Thursday, November 29, 2012

The Age of Reason

Thomas Paine's The Age of Reason is a very interesting text in my opinion. Paine gives a total opinion against the most published book in the history of the world and expects people to agree with the text. This was to say the least, radical, for his time. Now, however, we look at this pamphlet to learn about multiple things that have nothing to do with the original goal of the author when he was writing it. Thomas Pain wrote this revolutionary pamphlet before being sent off to prison, thinking he was going to be killed. Without a Bible, he challenged the institutionalized religion and legitimacy of the book. Of course this did not go over well at the time, but now is looked at as an educational piece.

I believe one good reason to study The Age of Reason is because one can look at the perspective of a radical piece in history and how it has been viewed over time throughout history. Thomas Paine included deistic arguments that lead to some free thinkers to follow the pamphlet. This is very different from today, how Paine sent out a paper pamphlet to gain followers. In this day in age, I believe there a couple of different ways Thomas Paine could have voiced his views to a mass audience. One way would be through social networking on the internet. With these networks it is easy to distribute views with pages and groups. Also using the internet, Paine could have written a blog or newsletter and sent it out. However, I am not sure if this would be as effective as the third way he could voice his opinion, which is media. With a movie or music, Paine would be able to gain interest from wide varieties of people and probably gain momentum. It's crazy to think about how quickly Paine's views would be spread with today's media market.

Another good way to study Paine's pamphlet is to look at the style of the text. For his time, Paine was considered a great writer, and his works can be looked at from a purely linguistic way. He used a straight forward style that was much different than most at the time. When you read The Age of Reason you tend to catch yourself immersing in the text and the beliefs it presents. The pamphlet is persuasive without the reader even noticing it. I think this really contributed to how known the work came to be and why we are still studying now at Temple.

Thomas Paine put out this pamphlet to voice his own opinion, thinking he was going to be killed in the near future. For this, the views are radical and passionate. However, the Age of Reason is still being studied today for the linguistic elements it contains and what it can teach us about history. Being the last book we read for Mosaics, I think it is interesting to leave it on a note of someone writing with nothing to lose. As radical as Paine might have been, he would probably be pretty normal today.

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