Stephen L. Carter

Before reading Stephen L. Carter’s “The Separation of the State“, I also harbored the belief that religion should be protected from the state, rather than the state being protected from religion. Carter’s essay makes it even more clear that the First Amendment in the United States Constitution places protection on the freedom of the people to practice any religion without state interference or prohibition. Carter writes about the case of Lemon v. Kurtzman, in which the Supreme Court passed the ruling that reimbursing private, religious schools for tuition and salaries was unconstitutional. This ruling by the Supreme Court, was undoubtedly the right decision. I am sure that most people will agree that only public schools should receive government funding. Students and parents who want their children to gain an education, without religious study, should not have to suffer from lack of aid to their respective school districts.
This case was significant in the idea that other smaller cases, wanting government aid for their religious affiliations, could no longer be passed. It is important to be careful when regarding situations that may involve the interference of the state in religious practices, but Carter believes that many times the government may be too extreme. He writes, “…if the courts continue to read Lemon as they have, the Establishment Clause might well end up not antiestablishment but antireligion.” (Carter, 109) Carter believes that the government, in their attempt to preserve the First Amendment of the Constitution, is promoting antireligion. I cannot completely agree with this Carter belief. I have always felt that people are entitled and obligated to have their own customary set of beliefs. Government interference, negative or positive, will not change a person’s religious identity.

Works Cited
Carter, Stephen L. “The Separation of the State.” A World of Ideas: Essential Readings for College Writers. Ed. Lee A. Jacobus. 7th edition. New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2006 pp. 102-109

Hannah Arendt

For the past few decades, since the end of World War II, people around the world have learned about the devastating Holocaust that took place under Nazi rule in the 1940s. After reading the excerpt from Total Domination by Hannah Arendt, it is clear that no one can truly know what the human beings, imprisoned in concentration camps, experienced. Simply trying to find words to describe the unbelievable cruelty of those concentration camps is beyond difficult, and that is based only on what we have learned from textbooks and teachers. Arendt believed that it may not be possible for even those courageous survivors to describe the sufferings they endured. After reading this passage, I can honestly agree that the burden of even attempting to relive those painful times, is far too great.
Arendt also took an entirely different approach to understanding the lives of the prisoners in the concentration camps than what we have previously learned. She believed that the mental suffering and the isolation took a greater toll on those human beings than anyone could imagine. They were cut off from the rest of the world and were made to believe that they had no personal value, nothing to work toward. She also expressed her belief that even the prisoners could not describe or relive their own pain, because of the obvious trauma. I can understand this in many ways. It is always easier to repress painful memories and to try to work for something better. The human beings in the concentration camps during World War II survived an unimaginable horror. They lived a life far away from civilization and any type of humanity. It is impossible for us to understand their sufferings, but it is also our duty to be certain that such a tragedy should never take place in our world again.

Machiavelli

The Qualities of the Prince was interesting to read because of the complexity in Machiavelli’s extreme ideals. Reading Machiavelli’s obstinate views concerning the prince’s heavy participation in warfare and his belief that a prince should be feared rather than loved, was in many ways, difficult to comprehend. He believed that a prince should never be hated, but at the same time, it was acceptable for a prince to be feared. I found this Machiavellian belief somewhat contradictory. Is it really possible to be feared, and not hated?
Fearing your country’s leader automatically invokes a feeling of resentment, eventually leading to hate. Machiavelli believed that the prince should never be hated, in order to preserve his own security and personal safety. Where is the sense of security among the people, if they are living in fear of their leader? I am quite sure that most leaders of a democratic government today, would want to be loved by the people, rather than feared. Understanding that circumstances and the way of living in the 1500s may have been drastically different, I still find it difficult to believe that any person would want to live in a country where they could not feel safe.
Machiavelli’s The Qualities of a Prince was like nothing I have ever read before. He expressed ideas so drastically different from what I have always known to be right, that it was almost an eye-opening experience to read his beliefs. It is practically unimaginable for me to believe that any leader would incorporate Machiavellian principles into their way of ruling.

Lao-tzu

In Thoughts from the Tao-Te Ching, Lao-Tzu made it apparent that he believed a government should be run without any one person, or group of people taking charge. To many people, his ideas may seem radical in this day and age, where the government seems to be the cornerstone of our society. He strongly believed that the government, should be extremely limited, in it’s power and influence in a country’s affairs. He believed that there would be a sense of serenity among the people if they had control of their own lives. Lao-Tzu also felt that if people continued to have their own ambitions, they would increasingly demand more power over others. He wanted the government to be moderated. Too much government would take away the rights of the common people; leaving his people to their own devices was a sure way to make sure the country was always content. So according to Lao-Tzu, the people of his country were better off making their own decisions and simply, living their own lives.
I find his perspective very enlightening in many ways. I also believe that too much government power is inevitably going to lead to an unhappy society, but I feel that he may have been a bit extreme with his ideas. Leaving a country to the hands of the people, and simply expecting it to flourish without any outside interference, seems implausible. There have to be boundaries in every society, and I feel that a balance is important, more than anything else. Distinguishing the line between too much government power and not enough, is something that we are still learning.