Last Thoughts Our Good Friend T. Jefferson; or, Why I'm So Right, And You Are All So Wrong

And now, ladies and gentlement, an extended piece which I hope will clarify what, exactly, are my views, as I see them. Please feel free to agree with me.

*grins mischievously*

First off if I was being a little obtuse in my phrasing of my objections, the point I was getting at was the kind of overanalysis which was being commited on this blog is essentially the reason why no one respects English or Literature as a study. Don't they just make up stuff? Hunting down symbolism that seems to just not exist, writing essays on nonsensical topics... I don't think it's all wrong, but it's all best in moderation.

Now, a few points to set us on our merry way: Theresa, I agree with you and you agree with me. My criticism was originally directed more or less at Tina's comment: "It's not COMPLETELY useless, but I can't see anyone being stirred or moved while reading it." Which brought a kind of bemused smile to my face. And I rather got carried away in responding to it. (sensing trends...) As background, I should mention that over the summer I was in Massachussets and saw Shakespeare and Company do a dramatic reading of the Declaration of Independence with Shakespearean actors for the 4th of July. There was much gasping and applause, especially from the more liberal crowd who found suspcious similarities between the actions of King George and George Bush. (Both Georges? Coincidence? I think not!) And for the record, I would have been counted among the liberals. But in any case, as a dramatic document it works. We basically agree on that point.

Next, trying to seek out every flaw in the time period and in Jefferson's character with endless zeal is both tiring and often unhelpful. It was George Orwell who said something like hypocrisy is necessary in civilized societies, because by lying to ourselves that we are better than beasts, we can become better than beasts in truth. I think that applies to this situation.

As for personal opinions, by all means have your own. For instance, I read Mrs. Wheatley this evening and found her images common and her rhymes clumsy. Oops! But again, having an opinions is far from actually dismissing something because it doesn't immedietly strike your fancy. Which I don't think you, personally, did. I just felt it was worth pointing out.

Let me defend Jefferson's character. Kindly read if you will from the wikipedia article on Jefferson.It will jump to the section on slavery. While we are quoting famous people, I'd like to recall at this critical juncture, that the philosopher Hegel thought (I think) that it is only after an era that one can really analyze it. By that he means, essentially, men are only as good as their times. I don't think that's wholly true: rather than simply products of their times, shaping events that can only be truly understood by philosophers centuries later, people are people in any age. It is the ideas they are exposed to in that age which shape them to an extent, but there is always a capacity to overcome them. Most often the argument for men as products of an age is simply an excuse. Jefferson in the wikipedia article was portrayed as far ahead of his time in trying to abolish slavery, first adding in a condmenation for it in the Declaration, then in Virginia by law, etc, etc. While he did have, supposedly, suspicions that Africans were inferior, I think that can be chalked up to the times, by far balanced by his actual actions. Consider what you would think yourself if you hadn't been educated in the modern fashion. Who knew, really, but the Africans themselves? When could they show their skill and deftness of mind-- they spent all day in the plantations doing menial labor. We regard Phyllis Wheatley as brilliant, before her time, but how many other geniuses were there simply wasting away in the tobacco fields?

I think the idea of being influenced by our times is relevant here too. In this, our own era, cynicsm towards government is widespread (and justified.) It is no great step for you to take to believe in the propogation of lies to support a war. Obviously, politics throughout all time has been an incredibly corrupt game through and through. Pretty much every war President in America has lied to the public. Polk, FDR, Wilson, and more. However, I think Thomas Jefferson, the man, honestly cared. People who care do exist. Jefferson spent sleepless nights as President worrying about whether the purchase of Louisiana was constitutional, for god's sake! His vision of state's rights, a great agrarian republic is well known. This was a man of ideals.

The question then falls down to the validity of the Declaration as propoganda. First off, sure it is. That was the whole point, the war already having been started, the colonists in desperate need of support, something formal to rally behind. I quote from the relevant wikipedia article: "As a proclamation the Declaration was used as a propaganda tool, in which the Americans tried to establish clear reasons for their rebellion that might persuade reluctant colonists to join them and establish their just cause to foreign governments that might lend them aid. The Declaration also served to unite the members of the Continental Congress. Most were aware that they were signing what would be their death warrant in case the Revolution failed, and the Declaration served to make anything short of victory in the Revolution unthinkable..."

