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Ninth Edition

Lee A. Jacobus

A World of Ideas

Essential Readings for College Writers

with e-Pages

Jacobu s

A W

orld of Ideas N

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BEDFORD ST. MARTIN’S

Explore great ideas from great writers. A World of Ideas will introduce you to important thinkers whose ideas have shaped civilizations throughout history — from Plato to Adam Smith, from Virginia Woolf to Judith Butler, and from Machiavelli to Martin Luther King Jr. These essential readings are accompanied by questions, examples, and suggestions that will help you understand and respond critically to ideas — and teach you how to communicate your own ideas effectively in your college writing.

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N I N T H E D I T I O N

A WORLD

OF IDEAS

ESSENTIAL READINGS FOR

COLLEGE WRITERS

LEE A. JACOBUS University of Connecticut

BEDFORD/ST. MARTIN’S Boston ♦ New York

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Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments and copyrights appear at the back of the book on pages 942–46, which constitute an extension of the copyright page. It is a violation of the law to reproduce these selections by any means whatsoever without the written permission of the copyright holder.

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PREFACE

Among the pleasures of editing A World of Ideas are the discus- sions I have had over the years with students and teachers who have used the book in their writing classes. A student once wrote to tell me that the book meant a great deal to her and that her experience with it impelled her to wonder what originally inspired me to assemble the first edition. I explained that my teaching of first-year writing has always inclined toward ideas that serious writers and thinkers have explored and contemplated throughout the ages; early on, I could not find a composition reader that introduced students to the important thinkers whose writing I believe should be basic to everyone’s educa- tion. As a result of that need, A World of Ideas took shape and has con- tinued to grow and develop through nine editions, attracting a wide audience of teachers and students who value the thought-provoking ideas that affect the way we interpret the world.

In preparing the ninth edition of A World of Ideas, I have ben- efited, as usual, from the suggestions of hundreds of users of earlier editions. The primary concern of both teachers and students is that the book remain centered on the tradition of important ideas and on the writers whose work has had a lasting influence on society. To that end, I have chosen writers whose ideas are central to our most important and lasting concerns. A new edition offers the opportunity to reevaluate old choices and make new ones that expand and deepen what has always been the fundamental purpose of this composition reader: to provide college students in first-year writing courses with a representative sampling of important ideas examined by men and women who have shaped the way we think today.

The selections in this volume are of the highest quality. Each was chosen because it clarifies important ideas and can sustain discus- sion and stimulate good writing. Unlike most composition readers, A World of Ideas presents substantial excerpts from the work of each of

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iv PREFACE

its authors. The selections are presented as they originally appeared; only rarely are they edited and marked with ellipses. They average fif- teen to twenty pages in length, and their arguments are presented com- pletely, as the authors wrote them. Developing a serious idea in writing takes time and a willingness to experiment. Most students are willing to read deeply into the work of important thinkers to grasp their ideas bet- ter because the knowledge yielded by the effort is vast and rewarding.

Additionally, this edition of A World of Ideas is also presented in a new format—a combination of the print book and e-Pages, online materials that include one reading per chapter as well as color ver- sions of all the works of art in the “Visualizing” features. The readings that appear in e-Pages are “favorites” that have appeared in past edi- tions of A World of Ideas; making them accessible online allows us to give your students more material without increasing the cost or size of the text. The e-Page versions of the “Visualizing” works of art are in full color, giving students the opportunity to view these images in richer detail and thus to better appreciate their subtleties, the particu- lars of which often lend these paintings much of their significance.

A Text for Readers and Writers

Because students perceive writers such as Plato and Thoreau as serious and important, they take more seriously the writing course that uses texts by these authors: such students learn to read more attentively, think more critically, and write more effectively. But more important, this may be a student’s only opportunity to encoun- ter the thinkers whose ideas have shaped civilization. No other com- position reader offers a comparable collection of important readings along with the supportive apparatus students need to understand, analyze, and respond to them.

Classic Readings. A World of Ideas draws its fifty-six selections (forty-eight in print and eight in e-Pages) from the writing of some of the world’s most important thinkers. Those writers with selections that remain from the eighth edition are Hannah Arendt, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, Carl Becker, Andrew Carnegie, Marcus Tullius Cicero, Charles Darwin, René Descartes, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sigmund Freud, John Kenneth Galbraith, Howard Gardner, Germaine Greer, Thomas Jefferson, Carl Jung, Martin Luther King Jr., Lao-tzu, Niccolò Machiavelli, Karl Marx, Margaret Mead, John Stuart Mill, Iris Murdoch, Friedrich Nietzsche, Plato, Robert B. Reich, Jean- Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Henry David Thoreau, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Virginia Woolf.

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PREFACE v

A Focus on Eight Great Ideas. A World of Ideas’ unique struc- ture highlights seminal ideas as developed by great thinkers through- out history and facilitates cross-disciplinary comparisons. Each of the eight parts of the book focuses on one great idea—democracy, gov- ernment, ethics and morality, wealth and poverty, education, gender and culture, language, and discoveries and the mind. Part introduc- tions ground students in the history of each idea and connect the philosophies of individual writers.

“Evaluating Ideas: An Introduction to Critical Reading.” This introduction demonstrates a range of methods students can adopt to participate in a meaningful dialogue with each selection. This dialogue—an active, questioning approach to texts and ideas—is one of the keys to critical reading. In the introduction, a portion of Ma chiavelli’s “The Qualities of the Prince” is annotated to help stu- dents follow the key ideas of the piece and to model for students a critical reading process that they can adapt to other essays in the book. The introduction encourages students to mark what they think are the most interesting and important ideas in an essay and high- light or underline all sentences that they might want to quote in an essay of their own.

“Writing about Ideas: An Introduction to Rhetoric.” In the ninth edition, this section, which now immediately follows “Evalu- ating Ideas: An Introduction to Critical Reading,” has been much expanded, with an emphasis on developing thesis statements, using rhetorical methods of development, and thinking critically to construct a strong argument. Many new examples based on current selections in the ninth edition help students find fruitful approaches to the material. This section explains how a reader can make annotations while reading critically and then use those anno- tations to write effectively in response to the ideas presented in any selection in the book. “Writing about Ideas” draws on the annota- tions of the Machiavelli selection illustrated in “Evaluating Ideas: An Introduction to Critical Reading.” A sample student essay on Machiavelli, using the techniques taught in the context of read- ing and writing, gives students a model for moving from a critical response to a selection to writing their own material. In addition, this section helps students understand how they can apply some of the basic rhetorical principles discussed throughout the book.

Selection Headnotes. Each selection is preceded by a detailed headnote on the author’s life and work and by comments about the primary ideas presented in the reading. The most interesting rhetorical

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vi PREFACE

aspects of the selection are identified and discussed to help students see how the writer’s rhetorical techniques can achieve specific effects.

Prereading Questions. To emphasize critical thinking, reading, and writing, prereading questions precede every selection. The con- tent of the selections is challenging, and these prereading questions can help students in first-year writing courses overcome minor dif- ficulties in understanding the author’s meaning. These brief questions are designed to help students focus on central issues during their first reading of each selection.

Extensive Apparatus. At the end of each selection is a group of discussion questions designed for use inside or outside the classroom. Questions for Critical Reading focus on key issues and ideas and can be used to stimulate general class discussion and critical thinking. Sugges- tions for Critical Writing help students practice some of the rhetorical strategies employed by the author of a given selection. These sugges- tions ask for personal responses, as well as complete essays that involve research. A number of these assignments, labeled “Connections,” pro- mote critical reading by requiring students to connect particular pas- sages in a selection with a selection by another writer, either in the same part of the book or in another part. The variety of connections is intriguing—Lao-tzu with Machiavelli, Aristotle with Andrew Carnegie, Adam Smith with Thomas Jefferson, Julius K. Nyerere with the fram- ers of the Constitution, Francis Bacon with Howard Gardner, Kwame Anthony Appiah with Iris Murdoch and Michael Gazzaniga, Susanne K. Langer with Noam Chomsky, James Baldwin with Jonathan Kozol, Judith Butler with Margaret Mead, and many more.

The “Visualizing” Feature Encourages Students to Apply Great Ideas to Great Works of Art. Immediately preceding the selections in each part, a well-known painting is accompanied by a commentary that places the work historically and aesthetically and prepares students to make thoughtful connections between the work and the thinkers who follow. For example, “Visualizing Gender and Culture” features Mary Cassatt’s painting In the Loge along with a brief caption and a discus- sion of the work’s exploration of gender roles. The Seeing Connections questions that follow each of the readings ask students to relate a given text to the work of art. Other featured works of art include, but are not limited to, Howard Chandler Christy’s painting Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States for “Visualizing Democracy,” Eugène Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People for “Visualizing Government,” Salvador Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory for “Visualizing Discoveries and the Mind,” and Wosene Worke Kosrof ’s The Color of Words IX— from his series WordPlay—for “Visualizing Language.”

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PREFACE vii

Instructor’s Resource Manual. I have prepared an extensive manual, Resources for Teaching A WORLD OF IDEAS, that contains further background on the selections, examples from my own class- room responses to the selections, and more suggestions for classroom discussion and student writing assignments. Sentence outlines for the selections—which have been carefully prepared by Michael Hennessy, Carol Verberg, Ellen Troutman, Ellen Darion, and Jon Marc Smith— can be photocopied or downloaded from the book’s companion Web site, bedfordstmartins.com/worldofideas, and given to students. The idea for these sentence outlines came from the phrase outlines that Darwin created to precede each chapter of On the Origin of Species. These outlines may be used to discuss the more difficult selections and to provide additional guidance for students. At the end of the manual, brief bibliographies are provided for all fifty-five authors. These bibli- ographies may be photocopied or downloaded and distributed to stu- dents who wish to explore the primary selections in greater depth.

New in the Ninth Edition

The ninth edition offers a number of new features to help students engage and interact with the texts as they learn to ana- lyze ideas and develop their own thoughts in writing.

Selections and Images Available in e-Pages. As mentioned above, the new edition features online readings—“favorites” from past editions such as Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “On Education” and Stephen L. Carter’s “The Separation of Church and State”—and full-color versions of the art- work included in the book. Students receive access automatically with the purchase of a new book. If the activation code printed in the inside cover of the student edition is revealed, it might be expired. Students can purchase access at the Student Site. Instructors don’t need an access code; they can access the e-Pages at the Student Site. They can also use the free tools accompanying the e-Pages to upload a syllabus, readings, and assignments to share with the class. Visit bedfordstmartins.com /worldofideas/epages for more information.

