As you know, this is a weird week. The college will be closed on Monday and Tuesday; we meet as usual on Wednesday, and then Thursday is an institutional Monday! This week, for the first time this semester, I am asking you to read two different authors, Jean Jacques Rousseau and William Blake. We are also moving this week from The Enlightenment to Romanticism, the next major period in western intellectual history. In Wednesday’s class, I will give an overview of Romanticism, but we will primarily be working with Blake’s poetry, so be sure you have them available to you in class. This week’s reading’s are in Volume E of the Norton Anthology. Reach out to me if you have any questions. Happy Fall!
1. Rousseau, The Confessions (excerpt):. Read the short excerpt from Rousseau’s autobiography, The Confessions. This is in volume E of the Norton Anthology. Please respond to any two of the Rousseau discussion questions (I am sharing these in a separate post.). Your responses should be posted by Wednesday, September 28th.
2. Foundational Documents of Democracy: One expression of the Romantic spirit of the late 18th century is a changing vision of the meaning and function of government. Please read the preamble to the U.S. Declaration of Independence (pp.18-19 in Vol. E of the Norton Anthology – the paragraph that begins “We hold these truths to be self-evident….”) and The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (pp. 21-23). Please identify one concept from either document that seems to you to be particularly noteworthy – either historically or in our own era – and share it below. Be sure to explain why this idea stands out for you. These observations should be shared by Friday, September 30th. Then please read your classmates’ responses and comment on at least two of them by Sunday, October 2nd.
3. William Blake: In advance of Wednesday’s class, please read the following poems: “Introduction” (this is untitled), “The Lamb”, “The Tyger”, “Chimney Sweeper” (There are two poems with this name; please read both.). You can find these poems in Vol. E of the Norton Anthology. Look up any words that are unfamiliar to you, and be prepared to discuss these poems in class. Our work with William Blake will continue after Wednesday’s class, so expect a second Blake-related assignment to be posted as part of Week #6.
For The Declaration Of The Rights Of Man And Of The Citizen what stood out to me as note worthy was “10.No one ought to be disbursed on account of his opinions , even religious , provided their manifestation does not derange the public order established by law”. Back when this was passed I feel like it didn’t apply to all sets of people. There were people still bashed on and attacked for their preferences and the law didn’t act until further down the years. An example being gay people.
I completely agree with you; it is possible that for many people, these types of “rights” did not apply to them; it was like this division of acceptance and privilages for some, but for many others, these rights were not applied, and even women could not fully benefit from these rights that were supposed to be for all citizens.
I agree with you that all people should have a voice, no matter their background. A problem I have right now was the fact that people are bringing too much religion into politics, when clearly according to amendment 1, there should be a separation of church and state. Anything to do with anti-abortion and anti-gay rights, I hear religion be brought up multiple times, that god said it was wrong. I am not saying that people with religion shouldn’t voice their beliefs, but to be forcing that belief on everyone through politics is just wrong.
I guess this would depend on what one believes does or does not “derange the public order”! You make a good point!
An idea that stood out to me in the Declaration of Independence is how the colonies wanted to sever all political ties with Britain yet in the modern day, they are one of the strongest alliances that the United States has. Many of the organizations that the United States leads such as the United Nations or NATO is also lead along list with Britain.
I agree that back then, the US wanted to sever ties with Britain due to the history between the countries we are all aware of. As we all started to progress, the nations became stronger as alliances.
What stood out to me in The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen it’s that we can find that “natural and imprescriptible” rights are defined as freedom, property, security, resistance to oppression and that the necessity of the law follows from the fact that “…the exercise of the natural rights of each man has only those limits that assure the other members of the same society the enjoyment of these same rights”. Therefore, the Declaration sees the law as “an expression of the general will”, intended to promote this equality of rights and prohibit “only actions harmful to society”. Likewise, it recognizes the equality of all citizens before the law and justice. And finally affirms the principle of the separation of powers.
I agree that the aspect of separation of powers is very significant in these documents because it established the framework of a democracy. This is important because it was implemented as a way to ensure that the government was never again able to have unconditional power. The fear of tyranny was significant in this shared power structure, a system that was later adopted by many governments.
I do agree that separation of powers is significant in a democracy as it prevents one group from having too much power. But I don’t think the separation of powers is as effective in our current government.
