France Section 1770 - 1789 - Crisis in the old regime :: European Europe History

France Section 1770 - 1789 - Crisis in the old regime The causes of tensions and conflicts generated in the old regime that contributed to the outbreak of revolution The composition of society was a major contributing factor to the tensions and conflicts generated under the old regime. Society was divided into Three Estates, the first Estate comprised of the clergy (1%), the nobility, and rest of the population was classified as the Third Estate. Not only was the Third Estate heterogeneous, comprising of the bourgeoise (lawyers, doctors, intellectuals, businessman, the traders, merchants, factory owners), peasants, and beggars, but all three Estates. Their were many distinguishing factors that set the three Estates apart. The first two Estates were associated with the monarchy and avoided or paid little taxes, whilst at the same time earning the most money. The Third Estate paid the highest taxes and earnt the least. Lefebvre saw the bourgeoisie as becoming stronger economically but still maintaining the same legal status as that of the poorest peasant. The bourgeois resented their nobles, who were simply 'born' into their position of wealth. They nobles believed that their noble birth' set them apart from the rest of society.' However, the nobility were also dissatisfied under the ancien regime, where they had little, yet still more then the bourgeois, influence in politics. Although the upper clergy enjoyed many privileges, including being exempt from paying taxes, owned about 10 per cent of the land, and received their wealth from the land they owned and the collection of the tithes. Yet, the lower clergy did not enjoy these same privileges, while the 'Bishop plays the great nobleman and spends scandalous sums on hounds, horses, furniture, servants, food and carriages, the parish priest does not have the wherewithal to buy himself a new cassock...the bishops treat their priests , not as honest footman, but as stable-boys.' It is clear that social unrest was felt by the whole population. Prior to 1780s the people of France blindly accepted the foudations of the Ancien Regime. The period known as the Enlightenment or 'Age of Reason' saw philosophes such as Voltaire and Rousseau attack the Church, and the absolute power of the King and the inequitable social composition of society. For the first time people were questioning the society in which they lived. It became the fashionable conversation of the times, and this propoganda took place in salons, cafes and even educational institutions such as the museum of Paris.

Political Justice: Plato and Aristotle Essay

Plato and Aristotle had different ideas of politics and political justice. In The Republic, Plato creates the ideal city, which is needed to guarantee justice. He aims to create a peaceful united city that will lead to the greater good of the community and individuals. Unlike Plato who imagines the ideal city, Aristotle looks at actual cities in The Politics. He doesn’t want to create the ideal city; he aims to improve the existing city. While their ideas about politics and justice were different, they both strived to find a better way of life for society and hoped to achieve political justice. In order to define justice, Socrates attempts to create an ideal city, one that is healthy and just. Socrates begins by â€Å"investigating what justice looks like in the cities† in order to â€Å"go on to consider it in individuals† (Plato, 45). He believes that it is through speech that one will see the way in which both justice and injustice come into being. Socrates argues that people come together as partners and form cities based on mutual needs because â€Å"each [person] isn’t self-sufficient but is in need of much†: food, shelter, clothing, and other necessities (Plato, 46). It is in the need that the men have of one another in a healthy city that justice can be found (Plato, 49). In the Republic, Plato argues that justice is social, structural, and peaceful. He also believes that people function best doing one thing well. According to Socrates, people naturally differ in nature; â€Å"different men are apt for the accomplishment of different jobs† (Plato, 46). Socrates argues for specialization by saying, â€Å"one man, one art† (Plato, 47). He argues that this concept of specialization is the only way to make certain that each job is done well. Socrates goes on to divide the city into three distinct classes: producers, warriors, and rulers. Socrates believes a just city requires a division of labor in order to guarantee the stability of the city and provide the common good for the citizens. He states that, â€Å"each thing becomes more plentiful, finer, and easier, when one man, exempt from other tasks, does one thing according to nature† (Plato, 47). A strict division of labor is the only way to construct a just city, in which few laws are required. Socrates uses the analogy of the healthy city to describe how â€Å"justice and injustice naturally grow in cities† (Plato, 49). A healthy city becomes an unhealthy, â€Å"feverish† city when people become driven by desire and want more than the mere necessities of a healthy city. Some people will not