New Essential Readings. The selections in A World of Ideas explore the key ideas that have defined the human experience and shaped civiliza- tion. Of the fifty-six selections, twenty-six are new to this edition, includ- ing works by Aristotle, James Madison, the Founding Fathers, Alexis de Tocqueville, Julius K. Nyerere, Benazir Bhutto, Stephen L. Carter, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Michael Gazzaniga, Milton and Rose Fried- man, Hsün Tzu, Maria Montessori, John Dewey, Carter G. Woodson, Jonathan Kozol, Howard Gardner, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Judith Butler,

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viii PREFACE

Karen Horney, Susanne K. Langer, Mario Pei, James Baldwin, Bill Bryson, Neil Postman, Noam Chomsky, and Alexander Pope.

Three New Foundational Ideas. The selections in the three new parts—“Democracy,” “Education,” and “Language”—cover con- siderable historical periods and attitudes toward their subjects. All three of these new sections contain ideas that affect every one of us in a number of important ways. Democracy, for example, is in many respects one of the most important ideas of modern times. With political struggles unfolding in developing countries, whose citizens are voting for the first time and writing their own constitutions, few documents could be more important for students to know well than the U.S. Constitution, which appears in this book for the first time. Likewise, the work of James Madison and others in the Federalist Papers points toward political struggles ongoing in modern democra- cies. The section on education introduces students to ideas by Hsün tzu, Maria Montessori, John Dewey, and Carter G. Woodson that are still relevant to our schools. The section on language introduces some of the modern ideas about language being “hardwired” in our brains, and it explores some theories of language origin and the development of words from authors such as Mario Pei and Susanne K. Langer.

More “Connections” Questions. Throughout the book, students are asked to make connections and comparisons between writers addressing the same great idea within the same great idea topic and between writers addressing different ideas, helping to stimulate com- parative critical thinking and writing.

Increased Coverage of Developing Theses and Arguments. “Writing about Ideas: An Introduction to Rhetoric” now immediately follows “Evaluating Ideas: An Introduction to Critical Reading” at the beginning of the book, and this section has been expanded to provide support for developing thesis statements, using rhetorical methods of development, and using critical thinking to develop a strong argument. New student writing examples based on selections in the ninth edition help students understand how to approach the material and discuss it meaningfully.

Digital Resources for A World of Ideas

A World of Ideas offers more than just a great text. Online you’ll find both free and affordable premium resources to help stu- dents get even more out of the book and your course. You’ll also find convenient instructor resources, such as downloadable sample syllabi, classroom activities, and even a nationwide community of teachers. To learn more about or order any of the products

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PREFACE ix

below, contact your Bedford/St. Martin’s sales representative, e-mail sales support (sales_support@bfwpub.com), or visit the Web site at bedfordstmartins.com.

Take Advantage of What the Web Can Do with New e-Pages for A World of Ideas. Favorite readings from past editions give your students even more important thinkers to help them explore ideas, and color images from the “Visualizing” features give your students a better look at works of art that relate to great ideas. To access this fea- ture, go to bedfordstmartins.com/worldofideas/epages.

A Fully Updated Student Site Gives Students More Ways to Explore A World of Ideas. At bedfordstmartins.com/worldofideas, students will find links to full-text documents of historical and philo- sophical interest, more information on each selection’s author and his or her ideas, and the book’s e-Pages, which are accessible through a code included in the book. Instructors will find the helpful instructor’s manual, which includes a sentence outline for every selection.

Let Students Choose Their Format. Students can now purchase A World of Ideas in popular e-book formats for computers, tablets, and e-readers. For more details, visit bedfordstmartins.com/ebooks.

VideoCentral is a growing collection of videos for the writing class that captures real-world, academic, and student writers talking about how and why they write. VideoCentral can be packaged for free with A World of Ideas. An activation code is required. To order Video- Central packaged with the print book, use ISBN 978-1-4576-4342-2.

Re:Writing Plus gathers all of the Bedford/St. Martin’s premium digital content for composition into one online collection. It includes hundreds of model documents, the first ever peer-review game, and VideoCentral. Re:Writing Plus can be purchased separately or packaged with the print book at a significant discount. An activation code is required. To order Re:Writing Plus packaged with A World of Ideas, use ISBN 978-1-4576-4338-5.

Teaching Ce ntral (bedfordstmartins.com/teachingcentral) offers the entire list of Bedford/St. Martin’s print and online professional resources in one place. You’ll find landmark reference works, source- books on pedagogical issues, award-winning collections, and practical advice for the classroom—all free for instructors.

Bits (bedfordbits.com) collects creative ideas for teaching a range of composition topics in an easily searchable blog. A community of

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teachers—leading scholars, authors, and editors—discuss revision, research, grammar and style, technology, peer review, and much more. Take, use, adapt, and pass the ideas around. Then, come back to the site to comment or share your own suggestion.

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Acknowledgments

I am grateful to a number of people who made important sug- gestions for earlier editions, among them Shoshana Milgram Knapp of Virginia Polytechnic and State University and Michael Hennessy of Texas State University–San Marcos. I want to thank Jon Marc Smith of Texas State University–San Marcos and Chiara Sulprizio of the Loyola Marymount University for assisting with the instructor’s manual for the eighth edition. I also remain grateful to Michael Bybee of St. John’s College in Santa Fe for suggesting many fascinating pieces by Eastern thinkers, all of which he has taught to his own students. Thanks to him, this edition includes Lao-tzu.

Like its predecessors, the ninth edition is indebted to a great many creative people at Bedford/St. Martin’s, whose support is invalu- able. I want to thank Charles Christensen, former president, whose concern for the excellence of this book and whose close attention to detail were truly admirable. I appreciate as always the advice of Joan E. Feinberg, copresident of Macmillan Higher Education, and Denise Wydra, president of Bedford/St. Martin’s, whose suggestions were timely and excellent. Nancy Perry, editorial director, Custom Pub- lishing, New York; Karen Henry, editor in chief, English; and Steve Scipione, executive editor, offered many useful ideas and suggestions as well, especially in the early stages of development, and kept their sharp eyes on the project throughout. My editor for the eighth edi- tion, Maura Shea, is the professional’s professional. My editor for the current edition, Alicia Young, has been a steady guiding hand, dis- cussing material with me and providing help where necessary and when timely. She has been an inspiration in dealing with sometimes intractable problems and responding with encouragement and the kind of help only the best editors can provide.

Assisting her were a number of hardworking individuals, includ- ing Charlotte Christy and Bethany Gordon. Anne Noonan, production editor, also helped with innumerable important details and sugges- tions. Mary Lou Wilshaw-Watts, copyeditor, improved the prose

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PREFACE xi

and watched out for inconsistencies. Thanks also to several staff members and researchers: Jenn Kennett cleared text permissions, Donna Dennison found the cover art and designed the cover, and Linda Finigan secured all the new photographs. In earlier edi- tions, I had help from Diane Kraut, Maura Shea, Sarah Cornog, Rosemary Winfield, Michelle Clark, Professor Mary W. Cornog, Ellen Kuhl, Mark Reimold, Andrea Goldman, Beth Castrodale, Jonathan Burns, Mary Beth McNulty, Beth Chapman, Mika De Roo, and Greg Johnson. I feel I had a personal relationship with each of them. I also want to thank the students—quite a few of them—who wrote me directly about their experiences reading the first eight editions. I have attended carefully to what they told me, and I am warmed by their high regard for the material in this book.

Earlier editions named hundreds of users of this book who sent their comments and encouragement. I would like to take this oppor- tunity to thank them again. In addition, the following professors were generous with criticism, praise, and detailed recommendations for the ninth edition: D. Michelle Adkerson, Nashville State Community College; Geraldine Cannon Becker, University of Maine at Fort Kent; Aaron Bradford, Folsom Lake College and Pasadena City College; David Elias, Eastern Kentucky University; Jim Ewing, Fresno City College; Michele Giargiari, Bunker Hill Community College; Susan Gorman, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences; Deana Holifield, Pearl River Community College; Shelley Kelly, College of Southern Nevada; Christina Lovin, Eastern Kentucky University; Pam Mathis, North Arkansas College; Aggie Mendoza, Nashville State Community College; Sandra Pyle, Point Park University; Robert Royar, Morehead State University; Sam Ruddick, Bunker Hill Community College; Ron Schwartz, Pierce College; Michele Singletary, Nashville State Community College; Jon Marc Smith, Texas State University– San Marcos; Roberta Stagnaro, San Diego State University; Andrea Van Nort, United States Air Force Academy; Paul Walker, Murray State University; Martha Willoughby, Pearl River Community College; and our reviewers at Chaffey College, Pasadena City College, and Mon- mouth University who wish to remain anonymous. I want to mention particularly the past experiences I had visiting Professor Elizabeth Deis and the faculty and students of Hampden-Sydney College in connec- tion with their writing and humanities programs. Professors James Kenkel and Charlie Sweet were gracious in welcoming me to Eastern Kentucky University for workshops and classes using A World of Ideas. These were delightful and fruitful experiences that helped me shape the book. I am grateful to all who took part in these workshops.

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TO THE STUDENT

When the first edition of A World of Ideas was published, the notion that students in first-year composition courses should be able to read and write about challenging works by great thinkers was a radical one. In fact, no other composition reader at the time included selections from such important thinkers as Hannah Arendt, Aristotle, Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Plato, Charles Darwin, or Mary Woll- stonecraft. I had expected a moderate response from a small number of people. Instead, teachers and students alike sent me a swarm of mail commending the book for the challenge it provided and the insights they gained.

One of the first letters I received was from a young woman who had read the book after she graduated from college. She said she had heard of the thinkers included in A World of Ideas but in her college career had never read any of their works. Reading them now, she said, was long overdue. Another student wrote me an elaborate letter in which he demonstrated that every one of the selections in the book had been used as the basis of a Star Trek episode. He sagely connected every selection to a specific episode and convinced me that whoever was writing Star Trek had read some of the world’s most important thinkers. Other students have written to tell me that they found them- selves using the material in this book in other courses, such as psy- chology, philosophy, literature, and history, among others. In many cases, these students were the only ones among their peers who had read the key authors in their discipline.

Sometimes you will have to read the selections in A World of Ideas more than once. Works by influential thinkers, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, James Baldwin, Judith Butler, Adam Smith, Sigmund Freud, Francis Bacon, Iris Murdoch, and Noam Chomsky, can be very challenging. But do not let the challenge discourage you. In “Evaluat- ing Ideas: An Introduction to Critical Reading,” I suggest methods for

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xiv TO THE STUDENT

annotating and questioning texts that are designed to help you keep track of what you read and to help you master the material. In addi- tion, each selection is accompanied by a headnote on the author’s life and work, comments about the primary ideas presented in the selec- tion, and a host of questions to help you overcome minor difficulties in understanding the author’s meaning. Some students have written to tell me that their first reading of the book was off-putting, but most of them have written later to tell me how they eventually overcame their initial fear that the selections would be too difficult for them. Ulti- mately, these students agreed with me that this material is important enough to merit their absolute attention.

