Echoes of Revolution
In many ways, today's class discussion set the stage for this reading. We dove into the notion that the ideas of the revolutionary era still "echo" the world today. For example, it was only recently that Haiti paid off their independence debt to France. Further, we see many rights movements in our contemporary world, including the fight for immigration, women's, and LGBTQ rights. We can therefore say that we are still living the values of the Enlightenment period through these political protests and popular sovereignty where elected officials serve as public servants to the people. We must remember that liberty, freedom, popular sovereignty, and other such concepts are "ideals" because reaching these goals is still a work in progress. Even in my sociology class today, Deviant Behavior, we discussed the idea that our system of government was built on the hope for "men," as our values of who deserves rights have significantly changed over time. In this specific section, Strayer illustrates that the ideas and practices of the Atlantic revolutions echoed through the rising of three movements that challenged oppression and exclusion: abolition of slavery, nationalism, and feminism.One such movement Strayer uses to clarify the "echoes" of the Atlantic revolutionary era is the abolition of slavery. The Enlightenment emphasis on morals and human rights an its lack of economic progress drove the abolition movement most powerfully in Britain. However, the end of Atlantic slavery did not always mean that freed people received equality. One my favorite quotes from the section on the abolition movement is: "The fact that Europeans proclaimed the need to end slavery in a continent from which they had extracted slaves for more than four centuries was surely among the more ironic outcomes of the abolitionist process" (719) because it calls our attention to hypocrisy and contradiction.
A second example Strayer uses to illustrate the echoes of revolution is the rise of nationalism, as there was an overall emphasis on the idea that humanity was made of separate and distinct nations. As Strayer puts it, "Independence movements in both North and South America were made in the name of new nations" (719). Cultural transformation, political advancement, and societal progress accounted for the growth of nationalism which then fueled rivalry among nations, the formation of national loyalties, and the establishment of overall cultural identity within nations. He of course does not forget that he is writing for the purpose of depicting the "Ways of the World" and not just Western civilization by describing nationalist movements in Egypt, Japan, China, and India.
Strayer's third illustration of revolutionary echoes is the feminist movement, which was heavily inspired by Enlightenment questioning of female subordination to men. As a result, women had more opportunities in education, social organizations, professions, and voting, which re-defined the role of women in modern society. Reading this section reminded me that feminism is not about female superiority, but female equality to that of men. I was frustrated to read that "feminists were viewed as selfish, willing to sacrifice the family or even the nation while pursuing their individual goals" because today we live in a society that proclaims that each person deserves to be happy. I feel that this was just an excuse that opposers to feminism used to discourage the movement.
Chapter 16 Documents - Working with Evidence: Representing the French Revolution
Political art as evidence in political or satirical forms helps us understand the complexity of many situations, in this case especially, the French Revolution. For instance, in Source 16.1 "The Patriotic Snack, Reunion of the Three Estates, the artist conveys the hope and ideal of national unity people experienced during the French Revolution, three people from each of the three different estates are harmoniously having tea, not even saying anything about the peasants hunting on nobility grounds. Another example of the views held during the French Revolution is illustrated through Source 16.2, "A Reversal of Roles: The Three Estates of Revolutionary France." In this case, the artist is illustrating a divide between the clergy and nobility with The Third Estate. Art is inspired by one's social context, and we can see this reflection through these sources of art depicting the era of the French Revolution.
Taking World History at the Same Time As World Religions
As I have shared before, in my Worlds Religions class, a lot of the topics we are discussing overlap with the topics we are discussing in this class, as both classes survey the world, and it is very interesting when ideas from the two coincide. Here are some quotes that I have discovered from the overlap that I have found in the book, The Case for God by Karen Armstrong:"Americans were wary of intellectualism, and appalled by the French Revolution, had used Christianity to promote social reform. But Germans were inspired by the French Revolution, which had translated the intellectual ideals of the Enlightenment into a program for justice and equity" (Armstrong, 240).
"During the 1820s, Evangelicals threw themselves into moral crusades to hasten the coming of the Kingdom, campaigning against slavery, urban poverty, exploitation, and liquor, fighting for penal reform, the education of the poor, and the emancipation of women. There was an emphasis on the worth of each human being, egalitarianism, and the ideal of inalienable human rights" (239).
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