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This also the view of Thomas Payne. Everyone should read “Common Sense”. Most topics are still relevant. Many problems you see in US politics are already foreto
by prox 5y ago
This also the view of Thomas Payne. Everyone should read “Common Sense”. Most topics are still relevant. Many problems you see in US politics are already foretold, and also how to get out of it.
Personal responsibility doesn’t mean taking care of yourself, and stop there, it means taking care of your world, your community and as you say, fix small things together. Insulation is the real pandemic imo.
- asymptosis 5y agoI tried looking up things like "Thomas Payne" and "Common Sense" but nothing quite matched what you seem to be driving at. Is there something obvious I'm missing, or do you have a link for where to start looking further?
- joshuaissac 5y agoCommon Sense by Thomas Paine: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense
- asymptosis 5y agoThanks! Ah, it's the spelling. I took "Payne" too literally.
- prox 5y agohttps://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/147 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/147 On project Gutenberg!
- afpx 5y agoI'm trying to read it ("Common Sense") and, it's making me feel pretty dumb. I'm only a couple of paragraphs in, and my eyes are already glazing over, and I can't follow what he's talking about. The Wikipedia page says it's the highest selling book in American history, or something. And, people read this at taverns, apparently.
- prox 5y agoIt certainly takes a moment to get accustomed to it. More than 200 years separate us from his time and way of writing. I do think if you stick with it you will adapt to it. It’s not unlike reading a new coding language in that sense :)
- brundolf 5y agoThere's a modern rhetorical trend where the phrase "common sense" just means "whatever I personally think to be obviously right", so that's given me a pretty strong distaste for anything/anyone using it. But I maybe shouldn't make the assumption that that's how it's used here.
- prox 5y agoYeah, a semantic shift might have occurred. Remember we live in a hyper individual society compared to the time of Thomas. It’s more about an appeal to our common humanity, if that makes sense :)
- prox 5y agoAlso, adding to my comment , this is the first paragraph: >Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.
- uxjxbjkbuiduid 5y agoThe work referenced here is an argument distributed as a pamphlet by Thomas Paine before the American separation from Great Britain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense Whether that corresponds to your modern rhetorical trend is, I suppose, up to you.