The Direction of the Class

So far, I'm really enjoying this class. It's sort of difficult for me to pick out weak points because overall I think it's been pretty great. However, I do think I can come up with some suggestions as to make it even better, hopefully.

I think some of the strong points of the class are the blogs, and the system of small and large group discussions. I think they're pretty effective ways of getting everybody thinking about the material in some ways that maybe they hadn't considered when first reading it.

First off, i'm not going to name any names, but I think the class discussion has been dominated by a few people and has not been inclusive enough. This could be the fault of the class at large for not speaking up enough, but whatever the cause of it is, I think we need to establish some sort of system to make sure that everybody's input is being heard by the rest of the class, besides just with the blogs.

I also think that it would be a good idea to analyze more outside sources related to what we're reading. I thought that reading the article about Ward's Stranger translation and the Myth of Sisyphus gave me some helpful insight into some philosophical points related to The Stranger and Albert Camus. It would be really enlightening to get other perspectives on the texts we read.

Camus and Voltaire are voting for...

I think as far as Camus is concerned this is a trick question. Camus is a bit of an absurdist, so I don't think he would cast his vote at all. He sees certain acts that society values as meaningful as essentially meaningless. Existance is absurd, and whether or not he votes won't make a huge difference in the long run. He is one man and the act of him voting doesn't mean anything or serve any purpose. Or at least that's would I believe he would think.
As for Voltaire, he has often satarized the lives of rich men and people who are born into wealth and nobility. Mitt Romney fits this bill pretty well. I also think that Voltaire was more into the idea of power in people to choose and against the government having too much power and controlling people. Voltaire also, though religious himself, chastised the church and religion constantly for being hypocrtical. This would probably cause him to be more likely to vote Democrat, because they have less of a history of letting their religion govern their politics and of hipocrisy, though this is present for both parties. Voltaire would most likely vote for President Obama but view him as the lesser of two evils.