The author states, “While this country cannot dictate to the government of Singapore, no one should fail to exhort it to behave mercifully.” Both dictate and exhort have to do with telling another person or group what to do. What shades of meaning distinguish the two words as used in this sentence? Look the words up in a dictionary if you need to clarify their meanings.

SIMPLIFIED: Both dictate and exhort are about telling someone what to do. How are the words different, especially thinking about how they're used in this sentence? Use a dictionary or the internet to see the exact definitions, and then discuss how the two different meanings are important here.

TIPS:

What does dictate mean? What does exhort mean? Reread each sentence, substituting the definition for each word.

Why can’t we dictate the behavior of another government? What obligation might we have to “exhort” it to behave decently?

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to kill a mockingbird basically is about a lawyer who goes against everything in a racist society like at the time of this novel, to defend a black man accused of sexual abuse. in the bible there are cases like that of joseph, who was accused by the woman of potifar, for a crime similar to that of tim robbinson, of that novel (genesis 39: 1-20). at this point we see that god also provides the escape to joseph, who was accused unjustly, but in his time, and through his attitude, his faith was not shaken, and god provided the solution. the perspective of god also written in the bible and not pay evil with evil. (ephesians 4: 32, 1 thessalonians 5: 15, 1 peter 3: 9). atticus, the lawyer, demonstrated during this lee novel, empathy, love of neighbor, understood the situation of this accused man. he went against everything in that society, and stood in favor of that man, for the injustice committed. this shows the empathy, the love taught by christ, in some passages that speak of love and justice in the sermon of the beatitudes (especially verses 6 and 7 of matthew 5).

may i see the passage?