ENG 531 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Male Privilege, Tabula Rasa, Meritocracy
17 Oct 2016
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Document Summary
Democratic/egalitarian: tells everyday stories of regular people, opens up print access and circulation. Cheaper print, less specialized knowledge needed: recapitulates enlightenment ideas of history. Turns individual lives into narratives of progress. Explores causal relations of events (similar to empirical science) Start in the present and move forward; deal with the now. Contrary to allegory; one figure stand for existing story. Embodies typical attitudes toward women in enlightenment discourse. Male associated with the sublime, female with the beautiful . Sublime , having to do with powerful interior states (fear, awe, reverence) Nature doesn"t make weak beings, mistakes: education changes nature for the worse. Argues against the idea of inborn feelings : doctrine of innate ideas, handed down received knowledge, contrary to locke"s idea of tabula rasa , the brain as a clean slate, information is accumulated. Connects to idea of meritocracy, life as a race. Relating hereditary privilege (aristocratic birth-rite) to gender inequality.
