Monday: Politics, Morality, and Human Nature
- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, chapter 13, “On the natural condition of mankind”
* College Search Workshop
Tuesday: Consent, Freedom and Equality
How can it be just for free individuals to come under the authority of a government? Locke famously proposed a standard of consent. His argument was then invoked by the authors of the Declaration of Independence. What assumptions about human nature and about political life lie beneath this argument? Have you consented to be governed by the government of the United States today?
- John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, selections
- The Declaration of Independence
Wednesday: The Legacy of the Declaration
The Declaration’s demand that governments respect individual rights did not apply to everyone at first. As a corrective, in 1848 for the Women’s Rights Convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton penned, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal…” What is the impact of these words on a reader today? Frederick Douglass’s Independence Day speech illuminates both the hypocrisy and promise of the ideas professed in America’s founding documents. How does Douglass use rhetoric to make his critique?
With a much shorter speech, Abraham Lincoln made the Declaration the centerpiece of the American experiment. Why do you think he emphasized the Declaration instead of the Constitution?
- Elizabeth Cady Stanton, “Declaration of Sentiments”
- Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the 4th of July?”
- Abraham Lincoln, “The Gettysburg Address”
Thursday: Self-governance, Exclusion, and Education
What kind of education do democratic citizens require? Is there a difference between education and schooling? Should there be qualifications for self-governance, or is it a basic right? W.E.B. Du Bois, Audre Lorde, and James Baldwin offer differing perspectives on the role of education in an unjust and unequal society. These thinkers challenge us to consider the purpose and meaning of education.
- W.E.B. Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk, selections
- James Baldwin, “A Talk to Teachers”
- Audre Lorde, “Poet as Teacher—Human as Poet—Teacher as Human”, “Poetry Makes Something Happen”
Friday: Democracy and City Life
How can words best capture the promise and the challenges of city life? How does Thoreau’s mocking of gossipy social life compare with Whitman’s reverential treatment of diversity and possibility? What truths does Brooks capture that the others miss?
Is a happy, moral city really possible or even desirable? In her short story, Le Guin challenges readers to imagine the perfect city and consider the role that suffering plays in politics and art.
- Henry David Thoreau, Walden, “The Village”
- Walt Whitman, “Broadway,” “Democratic Vistas,” and “Mannahatta”
- Gwendolyn Brooks, “Kitchenette Building”
- Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”