ok first of all let me just admit that i really dropped the ball this week haha. i was about to dig into paine but then got the various emails about the wollstonecraft reading and panicked and thought that we had suddenly switched and started reading that instead. SO ill make a much better blog post on rights of man when ive actually read more of it so my questions arent just based on the lecture, haha.
there are quite a few things i like about thomas paine already!
1. i like how he chose to use common language. it shows that he didnt care what type of education or background somebody had, as long as they can read theyll be able to understand his pamphlets. which is good for me because i admit i can have some trouble deciphering, lets say, decorated language, so that makes me excited to continue reading this
2. revolutionaries are awesome. its awesome to read about them but reading primary sources of revolutionaries are like getting into their heads and knowing exactly what their thoughts are. its way too easy to just read about them but really reading their works is so interesting.
3. look at those lips. hes up to something you know he is
4. what i noticed was that this book is surprisingly cheap! thats really cool to me. anyone would be able to buy this book because of how cheap it is, you dont have to be rich to be able to read it! so not only does it to cater to everyone of all sorts of educational backgrounds (as long as you can read, at least) but anyone could purchase it, regardless of wealth or lack thereof. which makes me wonder, sorry if i missed this during lecture today, but did you have to pay or something to read his pamphlets in the 1700/1800s?
anyway. like i said, a better post when ive finished the book! unless this post is fine as it is, haha.
nicole
Sorry to confuse you with the Wollstonecraft readings emails! I just wanted to catch people who are reading ahead and make sure they didn’t read things they didn’t need to.
As for your question about whether people had to pay for pamphlets at the time Paine was writing, I think yes–but they were often fairly inexpensive, so far as I know. The idea was to get political (and religious, because some pamphlets were on religious topics) ideas into as many hands as possible, to get people thinking and talking about them. That’s what I’ve been able to find out, at least–it’s not something I’ve researched heavily, though!
On another note, could you reactivate the plugin that allows those who make comments to check a box to get an email if there are replies? Go to your dashboard, then to “plugins,” then activate the one called “subscribe to comments.” Thanks!