“In what ways was Penn an advocate of middle class morality?”
Some Fruits of Solitude: Reflections and Maxims by William Penn
William penn was born in 1644 and died in 1718, he lived as a religous quaker for most of his life. His influence streateched over writing quaker ideas, and even in obtaining the Province of pennsylvania. Penn was a stern advocate for freedom and religous rights, and pushed his whole life for both. He is well known for writing Some fruits of Solitude: Relfections and Maxims. It was a collection of reflections by William Penn and was meant to serve as a moral guide for those for those who needed it.
Penn was definetly an advocate for the Middle class. In a lot of ways, he like them more than the higher classes. Being a quaker, Penn practiced humility. His view of the higher class was that of almost disgust, he didn’t agree with their materialsm practices. Penn puts the idea of ethics over wealth on a pedestal and discusses that higher class living leads to an impure life fill with a love of things, rather than life and people.
He also discusses the importance of living a normal life. He talks about happiness and fulfullment taking more importance that possesion or want. Be strongly believed that living in the countryside, and working on good persnal values was the way to live life.
He also believed in hard Work. He believed that good honest labour was good for the soul and produced a good moral man. It made a man focus on whats truly important and gives him inner peace and confidence. This is by far a middle class virtue.
In many ways, Penn Favored the middle class. MOst of his writings and ideas can be directly correlated with the middle CLass. Honest, Freedom, Hard work, and relgion to this day are the most important values a man can have, and these values are definlety with the middle to lower class.
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