Furthermore, philosophers such as Socrates and Vonnegut have stressed that responsibility for one's actions is the first step toward understanding why things are the way they are (i.e. war, hunger, injustice, etc.) ... In the turbulent polytheistic society of Athens, no one action could please all of the gods, but more importantly, Socrates would advocate that it is ludicrous to act in a mechanical way merely to please beings which are at constant war with each other. ... He also recognizes the irony and hypocrisy of dissenters of slavery and the Mexican War being called unpatriotic an...

• Word Count: 2901
• Approx Pages: 12
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau was a man who expressed his beliefs of society, government, and mankind while living under his own self-criticism. He drew off his own life experiences to write his works, but with those experiences were his transcendentalist points of view he was trying to get across. This is reason why he was misunderstood in his own time people, merely read his books and dismissed them as nature books, it is the same reason that many of today's younger generation think of him as a hero. Henry David Thoreau was born on the 12th of July 1817 in Concord, Mas...

• Word Count: 2638
• Approx Pages: 11
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School