While Candide is the one Voltaire book everyone seems to read, it is not necessarily his best (or most interesting) work. Read through the selection from his Philosophical Dictionary on pp. 36-40 in your "Communist Manifesto and Other Revolutionary Writings" anthology. What do you find here that is particularly amusing, interesting, or important?
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Voltaire's "On Policy" (Extra Credit)
While Candide is the one Voltaire book everyone seems to read, it is not necessarily his best (or most interesting) work. Read through the selection from his Philosophical Dictionary on pp. 36-40 in your "Communist Manifesto and Other Revolutionary Writings" anthology. What do you find here that is particularly amusing, interesting, or important?
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In Voltaire's Policy, he describes in detail the everyday life and history of human beings. He descibes how the human race as a whole tries to make everything about itself, even when it attempts to help out others. In Voltaire's Policy, he discusses all the finer, underlying points and flaws of the human race in an almost Steve Irwin-type manor.
I just imagine Voltaire standing over the early races of human beings, wearing khaki shorts and hiking boots yelling, "Crikey! These human have no genius among 'em! Look at 'em all, wagin' wars agains one another until there's another useless treaty put into place! 'Among a hundred men, there is scarecly one that possesses genius; and among women, scarcely one among five hundred.' I 'aven't seen nothin' like this in me life!"
Although the image of Voltaire as the late Steve Irwin is somewhat amusing, his "Policy" is so completely true, that it can't possibly be funny or satirical, such as Voltaire's "Candide".
All Voltaire did in his "Policy" was put down in writing all the flaws that the human race has, and the mistakes that it makes over and over again. By bringing forth all this somewhat "understood" knowledge, Voltaire came up with a very interesting and true "Policy".
I found this paragraph very interesting from page 37; "Men are not like beavers, or bees, or silk-worms; they have no sure and infallible instinct which procures for them necessaries. Among a hundred men, there is scarcely one that possesses genius; and among women, scarcely one among five hundred.
It is only by means of genius that those arts are invented, which eventually furnish something of that accommodation which is the object of all policy."
I found this interesting because it really makes you think about how rare these type's of talents and minds really are. It makes you appreciate it that much more and wish that we were one of those fortunate few who posses the genius.
John Wegehaupt (MWF @9:00)
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