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The
Donkey—Presidential candidate Andrew Jackson was the first Democrat ever
to be associated with the donkey symbol. His opponents during the election
of 1828 tried to label him a "jackass" for his populist beliefs and slogan,
"Let the people rule." Jackson was entertained by the notion and ended up
using it to his advantage on his campaign posters. But cartoonist
Thomas Nast is credited with making the donkey the recognized symbol of the
Democratic Party. It first appeared in a cartoon in Harper's Weekly
in 1870, and was supposed to represent an anti-Civil War faction. But the
public was immediately taken by it and by 1880 it had already become the
unofficial symbol of the party. The Elephant—Political cartoonist Thomas Nast was also responsible
for the Republican Party elephant. In a cartoon that appeared in Harper's
Weekly in 1874, Nast drew a donkey clothed in lion's skin, scaring away
all the animals at the zoo. One of those animals, the elephant, was labeled
"The Republican Vote." That's all it took for the elephant to become
associated with the Republican Party. Despite their popularity, neither the donkey nor the elephant have
been adopted as their party's official symbol.
"If you
look back on the '60s and think there was more good than harm, you're probably a
Democrat. If you think there was more harm than good, you're probably a
Republican."
--Bill Clinton when asked what's the difference between a Republican and a
Democrat
"Somewhere in the second half of the last century mass production and mass
communication and a prosperous economy and bulging population of young
people with time on their hands got thrown in a stew with racial integration
and sexual revolution and resistance to an unpopular [Vietnam] war and out
of all that confusion came a break with the way things had been beforehand.
For shorthand, we lumped all the upheavals together as "The Sixties."
-Bill Flanagan
“If you cannot answer a man’s argument, do not panic. You can always call him names.” -Oscar Wilde
SECONDARY SOURCE: D'Souza Ch.
5: When Virtue Loses all her loveliness--Freedom and Its Abuses
- What are the
costs of freedom?
- What is
subversive/undermining about technological capitalism?
- What makes the
“authenticity ethic” the real source of the problem?
- What challenges does D'Souza present to both the left & right?
SECONDARY SOURCE:
Loewen's chapter "Land of Opportunity?"
--What's the single most important variable explaining American life?
--What is "Republican History"?
--What's the empowering myth?
--Why is a discussion of class discrimination missing?
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679):
“The Mortal God":
Leviathan (1651)
1. Does Hobbes believe that innate human nature is fundamentally fine or flawed?
2. What three drives are we born with according to Hobbes?
This
illustration from the title page to Leviathan captures the essence of Thomas
Hobbes's This The ruler is embodied by individuals who consent to his
dominance for the general welfare. All look to him and in the process lose
their individual authority, but gain stability and security. The Latin
quotation reads, "Upon the earth, there is not his like."
Thomas Hobbes was one of the
great political philosophers of the seventeenth century. His major work,
entitled Leviathan, was published in 1651 and reflects the insecurity and
fear of the English Revolution that had resulted in civil war (1642-1646)
and had just seen the decapitation of a sovereign monarch in 1649. Hobbes
himself, because of his aristocratic associations, had been forced to flee
England. Living during some of the most tumultuous times in European
history, it should be no surprise that his theories were thoroughly
pessimistic regarding human nature.
Nature has made men so equal, in the faculties of the body and mind; as that though there be found one man sometimes manifestly stronger in body, or of quicker mind than another; yet when all is reckoned together, the differences between man and man, is not so considerable. . . . For as to the strength of body, the weakest has strength enough to kill the strongest, either by secret machination, or by confederacy with others, that are in the same danger with himself. And as to the faculties of the mind... I find yet a greater equality among men, than that of strength.... Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there are many so wise as themselves; for they see their own wit at hand, and other men’s at a distance....
From this equality of
ability, arises equality of hope in the attaining of our ends. And therefore
if any two men desire the same thing, which nevertheless they cannot both
enjoy, they become enemies; and in the way to their end, which is
principally their own conservation ... endeavour to destroy, or subdue one
another. And from hence it comes to pass, that ... an invader has no more to
fear than another man's single power; if one plant, sow, build, and possess
a convenient seat, others may probably be expected to come prepared with
forces united, to dispossess, and deprive him, not only of the fruit of his
labour, but also of his life, or liberty. And the invader again is in the
like danger of another... [Thus], men have no pleasure, but on the contrary
a great deal of grief, in keeping company, where there is no power able to
over-awe them.
So that in the nature of man, we find three principal causes of quarrel.
First, competition; secondly, insecurity; thirdly, glory.
The first, makes men invade for gain; the second, for safety; and the third,
for reputation. The first use violence, to make themselves master of other
men's persons, wives, children, and cattle; the second, to defend them; the
third, for trifles, as a word, a smile, a different opinion, and any other
sign of undervalue, either direct in their persons, or by reflection in
their kindred, their friends, their nation, their profession, or their name.
[Therefore, it is clear] that during the time men live without a common
power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called
war; and such a war is of every man, against every man.... In such
condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is
uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use
of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no
instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no
knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters;
no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent
death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short...
John Locke
(1632-1704):
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
(1690)
1. What social consequences were implied by the argument that every person's mind was at first just "white paper"?
2. Do you find Locke's view of human nature accurate?
John Locke
It is an established opinion amongst some men, that there are in the understanding certain innate principles; some primary notions, characters, as it were stamped upon the mind of man; which the soul receives in its very first being, and brings into the world with it. It would be sufficient to convince unprejudiced readers of the falseness of this supposition, if I should only show (as I hope I shall in the following parts of this Discourse) how men, barely by the use of natural faculties, may attain to all the knowledge they have, without the help of any innate impressions; and may arrive at certainty, without any such original notions or principles...
Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas:- How comes it to be furnished? Whence comes it by that vast store which the busy and boundless fancy of man has painted on it with an almost endless variety? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge? To this I answer, in one word, from EXPERIENCE. In that all our knowledge is founded; and from that it ultimately derives itself. Our observation employed either, about external sensible objects, or about the internal operations of our minds perceived and reflected on by ourselves, is that which supplies our understandings with all the materials of thinking. These two are the fountains of knowledge, from whence all the ideas we have, or can naturally have, do spring.
First, our Senses, conversant about particular sensible objects, do convey into the mind several distinct perceptions of things, according to those various ways wherein those objects do affect them. And thus we come by those ideas we have of yellow, white, heat, cold, soft, hard, bitter, sweet, and all those which we call sensible qualities; which when I say the senses convey into the mind, I mean, they from external objects convey into the mind what produces there those perceptions. This great source of most of the ideas we have, depending wholly upon our senses, and derived by them to the understanding, I call SENSATION.
Secondly, the other fountain from which experience furnisheth the understanding with ideas is, the perception of the operations of our own mind within us, as it is employed about the ideas it has got;-which operations, when the soul comes to reflect on and consider, do furnish the understanding with another set of ideas, which could not be had from things without. And such are perception, thinking, doubting, believing, reasoning, knowing, willing, and all the different actings of our own minds;-which we being conscious of, and observing in ourselves, do from these receive into our understandings as distinct ideas as we do from bodies affecting our senses. This source of ideas every man has wholly in himself; and though it be not sense, as having nothing to do with external objects, yet it is very like it, and might properly enough be called internal sense. But as I call the other Sensation, so I call this REFLECTION, the ideas it affords being such only as the mind gets by reflecting on its own operations within itself....
The understanding seems to
me not to have the least glimmering of any ideas which it doth not receive
from one of these two.
External objects
furnish the mind with the
ideas of sensible qualities, which are all those different perceptions they
produce in us; and
the mind
furnishes the understanding with ideas of its own operations.
Myths
About the Founding
(NPR Commentary) by Dinesh D'Souza
SOURCE:
http://www.dineshdsouza.com/articles/myths.html
For me, president’s day is a good occasion to celebrate George Washington and the American founding. Washington and the other founders who gathered in Philadelphia wanted America to be a “new order for the ages,” and they have succeeded beyond their imagining. The United States is today the economic, political and cultural guiding light of the world, and the magnet for immigrants from every continent. Without exaggeration, we are living in what may be termed Planet America.
I frequently lecture at American high schools and colleges, and I must acknowledge that many educators do not share my enthusiasm for the founding. “The constitution was a racist document,” they say. “After all, it says that a black person is three-fifths of a human being.” I hear this all the time. Some teachers allege that even their good ideas the founders plagiarized from nonwhites. “They stole all their ideas from the Iroquois Indians,” a history teacher informed. I expressed surprise: “You mean,” I said, “that concepts like free elections, separation of powers, checks and balances and freedom of speech and religion were all invented and practiced by the Iroquois?”
“Absolutely,” I was told. And then, in a condescending tone: “Maybe it’s time you went home and did your homework.”
Well, I have done my homework, and here are the facts. The notorious three-fifths clause of the constitution, the central exhibit in the claim that the document is racist, in fact reflects no denial of the equal worth of African Americans. Indeed the three-fifths clause has nothing to say about the intrinsic worth of any individual or group. It arose in the context of a debate between the northern and southern states over the issue of political representation.
It turns out that the South wanted to count blacks as whole persons in order to increase its political power. The North wanted to count blacks as nothing, not for the purpose of rejecting their humanity, but in order to preserve and strengthen the anti-slavery majority in Congress. It was not a pro-slavery southerner but an anti-slavery northerner, James Wilson of Pennsylvania, who proposed the three-fifths compromise.
The effect of the compromise was to limit the south’s political representation and thus its ability to protect the institution of slavery. Frederick Douglass, the great black abolitionist, understood this. He praised the three-fifths clause “a downright disability laid upon the slave-holding states” depriving them of “two-fifths of their natural basis of representation.” So the notion that the three-fifths clause demonstrates the racism of the Constitution is both wrong and unfair.
And what about those Iroquois? It turns out that there was an Iroquois League that had been formed to adjudicate disputes between warring tribes. Sometimes the group’s efforts at mediation failed, but in general the League was reasonably successful in keeping the peace.
Benjamin Franklin heard about the Iroquois League, and he wrote a letter to the framers in Philadelphia. Here is what he said: if a group of savages can learn to settle their disputes without killing each other, surely we civilized men can get together and agree upon a constitution. I feel a bit embarrassed to say this to a history teacher, but this is pretty much the extent of the connection between the Iroquois and the American founding.
The truth of the matter is that the founders produced a constitution that enshrined the noble principles of liberty and equality under the law. These were principles higher than the practices that the founders saw around them, higher than the practices of some of the founders themselves. Yet it is their notion that we are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights that provided the moral basis for the war that ended slavery, and for the civil rights movement as well. We who are minorities in this society owe these dead white men a debt of gratitude.
The Definition of Classical Liberalism
Number 1. Classical liberalism includes the following:
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Who's lying? Following our dictum of "Teaching" (presenting two or more sides) vs. "Preaching" (one side is sufficient) we find that the term "Lies" is used not just by James Loewen (Lies My Teacher Told Me) but by people on the other side of the debate. Here an excerpt from Larry Schweikart's, 48 Liberal Lies about American History we have an alternative statement of what is the "greater truth." |
Constitution for the United States of America
- the universal applicability of these above convictions.
