Education Commons^™

Uneasy Is The Head That Imagines The Burden, Michael Adelson

Richard T. Schellhase Essay Prize in Ethics

This paper deconstructs and criticizes the very notion of “an obligation to help humanity.” I argue that such an idea of an obligation is an evolution of the ideas that emerged in the 19^th century regarding the “white man’s burden.” Referencing historical allusions to the 19^th and 20^th century European ideas of the white man’s burden, the concept of a greater obligation to help others can be demeaning and self-aggrandizing, creating a modern, updated “new white man’s burden.” As dispositively confirmed through my own anecdotal experiences in higher education, an obligation to help humanity, specifically non-white peoples, …