May 21, 2019 Tuesday
Bedtime Story
Factions in Society
So what solution did Madison offer for the
problem of faction developing within the society?
According to him there exists only two ways
to counter the development of factions within society which could arise from
various reasons one of which was the class conflict.
Class conflict is virtually an inherent
political tension and economic antagonism existing in a civilized society
between haves and have-nots.
Class conflict is an inevitable phenomenon
that civilization produced that was both visible and well documented at least
since the European Classical Antiquity.
Many European and Russian political
thinkers and economists have tried their hands (or rather minds) at analyzing
it, getting to the roots of it and trying to solve it.
Among such men are the nineteenth century
thinkers such as the Russian Pyotr Kropotkin and German Friedrich Angels.
One of the very interesting works of these
writers was the 1902 Essay Collection of Kropotkin “Mutual Aid: A Factor in
Cooperation” where he explores the role of cooperation and reciprocity both in
the animals and human societies.
Many biologists consider it to be one of
the first serious works in this filed that goaded and spurred greater interest
in this aspect of biological behavior.
Although it is generally the Europeans who
are supposed to have been the scholars of class conflicts and critiques of
socialism there are some from within the United States as well of whom Noam
Chomsky is the best known among the current lot.
One of the other notable and prominent Americans
to criticize the prevailing government system of his times and frankly discuss
class conflict was the third president of the United States Thomas Jefferson.
Thomas Jefferson in spite being the primary
author of the Declaration of Independence with contains that very famous line
“all men are created equal” owned a large number of slaves for his vast
plantation of 5,000 acre and thereby is somewhat of a controversial figure if
not downright hypocrite.
His great (and I would say greatest since
it literally helped in shaping the great nation which would one day help it to
become the world power) but lesser known contribution (to modern apes) to the
nation as its President was the Louisiana Purchase from France in 1803 for 15
million dollars.
The area of land that the United States
received for this vast sum was an equally expansive territory of 2,140,000
square kilometers which nearly doubled the size of the country.
Jefferson in order to make the deal
cunningly exploited the fact that Napoleon was finding it virtually impossible
to control a territory as large and as remote as this and that the French
military was in dire need of funds for the ongoing wars at home particularly
against their arch rival the United Kingdom.
The Louisiana purchases accounts for lands
of 15 present states of the nation with the states of Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa,
Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska included in their entirety.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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