Reflection Blog - The Crisis, No. 1

Thomas Paine wrote this for the people of America (probably more of the military) because they were not doing too hot during a war. He wanted to inspire them to do better and that as a whole, they can accomplish anything! It seems to be more of a motivation speech than anything (Paine 134-136).

Now time for discussing the rationalism! Paine was saying how the only people to blame for the bad things that happened and the not so good winter was the people. "...we have none to blame but ourselves" (Paine 135). He is not blaming -or for better wording, saying that this is happening for a reason because God intended it to be that way. He is saying straight up that they messed up and they need to do something to change it because nothing is going to get better unless they do something to try and make it better. Back in the older days of Puritan writing; they would have just thought it was God doing his thing. The way Paine writes this, as you can see, is more of a logical approach instead.
Also, he says how things could have been better. He has thought about it and knew that "if it would have been eight months earlier it would have been much better", which shows that he has thought about what the problem was and how things could have been fixed, which means he was being RATIONAL (Paine 135).
Another case in which he is being rational is when he talks about war and violence. He thinks it's murder and he doesn't think it's right; no matter if it's one person or many or if the person is in a higher rank of society (like a king) because if you reason to the root of things it will all be for the same reasons(as you can see, he is talking about REASONING) (Paine 136). He is explaining his thoughts and giving reasons why he believes the things he does which I really respect and like because not many people do that-both now and in the past. I am predicting we'll be seeing this more and more as we go along with our rationalism unit.

Since, though, this is still at the beginning of the rational period, there is still slight mention of religion and God. At one point he was saying how God (and only God) has unlimited power (Paine 135). Then he mentions that how he does not think that God will give up on them (meaning the military mainly) or let me be miserable and die. He believes that God will do what is right for them (Paine 135). Paine also says a bible verse in this, which is from the New Testament Book of James. Then he continues to say that God will bless you and treat you as equal as everyone else no matter what your social rank is, or how much money you have, where you live, or anything like that (Paine 136).


Paine, Thomas. The Crisis, No. 1. Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 134-136. Print.