Francis Bacon and Darwin

Bacon

Bacon uses the term idols in a negative way. He doesn't mean people worship them but rather that they obstruct a person's ability to correctly perceive the world around them. This is bad word choice and does not convey his meaning very well. To me the Idols of Marketplace would have the most effect on people because we seem to take seriously the things others say. A good piece of our personality and views are shaped by the people we know. It's hard to judge an idols' distortion of the truth so we can only estimate.
The Idols of Tribe and Cave are the ones created by inner reflection and those of Marketplace and Theater are made by social interactions. To truly be free of idols you would have to be more open to all ideas no matter where the come from to gain the most true view of life. A hermit would be to consumed with Idols of the Cave and would never have them corrected by other people.

Darwin

Darwin's survival of the fittest means exactly what it says, that the strong will survive and thrive while the those not strong will fail. Natural selection is part of this theory because it is a tool to achieve maximum strength in the species. If there were two different colors of butterflies in the woods one brown and one pink which one would survive? The brown would have the best chance because it blends in better. As a consequence more brown butterflies would reproduce giving you a stronger group as a whole that can survive against predators.

Breeding is a direct and more efficient method of creating a stronger species. Scary as it is, humans are on their way to being able to select which genes they want for their child. This would create a super-species with disease resistance, smarts, and strength. Although this is not breeding per say it is very close. This would be an opportunity to create ultimate survival traits without the drawbacks such as long amounts of time and trial and error. Gene manipulation and cloning are very different though. Cloning would be a detriment to survival of the fittest because you would lack certain beneficial aspects than the non-cloned animal has but would never get to acquire.

Human social policy does have an effect on the survival of the fittest theory. If we prop up those who fail we will not be much closer to better genetics. Most of the reason why humans no longer adapt is because, in my opinion, we have what we need. In order to gain the benefit of natural selection you have to have the need to survive, humans already have that. Consider how little we've changed over the last couple thousand years. The only reason we've changed at all is because of a protein and nutrient rich diet.

Plato & Sigmond Freud

Plato

Our senses give us a very effective perception of the world and are our only means of grasping anything that happens around us... If anything is actually happening at all. It could be that we are all in the matrix and our senses are all being deceived, but most likely not. Our senses are sometimes unreliable but not very much. Optical illusions trick our eyes and hallucinations can fabricate things that aren't even there but mostly our senses will be correct most of the time. Two peoples entire perception of the world could be different, however. As long as peoples' senses are different enough their realities would be different; one person's orange may be red, another may have pink for green, and some could have no color at all.

Our materialism is in part because of our senses. A blind man can sit in any house, big or small, and as long as he was comfortable wouldn't care about the size or condition of the house because he wouldn't be materialistic. A lack of senses would probably produce closer bonds to living things than anything material. Since senses are our only means of having a reality whatsoever it is to me impossible to fathom anything but a sensory world, just as it is impossible to conjure a new color or smell in the mind.

Freud

Dreams, in my opinion, have no specific use to people. Dreams can have emotional usefulness like reuniting a person with a loved one or creating an interesting story but to say they have a specific purpose like to advise or guide you doesn't seem realistic. Your mind can create the most intriguing and/or horrifying dreams like being chased by someone or gaining supernatural powers. I have very few dreams that I ever remember but one in particular involves me exploring the jungle with a group of people. The only horrifying dream I remember are the ones where you fall of a cliff. Most people forget their dreams because they aren't important. They are usually very random and with everything people do during the day if just doesn't matter. Of course the answer is probably more scientific than just saying that it's unimportant and we're busy but we'll have to wait for science to advance enough to answer the question. Dreaming is a purely mental activity and occurs in REM sleep stages of your sleep. There is heightened mental activity during those stages as well.

V. Woolf & M. Mead

Woolf is aware of her audience and purposely leaves out any good aspects of female life. She takes special care to highlight the bad parts to get her message across to the women. She describes men laughing at women for trying to act and atrocious domestic abuse.She would say that talented women threaten their male counterparts if they are successful so men purposely attempt to keep them out. If she could convince them otherwise, women could have much larger roles in society.

