Reference no: EM132656964 , Length: 2 pages
Essay
Develop an original argument and concisely synthesize information. One of the underlying themes of this course has been human socio-political organization, whether into hierarchies of class or caste or democratic societies in which everyone was supposed to be equal, or communist societies in which everyone was forced to be equal.
The United States of American was a creative political experiment, which tried to apply Enlightenment ideas of equality, liberty, and pursuit of happiness to the socio-political order they were building.
How has this experiment worked out a few centuries later? In order to respond properly to this prompt, begin by carefully reading Paul Fussell's Class: A Guide Through the American Status System, Chapter 1, "A Touchy Subject." Your essay should engage with his analysis of the American class system and contrast and compare his analysis with what you have learned in this course.
Some of the issues you will want to revisit as you prepare to write this essay are
1) social & class organization before the Enlightenment;
2) How do Enlightenment ideas change previous conceptions of social difference and class;
3) How do modern ideas reconcile Enlightenment calls for equality and liberty with the need to have a complex and differentiated social order?
2-page essay, double spaced.