Author: Brooke Dehlinger

If anyone is interested, I stumbled upon a Ted Talk. Personally I enjoy Ted Talks because they are quick, entertaining, and mind opening. With what has recently been going on, in the world, in the United States, and right here in little Geneseo, I believe this one is pretty relevant. Sally Kohn is a lawyer, journalist, and political commentator, not to mention a lesbian. She has appeared on Fox News multiple times. This is her view on emotional correctness versus political correctness and where we, as a community, have gone wrong. (There is some swearing)

Kohn talks about the power of respecting each other on a personal level. We may not all agree on certain things, however, we need to “stop talking around each other, and start talking to each other.”

The other day, Mrs. Foreman showed examples of how slaves struggled to be heard. How they turned to art and print to appeal on an emotional level, not just a legal stance.Douglass, however, was filled with fire and passion in his fourth of July speech in Rochester. Yet, some of the stories he tells about women being ripped from children and the physical abuse reach the audience on an emotional level. Douglass goes on to call out the Catholic church claiming their actions in the slave movement are sacrilegious and contradictory. He concludes with “I will not enlarge further on your national inconsistencies. The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base presence, and your christianity as a lie.”

Kohn states “Political persuasion begins with emotional correctness.” One could argue Natural Law would go hand in hang with emotional correctness. Emotional correctness is feeling compassion and empathy for others around you. The power of emotional correctness could lead to reforms based off of natural law, providing better lives for blacks, Muslims, Syrians, and many more effected by racism and segregation today.

Karl Marx, in The Power of Money once claimed:

“If money is the bond binding me to human life, binding society to me, connecting me with nature and man, is not money the bond of all bonds? Can it not dissolve and bind all ties?”

This quote explains that Marx believes money is what ties the human race together and to this planet. Marx eludes how money has a divine power, comparable to how we use religion to guide us through daily activities. Marx focuses on how having money can be very beneficial to the individual, providing them with whatever they desire, even the capability to bring things from the “realm of imagination” into actual existence. This could go as far as saying money can create power and happiness.

Locke states in The Second Treatise of Civil Government in chapter V on property:

“Thus in the beginning all the world was America, and more so than that is now; for no such thing as money was any where known.   Find out something that hath the use and value of money amongst his neighbours, you shall see the same man will begin presently to enlarge
his possessions.”

Locke believes that money is an ideology that doesn’t need to be in paper form in order for it to be created and used by society. However, he states that people will begin to covet whatever is being used to hold value, in order to become as wealthy as possible. This idea of holding the most wealth ties in with Marx’s idea that more money leads to power and happiness, while having less goods results in property. Moreover, with the creation of money Locke seems to believe that individuals use it to advance themselves in society; a theme Marx noted and worked to prevent. Previously, people only used and took what was necessary for survival, there was no need to have the most of one good because everyone provided for themselves and traded numerous goods equally. When something is created as a universal trade, such as money, people remove themselves from nature by becoming greedy and taking more than what is needed.

Locke and Marx seem to agree on the power of money and its effects on society, how money brings out the negative traits in human character and seems to remove us from what is truly important in a “community.” Locke focuses on how our relationship with the natural order of the world degrades due to coveting money. Marx focuses on how our relationship with each other, in a community, degrades by collecting money. This leads leading to extreme poverty and extreme wealth, with no care for the other side. Marx does imply that with more money you may become a more appealing and powerful person, while it seems like Locke would not support this statement. Overall Locke and Marx appear to believe that your true individual characteristics are more important to a functioning community, to be in balance with nature, than what others have projected onto and instilled with you.

Group 3

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John Locke goes into great detail to explain the flaws and short comings of a monarchy as a form of government. Then later in chapter 14 while discussing the new roles and limitations the government should bare, Locke uses the term moderate monarchy claiming it is a well framed form of government (Section 159). With this statement, Locke enters a new idea of political views. The word moderate comes with illusion of limitations, which Locke uses when describing this new Moderate Monarchy. Limitations on laws and power helped him create the ideals that have helped shape many different governments even centuries later.

Locke shows great examples of foresight when explaining his moderate monarchy. Stating that laws should be transformable for the common good. With this Locke believes a certain amount of power should be given to the monarch to change laws that may be passed, or reinterpret them if beneficial to society. This is what Locke would call Prerogative; the power to acting according to discretion while dealing with laws for the overall common good. This would be exclusive to the most powerful forms of government.

Locke also talks about the power of checks and balances with law and then introduces an executive branch and a legislative branch. Locke claims that the executive branch should have the most power but also be checked heavily. This example of government would support a more moderate monarchy than an anti monarchy that Locke originally supported. Furthermore, this example of branches and checks and balances is familiar to our form of government today. It has always been said that John Locke was a strong influence in government, but is this suggesting that most governments tried to move away from a monarchy and ended up at a moderate monarchy? Are most governments today still Locke’s moderate monarchy just operating under a different name?