be satisfied with the mere necessities; thus, relishes will be added. When people desire more and more luxuries, the city must be made bigger again and again because the healthy one is no longer adequate (Plato, 50). As the city grows, more land is required in order to be sufficient. At some point, one must â€Å"cut off a piece of [their] neighbors’ land† (Plato, 50). Socrates argues that encroachment will ultimately lead to war. He goes on to state that because of thisß inevitable war, the city will require Guardians. According to Socrates, the Guardians of the state must have a very spirited soul be very well trained (Plato, 52). He goes on to argue that a good Guardian must be â€Å"a philosopher in nature, spirited, swift, and strong† (Plato, 53). They must never turn against the city and must know whom to do violence to. Therefore, â€Å"[the Guardians] must be gentle to their own and cruel to enemies† (Plato, 52). To ensure that they will never turn against the city, Socrates believes that they must be educated morally â€Å"in speech† through the stories of the Gods and heroes (Plato, 54). Socrates argues that the tales should be supervised and modified if need be, in order to instill the idea that Gods can do no wrong. Only the stories that display bravery and dispel the fear of death should be taught to the Guardians. As a citizen, a Guardian must defend their city, make war together against any enemy of the city, and fight vigilantly for one another. While Plato believed that cities and state came into being because of mutual needs and social contracts, Aristotle thought otherwise. Aristotle views the polis, or city, as a political association or partnership. Aristotle opens The Politics by saying, â€Å"every city is some sort of partnership†, which â€Å"is constituted for the sake of some good.† According to Aristotle, the city must seek to achieve â€Å"the most authoritative good of all† (Aristotle, 35). He defines villages as collections of families. These different villages come together to create a good combination of both public and private life. This is a sharp criticism of the argument Plato makes in The Republic.  Aristotle goes on to argue that a city naturally â€Å"arises from [the union of] several villages† (Aristotle, 36). In saying this, he argues that a city exists by nature (Aristotle, 37). A city forms for the purpose of living well and directs itself toward the common good. One of Aristotle’s defining arguments is that â€Å"man is by nature a political animal† (Aristotle, 37). What Aristotle is arguing is that apart from the city there is no possible way for man to achieve the good life. Aristotle claims that what makes man different from other animals are that â€Å"man alone has speech† (Aristotle, 37). It is speech that makes possible the deliberation of politics and allows man to come up with the highest authoritative good. According to Aristotle, â€Å"speech serves to reveal the advantageous and the harmful, and hence also the just and the unjust† (Aristotle, 37). In Aristotle’s city, it is speech and deliberation that justice can be found. Aristotle believes that the law developed through deliberation is â€Å"a guarantor of just things† (Aristotle, 98). In order to define what he believes to be a citizen, Aristotle first argues things that do not imply citizenship: honorary citizenship, inhabiting a place, sharing in matters of justice, children, and the elderly (Aristotle, 86). He defines citizenship as â€Å"sharing in decision and in office† (Aristotle, 87). According to Aristotle, a citizen is one who takes part in the decisions that are being made. In Aristotle’s city, the citizen is â€Å"whoever is entitled to participate† (Aristotle, 87). To him, the most important aspect of citizenship is that they are the foundation upon which the city is built. He believes that citizens have a share in the regime and should take part in administrating justice. In general, â€Å"a citizen is defined as a person from parents who are both citizens† (Aristotle, 88). Aristotle believes that as constitutions change, citizenship changes as well. Thus, there is different criterion for being a good citizen and being a good man. According to Aristotle, a good citizen upholds and respects the constitution. He claims, â€Å"a good citizen should know and have the capacity both to be ruled and to rule† (Aristotle, 92). In the Republic, Socrates gives three waves that he believes are necessary to  achieve justice in an unhealthy city. The first wave states that there should be equality among men and women of the Guardian class. He writes that men and women of the Guardian class are to share â€Å"everything in common† (Plato, 130). This wave not only deals with equality, it also deals with merit. Despite the fact that men are typically stronger than women, women should be nurtured in the same way as men and educated in the same things. Even though it may seem â€Å"shameful and ridiculous†, women are to be trained in gymnastics together with men (Plato, 130). After establishing the need for equality among men and women, Socrates moves on to the second wave. The second wave, Socrates argues, is that women and children need to be held in common. He believes that â€Å"women are to belong