The ransom of mercy carter chapter summaries

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

in th

Ed

itio n

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.

This book has e-Pages and more! Use the code printed on the inside back cover of this book to get automatic access to readings and images — available only online. Note: If your code does not work, it might be expired.

You can purchase access to e-Pages for A World of Ideas at bedfordstmartins.com/worldof ideas/epages.

You’ve got more help — including free videos about writing, reliable research links to help you get started, and models for citing sources — at bedfordstmartins.com /worldof ideas.

ISBN 978-1-4576-0436-2

mech-Jacobus-WorldIdeas9-SE-110212.indd

More help 24/7 bedfordstmartins.com/worldofideas

The Student Site for A World of Ideas gives you free resources to support your writing and access to e-Pages that extend your book online—all in one place.

• Access the e-Pages for A World of Ideas. (See the inside back cover for more information.)

• Find more information about authors and ideas.

• Watch videos of real writers.

• Try a tutorial on avoiding plagiarism.

• Find checklists for better writing.

• Build a bibliography.

• See sample documents in design.

• Find help citing sources.

Instructors: Go to bedfordstmartins.com/worldof ideas/epages to get instructor access.

mech-Jacobus-WorldIdeas9-SE-110212.indd

You’ve Got Access!

A World of Ideas + e-Pages bedfordstmartins.com/worldof ideas/epages

Your book goes beyond the printed page. e-Pages for A World of Ideas present additional online readings and color images that will help enhance your understanding of the ideas explored in this text.

Note: If the code below does not work, it might be expired. You can purchase access to e-Pages at bedfordstmartins.com/worldof ideas /epages.

For access to e-Pages: 1. Go to bedfordstmartins.com/worldof ideas/epages.

2. Click to enter your student access code. Enter it exactly as it appears below, including any dashes, and follow the instructions.

For technical support: • 1-800-936-6899

• bfwpub.com/techsupport

STUDENT ACCESS CODE

www.bedfordstmartins.com/worldofideas/epages
www.bedfordstmartins.com/worldofideas/epages
www.bedfordstmartins.com/worldofideas/epages
www.bedfordstmartins.com/worldofideas/epages
www.bedfordstmartins.com/worldofideas/epages
www.bfwpub.com/techsupport
www.bedfordstmartins.com/worldofideas
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

01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd i01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd i 22-11-2012 16:25:0222-11-2012 16:25:02

For Bedford/St. Martin’s

Developmental Editor: Alicia Young Senior Production Editor: Anne Noonan Senior Production Supervisor: Dennis Conroy Executive Marketing Manager: Molly Parke Editorial Assistants: Charlotte Christy and Bethany Gordon Copyeditor: Mary Lou Wilshaw-Watts Permissions Manager: Kalina K. Ingham Senior Art Director: Anna Palchik Cover Design: Donna Lee Dennison Cover Art: Cover Art © Estate of Robert Rauschenberg/ Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY Composition: Cenveo Publisher Services Printing and Binding: RR Donnelley and Sons

President, Bedford/St. Martin’s: Denise B. Wydra Presidents, Macmillan Higher Education: Joan E. Feinberg and Tom Scotty Editor in Chief: Karen S. Henry Director of Marketing: Karen R. Soeltz Production Director: Susan W. Brown Associate Production Director: Elise S. Kaiser Managing Editor: Elizabeth M. Schaaf

Copyright © 2013, 2010, 2006, 2002 by Bedford/St. Martin’s

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a re- trieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechan- ical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except as may be expressly permit- ted by the applicable copyright statutes or in writing by the Publisher.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

7 6 5 4 3 2 f e d c b a

For information, write: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 75 Arlington Street, Boston, MA 02116 (617-399-4000)

ISBN 978-1-4576-0436-2

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.

01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd ii01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd ii 22-11-2012 16:25:0222-11-2012 16:25:02

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

iii

01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd iii01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd iii 22-11-2012 16:25:0222-11-2012 16:25:02

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.

01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd iv01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd iv 22-11-2012 16:25:0222-11-2012 16:25:02

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

01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd v01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd v 22-11-2012 16:25:0222-11-2012 16:25:02

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.”

01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd vi01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd vi 22-11-2012 16:25:0222-11-2012 16:25:02

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,

01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd vii01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd vii 22-11-2012 16:25:0222-11-2012 16:25:02

www.bedfordstmartins.com/worldofideas
www.bedfordstmartins.com/worldofideas/epages
www.bedfordstmartins.com/worldofideas/epages
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

01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd viii01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd viii 22-11-2012 16:25:0222-11-2012 16:25:02

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

01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd ix01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd ix 22-11-2012 16:25:0322-11-2012 16:25:03

mailto:sales_support@bfwpub.com
www.bedfordstmartins.com
www.bedfordstmartins.com/worldofideas
www.bedfordstmartins.com/worldofideas/epages
www.bedfordstmartins.com/ebooks
www.bedfordstmartins.com/teachingcentral
www.bedfordbits.com
x PREFACE

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.

Bedford Coursespacks allow you to easily integrate our most popular content into your own course management system. For details, visit bedfordstmartins.com/coursepacks.

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

01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd x01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd x 22-11-2012 16:25:0322-11-2012 16:25:03

www.bedfordstmartins.com/coursepacks
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.

01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd xi01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd xi 22-11-2012 16:25:0322-11-2012 16:25:03

01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd xii01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd xii 22-11-2012 16:25:0322-11-2012 16:25:03

this page left intentionally blank

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

xiii

01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd xiii01_JAC_0436_FM_i_xxvi.indd xiii 22-11-2012 16:25:0322-11-2012 16:25:03

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.