Marx set the anti-religious tone of twentieth century political ideologies, in particular, anti-Semitism. Defenders of Marx will take scholars to task who question Marx on alleged anti-Semitism, claiming that the critics are quoting Marx out of context. Whether or not Marx is or was anti-Semitic (which this author is maintaining is the case), he was perceived so in his time and his writings were used by later Soviet regimes to help justify its anti-Jewish and anti-Israel actions as this author will demonstrate below.
It is ironic that a heretical Jew and a descendent of rabbis should have provided such powerful ammunition to anti-Semitism. The reason for his may be grounded in his Jewish background itself. Dr. Tzvi Marks of the Boston University Institute of Law concludes that Jewish law is characterized by dialectical tendencies (Marx 235). Marx, grandson of a Jewish rabbi and a Jewish attorney father was steeped in Jewish…...
mlaReferences Cited
Ansell-Person, Keith. An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker. Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Arthur, C.J. Eighth Thesis on Feuerbach. Ed. Karl Marx. "Theses on Feuerbach." New
York: International Publishers, 1970.
Cohn, Werner. "From Victim to Shylock and Oppressor: The New Image of the Jew in the Trotskyist Movement," Journal of Communist Studies (London), vol. 7, no. 1, March 1991, pp. 46-68.
Europe witnessed a flowering period in the 18th century that historians call the Age of Enlightenment. A period filled with experimentation as well as intellectual curiosity, people relied on the power of human reason in order to understand society and nature. One specific manifestation of the Enlightenment was a steadfast faith in the stable progression of civilization via scientific development. Because of this religious judgment went to the wayside. Instead, people wanted improvement through freedom, equality, and tolerance. French writers/thinkers expressed these sentiments and notions through their work. These philosophers devoted their passion to useful thought and not speculation. Towards the latter half of the 18th century (1782), such thinking took the form of a highly scandalous story, Dangerous Liaisons.
ritten by Pierre Ambroise Choderlos de Laclos, a member of minor nobility and a French intelligence officer within the army, Dangerous Liaisons describes French nobility and the search for sex and…...
mlaWorks Cited
Burns, William E. The Enlightenment. ABC-CLIO, 2015. Print.
Duchovnay, Gerald. Film Voices. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2004. Print.
McAlpin, Mary. Sexuality And Cultural Degeneration In Enlightenment France. Routledge, 2016. Print.
17th century and our contemporary world began with an early, optimistic outlook of hope and promise of a better future, exemplified by movements like the Enlightenment, the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, culminating in the Information Age, environmental awareness and globalisation. It is during this period that a paradigm shift from faith (religion) to reason as the principal source of legitimacy and authority occurred (Badger). The shift occurred against the backdrop of ideals such as science, tolerance, liberty, democracy, secularism, free will and humanism. However, the period is also scared with false starts and failures, violent schisms, world wars, imperialism, terrorism, irrational nationalism, extreme religious war, information overload, pollution and the threat of nuclear annihilation that indicate failure of the rational model promised by the Enlightenment. On the premise of this dichotomy of hope and failure, this essay critically demonstrates the failure of the Enlightenment project, especially from a social and…...
Enlightenment-era, Neo-Classical works with Romantic overtones 'Tartuffe," Candide, and Frankenstein all use unnatural forms of character representation to question the common conceptions of what is natural and of human and environmental 'nature.' Moliere uses highly artificial ways of representing characters in dramatic forms to show the unnatural nature of an older man becoming attracted to a younger woman. Voltaire uses unnatural and absurd situations to question the unnatural belief of Professor Pangloss that this is the best of all possible worlds. Mary Shelley creates a fantastic or unnatural scenario to show the unnatural nature of a human scientist's attempt to turn himself into a kind of God-like creator through the use of reason and science alone.
"Tartuffe" is the most obviously unnatural of the three works in terms of its style. It is a play, and the characters do not really develop as human beings because of the compressed nature…...
.. reason is being heard throughout the whole universe; discover your rights," led to her being charged with treason, resulting in her arrest, trial and execution in 1793 by the dreaded guillotine (1997, Halsall, "Olympe de Gouge," Internet).
