Compare And Contrast Thomas Paine And The Era Of...

After reading the passages given throughout the quarter I found the Enlightenment era to be interesting and a very influential time period. It was an era where people pushed the boundaries of critical thinking and began to question things in a scientific manner, whether it was philosophy, art, politics or science the era of enlightenment was one of drastic revolution in intellectual and philosophical ideas . One particular issue or topic that was really prevalent in two of the readings covered , was the topic of society and government, to the extent of what is society and government? do we really need Government, is it essential to the human society or existence? Or is it just a construct to protect us from ourselves? After reading†¦show more content†¦If a country only had society without government then the people would end up killing themselves because it would be a chaos state and there would be no laws because without government there are no laws , at least not one that is equal to everyone .So government, although it can be evil, is necessary to protect man from himself. In The Social Contract by Rousseau the question that is asked is how can man surrender his natural liberties to the body politic or community and yet still have a level of primitive or natural right where he may preserve himself? Rousseau goes into this complicated question and tries to answer this question in his essay. Rousseau argues that there is a need for a social contract because of how we as a society have evolved. He goes into the concept of the primitive man, which says one is concerned with him or herself or the sole purpose of self-preservation. Rousseau argues, that this is the true state of nature.In the state of nature, we are free to do whatever we want, but our wishes and actions are not affected by reason and logic. We have physical freedom but we lack morality. Although the natural state can be perceived as a chaotic way of living , Rousseau believed that this state of nature was better than the slavery of contemporary society. But as humans developed as time we nt , we began to move further away from this natural state. He describes the civil society which is basically the opposite of theShow MoreRelatedLiberal Perspective of a State7979 Words   |  32 Pagesbut the dominant variants are classical liberalism, which became popular in the eighteenth century, and social liberalism, which became popular in the twentieth century. Liberalism first became a powerful force in the Age of Enlightenment, rejecting several foundational assumptions that dominated most of the earlier theories of government, such as hereditary status, established religion, absolute monarchy, and the Divine Right of Kings. The early liberal thinker John Locke, whoRead MoreLibrary Management204752 Words   |  820 Pagesand Barbara B. Moran United States Government Information: Policies and Sources Peter Hernon, Harold C. Relyea, Robert E. Dugan, and Joan F. Cheverie Library Information Systems: From Library Automation to Distributed Information Access Solutions Thomas R. Kochtanek and Joseph R. Matthews The Complete Guide to Acquisitions Management Frances C. Wilkinson and Linda K. Lewis Organization of Information, Second Edition Arlene G. Taylor The School Library Media Manager, Third Edition Blanche Woolls BasicRead MoreLogical Reasoning189930 Words   |  760 Pagescontemporary American political parties. He has a Ph.D. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and taught previously at Dartmouth College. He is the author of the books Trading Blows: Party Competition and U.S. Trade Policy in a Globalizing Era (University of North Carolina Press, 2000) and is a co-editor of Whats Left of the Left: Democrats and Social Democrats in Challenging Times (Duke University Press, 2011). He has published eleven articles in academic journals on American economic