The purpose of A World of Ideas is to help you learn to write better by giving you something really significant to think and write about. The selections not only are avenues into some of the most seri- ous thought on their subjects but also are stimulating enough to sus- tain close analysis and to produce many good ideas for writing. For example, when you think about democracy, it helps to know what Aristotle said about it while Athens enjoyed it, just as it is important to know what the United States Constitution says that puts democ- racy into law. Elizabeth Cady Stanton defends the rights of women in her “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions,” pointing always to the social injustices that she documents. Frederick Douglass speaks from the perspective of a former slave when he cries out against the injustice of an institution that existed in the Americas for hundreds of years. And a hundred years after Douglass, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. sent his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” still demanding justice for African Americans and freedom seekers everywhere. The questions of ethics that still haunt us are treated by Iris Murdoch in relation to religion and by Kwame Anthony Appiah in relation to situ- ational and virtue ethics, each of which concentrates on the relation of ones’ character to one’s ethical behavior. All these writers place their views in the larger context of a universal dialogue on the subject of justice. When you write, you add your own voice to the conversation. By commenting on the selections, expressing and arguing a position, and pointing out contradictions or contrasts among texts, you are par- ticipating in the world of ideas.

Keep in mind that I prepared A World of Ideas for my own stu- dents, most of whom work their way through college and do not take the idea of earning an education lightly. For that reason, I felt I owed them the opportunity to encounter the very best minds I could put them in touch with. Anything less seemed to me a missed opportu- nity. I hope you, like so many other writing students, find this book both educational and inspiring.

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CONTENTS

Preface iii

To the Student xiii

EVALUATING IDEAS: An Introduction to Critical Reading 1

WRITING ABOUT IDEAS: An Introduction to Rhetoric 13

P A R T O N E

DEMOCRACY – 51 –

VISUALIZING DEMOCRACY

HOWARD CHANDLER CHRISTY, Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States [IMAGE; AVAILABLE IN COLOR IN E-PAGES]

57

In 1939, the House of Representatives commissioned Christy—a renowned American artist—to paint a portrait of one of the most auspicious moments in his country’s history: the signing of the Constitution of the United States.

ARISTOTLE Democracy and Oligarchy 59

Having lived in Athens during the period of its democracy, Aristotle had considerable insight into the political structures that existed

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xvi CONTENTS

in ancient Greece. His analysis of the choice between democracy— rule by the people—and oligarchy—rule by a wealthy few— remains relevant to this day.

THE FOUNDING FATHERS The Constitution of the United States of America 75

This landmark document of United States history was the result of the founding fathers meeting in Philadelphia in 1787 to ratify a con- stitution that established a strong federal government that took into account special issues of the states.

JAMES MADISON Federalist No. 51: On the Separation of Departments of Power 109

The Federalist Papers, written by James Madison, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton before the ratification of the Con- stitution, argued for a federal government to help consolidate the interests of the states. Here, Madison establishes means by which the federal government can balance powers so as to avoid tyranny.

ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE Government by Democracy in America 121

Tocqueville, a French aristocrat, traveled extensively in the United States in the 1830s and was struck by the sense of equality ex- pressed by nearly every American he encountered. His Democracy in America remains one of the most profound and astute commen- taries on American democracy.

CARL BECKER Ideal Democracy 143

In an essay written in 1941, at democracy’s lowest hour in the West, Becker reminds us that “Democracy is in some sense an eco- nomic luxury,” but that we must nonetheless recognize its value and persist in its defense.

JULIUS K. NYERERE One-Party Government 165

Nyerere, the first president of Tanzania, tells us that there was no room for the adversarial structure of two political parties when his country was emerging from recent colonial control. Unity was

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CONTENTS xvii

the most important issue to bring Tanzania into the modern world, and Nyerere insists that democracy is possible under such conditions.

BENAZIR BHUTTO Islam and Democracy 177

The former prime minister of Pakistan, Bhutto explains why there is no impediment preventing Islamic nations from adopting a democratic form of government while also recognizing the difficul- ties that extremists have posed for representative governments in the Islamic world.

STEPHEN L. CARTER The Separation of Church and State

Carter, a legal scholar, examines the contemporary anxiety over the separation of church and state and maintains that the provi- sion of freedom of religion in the U.S. Constitution was designed to protect individual religions from the state, not to protect the state from religion.

P A R T T W O

GOVERNMENT – 195 –

VISUALIZING GOVERNMENT

EUGÈNE DELACROIX, Liberty Leading the People [IMAGE; AVAILABLE IN COLOR IN E-PAGES]

200

Liberty Leading the People commemorates the three-day July Revolution of 1830, which overthrew Charles X of France, the last of the Bourbon kings. Delacroix’s painting has been described as the first political painting of modern art.

LAO-TZU Thoughts from the Tao-te Ching 203

In recommending that a ruler practice judicious inactivity rather than wasteful busyness, the ancient Chinese philosopher mini- mizes the power of the state over the individual.

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NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI The Qualities of the Prince 219

In this excerpt from the most notorious political treatise of all time, Machiavelli, a veteran of intrigue in Florence’s Medici court, recommends unscrupulous tactics for the ruler who wishes to secure power for himself and stability in his domain.

JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU The Origin of Civil Society 237

The French philosopher Rousseau speculates that members of a society forfeit individual freedoms for the greater good of all and stresses a revolutionary view—equality before the law.

THOMAS JEFFERSON The Declaration of Independence 259

In this primary document of modern democratic government, Jefferson justifies the right of the American colonies to dissolve their bonds with a tyrannical monarchy and to construct a free nation of independent souls in its stead.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions 269

Stanton draws on her experience as a feminist and on Thomas Jefferson’s model to show that, one hundred years after the Dec- laration of Independence, half of America still waited to be freed from tyranny.

HANNAH ARENDT Total Domination 279

Arendt, a historian and political theorist, argues that terror is necessary for the state to achieve total domination over the individual and that the concentration camp represents the most intense form of terror a state can exert in modern society.

MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO The Defense of Injustice

Cicero, the great Roman orator and legendary champion of jus- tice, plays devil’s advocate as he powerfully argues that in some circumstances justice is inexpedient and problematic for a state to provide.

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P A R T T H R E E

ETHICS AND MORALITY – 293 –

VISUALIZING ETHICS AND MORALITY

JOSEPH WRIGHT OF DERBY, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump [IMAGE; AVAILABLE IN COLOR IN E-PAGES]

298

Joseph Wright’s painting depicts—in reverential, almost religious tones—a group of observers’ varied reactions to the life-and-death experiment happening before them. Some onlookers show concern for the bird being experimented upon, but ultimately, scientific curiosity wins out.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU Civil Disobedience 301

A man who lived by his ideals of justice, Thoreau explains how and why it is not only reasonable but also sometimes essential to disobey unjust laws imposed by the state.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS From Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave 327

One of the most eloquent orators of the nineteenth century, Fred- erick Douglass reveals how an indomitable spirit reacted to a sys- tem of law that sanctioned slavery, treated people as chattel, and denied justice for them and their offspring into perpetuity.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE Morality as Anti-Nature 343

Nietzsche, one of modernism’s most influential thinkers, argues that rules of morality and ethics set down by religions force indi- viduals to adhere to principles that deny their human nature.

IRIS MURDOCH Morality and Religion 359

Murdoch, one of the twentieth century’s most distinguished au- thors, questions whether there can be morality without religion and whether, if evil is conquered, the concept of morality would remain.

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. Letter from Birmingham Jail 375

King, a minister and civil rights leader, advocates nonviolent action as a means of changing the unconscionable practices of racial segre- gation and of achieving justice for all.

CONTENTS xix

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KWAME ANTHONY APPIAH The Case against Character 397

Appiah examines the question of whether “virtue” resides in char- acter or actions and considers the development of situationist ethics—the examination of people’s behavior in situations in which ethical choices are decidedly unclear.

MICHAEL GAZZANIGA Toward a Universal Ethics 415

Gazzaniga, a famous neuroscientist who has examined brain physi- ology and the genetics of brain development, considers the possibility that some people are genetically disposed toward unethical behavior.

ARISTOTLE The Aim of Man

Aristotle describes the search for the highest good, which he defines as happiness. In the process of defining the good, he relates it to the idea of virtuous behavior, living an ethical and moral life. For him, the concept of morality is communal, not just individual.

P A R T F O U R

WEALTH AND POVERTY – 433 –

VISUALIZING WEALTH AND POVERTY:

HENRY OSSAWA TANNER, The Thankful Poor [IMAGE; AVAILABLE IN COLOR IN E-PAGES]

438

Tanner was an African American painter of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His portrait of an older man and a young child in prayer, which was probably drawn from life, infuses a hum- ble scene with dignity and hope.

ADAM SMITH Of the Natural Progress of Opulence 441

This excerpt from the classic work on modern capitalism The Wealth of Nations explores the economic relationship between rural areas and cities in an attempt to understand the “natural” steps to wealth.

KARL MARX The Communist Manifesto 453

Marx, the most thorough critic of laissez-faire capitalism, traces the dehumanizing progress of the nineteenth-century bourgeois

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economic structure and heralds its downfall at the hands of a united international proletariat.

ANDREW CARNEGIE The Gospel of Wealth 481

The great American industrialist and steel magnate argues that it is not only desirable but natural that some people in a free society should be enormously wealthy and that most should not. He also in- sists that great personal wealth is held in trust for the public and must be given away during one’s own lifetime to support worthy causes.

JOHN KENNETH GALBRAITH The Position of Poverty 499

Improving the plight of society’s poorest members is a central responsibility of today’s wealthy nations, says Galbraith, the most widely read economist of the past four decades.

ROBERT B. REICH Why the Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer 513

The former secretary of labor talks about the different categories of workers in the United States and the inevitable changes occur- ring as the U.S. economy is altered by globalization.

MILTON AND ROSE FRIEDMAN Created Equal

The Friedmans, noted conservative economists, consider the Decla- ration of Independence’s insistence that “all men are created equal.” Their view is that equality of opportunity is essential in a democracy, but that the equality of outcome is a denial of personal freedom.

P A R T F I V E

EDUCATION – 533 –

VISUALIZING EDUCATION

NORMAN ROCKWELL, The Problem We All Live With [IMAGE; AVAILABLE IN COLOR IN E-PAGES]

539

This Rockwell painting—his most requested reproduction—depicts Ruby Bridges’ first day of school in New Orleans on November 14, 1960. Federal marshals escorted Ruby to protect her from angry pro- testers who opposed the integration of the previously all-white school.

