My Thoughts on Various Thoughts

"When a true genius appears in the world, you my know him by this sign: that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." This was one of the epigrams that stood out to me the most and I understood it better by picking it apart. The first part (when - sing:) is fairly straight forward, when someone is truly smart you can always tell because of... Then the second part (that - him) was a bit more involved. Dunces have never been the brightest of all people therefore I think Swift is referring to a "less smarter" class of people than the genius. When I read "...Are all in confederacy against him," the first thing I thought off was the confederacy army of early America and how the southern states grouped together and opposed the ideas of the Union. I think that the dunces are doing the same thing with the smarter man, they are grouping together and are against what he believes in. This epigram also reminds me of the commonly heard saying "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link" because no matter how smart that on genius may be, they will not always have their way, even though it may be for the best, because there will always be a least one person who is less smart an will restrain the rest form making that better or smarter choice.