Guest Blogger: Kristi Taraba

While reading and analyzing Goldsmith’s essay, I found a lot of his points very interesting and relevant to America as it is today. Goldsmith’s main point was prejudice, which I believe is a very prevalent issue in America today. Not only do we as Americans judge others, outside of our country, but we even judge those within our own country. I thought it was very creative of Goldsmith to say that “we are now become so much Englishmen, Frenchmen, Dutchmen, Spaniards, or Germans, that we are not longer citizens of the world; so much as the natives of one particular spot.” I think this is very true, we as Americans have a view of the world as if America is all there is. To put it simply, we have become a very selfish country according to Goldsmith; only thinking about what is good for America, and not what is good for the world as a whole. This ties back to Goldsmith’s original point of prejudices because sometimes Americans view other nations as inferior to them, therefore judging the abilities of those countries. We think so highly of ourselves because that is what was the “norm” for so long and now we are stuck in our own paradigm and we do not want that paradigm to change. Goldsmith gives an example of how we judge others, he says, “when one of the gentlemen, cocking his hat, and assuming such an air of importance....” Just these few words let the reader know that everybody judges somebody at some point. Goldsmith didn’t know this man that he talks about, but because of the way he acted, Goldsmith assumed that those were characteristics of somebody who was very egotistical. I think Goldsmith brought out a lot of good ideas with this essay, ideas that can even be powerful to Americans today.