CONTENTS xxi

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HSÜN TZU Encouraging Learning 543

Hsün tzu connects education with the lifelong quest for moral perfection—the eventual attainment of the Way, the right path in life— and posits that the ritual of study is essential to a student’s success.

JOHN DEWEY Thinking in Education 555

One of the most influential modern thinkers in education, Dewey champions experiential activities that deeply involve students in solv- ing problems perceived as genuine, not artificially posed by the teacher.

MARIA MONTESSORI The Montessori Method 571

Montessori, Italy’s first female medical doctor, transformed an inner-city school in Rome and demonstrated that respect for the child, cultivation of the child’s imagination, and instruction in reading could reach youngsters who were thought to be hopeless.

CARTER G. WOODSON The Mis-Education of the Negro 587

Woodson, widely considered the “father of black history,” devoted his skills to teaching and documenting his methods of instruction of African American students. He saw their history omitted from textbooks and was committed to remedying the situation.

JONATHAN KOZOL The Uses of “Diversity” 605

In a letter to a younger teacher, Kozol points out that the goal of promoting diversity in American schools, despite popular rhetoric, has failed miserably. He demonstrates this contention based on his own experiences visiting schools in various parts of the country.

HOWARD GARDNER Designing Education for Understanding 619

Rather than promote a wide range of subjects for elementary and secondary schools, Gardner proposes a program that emphasizes depth rather than breadth. Mastering the principles of math, sci- ence, the arts, and history is essential to promoting understanding that can be applied across disciplines and throughout a student’s life.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON On Education

Emerson, the greatest of nineteenth-century American essayists, offers advice on education that derives both from his personal ex- perience and from his meditations on the subject. One of his most basic observations is that to be successful, education must respect the child and the child’s needs.

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P A R T S I X

GENDER AND CULTURE – 645 –

VISUALIZING GENDER AND CULTURE

MARY STEVENSON CASSATT, In the Loge [IMAGE; AVAILABLE IN COLOR IN E-PAGES]

650

Mary Cassatt, who left the United States to become an important impressionist painter in France, puts forth a bold statement about the complexities of gender and class expectations in her painting In the Loge (1878).

MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT Of the Pernicious Effects Which Arise from the Unnatural Distinctions Established in Society 653

In this excerpt from one of the first great works of feminism, Woll- stonecraft argues that the laws, property rights, and class distinctions of her day are mechanisms of control that deny women their liberty and demean their lives.

JOHN STUART MILL The Subjection of Women 669

Mill, one of the most distinguished philosophers of the Victorian age, cries out against a social system that denies education and opportunity to women. He clarifies the subjection of women in marriage and argues against wasting the talent of half of society, talent that he says is in great demand in the modern industrial age.

VIRGINIA WOOLF Shakespeare’s Sister 689

In this excerpt from A Room of One’s Own, her book-length essay on the role of women in history and society, Woolf imagina- tively reconstructs the environment of Shakespeare’s hypothetical sister and demonstrates how little opportunity she would have had in the sixteenth century.

MARGARET MEAD Sex and Temperament 707

The anthropologist Margaret Mead attacks the idea that there is a biological basis for what we may think of as a masculine or a feminine temperament. She illustrates her argument with examples from a number of societies whose views about masculinity and femininity are quite at odds with any that we might recognize in our own experience.

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GERMAINE GREER Masculinity 725

One of the most celebrated of modern feminists, Greer begins by establishing that masculinity is a social, not a biological, construct. She then offers a careful analysis of the specific qualities of mas- culinity that, while obviously controversial, can be easily verified or denied by reference to the day-to-day experience of the reader.

JUDITH BUTLER From Undoing Gender 739

Judith Butler calls the entire question of gender identification and gender essentialism into question, relating the story of a young boy’s mutilation in infancy that resulted in his being raised as a girl.

KAREN HORNEY The Distrust between the Sexes

Horney, the first major female psychoanalyst, looks at Freud’s theories and other cultures to establish her own theory of devel- opment that accounts for the tangled relations between the sexes.

P A R T S E V E N

LANGUAGE – 761 –

VISUALIZING LANGUAGE

WOSENE WORKE KOSROF, The Color of Words IX [IMAGE; AVAILABLE IN COLOR IN E-PAGES]

766

In this painting from his series WordPlay, Ethiopian artist Wosene Worke Kosrof manipulates characters from Amharic—an ancient Ethiopian language—to create new visual cues and meanings.

SUSANNE K. LANGER Language 769

Langer focuses on the ways in which people begin to learn language. She credits the infant’s lalling with great importance for learning. She also tells the story of the Wild Boy of Aveyron, who was found wandering in the forest unable to talk, and who ulti- mately was unable to learn language.

MARIO PEI Theories of Language Beginning 783

Pei proposes a number of possible ways in which language orig- inated but concedes that none of them can ever be proven. The origin of language is a mystery for scientists and linguists, but the

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theories of language origin that have evolved are significant and enlightening.

JAMES BALDWIN If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is? 795

One of America’s most distinguished writers responds to an attack on black English by pointing to African Americans’ contributions to the English language. Baldwin argues that white language has defined black people for too long, and he demands that African Americans must define themselves through their own language.

BILL BRYSON Where Words Come From 805

Bryson introduces readers to a host of unusual words as a means of suggesting five ways in which words develop: some by error, some by borrowing, some by pure invention, some by adding or subtracting parts, and some by doing absolutely nothing.

NEIL POSTMAN The Word Weavers / The World Makers 825

Postman, a champion of semantics, explains that language creates our understanding of everything. He demonstrates how metaphor controls meaning and convinces the reader, explaining how our use of language essentially controls our understanding of our world.

NOAM CHOMSKY New Horizons in the Study of Language 843

The most famous modern linguistician, Chomsky argues that hu- mans are born with an inbuilt capacity to learn any language. Ergo, there must be an “initial state” of language inherent to the brain and from which all languages develop.

ALEXANDER POPE From An Essay on Criticism

The great eighteenth-century English poet Pope establishes clear principles for criticism that avoids special pleading, favoritism, nitpicking, and a failure to see the whole. In the process, he shows readers a language rich with imagery and formal beauty.

P A R T E I G H T

DISCOVERIES AND THE MIND – 857 –

VISUALIZING DISCOVERIES AND THE MIND

SALVADOR DALÍ, The Persistence of Memory [IMAGE; AVAILABLE IN COLOR IN E-PAGES]

861

CONTENTS xxv

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The Persistence of Memory is one of the most well-known paint- ings of the twentieth century. Dalí’s surrealistic masterpiece rep- resents a dream state, an expedition into the unconscious interior of the mind.

PLATO The Allegory of the Cave 865

Plato, the founder of Western philosophy, talks about the nature of perception and the limits of the human mind, emphasizing the difficulties everyone encounters in discovering the truth about appearances.

FRANCIS BACON The Four Idols 879

A prominent figure in philosophy and politics during the reign of England’s Elizabeth I, Bacon describes the obstacles that hinder human beings’ efforts to understand the world around them and the mysteries of nature.

CHARLES DARWIN Natural Selection 897

The scrupulous habits of observation that culminated in the land- mark theory of evolution are everywhere evident in Darwin’s analysis of the ways species adapt to their natural environments.

SIGMUND FREUD The Oedipus Complex 915

After Freud posited the existence and functioning of the unconscious mind, one of his most important—and controversial— theories was the assertion that infants went through a stage in which they uncon- sciously wished to possess their opposite-sex parent all for themselves.

CARL JUNG The Personal and the Collective Unconscious 927

Jung proposes that as a cultural group we have a collective unconscious—an unconscious awareness and wishes that transcend the individual and represent the needs of the group to which we belong.

RENÉ DESCARTES Fourth Meditation: Of Truth and Error

Descartes, one of the great French philosophers, meditates on the na- ture of God and how he may learn to distinguish truth from error. He conducts his inquiry entirely through his reason, with no reference to the physical world of the senses, which, he feels, might introduce error.

INDEX OF RHETORICAL TERMS 947

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1

EVALUATING IDEAS An Introduction to Critical Reading

The selections in this book demand a careful and attentive reading. The authors, whose works have changed the way we view our world, our institutions, and ourselves, make every effort to communicate their views with clarity and style. But their views are complex and subtle, and we must train ourselves to read them sensitively, responsively, and criti- cally. Critical reading is basic for approaching the essays in this book. Indeed, it is fundamental for approaching any reading material that deserves serious attention.

Reading critically means reading actively: questioning the premises of the argument, speculating on the ways in which evidence is used, comparing the statements of one writer with those of another, and holding an inner dialogue with the author. These skills differ from the passive reception we employ when we watch tele vi sion or read light- weight materials. Being an active, participating reader makes it pos sible for us to derive the most from good books.

Critical reading involves most of the following pro cesses:

• Prereading Developing a sense of what the piece is about and what its general purposes seem to be.

• Annotating Using a pencil or a pen to mark those passages that seem important enough to return to later. Annotations establish a dialogue between you and the author.

• Questioning Raising issues that you feel need to be taken into consideration. These may be issues that you believe the author has treated either well or badly and that you feel are important. Questioning can be part of the annotation pro cess.

• Reviewing Rereading your annotations and underlinings in order to grasp the entire “picture” of what you’ve just read. Sometimes writing a summary of the piece as you review makes the meaning even clearer.

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2 EVALUATING IDEAS

• Forming your own ideas Reviewing what you have read, evaluating the way that the writer presents the issues, and developing your own views on the issues. This is the final step.

THE PRO CESS OF CRITICAL READING

Prereading

Before you read a par tic u lar selection, you may find it useful to turn to the beginning of the part in which it appears. There you will find an introduction discussing the broader issues and ques- tions central to all the selections in the part. This may help you focus your thoughts and formulate your opinions as you read the essays themselves.

Begin any selection in this book by reading its headnote. Each headnote supplies historical background on the writer, sets the intellectual stage for the ideas discussed in the essay, and comments on the writer’s main points. The second part of each headnote intro- duces the main rhetorical or stylistic methods that the writer uses to communicate his or her thoughts. In the pro cess of reading the headnote, you will develop an overview that helps prepare you for reading the essay.