Women are naturally polite and nurturing whereas men are dominating and cruel. Anytime you restrict people from doing what they love, whether it be on the basis of sex or not, you lose out on any creations they may have. There is no telling how many pieces of art or drama we have lost by restricting women from participating or keeping men away from the home.

Women are often frustrated because it's acceptable for men to be stern and order people around when in high positions. Women are looked down upon when they act domineering. We need to take notice of the flaws of old world culture and the good aspects. We should not carry any oppressive actions because of it either.

Wollstonecraft's Gender & Culture

The pernicious effects against women are numerous according to Wollstonecraft. She begins by saying women are deprived of a sense of duty if they cannot work. Men feel bad when they cannot work and she says women feel the same way and should not be always shackled to the home. She argues that women are unfairly held with contempt when they have a position of power causing many women to succumb to normal feminine role rather than living to their full potential. Realizing that a male dominated society is established through the legislature, she dislikes the laws put in place to purposefully hold women back.

Reading this essay it seems that Wollstonecraft knows women historically have always been considered property and that this is immoral. She is trying to get women to realize that their worth more than just property and that there is only minor, unimportant differences between the sexes.

The "unnatural distinctions" effectively hold women's mind captive. Things that separate people always lead to an oppressing superior class and that class always maintains its power however possible. Mindsets embedded into oppressed classes are the most successful tool of oppression that men or any other oppressor can employ.

Montessori & Dewey

Montessori's child development plan consists of kids being allowed the opportunity to learn for themselves. Children are naturally curious and will seek out new knowledge and learn it better because they have sought it out. It's no surprise that adults attempt to place restrictions and milestones for child education because we have a lack of curiosity and favor hard stats on a child's progress. Montessori has mentored and taught enough children to know exactly how children learn best and it is certainly not happening with the schools we have in place.

We have put kids in restrictive seats that allow them no personality, freedom, or ways to experience things. Most people learn better through experience, using the senses to provoke memorization. Montessori knows that school desks immobilizes the children and deprives them of freedom and consequently their knowledge.

Dewey's Thinking in Education attempts to show the importance of actually thinking for learning. He means people being challenged by real or relative problems that have an end goal of being solved instead of ones that are artificial. Dewey, like Montessori, realizes that that places at which children learn are not conducive to the learning they need. He believes that people need to experience and reflect on things which requires an environment that they can interact with the things they are learning. It also requires people to not force upon kids a quota of knowledge with the end goal only being the test but instead fixing the problem for the sake of challenge. Since people learn through experience and reflection it requires a problem to solve. These problems must involve a certain amount of familiarity so that they can be solved but also an amount of mystery. When they solve these problems they become their accomplishments and will commit better to memory.

Smith: Of the Natural Progress of Opulence

Smith's views are accurate for a time in which people and interactions are much more localized or on a very broad historical basis. However, saying that farmers are first with manufacturing and foreign commerce following later is true only in a time period where people cannot easily access their nation and the globe. In American history we put in place the homestead act in an effort to increase population in areas where little existed but had perfectly good farmland. If his theory was correct people would have already settled this area and only when all farmland was taken would manufacturing begin. Also by the late 19th century railroads were sprawling across the eastern U.S. and a few stretched into the mid-west that were primarily made to transport manufactured goods.

Another part of his theory is based around the thought that people are low-risk low-reward creatures. Being that people are less likely nowadays to start a farm, which is relatively secure (with government involvement), and more likely to work for a company or start their own business. Both of these are not only more risky, as your business could fail or your job be taken, but also more rewarding (sometimes).

People nowadays would consider stocks, bonds, and CD's as comparable investments to land. A wealthy person makes much of their money in the stock market. They essentially produce nothing but still make a lot of money through speculation, buying low and selling high. Many of our wealthiest people are not producers but instead make their money off of the producers because they have the money required. 

