it's middle and working classes experienced almost precisely 100 year ago:
Setting the Stage
A vicious cold snap hit New York in the first week of February, 1897, but nothing abated preparations for the impending revelry. The city’s wealthiest citizens readied themselves for one of the most anticipated balls in the nation’s history -- an extravagant exclamation point on what would come to be known as The Gilded Age.
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Choose one of the following two propositions and argue for its veracity/legitimacy. You must argue for one or the other, not against one or both. (The reason is obvious: the assertions themselves are directly opposite mutually exclusive propositions.)
- When the smoke clears, the lack of adequate pay is the real problem for the middle class.
- When the smoke clears, the lack of adequate pay is not the real problem for the middle class.
Note: If you choose this proposition as the one for which you argue, you must identify something as "the real problem."
Note to all who actually put in the effort to develop and share a well-developed/well-considered argument:
- Recommendation: You should absolutely not respond to anyone who "throws stones" and "chipping pot shots" at your argument when they haven't at all presented their own comparably well-considered and developed argument for one or the other of the two propositions. If you're going to make the effort to offer something of gravitas, puerile BS criticisms don't deserve to be dignified with a response.
"You haven't earned the right to criticize others until you've exposed your own original thoughts to ridicule."
-- Momma
Here is my argument:
Affirmed: When the smoke clears, the lack of adequate pay is not the real problem for the middle class.
The lack of adequate pay is not the real problem for the middle class because the lack of adequate pay is s a symptom of the very same two phenomena -- one internal to the individuals and one cultural -- the U.S. and it's middle and working classes experienced almost precisely 100 year ago:
- Internal factor --> Intellectual torpor:
The middle-/working-class, rather than embrace the transformations before them, resist them and hew deucedly to an economic paradigm that was inexorably provisional at its inception. Indeed, even having the lessons of history harkening the dangers of so cleaving, they yet ignore those lessons, despite there being no sound reasons, only emotional ones, for doing so. - Cultural factor --> Abundant manifestations of wealth's material excesses of which enfranchised masses have no material part.
Thoughtful recollection on the Gilded Age and years that followed it reveals that the circumstance in which we find ourselves today have before been seen. History is so repeating itself that 22nd century historians likely will characterize the current era as Gilded Age redux. Indeed, so similar are the 1970s-2000s to the 1870s-1900s that unless Americans eschew their "look what 'they've' done to us" mentality and replace it with action borne of a "how can I avail myself of extant opportunity" mentality, economic historians may one day literally call the late 20th and early 21st centuries The Second Gilded Age.
Setting the Stage
A vicious cold snap hit New York in the first week of February, 1897, but nothing abated preparations for the impending revelry. The city’s wealthiest citizens readied themselves for one of the most anticipated balls in the nation’s history -- an extravagant exclamation point on what would come to be known as The Gilded Age.
(continued due to character limit)