The Haitian evolution:
While all of this revolt was happening in France, the small Caribbean colony of Haiti was experiencing similar turmoil. The Haitian evolution of 1789 to 1804 began as a political struggle among the free peoples of Saint Domingue, a French colony on the island of Hispaniola. The French evolution of the same period provided the impetus for class and racial hatreds to come about on the island. Each of the colony's social classes, being the wealthy planters and merchants, and the lower white classes, seized the chance to address their grievances and bring about social chaos and revolt. While many colonial members sought support from the political groups in France, the…...
mlaReferences
Carpentier, Alejo. (2004). "The Kingdom of the World." Internet. November 12, 2004. Accessed June 10, 2005. http://www.msu.edu/~williss2/carpentier .
Declaration of the Rights of Man -- 1789." Internet. The Avalon Project at Yale Law School. Accessed June 10, 2005. http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/rightsof.htm .
Halsall, Paul (1997). "Olympe de Gouge: Declaration of the Rights of Women, 1791." Internet. Modern History Sourcebook. Accessed June 10, 2005. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1791degouge1.html .
Enlightenment
Constitutional RightsIntroductionThe Constitution of the United States is an enduring document that has been the subject of much analysis and interpretation. The document establishes the framework for the federal government and guarantees certain rights and privileges to citizens. These protections have been interpreted in a variety of ways over the years, and there is still much debate about their meaning and application. One way to analyze the Constitution is through the lens of higher law philosophy. This approach emphasizes the importance of natural law and unalienable rights. It holds that the Constitution should be interpreted in light of these principles, rather than simply as a set of rules or regulations. Another common way to analyze the Constitution is through the lens of contemporary legal views. This approach focuses on the current understanding of constitutional law and strives to apply it to 21st century challenges. oth of these approaches have merit,…...
mlaBibliographyBrauch, Jeffrey A. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"Preserving True Human Dignity in Human Rights Law.\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" Capital University Law Review, Forthcoming (2022), 115-149.Halverson, Jared M. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"The Art of Ridicule in the Age of Reason: The Anti-Biblical Rhetoric of Thomas Paine.\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" PhD diss., Vanderbilt University, 2022.Loughlin, Martin. Against Constitutionalism. Harvard University Press, 2022.Paine, Thomas. The Collected Works of Thomas Paine. DigiCat, 2022.Vermeule, Adrian. Common good constitutionalism. John Wiley & Sons, 2022.
Plato and the Platypus
Philosophers in the Enlightenment era would come up with various new means to popularize ideas. Denis Diderot conceived the first encyclopedia in this period, which was an attempt to systematize all world knowledge in an accessible way. But also, in another innovation, Voltaire would offer as a refutation of the optimistic philosophy of Leibniz -- which held that "this is the best of all possible worlds" -- a new form of philosophical argument: the extended comedy (Cathcart and Klein, 17). Voltaire's short book Candide is essentially an extended refutation of Leibniz's view of God (or perhaps any view of God), but it makes its points through satirical humor. In some sense, Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein are following in the footsteps of Voltaire by attempting to shed light on philosophical ideas through the medium of humor in their work Plato and a Platypus alk Into A Bar.…...
mlaWorks Cited
Cathcart, Thomas and Klein, Daniel. Plato and a Platypus Walk Into A Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes. New York: Penguin Books, 2008. Print.
Progress During the Enlightenment
The notion of progress is as evolving as the modern society we deem progressive. While some view progress in terms of science and technology, others view progress in terms of government, social equality, economic stability, spirituality and moral sensitivity. In terms of technology, our current society is more technologically advanced than ever before. We can pick up a telephone and speak to loved ones in other cities, states, and even countries; we can compose, mail, and deliver a letter within minutes via the world-wide-web; we can flip a switch and create light where there was darkness; we can turn a key and travel hundreds of miles within a few hours. Meanwhile, our governments no longer treat minorities as second-class citizens, the world wide poverty level and corresponding mortality rates have dramatically decreased, and our views of religion and spirituality are decidedly more eclectic than in times past.…...
mlaReferences
Annabel Chaffer. (2010). The Museum of London's "Cheapside Hoard" Jewelry Collection. Retrieved March 13, 2011 from http://www.annabelchaffer.co.uk/products/designer_jewellery/museum_london_cheapside_jewellery_collection_page01.htm
Economist. (2011). The Idea of Progress: Onwards and Upwards. Retrieved March 13, 2011 from http://www.economist.com/node/15108593
Nisbet, R. (1979). On Progress. Literature of Liberty: A Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought, 2(1).