Something that was interesting to me was that the decision was made to write the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen as a document that would be easy to read and fairly simple. This suggests that the intention was to direct this document toward the common people. Keeping it fairly simple to comprehend allowed for the people to know their rights and emphasised the idea that government was meant to accommodate to the people and ensure their wants and needs were met.
I agree, that they made the document simple to read for the common people to understand since often times the government makes documents that can only be understood by the upper class which is a small portion of the population.
I agree with you because they wrote this declaration of independence in favor of people with government-related powers.
yes I also feel like certain documents favor some more than others
In the U.S. Declaration of Independence we have in the first sentence “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”(18). In these lines its stating that every men is granted with natural rights by birth however, certain rights have been denied to men of color throughout the years and it still occurs even though its the first sentence of the Declaration of Independence.
I completely agree that the colored people have been a victim of deniance of their first sentence.
I agree with you because it’s clear how they didn’t consider the rights of women and people of color when writing the Declaration.
I agree with this that people of color have been denied many rights and connections to resources. I wrote about this in my comment.
I agree , the declaration sometimes seems to contradict itself when it comes to certain people
One thing that stood out to me in The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen is that the ideas are very similar to the ones in The Declaration of Independence. This is interesting because the French believed that if the colonies were able to find their freedom then it should also be possible for them as well.
Yeah, they are similar if compared to one another.
Correct. The closeness of these two events is NOT a coincidence. The French supported the American Revolution philosophically and with money.
I agree with the last sentence, if I remember correctly, the American Revolution had inspired the French Revolution. It was basically a “if they are able to do it, so can we” moment
what stood out to me in the Declaration of Independence, was “Government are instituted among Men deriving their powers from the consent of the governed”, this was said to give more power to the people, preventing a monarchy from ever arising. Yet by “people”, it is very vague. As the current generation (Gen-Z) felt as if their voice aren’t being heard in politics, the current government seem to be more fit for the older generation. Not many people from my generation are happy with the current political state.
I agree that many people of our generation don’t feel their beliefs represented in politics but at the same time that should give us the push to participate more and get out for more elections that aren’t just national but local too.
I agree that we aren’t being heard and their explanation would be that they have “experience” and the “knowledge”. Yet, we are under a government where our voices should also be heard.
What do you think would inspire more people of your generation to work to change the system from within, to be sure that their voices are heard, and that their views are being represented by the government?
The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen states that “men are born and remain free and equal in rights.” Stating that everyone has the right to private property, liberty, and resistance to oppression. This is a very large step in equality and justice for all.
I disagree with you because it wasn’t “equality and justice for all”. Similar to the Declaration of Independence, they are referring to only the white men who are born free and equal. They had no regard for women or people of color.
I agree that it was a step in equality but they only included white men which seems like it cancels out when they say “men are born and remain free and equal in rights.”
I believe otherwise since not everyone had equal rights and justice for all. This did not include women or people of color.
The fundamental principle of the Declaration of Independence is “that all men are created equal”. This is ironic to me because the men who wrote this declaration were seeking freedom from Great Britain, yet they themselves were slave owners who bought and sold humans. So when they are referring to “all men”, they actually meant only white men.
I strongly agreed with you and don’t forget that during the time that they were writing the Declaration of Independence it was slavery time and they didn’t think about other colors of people only white.
I agree with your statements as they bring a great point towards the ideas founded in the declaration. The founding fathers never intended for non white men to be included in the freedoms that were being fought for.
I agree with the irony of that statement. How are you going to say all men are created equal and not have all men be equal? It’s true though that at that time slavery still hasn’t been abolished but it’s still ironic.
In the Declaration of Independence Rights, the sentence that stood out to me is 11, “The free communication of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the right of man; every citizen then can freely speak, write, and print, subject to responsibility for the abuse of this freedom in the cases determined by law.” It seems to me wear and tear because before the movement for women’s rights, women could not do their movement for more reasons than to do other actions. Conversely, they said every citizen could freely speak, write, and print.
This also stood out to me because they said that every citizen can speak freely and have all these rights but they were only talking about the pure white men.
I fully agree with you and I’d like to add that even to the modern day they still shut down voices, even if “guaranteed by the law”. Two examples that come to mind are when they were killing and shutting down leftist movements in the 20th century as well as how the Black Lives Matter protest were met with much violence.
