Confucius said, “Everything has beauty, but not everyone can see.”

    choose one of the following topics and write a 750-900 word argumentative essay on the subject. You will get extra points if you can incorporate at least one secondary source. 1) Confucius said, “Everything has beauty, but not everyone can see.” Write about something that you see beauty in (or humor, or wisdom, or importance, or poignancy, or truth) that people don’t see as clearly as you do. It might be something that people see as uninteresting, ugly, ridiculous or trivial. They look and don’t see. Help them to see. 2) There are everyday definitions of important terms: love courage intelligence education success friendship work home family community But these everyday, common definitions might be wrong, misguided or incomplete. Write an essay where you use one of the above terms, explain how it is usually used in everyday thinking, and then explain how this usage is flawed. Then offer a better definition, a better way of understanding this term. Explain to the reader why your definition is truer, more complete, more authentic, just better in some way. 3) What is the value that you hold most importantly in your life? Why is this the value that you hold above other values? Why should this value be paramount? How does holding this value change the way you act and the way you live your life? Honesty, compassion, hard work, family, love, creativity, justice, productivity, spirituality: there are so many possible answers to this question. Your essay should not only explain why this value is important to you, but why it is the most important. 4) It used to be quite easy for people to have a common story. For people in North America and Europe, it was the Bible. Even in the 1970s and 80s, people watched the same television shows. For the educated classes it was often something like Shakespeare. But, today, we don’t all watch or read the same things, so it is harder for us to have shared stories. If you could choose one movie or novel or television show or story or book that everybody would have to read or watch so that we would have one shared text to talk about, what would that be? Why would you choose that particular movie or story? What does it teach or make us think about that we should all be thinking or learning? What makes this story so good that we would all be better if we all knew about it? Why would it be a good story for us to have in common? How would it make it easier for us to communicate with each other? What ideas or feelings or words or concepts would it allow us to share? 5) What is the benefit or harm of tradition? Is tradition a good thing? How far should we follow tradition? Does tradition help or hurt virtue/goodness? Argue this point by taking a specific tradition that you participate in, or that your family participates in. Argue for the specific benefit or the specific harm or the mix of harm and benefit that comes from this tradition.