Skip to main content

AMERICA // Braylan Stringfellow

     Its a safe bet to say that the United States of America is the best country on earth. Other than God allowing America to be the best, we can contribute this fact to our constitution. The constitution guarantees US citizens freedom and democracy. We can trace these two things to ancient Greece and we see it in Pericles funeral speech.

    In Pericles speech, he says, "Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favours the many instead of the few this is why its is called a democracy" (Thucydides). He also says "The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life" (Thucydides). These two statements just screams out AMERICA to me. First off, America did its own thing with its constitution. No other nation had a government like we had until others started "imitating" us. Also America was the only country with true freedom because we had freedom in our government, just like Athens did in this time. 

I posted on Caroline's and Jessef's blogs.

Comments

  1. Jackson RiddleSeptember 14, 2020 at 10:54 PM

    I like this comparison of America's freedoms and ancient Greece's freedoms. While we're not a perfect nation, (2020 has been more than enough proof of that,) we definitely have many more freedoms compared to the rest of the world. Interesting to note that even back then, there were some freedoms within Athens that may not be present in some of today's countries.

    ReplyDelete
  2. IsabelleSeptember 15, 2020 at 8:53 AM

    I thought the same thing! The way America has the same pride and nationalism that Athens had is astounding. However, Pericles bringing up Athens and its constitution seemed a bit out of place to me in a funeral speech.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Word Painting in Vesta—Lily Caswell

  Word painting in Weelkes’s As Vesta Was from Latmos Hill Descending is quite interesting. And because that is a really long title, I’m calling it Vesta from now on. Word painting is basically when the melody matches up with the lyrics. So in Vesta, when it says “ascending” and “descending”, there are obviously scales going up and down. The madrigal was written for six voices to sing unaccompanied, so when they start to come together, it matches with the lyrics; so if the lyric says “two by two”, there are only two voices; “three by three” there is another voice added, and so forth. All the parts combine in exclamation before Vesta before it is left “all alone” to the highest soprano. All the way to the end of the piece, word painting continues when shouts of “Long live fair Oriana” with the bass sustaining long notes. Word painting in and of itself is a highly interesting topic because a musician takes the words of a poem or a sonnet and writes a melody line that pertains to cer...
4 comments
Read more

Honor and Gain; Which Do You Seek?

 Pericles.... thanks? I can only imagine that's what the family and friends were thinking after they heard his historic funeral speech honoring the departed. What do I mean? Well, Pericles briefly mentions the men who have fallen at the beginning of his speech, but then goes on to discuss how great Athens is, and how the contributions the city has made to the world are unmatched.. why? I understand that he is also commending the citizens of Athens and empowering them to continue to make their city greater, but I thought this was supposed to be a funeral speech about dead war heroes, not about Athens. Another thing I found interesting is what Pericles said on page five about honor: "For it is only the love of honour that never grows old; and honour it is, not gain, as some would have it, that rejoices the heart of age and helplessness" (Thucydides, page 5). Have you ever watched a show or movie, or read a book, about a duel between two men? There is always an unspoken agre...
Post a Comment
Read more

It Is All About the Intent - Clabo

Augustine shed light on a very important idea that worship is not supposed to be just like every other kind of music. I used to have friends who went to an extremely restrictive church where the pastor believed and constantly proclaimed, "If during worship your toe starts tappin' before your heart starts movin' then it ain't Christian!" While this statement may be kind of excessive, it does reflect the same truth that Augustine touches on. Worship is meant to teach and to help one grow closer to God. It is not about trying to reach an emotional or spiritual high, it is a time a place where we, as Christians, should be striving to focus intently on the words we are singing. This leads to my second point. Our intent and heart posture when worshiping God is always going to be a necessary thing when it comes to truly worshiping, but if the songs we sing don't necessarily reflect the truths that we are trying to live out and apply to our lives, then we are never go...
2 comments
Read more