Place yourself in Europein France, for instancearound the year 1600. Kings and Queens, Popes and Bishops, wield unimaginable power, and not usually in a way that benefits the common citizen. There are enormous gulfs between the wealthy/powerful upper classes (the aristocracy) and the lower classes (the peasantry). Average citizens have little security in their rights, societal position, employment, and access to basic resources like food and shelter. In short, it’s not a great time to be an everyday Joe (or everyday Jaques, as the case may be).
To make matters worse, the kings and queens or the era are not voted into power by their citizens. There is utterly no opportunity for the average man to critique authority or voice his opinion without fear of grave reprisal. Royal authorities claim to have been selected by God, under what is known as the Divine Right of Kings, and there is no allowance for questioning this selection (after all, God is conceived as being infallible, as are his representative Kings and Queens). You seem to be stuck in a societal arrangement that keeps you down, that forces you to endure terrible indignities and offers no viable means of upward mobility. For this response, I want you to think about why this arrangement would feel problematic to youwhat would some of the problems be that you might take issue with? Please list at least three aspects of a Divine Monarchy that would make you revolt, like the citizens and thinkers of the Enlightenment, and explain why they would be so intolerable. These aspects can be derived from the Panopto lecture for this module, or better, from your own thinking.
