Robbie:
Dear political science undergraduate,
If I offended you in any way by stealing your seat, slandering you in last week’s segment, borrowing your pencils and not returning them, I’m sorry man. No hard feelings.
We need you on this group project. You’re the only political science major in the group. On our behalf, I ask you to reconsider your request for an individual project.
Aristotle’s Ethics holds that nobody could be happy without friends.
And that’s what a group project is all about. You start the project naïve and alone, and once it’s done, you’ve learned, laughed and made the best friends of your life. Me, you, that guy that’s always absent and the class’ pet hamster: We’re the Incredibles! I think that the casting here is pretty obvious.
You’re going to miss out on a good time. I’ve been preparing to have the group over on Saturday night. I’ve been slow-cooking vegan chili, meat chili and pescatarian chili, just for you man – I know you’ll never give up salmon! I’ve had an actual chalkboard installed into the wall of my apartment so we could literally go back to the drawing-board halfway through the night.
I know some of my ideas for presenting our seminar were a little too ahead of their time for their brilliance to be appreciated. Schmitt’s The Concept of the Political: Schmitt’s Creek, a parody of CBC’s Schitts Creek. Tocqueville’s Democracy in America: just a picture of Trump.
This feud of ours has continued too long. As a peace offering, I have made a marble bust of your head which you can keep on your desk in a future office. Random? Yes. But why have busts gone out of style, I ask? Who wouldn’t want one of those bad boys? (if you want a bust, contact The Aquinian; I’m in the bust business!)
With the utmost respect,
Your biggest fan,
Finn Lynn
Matt:
Of all the ancient customs that have survived thanks to mindless conventionalism, the ‘group project’ is the most defiling of them all.
The group project made sense back in the days of homo neanderthals. Our solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short lives compelled us through instinct to band together and get that A+ as a team. As Lord Acton wrote, the fullest development of our humanity is achieved only when instinct is transcended for higher ethical duties. We are homo sapiens now; we must replace crippling interdependence with individual intellectual prowess. The group project stunts human excellence by shackling one’s own merits to the defects of others.
Look, I’m the lanky nerd here – I know the brunt will be dumped on my skinny shoulders.
Mr. Lynn gravely erred in his application of Aristotle. The finest pinnacle of human excellence is achieved when man becomes magnanimous. The great-souled person is truly free because they lead the life they choose, especially when it does not suit the desires of others. This makes the great appear arrogant to the undeserving masses.
My soul is great, my virtue unparalleled. I lead the life I choose by refusing to mingle with my lesser group members. My magnanimity is so superior that you would all just drag me down. And I’m humble, too.
No law is more unjust than the mandate of the group project. My s.7 right to liberty has been deprived and is not in accordance with the fundamental principles of justice: groups are arbitrary (we can’t choose the members) and overbearing (the means are too broad). This law fails s.1 proportionality: R. v. Malmo-Levine 2003 shows that when the means grossly outweigh the objective, unconstitutionality is incontrovertible.
The Charter protects INDIVIDUAL rights. Leave. Me. Alone.
