Using RPS - Some Test Cases

1. A social movement organization had been complaining vociferously for years about the provision of impersonal, expensive, low quality medical care in the United States to those who cannot afford to pay. Now it decides to create a model health care clinic of its own, relying on donations and on voluntary labor to service its clientele.

Predict what will happen to its rhetoric over time, now that it is running a free clinic. Will it become more or less strident in its opposition to the medical establishment?

2. You are seated at lunch across from a rather pompous, easily irritable individual who happens also to be a prospective employer looking you over for a much-needed job. Unknown to him, the employer has a piece of fish on his chin which you find so distracting that you are unable to respond effectively to his questions. The piece of fish refuses to fall off the chin of its own accord and you feel impelled to do something. What should you do?

3. As a professor who routinely deals with controversial subject matter in class, you recognize the value of not imposing your views on your students. However, you have just shown them a powerful documentary critical of the religious Right, and you strongly support the sentiments of the documentary maker. Do you conceal your strong feelings, on the assumption that educators shouldn't advocate, or do you share your feelings on the assumption that a professor's job is to profess?

4. Your research on Victorian England reveals that the term "child abuse" did not enter into the general vocabularly until late in the 19th century. What do you entitle your research article: (1) The "Discovery" of Child Abuse; or (2) The Discovery of "Child Abuse."