Revolution of the Absurd

I am barely 100 pages into Jon Meacham's superb and definitive tome on Thomas Jefferson, which he aptly titles, "The Art of Power". I would expect no less from the man who helmed Newsweek magazine but his prose and philosophy still surprise me in places. Pleasantly too. Early in the book, prior to the actual events of the Revolution, he rightly notes that the idea of breaking from Britain was primarily an aristocratic desire. The fiscal benefit of independence was amazingly seductive to people like Jefferson and associates Ben Franklin, John Adams, et al. As I read that, my progressive bones rankled a bit, even as I knew history must always be contextualized. Stupid wealthy white landowners plowing ahead again. But this was the Revolution! These were important principles and historic times. They couldn't be founded on arrogance. They just couldn't.

Chapters later, after the drafting of the Declaration, before Jefferson is to return home to his native Virginia, four realistic reasons or rationales are put forth as the most plausible things that would have been on the Founding Fathers' minds as they decided on independence. Refreshingly, Meacham acknowledges the typical and generic assumptions about their motivations and returns these:

"Lockean liberalism, classical Republicanism (via the Renaissance), the Great Awakening, the promise of capitalism, and the hatred of debt (and the British merchants and banks who were owed the debts)" (113)

I get the first two even as I remember, and remind my reader, that the definition of "republican" has changed pretty dramatically over the centuries. And the liberalism bit. I know a bit or two about John Locke but that's not my concern tonight. The Great Awakening, too, as a historical mode is less the issue to me except to say that I have to think Jefferson knew enough of history and philosophy to use those tenets for his gain without subsuming himself to them. The last two though strike me as the most interesting.

The hatred of debt. I hear from many corners of my small little world - voices both loud and small - bemoan issues of debt today. Indeed, I recall moments in my youth when I was warned, before I even had the ability to earn money in any real way, to watch and guard against falling not debt. And now here as a teacher trying to raise a family I find debt is a close friend, even if I wish he act quite so comfortable. Yet, it's not the debt I hate. Nor do I hate the things that have forced me to acquire this comparably small amount of debt. Things around my house break, they need repair or replacement, and money is immediately the issue. This is a constant and always has been, it seems to me. I don't hate the people that hold me in debt - exactly, although a few sharp words on what banks are and what they mean today would be in order, I think. No, I don't hate these things.

So while I know the author here is correct I find myself puzzled by it. "The hatred of debt." Is Americanism, in whatever form we wish to view it, simply the desire to acquire and have with the simultaneous hope that there is no payment exacted? I hear echoes of this in my small world as well: especially leveled at those who cannot pay for basic necessities. Food, shelter, medicine. But it seems to me the situation with Jefferson and his friends, his white friends, is more analogous than that. We are not talking about people who just want bread and water. These are people who consider colonization of a new continent their birthright, their sovereign and absolute duty before their divinity. Manifest destiny, even if that phrase was years away.

I remember thinking, when I first studied world revolutions, that the American experiment was a peculiar one. The French Revolution: class warfare and the violence of independence. The Russian Revolution: systemic change of government and thus culture. And America? "No taxation without representation!" Really?

I do not believe that Jon Meacham wants me to think any less of Mr. Jefferson or his associates and I do not pass judgement on their mental faculties or rhetoric ability or philosophic achievement. None of those are in question. But their impetus, the perception of their enemy and (perhaps most importantly) what they truly meant to gain... I am uncertain of.