Weiner, P. (ed). (1968). Dictionary of the History of Ideas, Studies of Pivitol Ideas. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
English Literature
The medieval period in English history spans across some 800 years. The Anglo-Saxon period consisted of literature that was retained in memory. The major influence of the literature up until the Norman Conquest was mainly of the religious kind. "Distinguished, highly literate churchmen (Abrams 4) the Ecclesiastical History of England remains our "most important source of knowledge about the Anglo-Saxon period" (4).
The Anglo-Saxons were primarily known for their contribution to poetry. Their alliterative form was, of course, how poetry survived. Sine they wrote nothing down until they were "Christianized," Abrams suggest that that Christian ideals influenced how things were recorded and it would also explain why some non-Christian literature did not survive. Beowulf is what Abrams refers to as the "greatest" German epic, even though it appears to many pre-Christian ideas. (4) Another example of the Anglo-Saxon writing movement would be Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Chaucer brilliantly weaves together…...
mlaWorks Cited
Abrams, M.H., ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York W.W. Norton and Company. 1986.
Encyclopedia Britannica. Chicago: William Benton Publisher. 1959.
Wright, Meg. Early English Writers. New York: Marshall Cavendish Corporation. 1989.
The Great Awakening brought people together (though it did also divide them), but its influence on what the United States would later become is great. First of all, it forced people to have their own religious experience and it decreased the heavy hands of the clergy; new denominations also would come to be because of the Great Awakening as a direct result of the importance that was put on personal faith and views on salvation. The Great Awakening also brought the American colonies together and though there was also some division, there was more unification than ever before in the colonies.
The Great Awakening is so significant in the shaping of American and what it would later become because it gave individuals the freedom to find their own peace with life and God as it pertained to their earthly life -- and also to their later salvation. The United States…...
mlaReferences:
Middleton, Richard. Colonial America: A History, 1565 -- 1776. Wiley-Blackwell; 3rd
edition, 2002.
Geiter, Mary K., & Speck, W.A. Colonial America: From Jamestown to Yorktown.
Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
Benjamin ranklin termed himself a pragmatic deist. He believes "there is one Supreme must perfect being," however that this being is distant, and that it is not necessary to build a personal relationship with such a supreme God. He concluded that it was useful and correct to believe that a faith in God should inform our daily actions. However, he did not believe in sectarian dogma, burning spirituality or deep soul searching as a part of religion (Lopez, 87). ranklin's religious views are important in the shaping of his Enlightenment philosophy. His approach to religion drew from reason and careful reflection, he did not believe in the "frivolity" of emotional thought and connectivity, but instead focused on the pragmatic understanding of the divine. His conclusion after careful reason formulates a "Supreme Being that can be manifest in various ways, depending on the needs of different worshipers" (Lopez, 88). In contrast…...
mlaFiering, Norman. 1981. Jonathan Edwards's Moral Thought and Its British Context. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
Buxbaum, M.H., Critical Essays on Benjamin Franklin (1987)
Lopez, Claude-Anne, and Herbert, E.W., the Private Franklin (1975)
Path to the Enlightenment
What with the ideological turmoil occurring prior to most of 18th century Western Europe, the Age of Enlightenment was but an inevitable outcome. eligious and political thoughts littered Europe by the spades, and with the foreign revolutions and tensions that led up to questioning both divine right and religious authority. The eformation, along with the discordant feelings toward the monarchy, became important turning points in history. Instead of blind faith, the Enlightened man turned to reason and science and believed in the utopian harmonic ideal. But exactly how did this Enlightenment come about?
Enlightenment was a movement that "strove scientifically to uncover religious truths rising above individual sectarian disputes" (Zhivov). Also simultaneously known as the "Age of eason," the Enlightenment culminated in a set of values that sought to question the traditions, customs, and moral beliefs of the cultural environment. While the schools of thought differ from country…...
mlaResources
Brnardi?, Teodora Shek. "Exchange and commerce: intercultural communication in the age of Enlightenment." European Review of History 16.1 (2009): 79-99. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 9 Mar. 2011.
Brnardi?, Teodora Shek. "The Enlightenment in Eastern Europe: Between Regional Typology and Particular Micro-history." European Review of History 13.3 (2006): 411-435. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 9 Mar. 2011.
Gordon, Aleksandr V. "The Russian Enlightenment: The Meaning of National Archetypes of Power." Russian Studies in History 48.3 (2009): 30-49. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 9 Mar. 2011.
Rao, Anna Maria. "Enlightenment and reform: an overview of culture and politics in Enlightenment Italy." Journal of Modern Italian Studies 10.2 (2005): 142-167. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 9 Mar. 2011.