One idea that stood out to me while I was reading the Declaration of Independence was “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it…” This is because the American people have no power in changing or getting rid of the people who make the most powerful decisions in this country- The Supreme Court. What we have seen as of recent, shows the flaws in the systems that would be set up after the declaration that ultimately go against it as well.
This is very sad but true. I feel like the declaration applied to the things that were happening at that time. Seeing that our society today is going against some of the major ideas makes me feel like we should revise it to fit this developed society.
The idea that stood out to me in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was point number 4 on page 22 where it states “Liberty consists in the power to do anything that does not injure others…”. This stood out to me since liberty was defined to be anything that does not hurt others but why weren’t people of color given this same type of liberty, instead they were only being hurt or injured by the whites. The following point precedes with stating “The law has the right to forbid only such actions as are injuries to society” if it states this then why were the minority restricted from a lot of things. For example, many women and people of color were not allowed to vote, this was only hurting society since not being able to vote was restricting the minority from their resources.
I love the ideas you pointed out because I was thinking the same thing. It’s like the white men were only able to recognize the bad when it would put them at disadvantage. But they turn a blind eye to everybody else and treat them as unequal.
One excerpt that i found interesting from the preamble of the Declaration of Independence is ‘That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.’ The reason why I chose this is because it only talks about men and nowhere in the preamble this is said about women.
Women were denied many rights from the start and some of it may still follow in this era.
I agree with you that the Declaration of Independence excluded many people when it was written. Not only were women excluded, but men of color and white men who owned no land. It is a sad truth of the origin of this country and the devastating effects this had still linger in our modern world today.
I think one thing that studded out to me from The Declaration of Independence is that they tried doing it the peaceful way but for it to work out.” They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity”. It shows that there was no other way but to declare war on them and gain our freedom.
The quote “or, is it not more rational that her love or pride has received?” by Wollstonecraft was the most memorable. He argued that Rousseau’s idea that women need to learn how to please their husbands is not only true, but it also implies that women will try to please other men when marriage gets more strenuous. It made sense to me, as people would expect me to become a painter instead of a car mechanic. Wollstonecraft also believed that women should be treated as individuals instead of being partners with men. This is because only by treating women as individuals can they be satisfied with being themselves.
Something that stood out to me in the Declaration of Independence was, “Government are instituted among Men deriving their powers from the consent of the governed”. To me this is very interesting in a modern context because this seems to not be true. If those who governed had the consent of the people, we’d vote everyone into power directly. However, the justices of the Supreme Court are not voted in for example. Also, we have stuff like the electoral college which takes power away from people. The popular vote choosing who is elected would be an example of those governing having the consent of the governed.
One idea that stood out to me in the preamble of the Declaration of Independence was “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” (18). This is interesting because, at the time when this was written, it only applied to white men. White women were not seen as their equals, and women and men of color were not seen as equal either. Of course, that’s changed today, but the irony of that statement is hard to ignore.
in response to number two, i would like to say that after reading both “U.S declaration of independence ” and “The declaration of the rights of man and of citizen” one concept i can share that seemed very important to me, either historical or something from our own time, would be when it stated in “the declaration of the rights of man and citizen” the following, “Liberty consists in the power to do anything that does not injure others; accordingly the exercise of the natural rights of each man has for it’s only limits those that secure to the other members of society the enjoyment of these same rights. these limits can only be determined by law”. I chose this because the first couple of words what stood out to me. I am in total agreement of the idea that liberty consists the power to do anything WHEN you don’t harm others. And unfortunately in today’s society many people take advantage of this and instead of doing what they want for their own good/benefit, they tend to have an intention of harming others.
One part that stood out to me in the Declaration of Independence was, I’m sure very well known, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”. As shown in history, although this document is proof of our victory of independence, it certainly didn’t mean “everyone”, and likely not all men either, considering the abolition of slavery didn’t happen for nearly another century, not to mention voting for people of color and women took a while as well. Being born in this country during the 21st century as a girl and person of color, it’s fortunate I am able to receive citizenship but at the same time ought to remember the things that had happened in history to lead up to this moment.
One part that stood out to me in the Declaration of Independence was, “The law has the right to forbid only actions harmful to society.” I feel like this law can be considered as subjective because there are many actions present today that are harmful to society, yet it’s become normalized. For example, use of drugs. Many people become incarcerated for it, but it’s also how others earn money with selling it as a side hustle.