Jonathan Chisdes
"Content of Character"  # 7
Orlando Spectator
May 1993


JEFFERSON'S 250th BIRTHDAY:  
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO US?

by Jonathan Chisdes


Last April 13th was Thomas Jefferson's 250th birthday.  Throughout 
the country, but especially at his home of Monticello in Charlottesville, 
Virginia, this event was celebrated with great fanfare.  _Time_ 
magazine's "Man of the Decade" (that's Mikhail Gorbachev, for those 
who don't remember) traveled across the seas to pay tribute to 
Jefferson.  Too bad the old man wasn't around to enjoy the party in 
his honor.  Or is he better off dead?  How would Jefferson feel if he 
looked around this crazy, mixed-up world and saw how we've 
corrupted the great principles he cherished so?

Before we can begin to guess what he would think of us, we must 
first try to understand him and the world he came from:  the Age 
of Enlightenment.

In the late Colonial period, thought tended to be very rational and 
optimistic about the order of our world and human nature.  Great 
documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution 
were based on the belief that humans were basically good and 
perfectible.  Jefferson and Franklin and most of the other educated 
people of their time believed that humans, by nature, were rational 
and orderly.  When they did evil things, it was _against their nature_, 
and they only acted against their nature because they were _not _ 
educated--that was why public education was so important to our 
Founding Fathers.  They believed power corrupted, ergo the government 
that is best governs least; and we were all equal in a moral sense.  As 
one of my textbooks described the period, "Few doubted that with the 
application of intelligence the human lot could be improved."

I believe that.  That's what I was taught as a youngster; that's 
the logical conclusion anyone would draw who has faith in the 
ability of humans to reason and progress.  I come to that belief 
because if you look at human history over the long haul (for 
instance, compare the contemporary world to, say, the Middle 
Ages) we have overcome certain barbaric attitudes, such as the 
ending of slavery, etc.  Why doubt that it is not impossible to 
overcome other barbaric attitudes that we still cling to?

The problem, though, is that society has since gone through many 
social, ideological, religious, and philosophical changes.  Too many 
in today's world no longer believe we can better ourselves.  We've 
seen so many horrors since Jefferson's day, that it's much more 
difficult to be optimistic.

However the question remains:  What do we as Americans believe, 
what do we _not_ believe, is it true, and, more important, what 
_should_  we believe as moral beings?

And does this go to the heart of my disagreement with most of 
my fellow citizens over the Persian Gulf War?  Are my beliefs 
stuck in the eighteenth century?  I think it's a question of pessimism 
vs. optimism.  Many times, during the war, people told me I was 
wasting my time opposing it; there will always be war, peace is a 
dream and nothing more.  So many criticize the Enlightenment belief 
that humans are rational; they say we're too complex, self-centered, 
and have a tendency toward evil.  They say Jefferson's beliefs fail to 
explain murder, evil, disorderliness, emotionalism.  Ergo Jefferson 
was wrong--humans are naturally inclined toward evil.  This view, 
that humanity will never progress, is the mirror opposite of what 
our Founding Fathers believed.  Well, if we, as a society, no longer 
accept the beliefs that underpinned our political system, doesn't it 
follow naturally that we need to tear it out and form a new one?  
That's exactly what Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of 
Independence.  (Sounds like a good excuse for a revolution.)

If so, then the new government would be based on the opposite 
concepts--freedoms would be extremely limited, security given 
the highest priority.  This is not the kind of future worth struggling 
for.  And this brings up the more important question:  Is it _right_ 
to believe that humans are evil, that we cannot change?  That's 
often the traditional excuse of conservatives for not taking action 
to solve problems:  They can't be solved, so why bother trying?

Take, for example, the issue of racism.  Every so often there is a 
story about it in the news.  Many people (mostly whites) say that 
we've done all we can--made discrimination illegal--but that we 
can't force people to behave a certain way toward others--we can't 
change their long standing beliefs.  Well, I consider such thoughts 
amoral.  I think government has a responsibility to protect the social 
and economic rights of _all_ its citizens, not just their political 
rights.  Hate crime should be illegal, not condoned but condemned by a 
moral government.  All in the hope that in time it will vanish as 
the old generation dies off and does not thrust its bigoted beliefs 
onto the new generation; racism will be gone in a generation and all 
men will love their brothers.  But that's not going to happen if we 
keep insisting on teaching our children to hate those of a different 
race, especially if we drive home the point by antagonizing the 
other race into striking back at us.

The same applies to the issue of peace and war.  Just substitute 
"nation" for "race" in the above argument.  If we encourage war 
and glorify it, as George Bush did, what motivation would future 
generations have to try to get rid of war?

People use the word "evil" as an excuse.  Evil is an important concept 
to the religious, but not to me.  I don't see the world in black and 
white, like the Puritans.  There are very few constants.  Everything 
is relative.  What I see as bad or wrong, others see as simply 
protecting their own interests, or they simply have different priorities.

"So how do you explain things like murder?" my challengers ask 
me.  How can I explain an irrational Jeffery Dahmer in my optimistic 
view of human nature?  Well, I really don't.  I dismiss him as alien.  
I can't understand it, so I think of it as an irrelevant minority.  Why 
worry about the relative handful of sickos out there when most of the 
world's population is basically good?  Why should we live our lives 
in fear?

But maybe I'm the one who's wrong.  Maybe we should worry about 
the sickos.  It's too easy to dismiss that which we don't understand 
or that which seems to contradict our values.

On the other hand, many people are _too_ scared.  They want security.  
They don't want to get rid of war.  They feel that men are evil and 
we need war to keep the evil away.  Look at Hitler, they say.  Without 
war, he would have enslaved the world.  It's the United States' 
responsibility as a world leader to rid the world of dictators.

But I've got news for them...  The United States _is_ a dictator.  
Think about it.  Is there any country in the world where we cannot 
wield our influence?  If we said to a country, "Do this!" what country 
would dare to say "No"?  Okay, Iraq.  Bush told that country to get 
out of Kuwait and it said, "No."  Look what then happened.  Where 
did Iraq's arrogance get it?  It will be a damn long time before any 
country dares to stand up to us again.

What kind of morality is that?  That's the exact sort of thing that 
Jefferson and the other Founding Fathers would be against.  Washington 
wanted us to be isolationists.  "Avoid foreign entanglements," he
warned.  Lead the world by example, not by force.

I think most Americans would admit that war is bad, but they 
don't beleve itr can be eliminated.  Where is their imagination?  I 
admit that I don't have the solution on the tip of my tongue, but
that doesn't mean there is no solution.  Don't you think that if the 
world's greatest experts got together, given enough time, they could 
find a way to eliminate war from the planet and solve disagreements
peacefully?  And even if they can't do it in our time, that's still no
reason to blindly accept war, to give into its corrupting force.  
Victory in war doesn't prove might makes right.  All it proves is might
makes... more might.  Progress only occures when imagination
transcends experience.

I believe Jefferson would truly be disappointed if he saw the 
Unites States on his 250th birthday.  What we need to decide as
a nation then, is should we try to live up to the ideals of Jefferson
and our other founding fathers.  Do we really believe them?  Should 
we try to strive for perfection, to solve our problems, to believe in 
the goodness of humankind?  Or should we give up, accept our
imperfectibility as a given, put up a giant fence around the country,
shoot first and ask questions later, live for security?  If we
choose the latter, then we should come up with some new documents
for our government because those ideas don't fit those of the
Constitution and Jefferson's Decaration of Independence.

Author's note:  Does anyone know what I am talking about?  What
is the content of the human character; good or evil?  And how do we
build a nation based on that assumption?  Any thoughts?  Write
to me.