A scene from the public library in Ferguson, Missouri.
This week, we’ll be posting on the English department’s Democracy Lab blog (https://blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/democracylab/). For your assignment, which will contribute to your participation grade, write a short (300-500 word post) that reflects on what you see as the urgency of one of the texts we’ve read for our present moment.
First, you’ll log in to the Democracy Lab blog; your log-in credentials should be the same as for this blog, since I added you at the beginning of the semester. If you have trouble, let me know or (better yet) call BCTC. When you write your post, keep a couple of things in mind: first, use an image that resonates in some way with your reflection (you may be as literal or as impressionistic as you like); second, remember that some of your readers may not have taken Brit Lit 2, and so may not be familiar with our shared texts. This just means providing a bit of context rather than taking for granted your reader’s previous knowledge of the text or texts you discuss.
As far as your reflection goes, I want to leave this pretty open. However, you might keep in mind that many of the literary texts we’ve read and discussed were attempts by their authors to achieve a kind of justice. Did you find any of these attempts powerful? Familiar? Frustrating? You may be as personal or as impersonal as you like in your post, but take the time to think about the relevance of these shared texts to your experience of the present moment. While I don’t believe that literature has to prove its relevance to be valuable, it is nevertheless my experience that literary texts can resonate—sometimes in surprising ways—with issues I care about.
Please post your reflection by the end of the week (11/13). Finally, take the time to poke around the blog to read posts by your classmates and fellow English department students. For full credit, leave a comment. EDIT: As Brandon pointed out, that blog doesn’t actually have a comment function, so disregard this part of the assignment. Thanks, Brandon! You will also find some links curated by faculty to relevant readings and opportunities.
Remember that this is a new project that we’d like to grow, so please don’t hesitate to share your feedback and suggestions.
1 comments
Subscripted by Impracticality
Democracy is just as vulnerable to corruption as all other governances.
In Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man, Paine is responding to the Pro-Monarchy and anti-revolutionary rhetoric of Edward Burke (Burke was commenting on the events of the French Revolution). “There never did, there never will, and there never can exist a parliament…possessed of the right or the power of binding and controlling posterity to the ‘end of time’…” (Paine, pg. 6). That statement all but envelopes the entire message of Paine’s essay (the entire remaining passages centered on the outward bashing of Burke and his viewpoints). Democracy must be pillared by a government of the people and not by the privileged few. A well-grounded sentiment: privilege leads to a decomposition of character and an antipathy for those “beneath” you. However, I would say that the corrosive element that Paine is attempting to identify is not inherently within privilege, but instead in power itself. And that corrosive element will always be present in any human endeavor that determines a winner and a loser. That separation between the victor and vanquished, no matter the magnitude of the contest, will forever lead to a distribution of that dangerous element [Power] and, perhaps in gradual steps or perhaps in leaps, lead to the segregation of mankind.
Democracy is fused by a Merit ideal, but ideals are intrinsically imaginary.
Paine rooted his democratic hopes in the actions of the people. Merit with a capital M. He believed that if all people in a society had access to power – in particular, those avenues winding towards leadership and governance – then the people would excel to meet those demands. However, the Merit Ideal cannot be practically applied because those that excel will expect others to do same and do so in the same manner. Of course, we know that not all people learn or achieve at the same levels or in the same ways; consequently, it is a concept that dies on the birthing room table.
Edwin Cadiz