Galbraith & Reich

Galbraith

The premise that Galbraith makes, that America is an affluent society, is quite correct. America is around the sixth richest country in the world in terms of GDP per capita. Affluence is primarily shown through leisure, the amount of wealth an average person has to their name, and things such as the arts that demand money to be supported. Other things such as infrastructure are both a sign of affluence and a catalyst for influence. As you read Galbraith mentions that this is also important to the poor to help them get to work without having a vehicle. He does not mention how important it is to attract businesses. The wealthiest nations in the world, Qatar and Luxemburg invest heavily in infrastructure, something the united states has failed to do and is falling behind in.

Reich

A government should, for a time, attempt to provide work for routine workers who might not otherwise have it. As mentioned earlier America's infrastructure is lacking, this would be a perfect outlet for unemployed workers. This should not be government's main focus though. It should instead concentrate on the one thing America was good at in its past, which is ideas. In our nation's history we have been a developer of ideas. We arrived at the moon first, invented coca-cola, and developed technology that other countries acquired much later. The one thing we were good at is now gone. As our education system lags behind other developed countries and their children trump ours in test scores consistently, we lose our footing in the global economy. Reich describes that the stable jobs left for American workers are the ones that require knowledge. As other countries invest more in their education, more in research, and don't spend absurd amounts of money on precarious wars, the days of America as a world power will fade ever faster into history. So, in conclusion, we should attempt to carry our routine workers for a time but most of our efforts as a country need to be on maintaining our position in the world through investment in ourselves that matches that of other comparable nations.

Karl Marx & Andrew Carnegie

Marx

Marx is eloquent in an understated way. He simply takes the argument against him and disproves it to the best of his ability. Marx does leave out important aspects of the arguments and simplifies them down to the point at which the argument against him sounds absurd and pointless. His counter-arguments are effective though because he assumes his audience is either of the bourgeois class or a critical proletariat. Though I'm doubtful of communist government's effectiveness, I do feel that many issues he raises or very true and are very deserving of thought. It is unfair to automatically close your mind to these kinds of readings simply because of labels. He feels as though based on past revolutions that communism is an inevitable change. He has to try to convince people, however, because the world he lives in is so antagonistic towards the idea even though some may agree with him.

Marx views the bourgeois family very cynically. He claims that both women and children are being exploited and that the entire family is based on capital gain off of the backs of the proletariat class. He wants less inequality by giving women more rights. I think that some of Marx's views have been realized as women have been getting closer to equal pay and more social mobility. Children are now getting much better educations and are not victims of child labor. People as a whole will continue to make changes like this for the better.

Carnegie

Carnegie, although a smart man, is wrong in his thinking that the rich can distribute money better than anyone else. Only each individual person knows the needs of them and their families. His methodology is flawed in that he forgoes paying working people more in wages by instead gaining more money for the rich. Our nation at this very moment is experiencing income inequality comparable to the 1920's. It is no coincidence that people are living off of less and less money with a minimum wage that, if raised with inflation, would be $15. If Carnegie's philosophy was true regular people would be living substantially better those before them. Those who are already rich though and cannot raise any workers paychecks should follow Carnegie's book though. That method at least does benefit people a little bit as opposed to not at all.

Aristotle and the signing of the American constitution

Aristotle would have been pleased to see a large group of people working together to create a government for themselves rather than the tyranny of a monarch. Most likely though he would have assumed it to be an oligarchy given how few people were representing the greater population. That doesn't mean he would be displeased though for he seemed to like an oligarchy than a monarchy. In many ways the men who signed the constitution do not represent the idea we like to have about our government. They were all members of the gentry class of colonial life and were men well established in social and economic standing. In reality though it does well represent our government. In our representative democracy we generally elect people who are already rich and established.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Thomas Jefferson

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

 Stanton is as a very intelligent woman. She was one of the few to recognize in public that women are oppressed by men. Tons of obstructions to women's rights but she is one of the first in America to press through those long standing obstacles. She talks about the underlying hypocrisy in the Declaration of Independence and how its words do not apply to women. Accordingly she takes some of the format of the great document for her own calling it 'The Declaration of Sentiments'. Putting her paper in this way draws on the already great standing of The Declaration of Independence and creates both validity and intrigue for her cause.