This kind of preparation is typical of critical reading. It makes the task of reading more delightful, more useful, and much easier. A review of the headnote to Niccolò Machiavelli and part of his essay “The Qualities of the Prince” (p. 219) will illustrate the usefulness of such preparation. This essay appears in Part Two — “Govern- ment” — so the content can already be expected to be concerned with styles of government. The introduction to Machiavelli provides the following points, each followed here by the number of the paragraph in which it appears:

Machiavelli was an Italian aristocrat in Re nais sance Italy. (1)

Machiavelli describes the qualities necessary for a prince — that is, any ruler — to maintain power. (2)

A weak Italy was prey to the much stronger France and Spain at this time. (2)

Machiavelli recommends securing power by what ever means nec- essary and maintaining it. (3)

His concern for moralizing or acting out of high moral principle is not great. (3)

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An Introduction to Critical Reading 3

He supports questionable means of becoming and remaining prince. (3)

Machiavelli does not fret over the means used to achieve his ends and sometimes advocates repression, imprisonment, and torture. (3)

Machiavelli has been said to have a cynical view of human nature. (4)

His rhetorical method is to discuss both sides of an issue: cruelty and mercy, liberality and stinginess. (8)

He uses aphorisms to persuade the reader that he is saying some- thing wise and true. (9)

With these observations in mind, the reader knows that the selec- tion that follows will be concerned with governance in Re nais sance Italy. The question of ends versus means is central to Machiavelli’s discussion, and he does not idealize people and their general good- ness. Yet because of Machiavelli’s rhetorical methods, particularly his use of aphorism,1 the reader can expect that Machiavelli’s argument will be exceptionally persuasive.

Thus, as a critical reader, you will be well advised to keep track of these basic statements from the headnote. You need not accept all of them, but you should certainly be alert to the issues that will probably be central to your experience of the essay. Remember: it is just as reasonable to question the headnote as it is to question the essay itself.

Before reading the essay in detail, you might develop an overview of its meaning by scanning it quickly. In the case of “The Qualities of the Prince,” note the subheadings, such as “On Those Things for Which Men, and Particularly Princes, Are Praised or Blamed.” Check- ing each of the subheadings before you read the entire piece might provide you with a map or guide to the essay.

Each passage is preceded by two or three prereading questions. These are designed to help you keep two or three points in mind as you read. Each of these questions focuses your attention on an important idea or interpretation in the passage. For your reading of Machiavelli, the questions are as follows:

1. Why does Machiavelli praise skill in warfare in his opening pages? How does that skill aid a prince?

2. Is it better for a prince to be loved or to be feared?

In each case, a key element in Machiavelli’s argument is the center of each question. By watching for the answer to these questions,

1 aphorism A short, pithy statement of truth.

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4 EVALUATING IDEAS

you will find yourself focusing on some of the most important aspects of the passage.

Annotating and Questioning

As you read a text, your annotations establish a dialogue between you and the author. You can underline or highlight important state- ments that you feel help clarify the author’s position. They may be statements to which you will want to refer later. Think of them as serving one overriding purpose: to make it possible for you to review the piece and understand its key points without having to reread it entirely.

Your dialogue with the author will be most visible in the margins of the essay, which is one reason the margins in this book are so gen- erous. Take issue with key points or note your assent — the more you annotate, the more you free your imagination to develop your own ideas. My own methods involve notating both agreement and disa- greement. I annotate thoroughly, so that after a quick second glance I know what the author is saying as well as what I thought of the essay when I read it closely. My annotations help me keep the major points fresh in my mind.

Annotation keeps track both of what the author says and of what our responses are. No one can reduce annotation to a formula — we all do it differently — but it is not a passive act. Reading with a pencil or a pen in hand should become second nature. Without annotations, you often have to reread entire sections of an essay to remember an argument that once was clear and understandable but after time has become part of the fabric of the prose and thus “invisible.” Annotation is the conquest of the invisible; it provides a quick view of the main points.

When you annotate,

• Read with a pen or a pencil.

• Underline key sentences — for example, definitions and state- ments of purpose.

• Underline key words that appear often.

• Note the topic of paragraphs in the margins.

• Ask questions in the margins.

• Make notes in the margins to remind yourself to develop ideas later.

• Mark passages you might want to quote later.

• Keep track of points with which you disagree.

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An Introduction to Critical Reading 5

Some sample annotations follow, again from Niccolò Machiavel- li’s “The Qualities of the Prince.” A sixteenth- century text in transla- tion, The Prince is challenging to work with. My annotations appear in the form of underlinings and marginal comments and questions. Only the first few paragraphs appear here, but the entire essay is annotated in my copy of the book.

A Prince’s Duty Concerning Military Matters

A prince, therefore, must not have any other object nor any other thought, nor must he take anything as his profession but war, its institutions, and its discipline; because that is the only profes- sion which befits one who commands; and it is of such importance that not only does it maintain those who were born princes, but many times it enables men of private station to rise to that posi- tion; and, on the other hand, it is evident that when princes have given more thought to personal luxuries than to arms, they have lost their state. And the first way to lose it is to neglect this art; and the way to acquire it is to be well versed in this art.

Francesco Sforza became Duke of Milan from being a private citizen because he was armed; his sons, since they avoided the incon ve niences of arms, became private citizens after having been dukes. For, among the other bad effects it causes, being dis- armed makes you despised; this is one of those infa- mies a prince should guard himself against, as will be treated below: for between an armed and an unarmed man there is no comparison whatsoever, and it is not reasonable for an armed man to obey an unarmed man willingly, nor that an unarmed man should be safe among armed servants; since, when the former is suspicious and the latter are contemptuous, it is impossible for them to work well together. And therefore, a prince who does not understand military matters, besides the other misfor- tunes already noted, cannot be esteemed by his own soldiers, nor can he trust them.

He must, therefore, never raise his thought from this exercise of war, and in peacetime he must

The prince’s profession should be war.

Examples

Being disarmed makes you despised. Is this true?

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6 EVALUATING IDEAS

train himself more than in time of war; this can be done in two ways: one by action, the other by the mind. And as far as actions are concerned, besides keeping his soldiers well disciplined and trained, he must always be out hunting, and must accus- tom his body to hardships in this manner; and he must also learn the nature of the terrain, and know how mountains slope, how valleys open, how plains lie, and understand the nature of rivers and swamps; and he should devote much attention to such activities. Such knowledge is useful in two ways: first, one learns to know one’s own country and can better understand how to defend it; sec- ond, with the knowledge and experience of the ter- rain, one can easily comprehend the characteristics of any other terrain that it is necessary to explore for the first time; for the hills, valleys, plains, rivers, and swamps of Tuscany, for instance, have certain similarities to those of other provinces; so that by knowing the lay of the land in one province one can easily understand it in others. And a prince who lacks this ability lacks the most important quality in a leader; because this skill teaches you to find the enemy, choose a campsite, lead troops, organ- ize them for battle, and besiege towns to your own advantage.

[There follow the examples of Philopoemon, who was always observing terrain for its military usefulness, and a recommendation that princes read histories and learn from them. Three paragraphs are omitted.]

On Those Things for Which Men, and Particularly Princes, Are Praised or Blamed

Now there remains to be examined what should be the methods and procedures of a prince in dealing with his subjects and friends. And because I know that many have written about this, I am afraid that by writing about it again I shall be thought of as presumptuous, since in discussing this material I depart radically from the procedures

Training: action/ mind

Knowledge of terrain

Two benefits

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An Introduction to Critical Reading 7

of others. But since my intention is to write some- thing useful for anyone who understands it, it seemed more suitable to me to search after the effectual truth of the matter rather than its imag- ined one. And many writers have imagined for themselves republics and principalities that have never been seen nor known to exist in reality; for there is such a gap between how one lives and how one ought to live that anyone who abandons what is done for what ought to be done learns his ruin rather than his preservation: for a man who wishes to make a vocation of being good at all times will come to ruin among so many who are not good. Hence it is necessary for a prince who wishes to maintain his position to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge or not to use it accord- ing to necessity.

Leaving aside, therefore, the imagined things concerning a prince, and taking into account those that are true, I say that all men, when they are spo- ken of, and particularly princes, since they are placed on a higher level, are judged by some of these quali- ties which bring them either blame or praise. And this is why one is considered generous, another miserly (to use a Tuscan word, since “avaricious” in our language is still used to mean one who wishes to acquire by means of theft; we call “miserly” one who excessively avoids using what he has); one is consid- ered a giver, the other rapacious; one cruel, another merciful; one treacherous, another faithful; one effeminate and cowardly, another bold and coura- geous; one humane, another haughty; one lascivious, another chaste; one trustworthy, another cunning; one harsh, another lenient; one serious, another frivo- lous; one religious, another unbelieving; and the like. And I know that everyone will admit that it would be a very praiseworthy thing to find in a prince, of the qualities mentioned above, those that are held to be good, but since it is neither possible to have them nor to observe them all completely, be cause human nature does not permit it, a prince must be prudent enough to know how to escape the bad reputation of those vices that would lose the state for him, and must protect himself from those that

Those who are good at all times come to ruin among those who are not good.

Prince must learn how not to be good.

Note the prince’s reputation.

Prince must avoid reputation for the worst vices.

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8 EVALUATING IDEAS

will not lose it for him, if this is possible; but if he cannot, he need not concern himself unduly if he ignores these less serious vices. And, moreover, he need not worry about incurring the bad reputation of those vices without which it would be difficult to hold his state; since, carefully taking everything into account, one will discover that something which appears to be a virtue, if pursued, will end in his destruction; while some other thing which seems to be a vice, if pursued, will result in his safety and his well- being.

Reviewing

The pro cess of review, which takes place after a careful reading, is much more useful if you have annotated and underlined the text well. To a large extent, the review pro cess can be devoted to account- ing for the primary ideas that have been uncovered by your annotations and underlinings. For example, reviewing the Machiavelli annotations shows that the following ideas are crucial to Machiavelli’s thinking:

• The prince’s profession should be war, so the most successful princes are probably experienced in the military.

• If they do not pay attention to military matters, princes will lose their power.

• Being disarmed makes the prince despised.

• The prince should be in constant training.

• The prince needs a sound knowledge of terrain.

• Machiavelli says he tells us what is true, not what ought to be true.

• Those who are always good will come to ruin among those who are not good.

• To remain in power, the prince must learn how not to be good.

• The prince should avoid the worst vices in order not to harm his reputation.

• To maintain power, some vices may be necessary.

• Some virtues may end in destruction.

Putting Machiavelli’s ideas in this raw form does an injustice to his skill as a writer, but annotation is designed to result in such summary statements. We can see that there are some constant themes, such as the insistence that the prince be a military person. As the headnote

Some vices may be needed to hold the state. True?

Some virtues may end in destruction.

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An Introduction to Critical Reading 9

tells us, in Machiavelli’s day Italy was a group of rival city- states, and France, a larger, united nation, was invading these states one by one. Machiavelli dreamed that one powerful prince, such as his favorite, Cesare Borgia, could fight the French and save Italy. He emphasized the importance of the military because he lived in an age in which war was a constant threat.

