The Enlightenment
"The Enlightenment, as the eighteenth century came to be called, was an age of optimism, tampered by the realistic recognition of the sad state of the human condition and the need for major reform." (Hamberman, 144) Edmund Burke was a leading British philosopher and statesman of the (take out of the and add during the) Enlightenment. He was born in Ireland in 1729, and was abandoned by his parents at the age of ten. He went to Trinity Collage in 1744 and then moved to London in 1750 (Smeenge, 1). He became involved in politics at the age of 36 and by then he had become a private secretary of a parliamentarian, who was one of the leaders of a prominent party at that time known as the Whigs (Smeenge, 1). He soon after he became an important individual in the controversy that surrounded the tug of war between parliament and the king on the struggle for power of the state, as well as the trouble that England was facing with it's American colonies. Burke criticized the king's government and was supportive of the American rebels. This is evident from what is said to be a quote said by him in which he stated, "People crushed by law have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the laws; and those who h
The first part of the quote implies that people that are taken advantage of or neglected, for example industrial exploitation such as the wide spread use of sweat shops around the world as well as, those who are neglected by the political authority and reside in environments with a low overall socio-economic status have a general tendency to hope and aspire for the power to determine their destiny and control their existence rather then working for pennies a day and living in slums and ghettos. (with the next paragraph combine this one) The final part describes the people that are in these desperate situations in which they have nothing to live for but their hopes and dreams of one day having the power to control their own lives and fate. Thus if these people become desolate they will have a great chance of doing things that would directly oppose the laws and regulations set by the government, that had put them in that desperate situation. Therefore they would be doing things that can be considered dangerous, in order to draw attention to their problems that are being ignored. The quote stated by Burke at the time was relevant to the situation that was going on between England and it's American colonies. The Americans were being oppressed and taxed by the British. Thus at the time the Americans were in a sense being taken advantage of (from the high taxation) by the laws that were being enforced upon them by the British government. Therefore the Americans at the time did not have much to lose, and had less taxation and independence to hope for, thus they eventually engaged in a dangerous revolution in 1775. Altho
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Approximate Word count = 1099
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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