While Candide is the one Voltaire book everyone seems to read, it is not necessarily his best (or most interesting) work. Read through the selection from his Philosophical Dictionary on pp. 36-40 in your Communist Manifesto and Other Revolutionary Writings anthology. What do you find here that is particularly amusing, interesting, or important?
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Voltaire's "On Policy" (Extra Credit)
While Candide is the one Voltaire book everyone seems to read, it is not necessarily his best (or most interesting) work. Read through the selection from his Philosophical Dictionary on pp. 36-40 in your Communist Manifesto and Other Revolutionary Writings anthology. What do you find here that is particularly amusing, interesting, or important?
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My favorite section of Voltaire's "On Policy" is his definition of Foreign Policy. He blatantly states the evil and murderous acts countries regularly show to one another. If a country can, it will take over and make slaves of another country, and if it can't, it will hide or make peace until it is strong enough to turn on its "allies." Voltaire doens't gloss over the policy of government, he tells it as it is.
Kelli Gill
MWF 10:00
The internal policy section describes an instance where supper is made and fed. First the master eats then the rest of the family gets what he don’t want, then the servants get what ever is left. Although the servants have done the most work, and deserve more then that, they are treated no better then dogs. The book states that “in the course of 10-12 thousand ages…” that basically servants will be treated the same as servants or at least better then they are now.
In LA you could definitely see where the people with money lived and the people with out money lived. The different ways of living were very distinct. Now I live here in Aberdeen, and you can walk into a store and see two people. They look, and act the same but when they go back home, one has way more money then the other. To the public you would never have guessed, but when you get to know them you find that out.
In my eyes, money isn’t what makes a person happy, it is way more than that. I could be poor, but still have my family and I am way happier then those with money and have no family.
It wasn’t nothing like that back in the day. Back then in order to have power, you needed money. The internal policy states that “the object is to accumulate for out own country the greatest quantity of power, honor and enjoyment possible. To attain these in any extraordinary degree, much money is indispensible.” Meaning in order to have power or happiness you have to have money. This amazes me, because I grew up thinking the opposite, that you don’t need money and power in order to be happy.
Stanley Kailahi
MWF 11:00AM
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