Thomas Jefferson 

Freedom of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness were the words Jefferson immortalized forever for democracy. However, many argue the hypocrisy of his words due to most of the white population at the time owning slaves. I disagree. Slavery was the main driver of the economy of that time, especially in the south. In addition to that slavery was ingrained in the minds of whites as a just thing and as an obligation to civilize those they enslaved. They viewed them as 'heathens' who needed to be turned to the proper and real god. All this culminated in the justification of the system in the collective mind of most of the world at the time, including the colonies. I think that it would be wrong of us to judge them based on our values today as it would be wrong of them to do likewise. It is no more hypocritical than those who claim to be religious but yet support war and the death penalty. We realize that it is hypocritical but as we view our world right now, deem it necessary.

An examination of Thoreau's Civil Disobedience

Thoreau's ideal government

An ideal government for Thoreau, aside from none at all, would be one that truly acts as an extension of the people's will. The people cannot act out there will indirectly as the current system tries to. he would support the will of the individual. The majority would rule but the minority would still get a voice as well. He describes an instance where a clergyman threatens him with time in jail for not paying the church. His reaction is to not pay it and he suffers no consequences. Most likely he would support a government where people could easily voice their displeasure either by a simple refusal or a notification of some sort.

If Thoreau saw our government today he might like it a little more than his at his time but I still suspect he would be very displeased. He would likely want more freedom from government than we have now and more influence on how corrupt our politics have become.

Mexican War

Thoreau was concerned about the unjust use of power by his government and that it did not at all represent the people's will. The U.S. government was determined to claim land through warfare with mexico. This was what is now known as manifest destiny and through this war we acquired Nevada, California, new mexico, Utah, and Arizona. I do not think President Polk's intentions were at all ethical. It should be the right of the people judge if they are willing to wage war on another country.

Machiavelli and Rousseau's effect on America

Rousseau

Rousseau would approve of a democratic society where people have a lot of freedom and are not under oppressive tyranny of the government. He would support a ruling body that  rule as little as possible, fulfilling only the social contract. Even though he inspired the making of our constitution I do not think it would please him, because we have more of a republic than a democracy. This allows less voice from the public and more from the elitists and politicians. I do not think his vision for society is neither naïve nor unattainable. With a few adjustments to our constitution I think his ideas would be realized.

 

Machiavelli and Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was very much unlike Machiavelli but in the instance of the creation of the Declaration of Independence he would have agreed with the statement "The end justifies the means". Jefferson states that it becomes necessary to break the bonds to a government and knows that this will cause conflict. Still he and the other founding fathers press the issue of independence, knowing that the goal of independence will justify the lives lost for it. In other cases I think he would have disliked Machiavelli's principles because it is the same logic that is always used by rulers to justify their actions.

The views of Lao-Tzu and Niccolo Machiavelli

 

Lao-Tzu

Lao Tzu's view of government are optimistic and enthusiastic. He believes government's purpose is to give people the opportunity to prosper. His operation of office is basically live and let live, letting people do as they choose. That inaction largely eradicates financial problems, immoral behavior, fear, greed, among other things. The master should put themselves below the people, leading by example. The master should put themselves at the center of the circle while the world spins around them. He should stay out of the public eye, taking action when needed, so that people do the tasks mostly on their own. Essentially keeping with the Tao involves doing nothing so that it accomplishes everything.

 

Machiavelli

Machiavelli's views of government is that of a cynical and fearful leader. The prince's purpose for him is to maintain power, giving no regard to the welfare of the people. His leadership is that of an oppressive tyrant focusing solely on keeping office. His principals revolve mostly around a military basis. You must focus constantly on war and preparation for war. Heavy focus should be put on keeping people in line using fear, for if they get to much freedom they will revolt against you. He did not advise on generosity but instead supported being miserly so that you can fulfill responsibilities. His leadership is much more direct than Lao-Tzu's but many would say that it is much more practical as well.