to men in common† and that â€Å"no woman can live privately with any man† (Plato, 136). Socrates is trying to rid the unhealthy city of private life because he believes that justice is social. The Guardians must live as one single family in order to reduce factional conflict. In order for the Guardians to live as one single family, Socrates argues that not only are men and women to be held in common, their children are to be held in common as well. â€Å"A parent will neither know his own offspring, nor a child his parent† (Plato, 136). The goal of this is to, again, rid them of the jealousies and rivalries that accompany private families. Socrates believes that this will make certain greater social equality and increase the unity among the Guardian class. Because the Guardians share everything in common, there will no longer be any concept of private ownership. Thus, there will be harmony and unity within the city. The third, and final, wave Socrates discuses details who it is that he believes should rule in a just city. The third and final wave that Socrates believes is necessary for justice is that philosophers must be the rulers. After making this argument, Glaucon demands that Socrates defines what he means as a philosopher. Socrates believes that â€Å"the philosopher is a desirer of wisdom, not of one part and not another, but of all of it† (Plato, 155). The philosopher is a lover of wisdom and total knowledge. Because of this, Socrates argues that philosophers are the only people capable of having knowledge of everything all together; they are open-minded and constantly curious. To further his  argument about the philosopher, Socrates states that the philosopher is a lover of the truth; he has knowledge of what is real instead of simply believing in appearances. The first proposal that Socrates makes in The Republic makes sense to me. There should be equality among men and women, but they do not need to share everything is common. There needs to be a balance of both public and private life. It would not make sense to rid society of private life entirely. The second proposal that Socrates makes does not make much sense at all; it would not work if we wanted to enact a similar system in today’s society. It is not logical to think that children would be better people and that society would be a better place if children were taken from their mothers at birth and raised by wet nurses. People need the bond of a private family, it is from family that children learn to love and be loved. The philosophers-as-rulers proposal that Socrates discusses makes sense but it seems extremely unrealistic. A philosopher is the last person that would want to rule a city. Overall, these proposals would every facet of a city. The proposals that he makes are intended to be extreme and ironic. Plato is trying to push his readers in absurd directions in order to establish that justice will never be found. The healthy city in Plato’s The Republic gives the best definition of justice. The whole intention of creating this ideal city is to define what justice is. Essentially, in his ideal city, there is no injustice. Because Plato uses his ideal state to show how justice and injustice naturally arise in cities, it is much easier to grasp what justice is and how it comes into being. Because Plato creates the perfect government, he is able to give a clear definition of what justice is. Aristotle’s definition of distributive justice: giving equal things to equal people and unequal things to unequal people can be confusing. While the healthy city may give the best definition of justice, it does not provide the best model for politics. Though it may not be ideal, Aristotle’s ideal city provides the best model for politics. In Aristotle’s view politics is only a means to an end; that end being the maximum happiness of its citizens. Unlike Plato, who places the burden of  ruling solely in the Guardian class, Aristotle believes that everyone should take turn ruling and being ruled (Aristotle, 219). Aristotle argues that the purpose of politics and that city is to promote the good life for its people. He believes that the citizens of a state should agree about what is right and wrong, just and unjust. Plato believes that philosophers are the only people capable of knowing the truth. Aristotle gives a better argument that everyone is capable of knowing the truth. He believes that politics is responsible for educating men in what is right and wrong. Just as Aristotle argues, written law should have greater authority than the rulers. Thus, leading to justice. Both Plato and Aristotle make good arguments about political justice even though the two do not completely agree. By creating an ideal city, Plato clearly defines what justice is. On the other hand, by looking at existing cities, Aristotle gives a good model for politics. While their ideas about politics and justice were different, they both strived to find a better way of life for society and hoped to achieve political justice. Bibliography Aristotle, The Politics. Translated with an introduction by Carnes Lord. (Chicago, 1984). Plato (380 B.C.). Republic, translated by G. M. A. Grube, 2 nd ed., revised by C. D. C. Reeve, Indianapolis: Hackett (1992).

