Read it here (it's very short): http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1080/1080-h/1080-h.htm
Here was my response to the essay:
I found Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” to be an apt and witty political commentary. Several emotions were invoked during my initial reading of the essay: empathy, outrage, and finally laughter and deep thought of our own current situation. Firstly, Swift begins his essay with an emotional appeal to the reader regarding the status of the poor in his country. As I read the introduction, I thought it was a “tale as old as time”. What then, can we do to help the poor?
Finally, Swift arrives at what I thought must have been the punch line. He says, instead of eating babies we could always decide to only buy goods made in our country, landlords could decide to be compassionate, merchants could decide to have fair prices, we could encourage women to moral, and our countrymen to cease their fighting. “Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, 'till he hath at least some glimpse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice.” Obviously Swift believes people would be more apt to eat babies than to do these things.
If I read this properly as satire, with a bit of seriousness in the end, then it would explain the reason why there is so little actual supporting evidence for the author’s argument of policy. After all, what facts would one find to support the cannibalism of sweet little babies? It seems more likely that it is an appeal to his fellow citizens to reform their social policy before such a thing no longer seems bizarre. After all, if his countrymen care so little for each other that they don't consider changing their ways why wouldn't they eventually become so cold and callous that cannibalism does seem like the logical solution?
Isn't it interesting? What parallels can we draw to our own situation?
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