Eloquence is Problematic

"We love eloquence for its own sake, and not for any truth which it may utter, or any heroism it may inspire". - Thoreau

I absolutely agree with this quote. I do find it a little ironic coming from Thoreau, seeing as his writing is very pretentious and he sure does practice what he preaches with his essay On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. This essay was tough to get through in class, I'm not going to lie. I found myself drifting off and completely indifferent to what Thoreau was trying to say. Because while I appreciate and love eloquence with all my soul, I tune out as soon as I hear it in an arrogant way. And that is all I heard coming from this essay.

I think that eloquence is something important towards our diction and can affect how we carry ourselves. I have found in my own experience that when I speak more eloquently, I find that I am more grounded in my stance on different topics and that I am more in control of a conversation or debate. When I am more casual with my language, it is easier for my words to be overlooked and for my points to not be taken seriously, hence why I reserve my eloquence for adults that disregard my opinion right off the bat. So when Thoreau wrote that we enjoy eloquence for its own sake, I can agree because using eloquence myself causes me to feel more confident in myself and my opinions.

I want to use an example of eloquence gone wrong. I find the writings of John Green to be...problematic in some ways, and I think that it stems from his form of eloquence. Now, do not get me wrong, I find him to be a very successful writer and I cried along with everyone else when I went to go see The Fault in Our Stars at the movies. Twice. (Anthony and Other will remember Dave and the Sour Patch Kids from one of these movies). Anyway, I find his eloquence to be the only reason why people really read his books. He is a man of pretty words and profound statements that apparently shake the core of every reader out there with its deepness. Or something to that extent. I will take Paper Towns as an example. In this book, the main character Quentin builds up a false image of popular Margo Roth Spiegleman. She leaves, he chases after her with his band of misfits, and at the end he realized that he never needed her at all and that she was something broken instead of beautiful. One way that he emphasized this point was with the line:

"What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person".

Now, that's a beautiful quote and is basically the whole plot of the book. But if one looks at this quote, it is just a glaring truth in everyday life that was twisted around to look profound and lovely. All this did was romanticize distorting another person and their flaws into a perfect being when that isn't possible.

Declaring Equality for Women

I honestly thought that today's lesson would be a tad bit boring because we were reading over the Declaration of Independence (something I had not been forced to read even in history class with Kenny K) and The Declaration of Sentiments, written by a woman named Elizabeth Cady Stanton. We got through the Declaration of Independence with a few bumps along the way, considering the formal word choices and difficulty with translating old language into something we could understand.  Then we reached The Declaration of Sentiments and I fell in love with Elizabeth Cady Stanton for being an amazing woman and an immediate role model for feminism. 

These two essays began with the same beginning lines: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty  and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed". This is pretty straightforward in the way it was written. Jefferson, who originally wrote this tidbit, was describing how the Americans came to see themselves as a separate body from England's rule and wanted to have their own independence and standards of equality to be recognized and respected. I personally think that the Declaration of Independence dragged on because they wanted it to sound so formal that they overdid it. It seemed like when one needs to write a 1,000 word essay and then you pull out random things to drag out your point as long as possible, like so:

But anyway, I digress. Cady's essay, The Declaration of Sentiments, used these beginning lines as well. But she focuses specifically on how the Declaration states how an abusive and wrongdoing government can be abolished by those governed and be rewritten in fairness for all, and how women have had to suffer under an abusive government since America gained its independence. She goes on to describe how women cannot be involved in government and political affairs without it being seen as improper. She even calls them out on giving the rights of elective and political freedoms to "the most ignorant and degraded men--both natives and foreigners". Cady bashes the "common man" and how he has systematically restrained the rights of women under the pretenses of women being an object to own instead of a free-thinking human being with the inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. She promises that there will be women reinforcing and pushing for this movement of equality to spread throughout the nation. Thus: feminism was born in America.

What I loved most about this essay was that there are (unfortunately) clear parallels between the sufferings of women in 1848 and 2016. Once a woman has married her ideal husband, she is expected to settle down with her white-picket-fence-dream-house and however many children her and said husband decide to have. I am not bashing this certain lifestyle; I respect women that are able to take care of children and raise them in a way that makes them feel loved. However, I hate that it seems to be the only option a woman has. Cady points out that "In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purpose, her master--". Just looking at the word "master" gives me the creeps. It just keeps pushing this idea that women are the servants to men, that we must offer our ambitions and dreams up for the wants and needs of a husband. If one is a single woman, whether she be a business owner or not, she is only valuable if she is contributing back to society. There is this constant pressure to adhere to a social mold of obedience and toxic double standards at every turn. Cady was, as Ms. Amodie said, "ballsy" to point out these glaring inequalities in 1848 America. What sucks the most is that a 2016 feminist can say the exact same things she did.

Adams Interpretation

Today in class, we reviewed letters written between Abigail and John Adams and tried to interpret them as best we could. There were definitely many challenges that came with this interpretation, including difficult diction and a confusing syntax. There was a certain paragraph in John's letter to Abigail that illustrates ideals that are still being sought after in 2016. The quote is as follows:

"Compassions of many. But...let Us take Warning and give it to our Children. Whenever Vanity, and Gaiety, a Love of Pomp and Dress, Furniture, Equipage, Buildings, great Company, expensive Diversions, and elegant Entertainments get the better of the Principles and Judgements of Men or Women there is no knowing where they will stop, nor into what Evils, natural, moral, or political, they will lead us".

While this is hard to pick apart and understand, Adams is relaying an important message on the ideals of his time period. What he is saying is that he is warning his wife of the dangers of materialism in the younger generation. He is afraid that the newer generation will get swept up in the extravagance of a prosperous nation and forget to uphold the respectful views of the past generation. Adams' generation worries for the future of America because they are afraid that the new generation will become ungrateful of the sacrifices made to achieve independence.

This is a similar problem today. There are many Baby Boomers who are constantly beating Millenials and weeping for the future of a world with smartphones and technology. They believe that we will be consumed by our devices until all forms of human interaction are extinct and that we will become zombie-like and antisocial. This is not the case however; Millenials are quite fond of their technology and would appreciate it if the previous generation would embrace this new future instead of longing for the past. In this way, the two time periods of the 1800s and 2016 are interconnected. The older generation fears for the future and potential mistakes of the new generation, while the new generation wishes that they could be understood from their point of view going into a new era.