Guilt and Shame in Some Thoughts Concerning Education and Robinson Crus

Guilt and Shame in Some Thoughts Concerning genteelness and Robinson Crusoe In Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century England, a major transition was occurring attitudes were transformation towards a more sensibility-based perspective, in which the warrior mentality of earlier times was fall out of fashion, in favor of sensitive gentlemen. Such gentlemen were expected to be honorablely sound, well-educated, enlightened. Yet, despite all this, men were still expected to be masculine to be able to take control of a business office or solve a particular problem. John Locke postulated that all of this could be encouraged in young men via their education. Sadly, he found that no educational program at the time was up to the task. He argued that hotshot of the fore approximately goals of education should be responsible self-government, or the ability to take in properly what to do and what not to do without an external authority imperative it. This ideal became very en vogue among s ensible folk at this time many Englishmen (as well as other Europeans) wanted to be so morally upright that they need only answer to themselves. Locke, of course, had or so thoughts on this, and those thoughts revolved chiefly around (of all things) shame. Some Thoughts Concerning Education was first published by Locke in 1693. The ideas it advocated were progressive, even by todays standards. wiz point he makes very clear is that physical rewards and punishments (as a dust of encouraging morally-correct behavior) are ineffective in raising children to be responsible, moral adults (38 - 39). As an alternative, he suggested the following Esteem and disgrace are, of all others, the most powerful incentives to the mind, when once it is brought to relish ... ...other is standing nearby with a haughty eye, but true self-governance is about much more than that. Locke knew this to be true, and I think its obvious that Defoe agreed emphatically enough to base ace of the most successfu l novels in history on very similar views. Works Cited Bredvold, Louis I. The Natural History of Sensibility. Detroit Wayne State University Press, 1962 Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. New York Bantam Books, 1991 (Defoe) Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe, Norton lively Edition. New York W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1975 (Norton) Locke, John. Some Thoughts Concerning Education, The Works of John Locke, vol. 9. London 1823 Moore, C. Backgrounds of English literature 1700-1760. Minneapolis University of Minnesota Press, 1953 Yolton, John W. John Locke and Education. New York Random House, Inc., 1971