Machiavelli anticipates the complaints of pacifists — those who argue against war — by telling us that those who remain unarmed are despised. To demonstrate his point, he gives us examples of those who lost their positions as princes because they avoided being armed. He clearly expects these examples to be persuasive.

A second important theme pervading Machiavelli’s essay is his view on moral behavior. For Machiavelli, being in power is much more important than being virtuous. He is quick to admit that vice is not desirable and that the worst vices will harm the prince’s reputation. But he also says that the prince need not worry about the “less serious” vices. Moreover, the prince need not worry about incurring a bad reputation by practicing vices that are necessary if he wishes to hold his state. In the same spirit, Machiavelli tells us that there are some virtues that might lead to the destruction of the prince.

Forming Your Own Ideas

One of the most important reasons for critically reading the texts in this book is to enable you to develop your own positions on issues that these writers raise. Identifying and clarifying the main ideas is only the first step; the next step in critical reading is evaluating those ideas.

For example, you might ask whether Machiavelli’s ideas have any relevance for today. After all, he wrote nearly five hundred years ago and times have changed. You might feel that Machiavelli was relevant strictly during the Italian Re nais sance or, alternatively, that his prin- ciples are timeless and have something to teach every age. For most people, Machiavelli is a po liti cal philosopher whose views are useful anytime and anywhere.

If you agree with the majority, then you may want to examine Machiavelli’s ideas to see whether you can accept them. Consider just two of those ideas and their implications:

• Should rulers always be members of the military? Should they always be armed? Should the ruler of a nation first demonstrate competence as a military leader?

• Should rulers ignore virtue and practice vice when it is con ve nient?

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10 EVALUATING IDEAS

In his commentary on government, which is also included in Part Two, Lao- tzu offers different advice from Machiavelli because his assumptions are that the ruler ought to respect the rights of individu- als. For Lao- tzu the waging of war is an annoying, essentially wasteful activity. Machiavelli, on the other hand, never questions the useful- ness of war: to him, it is basic to government. As a critical reader, you can take issue with such an assumption, and in doing so you will deepen your understanding of Machiavelli.

If we were to follow Machiavelli’s advice, then we would choose American presidents on the basis of whether or not they had been good military leaders. Among those we would not have chosen might be Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Delano Roo- se velt. Those who were high- ranking military men include George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant, and Dwight D. Eisenhower. If you fol- lowed Machiavelli’s rhetorical technique of using examples to con- vince your audience, you could choose from either group to prove your case.

Of course, there are examples from other nations. It has been common since the 1930s to see certain leaders dressed in their mil- itary uniforms: Benito Mussolini (Italy), Adolf Hitler (Germany), Joseph Stalin (the Soviet Union), Idi Amin (Uganda), Muammar al- Qaddafi (Libya), Saddam Hussein (Iraq). These were all tyrants who tormented their citizens and their neighbors. That gives us some- thing to think about. Should a president dress in full military rega- lia all the time? Is that a good image for the ruler of a free nation to project?

Do you want a ruler, then, who is usually virtuous but embraces vice when it is necessary? This is a very difficult question to answer. President Richard Nixon tried to hide the Watergate break- in scandal, President Ronald Reagan did not reveal the details of the Iran- Contra scandal, President Bill Clinton lied about his relations with Monica Lewinsky, and George W. Bush misrepresented intelligence to invade Iraq. Yet all these presidents are noted for important achievements while in office. How might Machiavelli have handled these problems differently? How much truthfulness do we expect from our presi- dents? How much do we deserve?

These are only a few of the questions that are raised by my anno- tations in the few pages from Machiavelli examined here. Many other issues could be uncovered by these annotations and many more from subsequent pages of the essay. Critical reading can be a powerful means by which to open what you read to discovery and discussion.

Once you begin a line of questioning, the ways in which you think about a passage begin expanding. You find yourself with more ideas of your own that have grown in response to those you have

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An Introduction to Critical Reading 11

been reading about. Reading critically, in other words, gives you an enormous return on your investment of time. If you have the chance to investigate your responses to the assumptions and underlying premises of passages such as Machiavelli’s, you will be able to refine your thinking even further. For example, if you agree with Machiavelli that rulers should be successful military leaders for whom small vices may be useful at times, and you find yourself in a position to argue with someone who feels Machiavelli is mistaken in this view, then you will have a good opportunity to evaluate the soundness of your think- ing. You will have a chance to see your own assumptions and argu- ments tested.

In many ways, this entire book is about such opportunities. The essays that follow offer you powerful ideas from great thinkers. They invite you to participate in their thoughts, exercise your own knowl- edge and assumptions, and arrive at your own conclusions. Basically, that is the meaning of education.

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13

WRITING ABOUT IDEAS An Introduction to Rhetoric

Writing about ideas has several functions. First, it helps make our thinking available to others for examination. The writers whose works are presented in this book benefited from their first readers’ examinations and at times revised their work considerably as a result of such criticism. Writing about ideas also helps us refine what we think — even without criticism from others — because writing is a self- instructional experience. We learn by writing in part because writing clarifies our thinking. When we think silently, we con- struct phrases and then reflect on them; when we speak, we both utter these phrases and sort them out in order to give our audi- ence a tidier version of our thoughts. But spoken thought is diffi- cult to sustain because we cannot review or revise what we said an hour earlier. Writing has the advantage of permitting us to expand our ideas, to work them through completely and possibly to revise in the light of later discoveries. It is by writing that we truly gain con- trol over our ideas.

GENERATING TOPICS FOR WRITING

Filled with sophisticated discussions of important ideas, the selections in this volume endlessly stimulate our responses and our writing. Reading the works of great thinkers can also be chastening to the point of making us feel sometimes that they have said it all and there is no room for our own thoughts. However, the suggestions that follow will assist you in writing your response to the ideas of an important thinker.

Thinking Critically: Asking a Question. One of the most reli- able ways to start writing is to ask a question and then to answer it. In many ways, that is what the writers in this book have done again and

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14 WRITING ABOUT IDEAS

again. James Madison begins his “Federalist No. 51” (p. 109) with a sim- ple question: “To what expedient then shall we finally resort, for main- taining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments, as laid down in the constitution?” This question gives him the focus he wants in establishing the principle that the power of a fed- eral government must not be concentrated in the hands of the president, the Congress, or the judiciary. His essay essentially answers his question. Adam Smith asks what the principles of accumulating wealth really are (p. 441) and proceeds to examine the economic system of his time in such detail that his views are still valued. He is associated with the capi- talist system as firmly as Marx is with the communist system. John Ken- neth Galbraith asks questions about why poverty exists in a prosperous nation such as the United States (p. 499). When Charles Darwin begins his meditation on the power of natural selection (p. 897), he starts with the most obvious question: “How will the struggle for existence . . . act in regard to variation? Can the principle of selection, which we have seen is so potent in the hands of man, apply in nature?” His previous discussion concerns the ways in which people can create variation in dogs by select- ing for desirable traits, just as they do for variations in horses, livestock, flowers, and all vegetables used for food. If people can create variability, what happens when nature does it? Such questioning is at the center of all critical thinking.

As a writer stimulated by other thinkers, you can use the same technique. For example, turn back to the Machiavelli excerpt anno- tated in “Evaluating Ideas: An Introduction to Critical Reading” (p. 5). All the annotations can easily be turned into questions. Any of the following questions, based on the annotations and our brief sum- mary of the passage, could be the basis of an essay:

• Should a leader be armed?

• Is it true that an unarmed leader is despised?

• Will those leaders who are always good come to ruin among those who are not good?

• To remain in power, must a leader learn how not to be good?

One technique is to structure an essay around the answer to such a question. Another is to develop a series of questions and to answer each of them in various parts of an essay. Yet another tech- nique is to use the question indirectly — by answering it, but not in an obvious way. In “Why the Rich Are Getting Richer and the Poor, Poorer” (p. 513), for example, Robert B. Reich answers a question we may not have asked. In the pro cess he examines the nature of our cur- rent economy to see what it promises for different sectors of the popu- lation. His answer to the question concerns the shift in labor from

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An Introduction to Rhetoric 15

manufacturing to information, revealing that “symbolic analysts” have the best opportunities in the future to amass wealth.

Many kinds of questions can be asked of a passage even as brief as the sample from Machiavelli. For one thing, we can limit our- selves to our annotations and go no further. But we also can reflect on larger issues and ask a series of questions that constitute a fuller inquiry. Out of that inquiry we can generate ideas for our own writing.

Two important ideas are isolated in our annotations. The first is that the prince must devote himself to war. In modern times, this implies that a president or other national leader must put matters of defense first — that a leader’s knowledge, training, and concerns must revolve around warfare. Taking that idea in general, we can develop other questions that, stimulated by Machiavelli’s selection, can be used to generate essays:

• Which modern leaders would Machiavelli support?

• Would Machiavelli approve of our current president?

• Do military personnel make the best leaders?

• Should our president have a military background?

• Could a modern state survive with no army or military weapons?

• What kind of a nation would we have if we did not stockpile nuclear weapons?

These questions derive from “The prince’s profession should be war,” the first idea that we isolate in the annotations. The next group of questions comes from the second idea, the issue of whether a leader can afford to be moral:

• Can virtues cause a leader to lose power?

• Is Machiavelli being cynical about morality, or is he being realistic (as he claims he is)? (We might also ask if Machiavelli uses the word realistic as a synonym for cynical.)

• Do most American leaders behave morally?

• Do most leaders believe that they should behave morally?

• Should our leaders be moral all the time?

• Which vices can we permit our leaders to have?

• Are there any vices we want our leaders to have?

• Which world leaders behave most morally? Are they the ones we most respect?

• Could a modern government govern well or at all if it were to behave morally in the face of immoral adversaries?

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16 WRITING ABOUT IDEAS

One reason for reading Machiavelli is to help us confront broad and serious questions. One reason for writing about these ideas is to help clarify our own positions on such important issues.

Using Suggestions for Writing. Every selection in this book is followed by a number of questions and a number of writing assign- ments. The questions are designed to help clarify the most important issues raised in the piece. Unlike the questions derived from annota- tion, their purpose is to stimulate a classroom discussion so that you can benefit from hearing others’ thoughts on these issues. Naturally, subjects for essays can arise from such discussion, but the discussion is most important for refining and focusing your ideas. The writing assignments, on the other hand, are explicitly meant to provide a use- ful starting point for producing an essay of five hundred to one thou- sand words.

