Blog post 3

"Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau"

I feel that this poem is important because it shows how our perceptions of the world can be both quick to change, and hard to let go of.  Here, William Blake mocks philosophers like Rousseau and Democritus for choosing to believe in the hard sciences rather than God's power.  He taunts them, telling them that, whatever it is they think, it is ultimately insignificant and meaningless in the grand scheme.  He claims that their ideas are nothing but grains of sand, which will eventually come back and fly in their faces when they see they are wrong.  With Blake attempting to discredit philosophers like Voltaire, we see how hard it can be to give up our perceptions of the world and what we know about it.  Anything that run contrary to our beliefs puts us out of our comfort zone, and makes us irrational.  We see that Blake offers no real argument against Voltaire and Rousseau, rather offering various insults.  At the same time, we see how often it is that out perceptions change.  Blake compares their ideas to grains of sand in a desert.  While Voltaire and Rousseau were two of the more famous thinkers, they were certainly not the first, and they are definitely not the last.  We find that their ideas are one part of the vast collection of human thought throughout history.  This poem is important, because it reminds us that to always be open to ideas that are out of our comfort zone, and to stand by these ideas, even when other people mock them.