Blog Three Post – Theresa
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Stephen Duck: What an exhausting day at work. I felt like Odysseus today, that’s how long I was toiling in the fields.
John Locke: Why, congratulations! All your labor was certainly for good reason, for your labor is your own, and nobody else can claim it.
Duck: That’s not a very funny joke. I toil away all day long for my terrible landlord. He is always complaining that I don’t work hard enough, and that the neighboring lord’s workers are far more hard-working than I am.
Locke: But what you do through your own effort belongs to you. After all, if you didn’t cut the wheat and stack the hay, it would lie in the fields to rot, or for wild animals to consume. It is through your labor that the wheat becomes useful.
Duck: That all sounds very nice, but if I didn’t thresh the wheat fields and stack the hay and till the soil, I wouldn’t have a place to live. If I didn’t work for the landlord, I wouldn’t have a house to live in!
Locke: Easy solution, you should find your own land to till. There is plenty of land and so many resources that there is no reason that the fruits of your labor should go to someone else.
Duck: You have some very strange ideas. I think what you need is a hard day of labor, then maybe you’ll see my misery.
Very nice dialogue between Duck and Locke. In these few lines you explained well the ideologies of labor of these two men. Reading through this, at the end though Locke is trying to give Duck advice Duck makes it seem as if the info goes in through one ear and goes out the other. It’s quite amusing how Duck advises Locke to experience what he has gone through in order to understand his misery.
I like your portrayal of Locke’s cheerful cluelessness, Theresa. And you’re right: Locke oversimplifies labour: looking back, he doesn’t seem to have any idea that it’s harder than gathering up a few acorns. What would he need to say in the Treatise to adequately describe it, and fit it into his arguments? It’s clear that Duck would want him to acknowledge how hard labour can be….so what might Locke say that would make his arguments seem more fair to Duck?
I like that you put Locke and Duck together because their views on labor are so opposite that it is helpful to expand on that difference. You do a great job of portraying the main ideas of the two writers. However, it does feel somewhat like a summary of their papers that we read in class. I think that if you wanted to expand on this post, you could try to move the two authors towards a resolution to their conflict. Maybe one is able to sway the other’s opinion, or even address how you think Locke would feel after a hard day’s work.
You did a great job making the conversation between the two writers make sense and easy to follow, like I was reading an actual conversation about labor. I don’t know if you would want to add this in but you might want to think about it as if the two were familiar with each other’s works. Then you could have them quote the other and explain why they do or do not make sense. For example Locke could say to Duck something about how Duck should be happy about his labor because of his quote “blah blah blah” shows that he is content and working hard. Or something like that. Very nice post!
Thanks for the suggestions! I think I’m going to extend the conversation so they try to convince each other. I feel it would be easier for Duck to convince Locke (what her works on really /isn’t/ his) but at the same time, he is earning something for his labor (place to live, food), which supports Locke’s arguments.
Your writing is very clear to understand and you deliver the purpose of what you are trying to articulate in this dialogue with Locke and Duck. What you might think about including in this dialogue is actual quotes from both authors to better prove what they are saying, how Caitlin suggested. Maybe have an issue that Duck and Locke would face and how they would solve it. Keep your dialogue how it is because I like the uniqueness/ and way you used to inform us.