After reading Crisis of Authority for this week, it is evident how much the civil war in England affected it's society. I was surprised by the strong opinions of the authors of this time. I especially enjoyed the contrast between the political writings by Filmer, Milton, and Winstanley. Each of these authors had a different point of view on the king, his kingly powers, and the use of government in general. In my opinion, they all had strong arguments and made solid points.
Filmer believed in royal absolutism and referred to the bible to support his argument. He believes God appointed kings' authority and that kings should rule over their people as they are their children, just like everyone in the human race, in general, is a child of God. He says that both the kings and people should know and accept their role in this relationship. He refers to Adam and Eve saying "the desire of liberty was first cause of the fall of Adam" meaning because Adam didn't just accept what God told him and his rules about what he was and was not to eat in the garden of Eden, he ruined the life of happiness and pleasure that God had in store for him. In the same way, Filmer is telling the people to trust the king's authority and good intention, and telling the king he should act with fatherly caution when it comes to his people.
Milton takes a completely opposite view saying that there would be no authority/ government leaders if it weren't for the people. The people allow themselves to be governed by these rulers- it is their choice and their decision. This contradicts Filmer because he believes the absolute authority is the king, while Milton is saying that in actuality, it is the people. Milton says that since the beginning of government, authority was put in place in order to maintain order in the country for everyone's benefit. Authority never had the purpose of granting someone (a king) power to benefit themselves more so than the general population because it was the people that appointed their leader in the first place. If a king is not using his power for the good of the people, the people have the power to overthrow him.
Winstanley is less concerned about who is the absolute power and more concerned with the distribution of wealth. This mainly concerns the distribution of land to commoners versus royals. He challenges the private ownership of common land by the royals saying that anyone has a right to this land and it should be divided up equally among all. He brings up the point that they all worked together to overthrow the king, and the Parliament would not have been able to conquer him if it were not for the help of the commoners and therefore everyone should reap the benefits of the king's defeat.
Nice rumination. For me Milton's essay was the most interesting, an early expression of the 'social contract' idea. Also, I was surprised by I found the Filmer, the conservative, had, in my opinion, the weakest biblical position. From a 21st century position I was predisposed to agree more with Milton and Winstanley on political grounds, but I thought that Filmer would at least make the most compelling religious argument. However, I think that comparing the patriarchs to Kings wasn't that strong an argument, or maybe he just didn't make it well enough for me. I found the biblical references in the other essays to be much more closely related to their theses.
ReplyDeleteThis rummination really opened my eyes to just what a big role politics played on literature and how different the view points of popular writers during this time truly were. When you first think about you dont really see how politics can affect the way in which one writes, but what we learned is that the writers attitudes towards politics plays a profound role in their work. You did a great job giving us a clearer idea on just what each writer truly believed in.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I am a big fan of the different viewpoints that we were able to see throughout this week's reading. Even back in this time period, everyone had their own political stand points and they had their own way of writing about it. It is particularly interesting how religion influences each of their opinions.
ReplyDeleteYou point out a really good example of how increased literacy and educational reform in England caused somewhat of a conflict of ideologies in the country. The smarter public was able to actually assess their government, and even apply philosophy somewhat to the question of what a king should do. In my opinion, it was small differences like these that caused so much political turmoil at the time.
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