A sample suggestion for writing about Machiavelli follows:

Machiavelli advises the prince to study history and reflect on the actions of great men. Do you support such advice? Machiavelli mentions a number of great leaders in his essay. Which leaders would you recommend a prince should study? How do you think Machiavelli would agree or disagree with your recommendations?

Like most of the suggestions for writing, this one can be approached in several ways. It can be broken down into three parts. The first question is whether it is useful to study, as Machiavelli does, the per- for mance of past leaders. If you agree, then the second question asks you to name some leaders whose behavior you would recommend studying. If you do not agree, you can point to the per for mance of some past leaders and explain why their study would be pointless today. Finally, the third question asks how you think Machiavelli would agree or disagree with your choices.

To deal successfully with this suggestion for writing, you could begin by giving your reasons for recommending that a po liti cal leader study “the actions of great men.” George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” That is, we study history in order not to have to live it over again. If you believe that a study of the past is important, the first part of an essay can answer the question of why such study could make a politician more successful.

The second part of the suggestion focuses on examples. In the sample from Machiavelli in “Evaluating Ideas,” we omitted the exam- ples, but in the complete essay they are very important for bringing Machiavelli’s point home. Few things can convince as completely as examples, so the first thing to do is to choose several leaders

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An Introduction to Rhetoric 17

to work with. If you have studied a world leader, such as Indira Gandhi, Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roo se velt, or Margaret Thatcher, you could use that figure as one of your examples. If you have not done so, then use the research library’s sections on history and politics to find books or articles on one or two leaders and read them with an eye to establishing their usefulness for your argument. An Inter net search can help you gather information efficiently. Con- sult the Internet resources created specially for this book at www .bedfordstmartins.com/worldofideas. The central question you would seek to answer is how a specific world leader could benefit from studying the behavior and conduct of a modern leader.

The third part of the suggestion for writing — how Machiavelli would agree or disagree with you — is highly speculative. It invites you to look through the selection to find quotations or comments that indicate probable agreement or disagreement on Machiavelli’s part. You can base your argument only on what Machiavelli says or implies, and this means that you will have to reread his essay to find evidence that will support your view.

In a sense, this part of the suggestion establishes a procedure for working with the writing assignments. Once you clarify the parts of the assignment and have some useful questions to guide you, and once you determine what research, if any, is necessary, the next step is to reread the selection to find the most appropriate information to help you write your own essay. One of the most important activities in learning how to write from these selections is to reread while pay- ing close attention to the annotations that you’ve made in the mar- gins of the essays. It is one way in which reading about significant ideas differs from reading for entertainment. Important ideas demand reflection and reconsideration. Rereading provides both.

DEVELOPING IDEAS IN WRITING

Questioning the Text

In many ways, the authors of the selections that follow respond to important questions. Sometimes, as with Darwin’s essay, there is one question that controls the entire piece, but in many of the selections there is a range of questions that seem to arise from other questions. That is the nature of inquiry, and it helps not only to shape the essay but also to focus our attention as we read it. By observing the nature of the texts that you read and the ways in which questions function as touchstones for the author, you can soon see how valuable the act of questioning can be for you as a writer. The selections in this book

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18 WRITING ABOUT IDEAS

are often controversial and demand a response. When you question a text, you are responding to it and your response can be used to develop ideas of your own that can be the basis for your own writing.

Useful Questions. The following questions can be applied to virtually any important material that you read.

• What are the most important ideas presented in this selection?

• Is this article an argument or is it simply an observation of fact?

• What is the main point being presented here?

• What seems to be the author’s purpose in writing this piece?

• Is the author’s purpose explicit?

• What claim or claims does the author make?

• What specifically supports the author’s claims?

• Does the author omit arguments and evidence that might contra- dict the claims?

• Does the author satisfactorily analyze and reject contradictory arguments?

• To what extent is there a bias for or against a position in the author’s argument?

• What assumptions does the author make about his subject matter?

• Has the author provided clear support for the argument in terms of evidence, example, or expert testimony?

• Which details in the argument are the most important? Are they convincing?

• How significant is this argument for me personally? For society generally?

Questioning Freud. At the beginning of “The Oedipus Com- plex” (p. 915) by Sigmund Freud, three questions suggest points that the reader might use to focus attention on the essay:

• What is the Oedipus complex?

• How does it express itself in dreams?

• How do the examples of Oedipus Rex and Hamlet illustrate the Oedipus complex?

But these questions are not the same ones you might ask yourself after reading the essay. The most important question you would probably ask is

• Is Freud right? Is there such a thing as an Oedipus complex?

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An Introduction to Rhetoric 19

Freud himself is answering a question indirectly: What is the cause of neurosis in the people he has psychoanalyzed? In response, he says that most mental illness arises from the role parents play in a person’s child- hood. Psychoneurotic children experience an unconscious love for their opposite-sex parent and a hatred for their same-sex parent. In the Greek drama, for which the complex is named, Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother. In the Elizabethan drama by Shakespeare, Hamlet has an unnatural concern for his mother and kills the king, his step- father. Here is how Freud opens his discussion:

In my experience, which is already extensive, the chief part in the mental lives of all children who later become psychoneurot- ics is played by their parents. Being in love with the one parent and hating the other are among the essential constituents of the stock of psychical impulses which is formed at that time and which is of such importance in determining the symptoms of the later neurosis. It is not my belief, however, that psychoneu- rotics differ sharply in this respect from other human beings who remain normal — that they are able, that is, to create some- thing absolutely new and peculiar to themselves. It is far more probable — and this is confirmed by occasional observations on normal children — that they are only distinguished by exhibiting on a magnified scale feelings of love and hatred to their parents which occur less obviously and less intensely in the minds of most children. (para. 1)

Sample Questions. Here are a few questions that naturally arise from reading Freud’s opening paragraph:

• Is Freud’s claim that parents play a major role in the neuroses of their children?

• Do children seem to grow up hating one parent and loving the other?

• Does my experience help support Freud’s views, or does it con- tradict them?

• When they grow up, are psychoneurotics who suffer from the Oedipus complex likely to kill one of their parents?

• Could Freud’s “occasional observations” of children confirm the wide-ranging claim that he makes?

• How do normal children seem to differ from neurotic children?

Once you have read the entire passage, you will formulate other questions that should help you develop ideas of your own as to whether or not what Freud says makes good sense to you. Oedipus complex is a term that is used often, and sometimes used irresponsibly,

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20 WRITING ABOUT IDEAS

so it is important for you to decide how valid Freud’s thinking is. Once you have read Freud’s entire discussion — an argument that employs important examples to support its claim that parents play a major role in the neuroses of their children — you will want to con- sider the examples carefully. Here are some questions that might be useful after reading the essay:

• Does a discussion of fictitious characters help us understand a cause of neurosis?

• Is Hamlet a neurotic who fits Freud’s description?

• Did Oedipus’s parents cause his problems?

• Is Oedipus a neurotic?

• If Oedipus and Hamlet are clearly neurotic, does that prove Freud’s theory?

You could probably add more questions to these two lists, and if you do, you will be helping yourself not only to better understand the selection but also to better approach writing something of your own about the piece.

A Sample Beginning for a Brief Essay on Freud. The follow- ing paragraphs are the beginning of an essay in response to Freud’s theory of the Oedipus complex. A few of the questions above are implied in this sample.

My Oedipus Complex

Freud’s theory of the Oedipus Complex is a bit unsettling for me.

I grew up knowing that I loved my father more than I loved my mother.

It was not a really major difference, but it was noticeable to my

younger brother, who says he can relate to our mother more than to our

father. According to Freud, that seems to be the pattern of the Oedipus

complex, but neither I nor my brother have mental problems. Should

I be worried? Should my brother be worried? I hope not, but I’m not

entirely sure. After reading about Oedipus and Hamlet, I realize that

they are extreme cases, what Freud says is on “a magnified scale.” There

is nothing magnified about my relation with my dad, who drove me to

school and met my roommates and took us to dinner and then went

home. My mother stayed home with my brother, Tim, and that’s what

usually happens.

But there have been some things that I see now may be problems

that my brother may have that I don’t have. For example, Tim no longer

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An Introduction to Rhetoric 21

goes with Dad to fish or to hunt in spring and fall. Now I can see how

disappointed Dad has been to see that Tim does not want to do some of

the same things he does. Mom likes to go to plays, which I don’t usually

have time for, so Tim goes with her, and I think he really enjoys them.

Dad and I would rather go to a movie, and when I was in middle school

we used to see action adventure films that Mom didn’t like. Dad and I are

more interested in the same kinds of things than are Tim and Mom, who

like different things. Is this normal, or should I be worried that sometime

in the future Tim will suddenly explode and let go on Dad? Or that I will

on Mom? Should I be frightened?

–Alice F.

The rest of the essay examines Alice’s and Tim’s relationships with their parents and compares them with Freud’s examples. Alice aimed at establishing what she thought were normal patterns of behavior toward parents by questioning some of her roommates and by discussing how the literary examples Freud chose were convincing on one level but how they needed to be balanced with Alice’s own experience.

Questioning Galbraith. Alice’s essay was primarily a response to a theory that she was trying to understand in personal terms. The following is an examination of a social problem that faces many countries.

John Kenneth Galbraith in “The Position of Poverty” (p. 507) establishes some positions that he uses to clarify how poverty works in a modern society. He argues that in a society in which the majority is poor, politicians will support reform and major help for those in poverty. But in a society such as ours, in which the poor are a minor- ity, politicians will not support reform but will instead focus on the concerns of the majority. Galbraith’s point is that we are an affluent society, and thus our political focus is more on the welfare of the rich than on that of the poor.

Then, he meditates on the way in which an affluent society will respond to poverty. One key paragraph points to his hopes:

An affluent society that is also both compassionate and rational would, no doubt, secure to all who needed it the minimum income essential for decency and comfort. The corrupting effect on the human spirit of unearned revenue has unquestionably been exaggerated as, indeed, have the character-building values of hunger and privation. To secure to each family a minimum income, as a normal function of the society, would help ensure

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22 WRITING ABOUT IDEAS

that the misfortunes of parents, deserved or otherwise, were not visited on their children. It would help ensure that pov- erty was not self-perpetuating. Most of the reaction, which no doubt would be adverse, is based on obsolete attitudes. When poverty was a majority phenomenon, such action could not be afforded. A poor society, as this essay has previously shown, had to enforce the rule that the person who did not work could not eat. And possibly it was justified in the added cruelty of apply- ing the rule to those who could not work or whose efficiency was far below par. An affluent society has no similar excuse for such rigor. It can use the forthright remedy of providing income for those without. Nothing requires such a society to be compas- sionate. But it no longer has a high philosophical justification for callousness. (para. 17)

Sample Questions. Certain issues in this paragraph are important enough to sustain a considerable response because they concern some of the basic views held by many people in developed countries. As a start, consider the questions that this paragraph raises:

• What does it mean for a society to be compassionate and rational?

