The Assignment Link for Week Eleven is Active.

As always, contact me with any questions.

The Assignment Links for Week Ten are Active

I hope you enjoyed your Spring Break, and you return rested and ready to hit the ground running.

This week, you'll read selections from the Federalists and Anti-Federalist Papers.  There were collections of essays published as the new Constitution of 1787 was being ratified.  We tend to think of the Constitution as rock solid and always having been around, but in the years surrounding 1787, our current Constitution was being hammered together to replace a document called the Articles of Confederacy, which had run the new country following our victory in the Revolution.  The Articles defined strong states and a weak central government.  Remember, the country had just fought one strong central government, and we didn't want to put a new one in it's place.  The Federalist argued that we needed a stronger central government, while the Anti-Federalists argued that concentrated power corrupts and leads to tyranny.  What was at stake were which of a host of different visions of the nation and of democracy would prevail.  As the Federalist--folks like Madison and Hamilton--wrote to get key states to ratify the new Constitution which created a strong federal form of government, the Anti-Federalists--like Patrick Henry--were trying to get folks to think through the full ramifications of putting so much power into a central government and that we should take another stable at creating a better document.  

This week, you'll be thrown into the midst of these debates.  Your blog post will have you updating Madison's Federalist Paper No. 10 and--in particular--looking at the various threats he saw in "faction" or "party" to the nation.  You'll have to decide if you think he is right in arguing that only a strong central government can limit the danger inherent in factions or--for that matter--if factions are as much of a danger as Madison suggests.  Remember, you've got two hundred plus years of history to see if things worked out as Madison predicted, and all the founding fathers wanted citizens to think about how to change the government and, if needed, to make it better.

The forum discussion on the thread, "Week 10: Improving the Constitution," has you discussing and debating specific changes to the Constitution which would make it better.   This week, not only much you post your suggestion for change or adoption one already posted, you are required to follow up and to challenge one or more suggestions made by those in the class.  Remember, this is a civil debate--the kind built into our society by the founders.  You are debating ideas, evidence, facts, etc.  When you offer an opinion, you must back it up and explain why you hold your opinion.  You are not attacking an individual or a group.

Have fun.  Be nice to one another, and think about the role of Enlightenment debate, reason, and opinion-support play in our society, which--I'll give you this hint--only works when its leaders can debate, offer opinion, and differ under the rubric of reason and evidence.

It's Spring Break, but...

This week is Spring Break at Reynolds and for much of the rest of the world.  Enjoy your time off. 

Remember, however, there are two upcoming deadlines, and plan your work accordingly:

1. If you already haven't, by Thursday, 25 March, you should have completed a 4-5 page reflective essay in which you argue for the grade you've earned so far this semester, critique your performance in the class with an eye toward a plan for improvement, and--finally and with the bulk of the paper--develop a series of PEA (Point, Evidence, and Analysis) paragraphs describing your learning (in detail) throughout the semester.  Use your learning reflections.  I want you to have this reflective essay done, so you'll have a feel for how to prepare one for your final portfolio and so you'll have a mid-term draft to work with for the final portfolio.

2.  If you want to get ahead on the reading, read the section on the Federalist Papers under Madison, et al. Most of us have lived for so long under the Constitution that we take it as a kind of background noises and subconsciously assume it was always there, but the Constitution was created.  As you've learned by reading Franklin's speech to the Constitutional Convention, getting it out of Convention was difficult, then it had to be explained and ratified by enough states to become the supreme law of the land.  The Federalists--those who argued for centralizing power had an up-hill battle on their hands, and--in the process of making their argument--they did one of the best jobs of explaining the Constitution and how it works of almost any writer since.  It's reading every American should experience.  Remember to slow down, read in small chucks, take the time to think about what you have read, and then to go on to the next chuck. Don't try to absorb it all at once. 

Remember to write with questions about either assignment.

Steve

Assignment link for Week Nine is now active.

As always, write with any questions.

