Puritans

– Who Were They And W Essay, Research Paper

Puritans- Who Were They and What Are They Doing in My Kitchen.

Puritans are indeed among us in society. They are in our drug stores, our laundromats, and yes, our kitchens. They are purists. Puritans want to make society a dull place where everyone works hard and no one has too much fun. Although they think they know what is good for everybody, their way of life not only disagrees with modern society; it contradicts itself.

The Puritan movement began in England in the 1500 s (Puritanism World Book). The word Puritan first appeared in 1564. It began as a taunt or insult applied to those who criticized or wished to purify the Church of England (Puritanism England). The Puritans sought through church reform to make their lifestyle the pattern for the whole nation. (Puritanism Britannica).

The Puritans are very serious people and oppose most things that are fun for themselves or others (Gambling). Vices such as drunkenness, smoking, gambling, swearing and Sabbath breaking were strongly forbidden in their culture. Even ostentatious dress was prohibited by the Puritans (Heyrman). Puritanism is also defined as strict denial of pleasure (Puritanism Philosophy). Over time the term broadened to mean strictness in morals or religious matters (Puritanism World Book).

Puritans are strict Calvinists. Calvinism is associated with the Theory of Predestination. Predestination is the theory that God has a master plan for people before they are born. It does not matter what they do in their life because God has planned out for them whether they will go to heaven or hell. If Puritans are Calvinists, why do they believe in such a strict way of life. The two facts are contradictory of each other. It helps to show how ridiculous the whole ideology is (Puritans).

In the Shakespearian play Twelfth Night there is dialogue pertaining to the topic of Puritans:

Maria- Marry, sir, sometimes he [Malvolio] is a kind of puritan.

Sir Andrew- O, if I thought that, I ld beat him like a dog.

Sir Toby- What, for being a puritan. Thy exquisite reason, dear knight.

Sir Andrew- I have no exquisite reason for it (Rowse 524)

In this passage, when Malvolio was accused of being a Puritan, Sir Andrew s immediate instinct was to inflict harm to him. It shows that Shakespeare had ill feelings towards Puritans. Shakespeare had every reason to think this way. The Puritans denounced his plays and theatre all together as breeding grounds of sin and vice and an encouragement to unproductiveness. It was the Puritans intentions to close down all theatres if they could (Asimov 579-80)

At the time of the beginning of Puritanism in England, Queen Elizabeth I was in her reign. She opposed and blocked the reformation, as well as many other nobles of the time period (Hulse). The efforts of the Puritans eventually led to a civil war in England! A civil war broke out in England because of the Puritan movement!

Because of the instability and lack of support for the Puritan movement in England, the Puritans broke away and founded colonies in America. These colonies were based upon the Puritan ideals and way of life (Puritanism Britannica). In America, the Puritans sought to cleanse the culture of what they regarded as corrupt, sinful practices (Heyrman).

The Puritans shaped religion, social life and government in North America and their ideals. Their belief in government-by-contract from the governed influenced the development of the American democratic principals (Puritanism World Book). They believed that the government should strictly enforce public morality by prohibiting vices (Heyrman). A German Sociologist, Max Weber, associated the Puritan belief in hard work with the rise of the American free enterprise system (Puritanism World Book).

In America, it seems that the urge to legislate and regulate health and sobriety comes in cycles spaced sixty or eighty years apart. In fact, Dr. Ruth C. Engs, a professor of applied health science at Indiana University, says that Every 80 years or so we come out with all these laws against people s personal, pleasurable pursuits: tobacco, alcohol, meat, sex (qtd in Ross).

Dr. Engs s cycle is divided into three parts. In the first part, reformers agitate against the inappropriate behavior. Only after the protesting does Congress start passing laws. In the middle third, it becomes cool to flout the law. Here, people either lose interest in the laws or actively rebel against them. In the last third, the police barely enforce the laws on the books on the books. Also, the banned behavior comes out into the open. The consumption of contraband begins to rise, but at a slower pace. The cycle pretty much ends when another generation sees the devastation brought by the abuse of the addictive behaviors. At this point the cycle begins anew.

The bouncing back and forth from one extreme to another is exaggerated in America where it dates back to the Puritan fathers themselves. Why does the cycle have to be so extreme. The cycle is vicious, because most of the time we are overreacting to a previous generation s experiences (a p3). The cycle of addictions seems to have its own natural rhythm related to people s memories of what those addictions did to an earlier generation. We are at the peak of the liberal section now. Wi

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