Locked into an interesting lecture!

Tuesday’s history and context lecture was truly fascinating in my opinion.
The talk was focused around the work and ideas of John Locke, a man regarded as being one of the most influential of enlightenment thinkers, who had some bizarre ideas about the importance of property. Locke argued that property is a ‘natural right’ and that it is derived from labour.

Locke was a strong believer that power in society comes from the people, but they give it up all of their power to the King who is like a ‘mortal God’.
Locke was very much opposed to the idea of royalty having the ‘divine right’, and instead believed that everyone has the right to freedom and equality as long as they obey natural laws, as Locke believed that we are born with a ready-made knowledge of right and wrong. I understand and appreciate many of Locke’s ideas, particularly his opposition to the idea of the divine right of royalty. This is because I believe this sort of thinking contributed to what was a particularly unfair capitalist society at the time.

However I do find Locke slightly baffling as a character. This is largely because although Locke was a great believer in equality, he was also a particularly sexist character. A slightly hypocritical man; possibly a Sun reporter of his time!


Brian then went on to talk about Issac Newton, who obviously needed no introduction to us academics.
Despite this though I was sincerely amazed by the details of Newton’s work, and my imagination ran away from me… and there I was making scientific breakthroughs in a farmhouse in sleepy Suffolk, after The University of Winchester was shut down after a serious Swine Flu outbreak! In truth I was actually thinking about which pub in Woodbridge I would go to first to celebrate my good fortune!! (I had to add that last bit in, because earlier on in the day I learnt about the serious repercussions of lying in my journalism.)
On a more serious note though I was truly amazed by the fact that Newton made the following breakthroughs in just two years in his youth:

- The Laws of Gravity
- The three laws of motion
- Calculus discipline in mathematics.
- Foundation of modern ethics.

The most astonishing aspect of the lecture though for me was the fact that Newton waited for twenty years before publishing his findings. My fascination with this is largely down to the fact that my Father was once a scientist himself, and I can remember how keen he was to get his idea’s out there as quickly as possible. Although this may have been because it was his job, but even so; 20 years?!

Mikey