1. What was so revolutionary about Common-Sense when it was first written in 1775?
When Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense, he dared the colonists to rise against one of the worlds greatest empires and encouraged them to build their new nation as a democratic republic. Paine argued in Common Sense that the colonies should pursue complete independence from Britain (Paine, 1776). His pamphlet persuaded many people who were dubious about the wars aim and influenced the views of laypeople and legislators alike. Common Sense was therefore revolutionary and instrumental in moving public opinion in the United States against Britain, and it was also a major element in the colonies choice to fight for complete independence.
2. What is still revolutionary about the work globally today concerning the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
Paines Common Sense remains revolutionary because history has shown that some governments and individuals continue to oppose the concept of universal human rights. Paine started the concepts of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment in a simple and approachable fashion. Common Sense promoted ideas like liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of religion and state, all based on the premise that reason is the primary source of authority and legitimacy (Katz, 1995). The 30 Articles involving the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) are based on the function...
…white mens median weekly earnings, it may take even longer for African American women (36%) and Latinas (31.9%) to narrow the gap.Another area where human rights can be balanced is the reproduction of justice and attaining the same. Many womens reproductive rights supporters have realized that denying reproductive health care to exclusively women is a kind of sex discrimination, as seen by the 835 legislation restricting womens reproductive rights implemented by states since 1995 and those passed at the federal level. If womens access is constrained by a further tightening of abortion rights and maybe an outright ban approved by the conservative majority on the United States Supreme Court, the issue is more pressing.…
References
Katz, J. (1995). The Age of Paine. Wired Magazine, Iss. 3.05.
Paine, T. (1776). Common Sense. January 1776. Tracts of the American Revolution, 176$—1776.
Throughout the duration of the war, Paine was responsible for publishing a series of propaganda pieces which were published in the Crisis. In these, he often addressed the British Crown and warned of the Americans' united spirit: "In all the wars which you have formerly been concerned in you had only armies to contend with; in this case, you have both an army and a country to combat with,"
Paine's decision to write of high philosophical and political issues in common speech, and of used "graphic metaphors and his simple sentence structure [to] reflect a language understood at the time by common Americans," (Moss & Wilson, ed) has much the same purpose as a translation of the Bible from Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic into Latin, which is to say the need to initiate common people into profound truths. Paine
Moreover Thomas made people realize that kings are the cause of all wars with his evidence from the Bible: In the early ages of the world, according to the scripture chronology, there were no kings; the consequence of which was there were no wars; it is the pride of kings which throw mankind into confusion." (Thomas Paine) Thomas was an expert in reaching down to the souls of common man and
Common Sense The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines common sense as: "the unreflective opinions of ordinary people," and "sound and prudent but often unsophisticated judgment." While this definition is reflective of the nature of common sense, it does not begin to reveal the complexities of the subjectivity of the term, and the tendency to cite common sense as a justification for stereotypes, both of which reflect the social perspective of the speaker. The
Indeed, in retrospect, my personal issues, no matter how stringent they might have been, should not have stayed in the way of exercising my common sense in the relationship with the rest of the individuals. From this perspective, it is most likely that I should have followed what the son of the writer Harriet Beecher Stowe, C.E. Stowe said in relation to common sense, that "common sense is the knack
Common sense could, at face value, have several definitions applied to it: Firstly, it is 'common' in that all agree to the idea and accept it as obvious. No amount of research or investigation need go into establishing its existence or reasons for its propositions in order that one accept it. It is self-evident, therefore of sound judgment, therefore, no doubt, accepted by the 'normal' rational person. Using a circular
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