Week 4

It's interesting that classical republicanism can be found when looking at Ancient Greece and Rome, since we tend to believe that good systems of government can only in the modern era. Not that Ancient Greece or Rome was a perfect system of government, but it's ironic that they were both concerned with the common public good, moral virtue, and participation in the community and were opposed to corruption and extravagance, whereas America seems to care about the exact opposite values. Classical republicanism was focused on virtue and the corruption of citizens and public officials, and I have to wonder if today's republicans had to list their top 25 focuses and values, if any of the classical republican values would show up on that list. I had a chance to visit Rome last December, and it's so amazing how deeply politics and government was entrenched in their society so long ago. Even though I criticize politics and government quite a bit, I suppose it really is true that we can't live without it.

This relates, without a doubt, to chapter 5 in Dionne, where he talks about how conservatives left community behind. He questions how conservatism could be becoming more individualistic during the same time that the religious right was gaining ground in society. For much of American history, evangelicalism was associated with social reform movements. However, as the 20^th century dawned, evangelicals adopted a new label, “fundamentalist”.  This religious movement drifted further to the right and focused more on personal, and individual, salvation. Dionne then quotes Gerson, who says “If Republicans run in future elections with a simplistic anti-government message, ignoring the poor, the addicted, and children at risk, they will lose, and they will deserve to lose.” I hope Gerson is right, but it seriously terrifies me that people could be even considering voting for the current top 2 Republican candidates, Trump and Carson. Not only do they essentially ignore those populations, they even attack them. How can an individualistic view of America create an equal society, if everyone has to fight for themselves? The reality is that everyone does not have the opportunity or means to fight for themselves in this individualistic view of American that comes from the Republicans.
             I thought the quote from Sara Ahmed that we talked about in class, "We might consider giving up happiness and experiencing life", was really thought provoking. It seems like people in general are always trying to obtain happiness, but what is happiness? In America, I think that we tend to focus on material happiness, but can that really fulfill someone? I suppose material happiness probably can fulfill some people, but I think there is so much more to pure happiness, and I'm not sure that you can consciously obtain pure happiness. I think that if we focus on happiness, we end up feeling unfulfilled and that we can always find something else that we think could make us "happier". I think focusing too much on happiness ends up basically controlling our lives and then all of a sudden, we're at the end of our lives and realize that we've been so focused on obtaining "happiness,” that we haven't really lived. I don't think we necessarily need to give up happiness, as Ahmed says, but it is so vitally important to live in the moment and to not be consumed by one thought over everything else.