Description
Choose ONE of the following topics to respond to as your discussion post this week. Your response will be your opinion, but must be supported with logic and/or appropriate facts. Proxy Tourism. In the Young Turks video, the male host justified the presence of a reporter in North Korea because “we need to know what it’s like there”. He felt the presence of other tourists was unjustified. Do you think that our ‘need to know’ through the eyes of the reporter is really just ‘proxy tourism’? Is it any more ethical for a reporter to risk his/her life for us to see, than for any of us to travel (at great risk) to see for ourselves? Political Tourism. Dr. Rami Isaac talked about tourism to Palestinian communities and refugees, and referred to it as political tourism. Do you think that all dark tourism has a political undertone? Why or why not? Ethical Responsibility. The Australian host of the audio segment questioned the ethics of tour operators going to the Chernobyl nuclear site, but did not question the ethics of his friend who purchased the tour package. Where does ethical responsibility lie: with the tourism producer or the tourism consumer? Is it a shared responsibility? Timing. In the discussion for Module 7, many students listed the site of a recent school shooting on their list of places they would not like to visit. For most, the recentness of the event was given as the reason. How do you know when a site is ready for tourism? That is, how soon is too soon to visit a contemporary dark site? How much time has to pass before the site can be experienced appropriately?Multiple Narratives. In the audio interview, one of the guests talked about there being ‘multiple narratives’ at Auschwitz. She suggested that the story of that dark site should be told from different viewpoints, but added that some viewpoints should not be shared. Who gets to decide what viewpoints are acceptable? Would it be appropriate, for example, to let racist Nazi’s explain why they thought their actions at that site were justified and moral?Classmate responses: Class members are required to comment on two (2) other posts. Comments should meaningfully add to the understanding demonstrated in the post, or pose a question to help the commenter improve their understanding. Responses may not challenge personal beliefs or values that may be shared.
