Thanks for joining our blog! Our institute got off to a great start today. Thanks for your participation and enthusiasm in seminar and pedagogy sessions. Today, Dr. Mackey talked in great length about the relationship between power and liberty. Please respond to the following:
Explain how 18th century people viewed the relationship between power and liberty.
People in the 18th century viewed power as something that was necessary to help protect liberty. However, they did not want power exceeding it's boundaries, thus adversely impacting a person's liberty. (S. Travis)
ReplyDeleteIn the 18th Century people viewed power as a necessary evil. After the war they felt strongly about their liberty and wanted to defend it. Power was the way to safeguard these liberties. But it was also power that could violate them. They had to find the right balance to protect their liberties while also keeping them in check. (Jason & Crystal)
ReplyDeleteSo power was considered masculine and liberty feminine, power aggressive and liberty a check on that aggression. I get all that. What I don't understand is why is power necessarily expansive and liberty contracting? And if power is natural, what is liberty?
ReplyDeleteJune 13, 2011 6:24 PM was me, Nina.
ReplyDeleteI think liberty was viewed as the ability to stand up to power, or at least the abuse of power, while power was viewed as corrupt and cruel.
ReplyDeleteIn response to Nina, my thoughts about the expansive vs contracting concept are that in that time powerful countries were very aggressive in expanding their empires with colonies, while liberty and revolution were barriers to this expansion, thus contracting their power.
Today I found a new view of how to look at liberty and power, and how they work together for the good of a people and nation. Together they form the ultimate "check and balance" of our government. I strongly believe the gentlemen gathered at the Constitutional Convention fully understood this and that is why our nation and government have prospered until this day. (That, and a strong army and a couple of big bombs. :-) )
Tim Gentry
Power was natural and expected but like Nina, I wondered about liberty. After thinking about this evenings posts, I believe the founding fathers thought that liberty is natural too. In the Declaration of Independence it says:
ReplyDeleteWe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
I think to say that liberty is contracting is a misstatement. Liberty is power for all people. It contracts when power needs to contract, hence they're more synonymous then not. Just a thought! :) KN
Well I feel I now have the power to communicate to express my opinions in the 21st century. this is my first blog ever. I will protect my libery by using this blog to express my power
ReplyDeleteOne of the ideas that sticks with me from the study of power and liberty of the 18th century, is that all people have the right and responsibility to exercise power in order to ensure and protect their liberties. Even if it means war against a nation.
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