Good day to all 19th century listeners, whom are by this time dead, but never the less, have surviving ideologies that have extended into the 21 century. As a modern student and follower of democracy, the views of William Ewart Gladstone seem much more appealing than Disraeli’s conservative points of view. Gladstonian liberalism is built upon classic liberalism, and emphasizes on the points of free trade, and provide as little government influence upon the economy, such as capitalist trade and financial flow by lowering taxes.
Classified by a known historian E.K. Hunt, classical liberals made four assumptions about human nature: People were "egoistic, coldly calculating, essentially inert and atomistic". Egoistic means that people act in accordance to pain and pleasure, governing our motivation. So every person strives to have minimum pain yet maximum pleasure in life, according to the cold and calculating part. So without these factors, people would turn inert. During this time the motivations of the wealthy was ambition the pursue of money. For the poor, it was simply the fear of hunger. Although most of these are true, it is wrong to view society and people as atomistic, as that is to group individuals under the same category as above. In the modern world, studies have shown that empathy and altruism does exist. Although altruism and evolutionary psychology does make the heuristic fallacy, empathy has been proven through mirror neurons, so to classify people as egoistic, coldly calculating, essentially inert and atomistic and basing government over this is one thing I disagree upon the views of Gladstone.
The thing I agree with Gladstonian Liberalism is that individuals should be free to pursue their self-interest without control or restraint by society. This not only provides the best production and reward to the laborer, it also offers the best reward to the capital.
Apart from the general foundation of the government, there is an event that involved Gladstone that I would like to address. This would be the Irish Home rule. Although it was turned down by the House of the Lords, it is an appealing idea to give rights to Ireland, since they appeared to be unhappy with the Union, and selfishly would also earn Gladstone more votes and support during elections. Even though the home rule bill was doomed to fail from the start, the idea of giving Ireland Political independence from London seems just in a more modern perspective. After all, living in conditions with similar elements of Gladstonian Liberalism, and where my own countries political freedom and sovereignty is questioned, I almost feel obliged to agree with many facets of his perspective, and certainly don’t regret in doing so.
1. a) Which main topic does the artifact relate to:
Definitely nationalism and liberalism, creation of the nation state, why? Because we are talking about two politicians.
b) Which other main topics does it also relate to:
Notion of the frontierà how to rule your subjects over sea, which times into race relations and bring the idea of the modern economy over
2. Why did you choose this artifact, and how much time did you spend creating and/or processing it:
I choose not to follow the directions, as in speaking to parliament, because I really wanted to make a comparison towards the current situation in Taiwan. Finding a relationship that you can draw with a guy 200 years ago is not only cool, but creepy.
3. What insights and understanding have you gained from the creation and/or processing of this artifact
That history does repeat itself, but every time more deadly and of greater magnitude and caliber.
4. Does this artifact reflect your best work and/or ideas Why, or why not
I could have done a better job speaking, but I ran out of dvd space.
5. Rate this artifact on a scale of -5 to 5(0 is neutral) for the following 4 criterion:
a) Impact on the quality of your Portfolio
3, not that big of a help.
b) Impact on your level of happiness/enjoyment
4, one of my talentsà stalking people.
c) Impact on your learning
I think this is one of the artifacts I learned the most of, because in order to attack the opinion of another, you really have to understand them.
d) Level of creativity and originality
3, its history, but at least with some modern connections.
6. Any additional comments.
This makes me wonder what other examples that can be tied to the current situation with Taiwan.
No comments:
Post a Comment