Luther

Miguel Reyes

Professor Courtney Wilder & Professor Henry Krusiewicz

Blue Humanities

5 October 2013

The Philosophers

“Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory” -Leonardo da Vinci. History has shown a list of many countless people who have defied and questioned the position of authority within the world. This can be seen throughout time from fall of Qin Dynasty in 200 BCE, to the uprising of the colonial people to the British government in the late 18th century. With that said however, does questioning authority mean it’s the right thing to do for humanity, or is it merely the right thing to do for oneself? Prevailing systems of authority is the right thing to do for humanity. We see a number of different accounts of stories that provides us with the models of questioning the power of authority.

As seen in Sense and Sensibility, we are exposed to the authority of men during the 18th century. Many males who read this text often hate it because it gives the idea of being a male as bad thing. Jane Austen writes about the story of love, marriage, and of course, money. To give a brief background of the society that the people of Sense and Sensibility live, which is not much different from today’s society in my opinion, imagine a life where men are the dominates of society, both economically and authoritatively. Money comes primarily from the male end of the household; more often than not it is from the land that which the family owns, which of course would be owned about the men generally speaking. This would serve as a family’s annual income. An addition to that, men had more freedom to do what they pleased. This would include going out for a ball, gamble, horse race, or run some other social events. And lastly, if you are a man, you would have an education, no surprise there. Because of their high position in society, why not have a good education? There are two sides to every coin...