At the end of the week, you will have written your learning reflection for the first half of the semester, thought about any errata in your performance or learning, and learned from your committee members.  Using these as a basis for your thinking, make an informed decision about staying in the class or withdrawing from it.  You know about how much work is involved each week, and you should know if you have been--by and large--able to keep up, learn, and produce material which will make a find portfolio at the end of the semester.  You should also know by now that I don't expect perfection, either in terms of keeping up or in terms of your learning; my basic expectation and the basis of any decision I make about your grade is that you are growing and learning.  Base your decision about staying in the course or withdrawing accordingly.  Remember, the last take to withdraw with a grade of "W" is 25 March.

This week, you'll also continue to read one of the founders.  This time Jefferson.  As you read Jefferson and Franklin, try to forget that they are larger than life.  Try to forget that they are part of the background noise of our society.  Remember, they were people, just like you.  People who grew, thought, changed their minds, and made mistakes.  Just like you, they worked to correct and profit from any mistakes they had made; indeed, they built a society which three goals in mind: 1) build the ability to change into the fabric of society; 2) build in opportunity to grow; and, 3) maximize individual liberty, reason, and education.  The education link might surprise you, but look at the achievements of both founders.  Both established schools; in fact, when Jefferson wrote the epitaph which appears on his grave at Monticello, he listed three things as accomplishments in his life:  1) having authored the Virgina "Statue for Religious Freedom;  2) having established the Virgina university; and, 3) I'll let you look this one up.  Allowing for public education helped maximize the contributions which individuals could make to society; it allowed individuals to make the most of being free to pursue opportunity and happiness; and, it created an opportunity to train each citizen in the use of reason and debate to guide this growth.  

Keep up the good work.  We're half way through, and most of you are doing a blessed good job.  It's been a pleasure to watch your thinking, reading, and discourse skills grow throughout the semester.  In the process, you've gotten a better handle on American literature, history, and society, and--I hope--a better handle on your best self and your ability to make a difference as a citizen and person.

Take care,

Steve

Discussion of the Assignments for Week Eight/Assignment Link is Now Active

This week we step back in time, and we take an important turn in the course, that from the Age of Romanticism and into the Age of Reason.  Because this is such a big turn, this week, part of your reading will be a discussion of where we have been, a review of Romanticism, and an overview of Enlightenment thought to get you started into this new unit of the semester.  

Most of the literature we've read the first half of the semester took place in the New Republic (1789-1830) of the Antebellum [that is, "Before the War] Period (1820-1861).  In one way or another, it was influenced by Romanticism.  If you noticed, I first set up a few touchstone authors--Poe, Thoreau, and Emerson--who you could use as representative Romantics.  From them, you learned that Romantics:

• valued the individual;
• valued feeling over thinking and reason;
• valued the underdog;
• valued the savage and "close to nature" noble savage over what they saw as the corrupting forces of civilization;
• valued cultivating emotion, sensitivity, and the ability to feel;
• valued individual, place, and group genius;
• tended toward idealism and Protestant Christianity as grounding philosophies; 
• used Plato and Neo-Platonic philosophers and various forms of mysticism as authorities;
• often used Nature--capital "N"--as a means of finding resonance with the Godhead in others and throughout the world; and,
• the list goes on.

You also learned that the Romantics fostered change in society by helping others to feel for the oppresses and by using a cultivated ability to feel deeply and to feel for others as a kind of index to oppression.  

What I didn't discuss with Romantics much is how their loose, individualistic artistic and philosophical stance came into being as a reaction to the dominant philosophy of the predecessor generation.  Harold Bloom, a Romantic critic and writer, argued that one means of understanding change in literature, the arts, and philosophy was to recognize that each generation rebels against the literature, philosophy, and the art of their parent's generation.  It's a means of defining one's generation and peer-community in difference to the mistaken values of the parent.  While there are holes in Bloom's model of change, by-and-large, it can be useful when thinking about the Romantics, who rebelled against the idealism and optimism of Enlightenment Philosophy and the so-called, Age of Reason.  

Loosely speaking, the Age of Reason begins at the end of the Renaissance and with the beginning of the Modern Era, that is, sometime in the late 1600s, and it never has really ended.  Although, most folks quit seeing it is a dominant influence around the time of high Romanticism.  Roughly, you can think about the Age of Reason or the Enlightenment as running from 1700-1820 or so.  

