Edward Blyden

Edward Blyden was the most influential proponent of identifying the differences between Africana and European cultures. Some of his views consist of race and culture. He stated that each race is different, but that it had its own distinctive benefaction that it gave to the world and its population. For example, Africans had taken on a different approach of life compared to the Europeans. As the Europeans were so eager to get ahead in life by their materialistic and individualistic ideas, the Africans were happier being more spiritual and cooperative. Both of their missions were contrasted sharply because they were focused on two completely different things. Blyden figured this out and annonced his views to the world and people realized they could do the same things that the Europeans could just in a different manner. As a result, hundreds of thousands Africans contributed to World War I, where they were faced to coexist with the Europeans. People thanked Blyden for his intelligence and later on people began to called the Africans a "tribe" instead of a race because they felt it was a better word to describe them as.

Post-Revolution Estate System

After reading Augustine's post, I decided to do a little bit more research about the estate system and the taxing of different social classes: What sparked the revolution, and did the estate system help it, or hold it back? What happened to the estate system after the revolution ended?

I discovered that one of the problems in France (that eventually lead to the Revolution) was that the peasants were over-taxed, and the 1st estate and 2nd was (for the most part) immune from having to pay taxes. This was one of the reasons why France fell into bankruptcy. All of their income was being sucked out of the lower class, until the peasants barely had enough money to even survive. Throughout the 1700s, there were various propositions attempting to fix France's tax system, but none were successful. The attempts by various ministers, including Chrétien de Malesherbes, and Jacques Necker to tax the nobles, were constantly fought against by the courts. The lower class (despite representing 97-98% of the population) simply did not have enough political power to pass these kind of reforms. Attempts to tax the upper two estates continually failed, up until the 1780s when the revolution began.

After the revolution, it seemed like the estate system essentially ceased to exist (at the very least, it lost most of its relevance/significance). in 1789, the feudal system was abolished, and class distinctions (between the three estates) began to fade away.

Social Contract Theory and Presentation Feedback

Hi,

Tomorrow in class (or as soon as time opens up in the class schedule), I will be giving a presentation on Social Contract Theory (as advocated for by Hobbes, Rousseau, and Locke). I know we've already moved onto the French Revolution, but I haven't gotten a chance to talk about these philosophers yet, and since I didn't get a chance to do my previous presentation until Friday, this presentation ended up getting pushed up to this week.

Also, I wanted to get some feedback from you guys about my presentations. Do you think it is excessive for me to be doing 1-2 presentations per week in class? Do you find them interesting? Would you rather have the class time be spent with Ms. Xia discussing more directly relevant material (such as things that will be on the test)? Should I post video blogs on Youtube instead of in-class presentations? How can I improve my presentations as a whole? Feel free just to leave a comment on this blog post. I won't be offended if you think my presentations are boring, or a waste of time, but at least if you are going to comment then take the time to put some thought into what you have to say.

Thanks,

-Cy