Ideas of the Enlightenment
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- Category: English
- Date Submitted: 02/01/2010 12:27 AM
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Task 1.
A change toward a new world
The central ideas of the Enlightenment movement were to look ahead and improve the world around us. Not only being able to find out more about the world and the nature phenomenons, looking away from what the church said, but also how to get better as a person and follow the rules and laws. We looked at some texts where the enlightenment and it's ideas are reflected.
Jonathan Swift wrote one time a essay, explaining the society he lived in. How the rich people got richer and the poor, poorer. He wanted everyone to divide the goods, so everyone could be equal. As he states in his essay, “Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients: Of taxing our absentees at five shillings a pound: Of using neither clothes, nor household furniture, except what is of our own growth and manufacture.” He describes the poverty and why the poor people are poor. This is the society, and as stated above, it's horrible and unfair. It's out of range. Something has to change to make the world better. The new ideas of the Enlightenment was improving this problem.
In a other essay written by Benjamin Franklin, “The art of virtue”, we learn how some people wanted to be better as a person. How they changed themselves and their lifestyle, in a way other people did not want to understand. Franklin used a form of sets and rules he had to follow each day for the rest of his life. Not a form saying you had to do this, or you had to do that. It was a form of basic virtues. Where you could make a black spot on each virtue and “see where your moral weaknesses lied and where you had to strive to improve yourself”, as it is written in the text book. This method affected people, and others wanted to try it too. As for the idea of being better as a person, it worked. People became nicer and more thoughtful for the people around them. These two essays were some of the central texts in the Enlightenment period.
We also looked at a picture in class. A...
A change toward a new world
The central ideas of the Enlightenment movement were to look ahead and improve the world around us. Not only being able to find out more about the world and the nature phenomenons, looking away from what the church said, but also how to get better as a person and follow the rules and laws. We looked at some texts where the enlightenment and it's ideas are reflected.
Jonathan Swift wrote one time a essay, explaining the society he lived in. How the rich people got richer and the poor, poorer. He wanted everyone to divide the goods, so everyone could be equal. As he states in his essay, “Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients: Of taxing our absentees at five shillings a pound: Of using neither clothes, nor household furniture, except what is of our own growth and manufacture.” He describes the poverty and why the poor people are poor. This is the society, and as stated above, it's horrible and unfair. It's out of range. Something has to change to make the world better. The new ideas of the Enlightenment was improving this problem.
In a other essay written by Benjamin Franklin, “The art of virtue”, we learn how some people wanted to be better as a person. How they changed themselves and their lifestyle, in a way other people did not want to understand. Franklin used a form of sets and rules he had to follow each day for the rest of his life. Not a form saying you had to do this, or you had to do that. It was a form of basic virtues. Where you could make a black spot on each virtue and “see where your moral weaknesses lied and where you had to strive to improve yourself”, as it is written in the text book. This method affected people, and others wanted to try it too. As for the idea of being better as a person, it worked. People became nicer and more thoughtful for the people around them. These two essays were some of the central texts in the Enlightenment period.
We also looked at a picture in class. A...