The Declaration of Independence

Earlier in the week we broke up into groups and talked about different aspects of the Declaration of Independence.  My group discussed the document as if it were an essay; something I would have never thought to do on my own, but actually turned out interesting.  The Declaration has an introduction discussing what is necessary, the middle and bulk proves why everything written in the intro is necessary, and the conclusion is spent explaining how they're going to accomplish these things. 

While The Declaration of Independence is extremely persuasive and convincing, some of the language would not be accepted today in the same light.  For example, if I turned in a persuasive paper using words such as "self-evident" to prove my point, my professor would most likely not accept that as evidence.  The document is filled with language of morality and natural law, and today's society relies too much on fact for that to be taken the same way as it was written.

speaking of facts!! here are fun facts on the D of I...

also a cool video

Garden Party

Well, today we talked a lot about the last sentence of the book:  "...but we must cultivate our garden."  I was thinking about its connection with the Garden of Eden and how that ties into responsibility.  I realize my last post discussed the repercussions of The Fall, but I need to bring some points up again.  Isn't true that Adam and Eve were both punished with labor, and responsibility?  And isn't Candide's realization of labor and responsibility the point of his last statement?  For me, it was a direct correlation.  Candide is in the real world now, not living naively in paradise.  The book ends with Candide growing up and confronting this idea.  Just like a garden, he seems to have grown!!

above are pictures of robbie and me in the gardens this summer- you can kind of see the patterns of how everything is organized the way we talked about in class

Pope's Essay on Man

Without even reading one can assume that Pope's writing is about mankind.  The first time I read this all i could think about was how condescending it was.  Every line seemed to call mankind fools or display how naive we must be.  I felt like Pope was dropping science-like terms as a means of giving him the right to write this way.  Later, in class, we discussed the difference between Pope "vindicating" God's actions to man, and Milton "justifying" God's action to man.  To me, this means that Pop believes we have a reactive God.  This further explains why Pope is sort of teaching his readers how to live virtuously, as well as the importance of it;  where as Milton was kinda of giving us a story and saying take what you can from it.  Perhaps Pope was more "advice column" driven because he was the first to rely on his writing for pay.