But the problem I have with your stance, Theresa, is that you were "disillusioned" about the Declaration. What illusions did you have? You say, ...but the Declaration is not the shining beacon of liberty it is made out to be." When was it made out to be anything other than the formal seperation between Britian and her colonies around which the colonists banded together? Is that wrong? What, in your mind, would be a "shining beacon of liberty? if not that?

Therefore I think the most important and really the most obvious question which we seemed to have overlooked and underlies all our feelings, has been who actually had interest in there being a war. Or alternatively, was it really because of true injustice? I think that you cannot seperate the two. Many reasons were economic. Britain was restricting trade with other countries, taxing the citizens unduly. The Proclamation of 1763 basically said that the colonists couldn't settle on the land they just won with their own blood. Today we could dismiss those crazy colonists for not realizing that the British government was trying to establish a kind of balance of power and was protecting the colonists from the Indians. But put yourself in their shoes. When for more than a century you've enjoyed almost complete freedom in trade and thought (legally, at least) and then all of a sudden you are restricted in all manner of ways, what would you do? Consider today! Why are we so pissed off at say, NSA wiretapping? Because the President overstepped his bounds. He is supposed to represent the executive aspect of the power derived from the people. And the people had no say in this! They weren't even aware of it, let alone given a part in the deliberations. The British system wasn't proportional, it wasn't elected, it wasn't democratic. But it at least paid it lip service. Look at the progression of the attitudes of the colonists. They only become "war-mongerers" after they've been radicalized by the cavalier treatment they'd received from Parliament.

Remember the colonists, if anything, had a vested interest in staying under the protection of the global British Empire. It isn't like today with the whole military-industrial complex. The Revolutionary War was fought with a ragtag bunch of local militias in tattered uniforms! Propoganda can be for a good cause. It is possible! It's manipulative, sure, history is written by the winners, democracy, not elitism, who were these people to think that they knew best? Now we are at the problem's heart.

Democracy is based on the premise of the virtuous, reasoned citizenry, at least enough of them, or more who are at least reasoned enough. Sure, it's rarely the case. The whole idea of a Republic is to guard against the uneducated layperson. In every working Republic, in the famed "democracies" of Ancient Greece, always, always, there were people in charge. The system in Athens, I believe, was set up so that the people directly voted on the agenda of the elected council. In such a system, how were decisions made? Demagoguery! It's a Greek word! Pericles, Demosthenes, orators! You convince people to go along with you in all governments on earth. It is how government works. Never do the people themselves rise up spontaneously and make the appropriate laws. They must be prompted, by the few. In englightened governements, those few are simply active members of the citizenry. But the most important point is that what they do is decide whether or not to believe the propoganda. To decide which side they're on. Danielle brought up the 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 rule about the Revolutionary War. The war was a rare case in almost every way. But that war was a citizen's war. The people themselves invested in it. The white, landed, aristocratic, educated busybodies whom, apparently, we all love to hate, formalized our mythos and ideals. They did good. The people themselves validated it, contributed to it.

This brings us back to the Orwell quote. There's no need to be disillusioned, because there was never any real illusion. History is neither anarchy nor idealistic. It is simply real people interacting in countless ways in a closed system. We have checks and balances in our republic to contain our excesses, to try to judge our own actions, but in the end its only later generations who really judge us because they can see the effects. History is more complex than anything we can ever understand. We can cover huge tracts of thought by saying stuff like Hitler used propganda, propoganda BAD! But what about, say, the folk movement of the 60s in regards to the Civil Rights Movement. I think most of us would agree that they were honest, in the sense that they really belived in what they did and it was justified. But that's propganda too! Most of us would laugh at the notion that, say, Bob Dylan had some vested interest in the destruction of our country by singing about Medgar Evars or Emmitt Till and was doing it for selfish reasons, like greed. He's trying to propogate the word, convince us, and we've been quite convinced. But.. wait... Wait a sec, then... OMFG EVERYTHING'S PROPGANDA! GAHHH, I'M BLINDED WITH DISILLUSIONMENT!!!!!

Please, can we seperate the analysis of WHY and HOW this stuff works, which is what Lazarow is getting at, I think, from the ripping of everything to shreads on the basis of popular cynicism?

Now as we come to the end here, I'd like to revist the beginning of this post: "Please feel free to agree with me." I said, and you all collectively shouted, "Arrogant prick!" at your computer screens involuntarily. But that was a hint. That this very post itself is essentially propganda. It's not as masterfully constructed as anything Ben Franklin would have written, but it shows that trying to effectively persuade people is NOT equivalent to blinding people to the truth and spreading lies and misinformation for one's own benefit.

In most cases.