Enlightenment thinking gave us the true beginning of the Scientific Age.  It allowed democracy to come into being and created most of the supporting intellectual infrastructure--ideas like, the Social Contract, all humankind is created equal, the belief that humankind can understand the world and make it better through debate and reason, the value of the individual's insight as an instance of seeing something in their observations of our shared world that others had missed, the believe that the universe runs on unwavering basic laws and principles, religious freedom, the rule of law, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and--finally and most important--humankind can come to understand how the universe works and to use this understanding to build better lives for everyone.  Without the Enlightenment, America would never have come into being.  The nobles and the church would likely still be in charge of Western civilization.  Most people would not be educated, and the Industrial Revolution would have taken a radically different path.

Just as the Romantics rebelled against their figurative philosophical parents, Enlightenment thinkers rebelled against the religious grounded controversies of the 15th and 16th Centuries.  The centuries which had seen the Inquisition, the religious Thirty Years War in Germany, France, and the Netherlands, witch trails, the growth of the notion of the Divine Right of Kings, the Enclosure Movement, etc. et etc.  In the stead of an old world order based on religious conviction, superstition, the privilege of the nobility, Enlightenment thinkers latched onto science, shared reason, and ultimately came to see society as a compact of individuals, not ordained by God, by by choice.  

Most of those who embraced high Enlightenment thought did not reject Christianity, but they did apply the measure of reason to received Christian doctrine, and high Enlightenment thinkers tended toward religious views based on what came to be called, Deism or the belief that there was a God, one who created the universe to run by knowable laws, a God who was not capricious, and one who started the universe to run, and then only intervened in the world only occasionally.  In such a world, our lives and the world were what we made of them and our value to God was in our ability to use reason to understand and appreciate God and the universe God created.  Deist tended to believe that the object of life and individual action was to use the God given faculty of reason to understand the world we share and to mediate the worst of human's animal passions, which they saw as deriving from one's emotional passions, individual selfishness, ignorance, and human tyranny.  According to most Enlightenment thinkers good and truth could be observed and noticed by everyone, that is, if  everyone practiced reason and resisted their worst, animal natures.  

By and large, good action consisted of helping others (and yourself at the same time) to live easier, understand the nature of the world, and to enrich the lives and freedoms of others.  Enlightenment thinkers also tended to believe that the more people who could exercise reason and had good information about the world--an education--the more we could know and the better we could make the world and our lives.  They were optimists who saw the increase in human understanding and freedoms only increasing--that is, if tyranny of thought, superstition, and ignorance could be overcome--and, as our shared understanding of the social and natural world increased, allowing better lives for all.  

Finally, Enlightenment thinkers tended to look toward Rome and Greece as their intellectual forbears, to see the intervening period before the Renaissance as a Dark Age, and to believe that we were in the process of regaining our intellectual heritage and stepping out of the Dark Age into the light--hence, the name, "Enlightenment."

If Enlightenment thinking sounds familiar, it's because you encounter it in most scientists and Engineers, and it is the intellectual foundation on which the institutions and Constitution of the United States was built.  

Just as you have Poe, Emerson, and Thoreau as touchstones of Romantic artists and thinking, over the next several weeks, you'll get Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Thomas Paine as touchstones through which to understand the Age of Reason and the birth of America.  

We'll begin with Ben Franklin, who was kind enough to leave us an autobiography.  While biography and autobiography is a familiar genre today, it was once a rare genre, and the idea of someone like Franklin, not of noble birth nor of particular religious value as a saint, to write his own biography was at the time Franklin was writing a fairly radical undertaking.  However, it is very much in keeping with the Enlightenment.  Franklin saw himself as an example; indeed, his apprentice with nothing to man of wealth and statue, has become an archetypal, rags-to-riches genre which is familiar to each of us.  You'll also see elements of how-to writing in Franklin's autobiography, as he talks about such ambitious undertakings as a plan to make himself morally perfect through exercising virtue and avoiding vice and in his discussion of how he (and we) can create a better life for ourselves and others by bringing people together to act for each other's good in the creation of such institutions as a public library, volunteer fire companies, or in propagating ideas or scientific inventions into daily usage.  If for nothing else, read Franklin to figure out how to retire by age 42 and help people around you along the way.