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 Revolution and U.S. Constitution by putting out the ideas that the Americans would use as the basis of the political and social foundation.
The Enlightenment aka the Age of Reason was an Age in which natural philosophy assumed the vaulted position of guiding light over the preceding Age of Faith, which had served as the socio-political basis in Europe for centuries. The Reformation had upended the Age of Faith and introduced secularization into the political realm (Laux), particularly via the Peace…...
Baghdad (Importance in Abbasid Period as a Muslim Cultural Center)
The Muslim world is comprised of various ethnic groups, nationalities, customs and traditions, languages and races. Muslims all over the world have a common belief in the Oneness and Supremacy of Allah, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and the Holy Quran. On the contrary, they all have different versions and interpretations of their religion, Islam. Thus, the theological traditions they follow are dissimilar. The Muslim world possesses an extensive political, social, economic, and geographical landscape which signifies a "kaleidoscope of historical and cultural experiences." Despite of the differences, however, the contemporary Muslim world today has inherited a highly triumphant and exultant civilization. Muslims are the heirs of a successful civilization that was larger and more productive than the greatest empires in the history including Greek, oman, Byzantine, and Sassanid (Ahmad 2007).
After the demise of the prophet Muhammad (peace be upon…...
mlaReferences
Abbasid. 2009, In The Columbia Encyclopedia (6th ed.). New York: Columbia University Press, Retrieved December 30, 2011, from Questia database: .
Ahmad, I. 2007 The Muslim World: Its Time, Continuity and Change, Social Studies Review, 46, 33+. Retrieved December 29, 2011, from Questia database: .
Background Note #3: The Philosophical/Scientific Contribution. 2007, Pattern in Islamic Art [online], accessed December 31, 2011 from: .
Baghdad. 2009, In The Columbia Encyclopedia (6th ed.), New York: Columbia University Press, Retrieved December 30, 2011, from Questia database: .
art is changed by the changes that occur in political culture. The writer presents examples and contrasts two of the following areas Baroque, ococo, Neoclassicism, and omanticism and argues the point of how the eras drive changes in artwork. In addition the writer devotes two pages to comparing three works of famous artists.
Art has always been influenced by the masses. Political culture, and change have been driving forces behind the changes in art that history has witnessed. When political and cultural changes occur it is generally because of changing attitudes of those who live in the era and drive those changes. This extrapolates to changes in many things including taste in artwork. Two periods in history provide classic examples of such change occurring and being directly related to political and cultural changes that were taking place in society during the time.
The Neoclassical period and the omantic era are both…...
mlaREFERENCES
Grainstack 1891
cat=4037& page=19& maincat=Mhttp://www.oceansbridge.com/art/customer/product.php?productid=38385&
Pierre Bonnard The Terrace
Evolution of Political Titles and Its Impact on Contemporary History
Throughout history, political titles have played a crucial role in shaping the exercise of power and the evolution of societies. From ancient monarchs to modern leaders, the titles attributed to political figures have carried immense symbolic and practical significance.
Ancient Monarchies:
In ancient civilizations, such as Egypt and Mesopotamia, rulers bore titles that reflected their divine authority and earthly power. Pharaohs in Egypt were considered gods on earth, while Mesopotamian kings were often referred to as "shepherds of the people." These titles reinforced the absolute authority of the monarch and maintained social order....
The Genesis of Bathing: A Historical Immersion
The practice of bathing has been an integral part of human civilization for millennia, with its origins shrouded in the mists of antiquity. The concept of bathing evolved gradually, driven by both cultural and practical considerations, transforming from a ritualistic act to a deeply ingrained habit.
Ancient Roots:
The earliest evidence of bathing dates back to the Indus Valley Civilization in modern-day Pakistan, around 2500 BCE. Excavations at Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa revealed sophisticated bathrooms with running water and bathing pools, suggesting that bathing was a common practice among the inhabitants.
In ancient Egypt, bathing held religious and....
Machiavelli's View of Tyranny and the State
Niccolò Machiavelli, a 16th-century Italian political philosopher, believed that tyranny is an inevitable consequence of the state. He argued that all states, regardless of their form of government, are ultimately ruled by a single individual or group of individuals who exercise absolute power. Machiavelli did not condemn tyranny outright, but rather saw it as a necessary evil that could be used to maintain order and stability. He believed that a strong, centralized government, ruled by a ruthless and cunning tyrant, was the best way to protect the state from external and internal threats.
Machiavelli's views....
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