Common Sense Thomas Paine

1. What was so revolutionary about “Common-Sense” when it was first written in 1775?

When Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense, he dared the colonists to rise against one of the world’s greatest empires and encouraged them to build their new nation as a democratic republic. Paine argued in Common Sense that the colonies should pursue complete independence from Britain (Paine, 1776). His pamphlet persuaded many people who were dubious about the war’s aim and influenced the views of laypeople and legislators alike. Common Sense was therefore revolutionary and instrumental in moving public opinion in the United States against Britain, and it was also a major element in the colonies’ choice to fight for complete independence.

2. What is still revolutionary about the work globally today concerning the United Nations’ “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”?

Paine’s Common Sense remains revolutionary because history has shown that some governments and individuals continue to oppose the concept of universal human rights. Paine started the concepts of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment in a simple and approachable fashion. Common Sense promoted ideas like liberty, progress, tolerance, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of religion and state, all based on the premise that reason is the primary source of authority and legitimacy (Katz, 1995). The 30 Articles involving the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) are based on the function of protecting liberty for every living human being. However, the need for the United Nations to restate these ideas more completely as recently as the 1940s demonstrates how little they have been realized throughout history. Paine believed in more than mere revolt and overthrowing governments to achieve freedom. He also believed in breaking free from oppressive and organized religions and monopolies. His work is still pertinent today, demonstrates how revolutionary it was.

3. How did Leporello in “Don Giovanni” deal with the inequities of his lower-class servant’s position in this late eighteenth-century setting?

In Don Giovanni, Leporello attempts to influence events by using language to address the inequalities of his servant’s status in the late eighteenth century. Leporello is not a passive servant; he actively participates in the lives of those around him through his words. When he tells Don Giovanni that he is living a horrible life, for example, he speaks truth to power, and when he is forced to warn Donna Elvira about Don Giovanni, he does so to the point where she swears revenge.

4. What are more opportunities there for us Americans in the twenty-first century to balance access to equal rights?

While most groups in twenty-first-century America have been granted equal rights through legislation, this does little to remedy the years of historical disadvantage that particular minority groups have had to contend with. As a result, balancing equal rights in the current era is founded on addressing systematic, cultural inequities that have resulted in societal constructions such as the gender wage gap. The gender wage gap – the 21.7 percent difference in median yearly wages between men and women as full-time, year-round workers – has been painfully slow to close: at the current glacial rate, women and men will not be paid equally until 2058. Compared to white men’s median weekly earnings, it may take even longer for African American women (36%) and Latinas (31.9%) to narrow the gap.