Political cinema

When setting up a just society, which value should be of utmost importance: liberty, fairness, happiness, or security? Upon examining Thomas Hobbes, John Stuart Mill, and John Rawls, we notice that all three were philosophers of Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism focuses that the happiness and general well-being of the majority should take priority over an individual; however, Utilitarianism also attempts to define the capacity of freedom of an individual’s liberty under sovereign authority. From…

The English philosopher and political John Locke was born August 29, 1632, in Wrington, United Kingdom. Years 1652-1667, Locke was a student and then priest at Christ Church, Oxford, where he studied metaphysics and classics. John Locke was educated about medicine and a believer in the experiential approaches of the Scientific Revolution. Year 1666, Locke met the legislator Anthony Ashley Cooper, who later became the first Earl of Shaftesbury. The two grew a strong friendship that soon turned…

Plato’s The Republic brings the idea of what truly is justice. Is it what society see it to be, what one sees it to be, or is justice such an aloof ideal that man is still trying to comprehend what exactly justice is to one’s soul. On the terms of understanding justice one must also think if they need justice and if so what it means to them. The value they hold to justice is something such as an intrinsic good which Plato elaborates on in The Republic where the definition and need for justice is…

Absolutism states that monarchs have the divine right to rule people and received their authority from God. The monarchs have all of the power and everyone else must obey the monarchs. To do that, the monarchs must take away the power of the powerful nobles. Louis XIV did this by moving the powerful nobles to his court at Versailles where they were occupied with numerous activities. He then appointed people from the middle class to government positions, where he could dominate them and keep them…

nature has forced humans to confront their “unsocial sociability” (Kant,1991a,pp.44-45) as seen in the states and societies humans have formed. However, Kant overestimates human cooperation as “providence” (Kant,1991b,pp.108) does not account for political, cultural, religious and racial conflicts in the 20th and 21st centuries as seen by the World Wars, the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, the Holocaust, the Charlie Hebdo attacks, and American police brutality against Black youth which all reflect…

The writings of Nicolo Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes Although the ideal societies of Machiavelli and Hobbes may have been plausible solutions to political violence in their respective eras, neither man’s ideas translate particularly well to a creating a peaceful society in the present day. In The Leviathan, Hobbes outlines his rationale for creating a society that is ruled by a sovereign (or “Leviathan”) who is given complete power by the people. According to Hobbes, the existence of this…

Athens and Sparta were bitter enemies. Despite sharing the Greek peninsula, the same gods and goddesses and even fighting together in the Persian war they had little else in common. As powerful city-states they developed very different societies, thought they were only about 150 miles apart. Athens became a center for philosophy whereas as Sparta was more war-like in nature. Overall, Athens had a more democratic government, a trade based economy, and a more open society than Sparta which focused…

The initial setting in this parable is rather nondescript. Jesus, the author, mentions a king (Matt 22:2), which evokes images of a palace and/or a throne room. As the author does not offer much more information beyond this, it is best not to read too much into this setting, but we can make a few observations. In the Old Testament, there are a number of stories wherein a king gives orders to his servants from his throne room. Pharaoh gives Joseph charge of his kingdom in his throne room (Gen…

fighting an uphill battle against corruption. From colonization, to authoritarian systems, and then further to democratization, corruption has plagued and dominated Latin American societies. One may assume that corruption is mainly found within the political systems of Latin America, but rather, corruption besets the personal lives of its citizens as well. One instance of many corrupt scandals is the Petrobras Scandal. The scandal now involving Brazil’s president involves thirty four sitting…

Conflict in “Ashes for the Wind” The purpose of a government is to protect their people, not tell them how to run their lives. But this isn’t always the case. In the short story, “Ashes for the Wind” by Hernando Tellez, a corrupt dictatorship-like government tries to force their will upon a man named Juan Matinez, the protagonist. This is the major source of conflict; it is external (man versus society). “The son of Simon Arevalo and his wife, Laura,” “ a man [who] had a cordially sinister…