<p>Lol, I have this really huge project due in like 4 days and I need some ideas on what to do. My theme for man's nature is that of Thomas More's Utopia, that man is inherently good and is corrupted by society. I need examples of this from poetry, written works, contemporary media, and pictures. Anyone got any ideas?</p>
<p>pilgrims progress by john bunyan?</p>
<p>Frankenstein!!! The novel by Mary Shelley.</p>
<p>I'm not exactly sure if Frankenstein counts as a man. But he starts out inherently good, and then becomes corrupted in a way by society.</p>
<p>a possibly helpful passage from Plato's Republic (book 6 jowett translation), if you haven't discussed the book:</p>
<p>And may we not say, Adeimantus, that the most gifted minds, when they are ill-educated, become preeminently bad? Do not great crimes and the spirit of pure evil spring out of a fulness of nature ruined by education rather than from any inferiority, whereas weak natures are scarcely capable of any very great good or very great evil?
There I think that you are right.
And our philosopher follows the same analogy - he is like a plant which, having proper nurture, must necessarily grow and mature into all virtue, but, if sown and planted in an alien soil, becomes the most noxious of all weeds, unless he be preserved by some divine power. Do you really think, as people so often say, that our youth are corrupted by Sophists, or that private teachers of the art corrupt them in any degree worth speaking of? Are not the public who say these things the greatest of all Sophists? And do they not educate to perfection young and old, men and women alike, and fashion them after their own hearts?
When is this accomplished? he said.
When they meet together, and the world sits down at an assembly, or in a court of law, or a theatre, or a camp, or in any other popular resort, and there is a great uproar, and they praise some things which are being said or done, and blame other things, equally exaggerating both, shouting and clapping their hands, and the echo of the rocks and the place in which they are assembled redoubles the sound of praise or blame - at such a time will not a young man's heart, as they say, leap within him? Will any private training enable him to stand firm against the overwhelming flood of popular opinion? or will he be carried away by the stream? Will he not have the notions of good and evil which the public in general have - he will do as they do, and as they are, such will he be?
Yes, Socrates, necessity will compel him.</p>
<p>We're not allowed to do works we've already done in class, so I can't do Frankenstein. But, thx for the info. athlonmj and glowingamy. Keep 'em comin'!</p>