PPE – A Class for Eager Debaters

6 November 2021Maxine P, Alex ‘23

Every Thursday, as the sun begins to set, some of the school’s brightest and keenest debaters enter the debate classroom for a class known as PPE, short for Politics, Philosophy, and Economics. Taught and curated by the debate coach, Mr Bryant, PPE is the only class of its nature in the entire world. Through a variety of lectures, guest speakers, and roundtable discussions, the students earn a Philosophy 12 credit at the end of two years.

Only students taking debate as one of their arts are eligible to take part in PPE because a lot of the content overlaps with debate and the topics covered in the class are meant to aid debaters in competitions. The comprehensive course covers topics ranging from current events to religion to the ethics of vegetarianism, all while involving some sort of philosophical element. As a first-year PPE student, I have found learning about the real-life implications of philosophy really interesting. Mr Bryant claims that philosophy is “the science for higher thinkers”: it’s proof that society has evolved far enough that we can look around and form theories to explore the meaning of life.

Last year, PPE looked a little different because most of the classes were held over Zoom, but it allowed for the class to hear from some very interesting guest speakers. When covering the philosophy of religion, we hosted a rabbi, a priest, and a pujari – a Hindu priest. We loved hearing from such a variety of speakers.

Debate and Hope House Captain and second-year PPE student Lisa M, Hope ‘22 reflected on her experience last year: “It was amazing to listen to three different religious leaders and learn more about their faith. I appreciated the effort to keep our learning as broad and unbiased as possible.” The students last year were graded on a couple of essays that they submitted to various competitions including one with the New College of the Humanities in London where Lisa and Edward L, Privett ‘22 both received honorable mentions.

This year, we started with an introduction to famous philosophers and their ideas. We discussed Hobbes’ and Locke’s views on human nature, Rousseau’s social contract, and Malthus’ theory of exponential population growth versus linear resource growth. More recently, the focus has shifted towards economics as Mr Bryant who claims, “capitalism is democracy with dollars”, lectured us on Adam Smith and David Ricardo’s theories about the free market system.

Much like the larger Brentwood family, the PPE class is a small, tight-knit community because many of the students have been debating with one another for their entire Brentwood careers. These passionate students are willing to sacrifice their Thursday evenings to attend this class which attests to their love of learning. Siri Wood, Alex ‘22, in her second year of PPE, says that she enjoys the class because “you never run out of things to talk about or discussions to have.” It’s true – putting 15 impassioned debaters in a room to talk about contentious issues never results in a moment of silence.

Maxine P, Alex ‘23

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