Cuneiform Mesopotamian Writing in Wedges

Cuneiform, one of the earliest forms of writing, was developed from Proto-Cuneiform in Uruk, Mesopotamia around 3000 BC. The word comes from the Latin, meaning wedge-shaped; we dont know what the script was actually called by its users. Cuneiform is a syllabary, a writing system used to stand for syllables or sounds in a variety of Mesopotamian languages.   According to illustrations included in Neo-Assyrian sculptural reliefs, the triangular symbols of cuneiform were created with wedge-shaped styluses made from the giant cane (Arundo donax) a reed widely available in Mesopotamia, or carved from bone or formed from metal. A cuneiform scribe held the stylus between his thumb and other fingers and pressed the wedge-shaped end into small soft clay tablets held in his other hand. Such tablets were then fired, some intentionally but often accidentally—fortunately for scholars, many cuneiform tablets were not meant for posterity. Cuneiform used for keeping momentous historical records was sometimes chiseled into stone. Decipherment Cracking the cuneiform script was a puzzle for centuries, the solution for which was attempted by numerous scholars. A few major breakthroughs in the 18th and 19th centuries led to its eventual decipherment. The Danish king Frederik V (1746-1766) sent six men to the Arab world to answer scientific and natural history questions and learn the customs. The Royal Danish Arabia Expedition (1761-1767) was comprised of a natural historian, a philologist, a doctor, a painter, a cartographer, and an orderly. Only the cartographer Carsten Niebuhr [1733-1815] survived. In his book Travels Through Arabia, published in 1792, Niebuhr describes a visit to Persepolis where he made copies of the cuneiform inscriptions.Next came philologist Georg Grotefend [1775-1853], who deciphered but didnt claim to translate the Old Persian cuneiform scripts. The Anglo-Irish clergyman Edward Hincks [1792-1866] worked on translations during this period.The most important step was when Henry Creswicke Rawlinson [1810-1895] scaled the steep limestone cliff above the Royal Road of the Achaemenids in Persia to copy the Behistun inscription. This inscription was from the Persian king Darius I (522-486 BC) who had the same t ext bragging about his exploits inscribed in cuneiform in three different languages (Akkadian, Elamite, and Old Persian). Old Persian had already been deciphered when Rawlinson climbed the cliff, allowing him to translate the other languages.Finally, Hincks and Rawlinson worked on another important cuneiform document, the Black Obelisk, a Neo-Assyrian black limestone bas-relief from Nimrud (today in the British Museum) referring to the deeds and military conquests of Shalmaneser III (858-824 BC). By the end of the 1850s together these men were able to read cuneiform. Cuneiform Letters Cuneiform writing as an early language doesnt have the rules about placement and order as our modern languages do. Individual letters and numbers in cuneiform differ in placement and position: the characters can be arranged in different directions around lines and dividers. Lines of text can be horizontal or vertical, parallel, perpendicular, or oblique; they can be inscribed written beginning from the left or from the right. Depending on the steadiness of the hand of the scribe, the wedge shapes may be small or elongated, oblique or straight. Each given symbol in cuneiform could represent a single sound or syllable. For example, according to Windfuhr there are 30 Ugaritic word-related symbols that are made anywhere from 1 to 7 wedge shapes, while Old Persian had 36 phonic signs made with 1 to 5 wedges. The Babylonian language used over 500 cuneiform symbols. Using Cuneiform Originally created to communicate in Sumerian, cuneiform proved very useful for the Mesopotamians, and by 2000 BC, the characters were used to write other languages used throughout the region including Akkadian, Hurrian, Elamite, and Urartian. In time the consonantal script of Akkadian replaced cuneiform; the last known example of the use of cuneiform dates to the first century AD. Cuneiform was written by anonymous palace and temple scribes, known as dubsars in early Sumerian, and umbisag or tupsarru (tablet writer) in Akkadian. Although its earliest use was for accounting purposes, cuneiform was also used for historical records such as the Behistun inscription, legal records including the Code of Hammurabi, and poetry like the  Epic of Gilgamesh. Cuneiform was also used for administrative records, accounting, mathematics, astronomy, astrology, medicine, divination, and literary texts, including mythology, religion, proverbs, and folk literature. Sources The Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative is an excellent source of information, including a sign list for cuneiform written between 3300-2000 BC. Cathcart KJ. 2011. The earliest contributions to the decipherment of Sumerian and Akkadian. Cuneiform Digital Library Journal 2011(001).Couture P. 1984. BA Portrait: Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson: Pioneer Cuneiformist. The Biblical Archaeologist 47(3):143-145.Garbutt D. 1984. The significance of ancient Mesopotamia in accounting history. The Accounting Historians Journal 11(1): 83-101.Lucas CJ. 1979. The Scribal Tablet-House in Ancient Mesopotamia. History of Education Quarterly 19(3): 305-32.Oppenheim AL 1975. The Position of the Intellectual in Mesopotamian Society. Daedalus 104(2):37-46.Schmandt-Besserat D. 1981. Decipherment of the Earliest Tablets. Science 211(4479)283-285.Schmitt R. 1993. Cuneiform Script. Encyclopedia Iranica VI(5):456-462.Windfuhr G. 1970. The Cuneiform Signs of Ugarit. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 29(1):48-51.Windfuhr G. 1970. Notes on the old Persian signs. Indo-Iranian Journal 12(2):121-125.Goren Y, Bunimovitz S, Finkelstein I, and Nadav Na. 2003. The l ocation of Alashiya: New evidence from petrographic investigation of Alashiyan Tablets. American Journal of Archaeology 107(2):233-255.