“ original position .” describe rawls ’ “ original position ”. H u m a n i t i e s

Q1 – Fascism (one paragraph each question)
a. Define the following terms: Nationalism, Fascism, Authoritarianism, and Syndicalism/Anarcho–
Syndicalism/Revolutionary Syndicalism (1 pt.)
b. In what ways did World War I set the stage for the rise of fascism in Europe during the 1920s
and 1930s? (1 pt.)
c. Identify and describe two criticisms made against liberal republican regimes across Europe in
the aftermath of World War I. (1 pt.)

Q2 – Giovanni Gentile & Carl Schmidt (one paragraph each question)
a. War plays a key role in building up the nation–state according to fascist doctrine. What did
Giovanni Gentile and Carl Schmidt have to say on this matter? (2 pts.)
b. Although not overtly Christian in its values, spirituality plays an important role in the fascist
state. Describe how fascist regimes incorporate spirituality into the daily lives of party members.
(1 pt.)

Q3 – Hannah Arendt (one paragraph each question)
a. What is totalitarianism? What is the relationship between totalitarianism and fascism? (1 pt.)
b. What role do labor camps play in supporting the totalitarian state, according to Hannah Arendt
in The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951)? (1 pt.)
c. An observer of former SS officer Adolph Eichmann’s war crimes trial in Jerusalem, Arendt argued
that there is nothing particularly remarkable about the evil of a man who coordinated the
world’s largest genocide. What does Arendt mean when she talks about the “banality of evil”?
(1 pt.)

Q4 – Herbert Marcuse (one paragraph each question)
a. Identify and describe two characteristics of advanced capitalism (1 pt.)
b. Identify and describe one way in which the “New Left” differs from the “Old Left.” (1 pt.)
c. What does Marcuse mean when he argues that advanced capitalism is “totalitarian”? (1 pt.)

Q5 – John Rawls (one paragraph each question)
a. Like other social contract theorists, Rawls anchors his justification for the welfare state in his
concept of the state of nature, or what he calls, the “original position.” Describe Rawls’ “original
position”. To what degree would Rawls agree with Hobbes and Locke on the premise that man in inherently self–interested in the state of nature? (2pts.)

b. According to Rawls, in what context are socioeconomic inequalities just? (one paragraph each question)