• Who would receive a minimum income? How would it be dis- tributed?

• Should people who do not work be given an income?

• Could our society afford to pay the poor?

• If it did pay the poor not to work, would fewer people choose to work?

• Would paying poor people without jobs encourage the children of the poor not to work?

• Would the poor be more likely to improve their position if they knew the society could not or would not help them?

• Does giving people handouts create long-term dependency that may be passed on to the children of the poor?

A Sample Beginning for a Brief Essay on Galbraith. Gal- braith argues earlier in his essay that as our society is affluent it has a responsibility to the poor in large part because it can easily afford to help and by doing so could possibly eradicate poverty. Of course, not everyone agrees with this view, and there are strong arguments on both sides of the issue. In the beginning of the following brief essay,

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An Introduction to Rhetoric 23

some other specific questions lead the author to a consideration of Galbraith’s views:

• Is Galbraith’s suggestion a form of socialism?

• Would Galbraith’s suggestion result in a society’s becoming less affluent?

• What are the chances that the poor would become resentful of rather than grateful to the society?

• How would following Galbraith’s suggestion affect the values associated with individualism, as opposed to those associated with collectivism?

The paragraphs below establish the view of an opinionated writer who has given thought to Galbraith’s suggestion and boldly questions the text.

Paying the Poor

John Kenneth Galbraith’s view is that society ought to “secure to all

who needed it the minimum income essential for decency and comfort”

(para. 17). This view is idealistic but hardly possible to put into action.

For one thing, Galbraith sounds like Karl Marx, who said, “From each

according to his ability and to each according to his needs.” Marx was

talking about communism, and that experiment has failed with disastrous

results. He suggested that people who had means should give some of

their wealth to those who did not have means. What he ignored is that

the means of any society — its wealth — had to be created by someone,

and that usually signifies that wealthy people did the creating. What

happened in Russia is that the society became the opposite of what Gal-

braith says our society is. It was not an affluent society. If we do what

Galbraith says, then maybe we too would become a nonaffluent society.

I have two problems with what Galbraith says. First, I think that the

thing that makes our society affluent is initiative. The individual values that

tend to produce wealth might be smothered if the individual knew that his or

her wealth was going to people who were not earning a living. The second

problem I see is that if people know they are going to get a paycheck

from the government, they will probably not even try to do anything for

themselves. They will become dependents and drag down the society. In

his essay, Andrew Carnegie says that “civilization took its start from the

day that the capable, industrious workman said to his incompetent and

lazy fellow, ‘If thou dost not sow, thou shalt not reap,’ and thus ended

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24 WRITING ABOUT IDEAS

primitive Communism by separating the drones from the bees” (para. 7).

Many of the poor are incompetent, and some are lazy, but Galbraith is

right in saying that there are some social forces that increase poverty.

So while something has to be done to prevent starvation, giving people

paychecks for no work is not the way.

–Kevin S.

This writer took issue with Galbraith from the start, all the while admitting that something had to be done to help the poor. His views are more in line with Andrew Carnegie’s because he admired the way Carnegie worked to improve society by creating libraries and other socially beneficial institutions. But in Andrew Carnegie’s time, jobs were plentiful and the causes of poverty were somewhat different from what they might be today. The overall society was less affluent, but there was a brand-new population of the superwealthy, and Carnegie was in some measure speaking directly to them.

Both Alice and Kevin asked questions about their respective texts, and in doing so, each of them established a foundation on which a successful essay could be built.

Creating a Thesis Statement

One of the most important steps in writing an essay is creating your thesis. Sometimes you will be able to approach your first draft with a thesis in mind, and sometimes you will not discover your thesis until you have reread the selection you are responding to as well as your own first draft.

Your thesis statement is an assertion that will be made good by the specifics of your piece of writing. The specifics may include references to facts, to the opinions of other important writers, or to your analysis of the text itself. What would not be among the specif- ics would be your own unsupported opinion. Your thesis statement makes a claim that you back up with careful use of evidence and testimony.

Your thesis may come at the beginning of your essay, as is typical, or it may appear in the middle or at the end. Some professional writ- ers spread their thesis throughout the essay as a series of claims, but the best way to start a brief essay is by telling your reader what you are asserting and how you plan to support those assertions.

In the selections in this book you will find several different kinds of thesis statements that demonstrate the range and complexity of theses.

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An Introduction to Rhetoric 25

• A thesis that states a position In “The Origin of Civil Society” (p. 237), Jean-Jacques Rousseau opens with one of the most famous assertions in history: “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” This dramatic assertion precedes his discussion of how social order developed from its primitive beginnings to the circumstances of the kinds of governments he observes in his own world. Defending this position is his job in this essay.

• A thesis that establishes a cause Henry David Thoreau offers a cause for his refusal to obey certain laws: “The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and per- verted before the people can act through it.” This is only one of several thesis statements Thoreau makes in the first paragraph of “Civil Disobedience” (p. 301), an essay explaining why he rejects certain laws. Behind this assertion is his earlier state- ment: “That government is best which governs not at all.” The rest of his essay is a discussion of his complaints against the laws he cannot ethically obey while still maintaining his own moral position.

• A thesis that states an opinion In “The Gospel of Wealth” (p. 481), Andrew Carnegie asserts, “The problem of our age is the proper administration of wealth, so that the ties of brotherhood may still bind together the rich and poor in harmonious relationship.” Carnegie’s first sentence expresses his opinion that the “admin- istration of wealth” is the “problem of our age.” With so many problems of any age, this statement will need a great deal of sup- port from Carnegie’s analysis of the recent events and the circum- stances of his time.

• A thesis that analyzes circumstance For this example, we turn to a passage by Virginia Woolf: “But for women, I thought, looking at the empty shelves, these difficulties were infinitely more for- midable. In the first place, to have a room of her own, let alone a quiet room or a sound-proof room, was out of the question, unless her parents were exceptionally rich or very noble, even up to the beginning of the nineteenth century.” This statement, Woolf’s famous “A Room of Her Own” declaration in “Shake- speare’s Sister” (p. 689), comes very deep in her essay (para. 12), after her careful discussion of the history of Shakespeare’s time and her analysis of the difficulties any woman of genius would have had trying to become a noted author of important books or plays.

• A thesis that defines a condition Germaine Greer’s “Masculinity” (p. 725) begins with her thesis statement, “Masculinity is to maleness

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26 WRITING ABOUT IDEAS

as femininity is to femaleness. That is to say that maleness is the natural condition, the sex if you like, and masculinity is the cul- tural construct, the gender.” She offers a definition that will need a good deal of example and reference to authorities and their con- clusions regarding the possibility that masculinity is a social con- struct, not a natural condition.

• A thesis that establishes a conclusion In “The Personal and the Col- lective Unconscious” (p. 927), Carl Jung explores the uncon- scious mind through dream analysis and waits until the end to state his thesis, which he feels is a reasonable conclusion to his discussion: “I have therefore advanced the hypothesis that at its deeper levels the unconscious possesses collective contents in a relatively active state. That is why I speak of the collective uncon- scious.” The collective unconscious, he says earlier in the piece, contains archetypal patterns that most people in a given culture will experience in their dreams. In the larger body of his work, he asserts that these archetypes are universal and inherited as part of our mental biology.

Your Thesis Statement. Generally, your own thesis statement will be more direct and assertive than those of the writers in this book. One of the best ways for you to start is by creating a thesis state- ment that establishes your writing aims. A good modern thesis state- ment tells your reader what to expect from your essay and controls the scope and focus of your writing, making it easier for you and your reader to know what you are trying to say and when you are finished saying it.

Your thesis identifies your subject and what you want to say about it. Put in a slightly different way, your thesis identifies what is to be argued, explained, or focused on in your writing. It may tell your reader what your approach is and give a hint of your conclu- sions. In a sense, it acts as a signpost for your writing, guiding your reader throughout the rest of your essay.

Suggestions for Formulating a Thesis. Most of the time, creating a strong, clear thesis before writing is not a luxury but a necessity. Good writers realize that as it develops a thesis statement is dynamic, not carved in stone, not static and permanent. Just as every aspect of your writing is subject to review and revision, the thesis is capable of being recast, again and again, especially if you change your position as you argue your case. In that situation, your changed position would dictate that a new thesis statement be written.

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An Introduction to Rhetoric 27

You have several choices regarding the form of your thesis state- ment. For one, you may wish to break it into several sentences or craft it as a self-contained, single sentence. Further, you may choose to state your thesis plainly and openly — especially if your primary purpose is to be clear in what you are writing — or you may choose to imply it. To some extent, the choice of whether ot not to use a strong thesis statement depends on your purpose as a writer. A clearly formulated thesis statement is most useful when your purpose is to persuade or to inform. An implied thesis is more commonly used in an expressive piece of writing in which the end purpose of informing or persuading is either secondary or omitted. Whatever your purpose, the concept of the thesis statement should be regarded as dynamic. There is not just one kind of thesis any more than there is just one place to state it.

Sample Theses. A thesis needs defense, elaboration, example, support, and development. For that reason, the thesis is not always a declarative factual statement. Rather, it is a statement that permits you to explore the issues that interest you and identify the key ele- ments that will constitute your essay. A thesis can be stated in a single sentence or in a group of sentences or phrases. The point is that it shows what your concerns are and how you plan to approach discuss- ing them.

The following sample thesis statements are appropriate for brief essays. They all stake some kind of claim and have the potential to be developed into full-length pieces of writing.

• Because of his willingness to break the law in a cause that he felt was just, it is clear that Henry David Thoreau would have cham- pioned the cause of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

• While Friederich Nietzsche may be correct in saying that our concept of morality is anti-nature, what he neglects to consider is that humans do not live in a state of nature: we live in a civiliza- tion that would collapse without morality.

• Margaret Mead says that gender-linked temperaments develop because society reinforces them and essentially imposes them on individuals. That may be true to some extent, but my observa- tions, and those of Judith Butler, suggest that there is a significant genetic factor that has to be taken into account.

• Andrew Carnegie would be very pleased with the distribution of wealth in our country today because it is approximately the same as it was in his time. He would have specifically approved of the decisions of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to give away

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their wealth posthumously to benefit the public. Here are my suggestions for how their money should be spent.

• The question of whether or not democracy will become unsuc- cessful again, as Carl Becker suggests may happen, is extremely important to consider because some of the same conditions that deprived Athens of its democracy seem to be at work today. I want to examine several of those conditions and explain why they are threats to our democracy.