Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" set the tone for the kind of religious liberty that the Protestants/Puritans sought in America: all for them, none for the Catholics or the Native Americans. It was the same hypocritical sense of liberty that dominated Enlightenment thought and the Founders of America: liberty was for them -- the wealthy elitist land owners -- not for the slaves they held. Thus, one sees in both the Enlightenment and the Great Awakening a myopic vision of life, which starts at stops at the end of the "great thinkers'" noses.
This is not to say they didn't value liberty more or less in the limited capacity that they idealized it. They wanted liberty for themselves -- some from sin (many of the Enlightenment thinkers disavowed the very concept of God that those of the Great Awakening upheld), some from government (the American and French Revolutions were wars against monarchical order). As far as Kant (the representative of modern philosophy) was concerned this same Enlightenment was "man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage" -- a clear indication that Kant was as myopic as everyone else.
In short, it was the same then as now. Modern society is still as myopic as ever: liberty is still for "us" and not for "them" -- and PC culture asserts that everyone has the right to voice his or her opinion -- unless it conflicts...
The Puritans’ Search for Religious Freedom in the New World By the turn of the 17th century, much of the New World had already been explored by Europeans in search of gold and glory, and reports of the opportunities and riches available encouraged others to follow. Not everyone who ventured into the New World wildernesses was in search of money, including the Puritans who braved the elements in search of religious
American Way of War The history of the American Way of War is a transitional one, as Weigley shows in his landmark work of the same name. The strategy of war went from, under Washington, a small scale, elude and survive set of tactics practiced by what seem today to be relatively "quaint" militias, to -- in the 20th century -- a full-scale operation known as "total war." True, "total war"
American Expansion Post-Reconstruction America gave rise to an incredibly transformative society and culture. Modernism was beginning to sweep the land with the industrial revolution, urbanization and westward expansion. How did the underprivileged fare in this new America? What were the experiences and problems of the Native Americans, women, African-Americans, and various immigrant groups at this time? Be specific. Was there a gap between the rhetoric of hope and democracy peddled by
Revolution, Constitution and Enlightenment The American Revolution and the ensuing U.S. Constitution put forward by the Federalists were both products of and directly informed by the European Enlightenment. The Founding Fathers were considerably influenced by thinkers like Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu (whose separation of powers served as the model of the three-branched government of the U.S.). This paper will explain how the European Enlightenment set the stage for the American
Without a doubt, the behavior of the basketball stars in the nineties heightened the reputation of the African-American community, and brought basketball into mainstream prominence. They proved their black masculinity through both leadership and statesmanship, and paved the road for the players of today's NBA. Despite the exceptional standards that the players of the nineties set, the basketball culture in the new millennium seems to differ drastically. The Kobe generation
Hunt for Red October Few fictional texts are as redolent of the global Cold War as Tom Clancy's novel of east-west submarine intrigue and confrontation, The Hunt for Red October, first published in 1984. For those who have the benefit of hindsight it may appear that the mid-1980s was a period in which the Cold War was clearly coming to an end, but at the time the east-west confrontation was
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now