Undergraduate / "Irrational Rationalism" - Pomono Course Creation Essay [3]

Prompt 1: Pomona's Critical Inquiry course is required of all first-year students, and is designed to be highly interdisciplinary and engaging. Recent class titles include: 'Molecules of the Mind', 'The Economics of Sin', and 'Punk: Poets, Politics and Provocation'. Imagine you were hired to design and teach a Critical Inquiry course. Describe the title of the class, its contents, and why you chose it.

I would design a class called "Irrational Rationalism". This course will investigate the various aspects of the rationalism movement in America and how rational thought can sometimes fail. The main focus would be on Libertarians, Atheists, and certain economic schools of thought. Students will study these different groups and learn how each is based solely upon reason, rather than emotions. Then the class will be challenged to find situations in which their beliefs failed. The class will relate these individual studies to the bigger picture. How do these schools of thought affect our political system? Where does self-interest play a role? When does emotion trump reason?

"Irrational Rationalism" will provide an unique insight to students and have them engage in new concepts. More importantly, it would improve the students ability to be curious, ask questions, and then seek the answers to those questions.

I chose "Irrational Rationalism" in response to how I see rationalist arguments construed in popular culture, and how emotional arguments are accepted as equal to intelligent ones. Humans are emotional creatures, but I constantly observe how logic thought can be set aside. In my study of economics, it is clear that Keynesian economic policies are short-term and based in "common sense". While Supply-Side economic policies are long-term and counter-intuitive to most. Economists, such as Thomas Sowell, today clearly point to the effectiveness of Supply-Side economic policies, but in the Great Recession, they meant nothing to the general public. The American Public needed assistance in that very moment, and that is where Keynes's theories come into play. This course would examine whether this event's response was more impassioned, or logical. This critical inquiry, challenging students to go against the social norms, will set the foundation for a student's time at Pomona College.

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