Gulliver travels to many different places in this part, and his travels are once again directly satirical on European culture. This time he draws attention to philosophy, education, and science. when he is in the academy in Laputa, all the ridiculous projects that the scientists are working on are poking fun at the Royal Society of London, in 1660, who apparently worked on many of these projects or similar ones. They often times created useless technologies that the people did not use, but also did make many theoretical advances. He also parodied teaching and learning, with the experiment of teaching math by eating wafers. I interpreted this as a shot at teaching by memorization and regurgitation of information. Other topics were on the leadership of the King of Laputa. Rather than be involved and kind to his people, he floats above on his island, detached and distant. How can he rule the land when he has never even set foot on it?
All of these topics were subjects of satire that Swift targeted.
Great post Kevin. I think the King of Laputa's isolation is a very interesting topic. An example of this is his possible action towards a dissenting town, which is to hover over them to block out the sun and therefore starve them. This action seems ludicrous and highlights the king's detachment from society.
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