Dear friends,

Just a quick announcement, Thematic Musings now has an official Facebook page. If you would like to stay informed when new articles are published then this page for you. The other major benefit of the facebook page is that you will be free to give feedback on articles, post questions, suggest topics and debate issues with other Thematic Musings fans. Please follow this link to find the official Facebook Thematic Musing page.

With best wishes,

Benjamin Thomas Jones

It is not often in Australian politics that a major leadership change occurs without leaks, rumours or the media somehow getting a sense of changing winds. Yet that is exactly what has happened today with the resignation of Australian Greens leader, Bob Brown. In 1992, Brown was a driving force behind the unification of the various Greens movements into a united federal party. Brown’s election to the Australian senate in 1996 was overshadowed by John Howard’s landslide victory for the Liberals after 13 years of Labor government. Yet in many ways, Brown’s achievement has been more significant. Howard was swept to the prime ministership with a huge victory in 1996 and left with a huge defeat in 2007. Brown entered federal politics as the first Australian Green* in 1996, leading a party that gained 2.5 percent of the national vote. He leaves in 2012 as one of ten Greens (including a House of Representatives member), part of the fastest growing party in Australia which secured 13.1 percent of the national vote at the last election.

Brown has been the face of the environmental movement for three decades. He rose to prominence in the late 1970s as a leader of the protest movement against the proposed Franklin River Dam in Tasmania. Brown traded in his hippy garb for a suit and tie, determined to give the environmental movement a serious political front. He entered Tasmania’s House of Assembly in 1983 and by 1989 was the leader of a party with 5 out of 35 seats. In 1993 he unsuccessfully ran for the federal seat of Denison providing the only three years between 1983 and 2012 he would not be a member of parliament. Brown is synonymous with the Greens movement and the party faces a unique set of challenges in his absence.

The Greens will be desperate to avoid the fate of the once mighty Australian Democrats. Like the Greens they once had a vocal, popular and recognisable party front man in Don Chipp, they grew steadily and held the balance of power in the national senate and – ominously for the Greens – their political zenith saw them poll 12.6 percent nationally in 1990, an eerily similar result to the Greens in 2010. The Democrats survived the retirement of Chipp but what they failed to do was create generational supporters. Those who remember the Franklin Dam, Lake Pedder or the anti-Nuclear protests will probably stick with the Greens out of loyalty and sentimentality. The crucial battle for the post-Brown Greens is to get Gen Y passionate and educated about environmental issues. Without generational renewal, the Greens may well discover, as the Democrats did, that ten short years can see your support halve and another ten can see 12.6 turn to 0.6 percent.

It is far from all doom and gloom for the Greens and the retirement of Bob Brown may in fact be a blessing in disguise. Brown, for all his charisma, persistence and political cunning, is still a protester at heart and the Greens under his leadership have remained a party of protest. Brown has often said his vision for the Greens is to be a party of government not just a third party. It may turn out that his departure is needed for this to happen. Two decisions in particular stand out as examples of this protest mentality. In 1997, during the heat of the republican campaign, Brown sided with his bene noir, John Howard, to defeat a Labor-Democrats bill to have a plebiscite before the referendum. Every available poll suggests the plebiscite would have been soundly carried and that in turn would have given enormous impetus to the 1999 referendum. Brown sunk the idea in retaliation to Labor’s refusal to back the Greens bill for a plebiscite. Brown acted against his own party’s platform and policy in an act of petty protest.

More recently, the Greens sank Rudd’s emissions trading scheme (and went a good way to sinking Rudd himself) in 2009. By demanding a 40 percent reduction target for 2020, the Greens placed idealism before achievement and protest before policy. As with the republican plebiscite, the end result was that the Greens chose to see nothing happen rather than a small step in the right direction. Brown has since congratulated himself, insisting that Julia Gillard’s carbon tax is ‘so much better’. This is disingenuous on two counts. Firstly, there was no way to know, if she was taken at her word, that Gillard would introduce a carbon tax. Secondly, even if it is ‘better’, the two years of wrangling and obfuscation has seen the issue plummet in the public mind and Tony Abbott is riding a wave of support with his ‘pledge in blood’ to remove it. If Abbott pulls this off, then the Greens, for all their power and influence, will be left with nothing.

Since losing the race for Denison against Labor’s Duncan Kerr in 1993, Brown has far too often seen the ALP as a political rival for the left vote rather than a powerful ally for progressive reform. If the Greens are to fulfill Brown’s dream and be a party of government, the most likely scenario would be a Labor-Greens coalition. We have already seen a glimpse of that with Adam Brandt giving a crucial vote of confidence to Gillard’s minority government. There are signs also in the parting words of the Labor and Liberal leaders. Julia Gillard described Brown as a ‘figure of integrity with a deep love for this country and its environment’. Tony Abbott did not bother to veil his contempt insisting Brown was ‘too strong a force in Australian politics in recent years’.

The old adage suggests that the left divide and the right rule. The post-Brown Greens have enormous potential but if they are to outgrow their protest party image they need to accept that compromise is the hallmark of effective government. They will need to accept that a government party, unlike a protest party, sometimes has to vote for the lesser of two evils rather than their ideal (but unattainable) preference. Christine Milne is the second leader of the federal Greens. She takes control in the wake of Australia’s three largest states all returning to conservative rule. She must feel the weight of history on her shoulders. Will the Greens continue to grow into political maturity or will she oversee their slow decline?

* Dee Margetts was elected as a senator for Western Australia in 1993, however, she represented the Greens Western Australia who at the time were not affiliated with the national Australian Greens Party.

For the better part of a century, Western males have had two essential items they need when leaving the house; their wallet and their keys. It is a genuinely terrifying experience to realise either are missing because they are absolutely necessary for virtually any plans or activities. During the 1990s, the mobile phone joined the keys and wallet to form a trinity of essential male items. This is no small feat as, compared to the crowded pantheon of essential items that comprise the female handbag, the male essentials are generally competing for the extremely limited real estate in the front and back pants pockets. How is it that mobile phones have become such a necessity?

I was recently made painfully aware of the extent to which I rely on my mobile phone. I was making the long trip to Sydney’s Chinatown and realised that I had forgotten my phone. An hour can seem like a very long or short period of time depending on whether you are engaged or sitting bored. The modern smart phone allows you to listen to music, play games, read a newspaper or chat with friends. It was disconcerting to be left without any of these options. Upon arrival, I found myself regularly dipping my hand into the pocket where I keep my phone only to relive my disappointment. Unlike my keys and wallet, which surface only occasionally, I was surprised how often it occurred to me that I should text someone, call a friend to see if they are nearby, google a disputed fact that arises in conversation or update my facebook status as random epiphanies and epigrams enter my head. I was struck also by a distinct lack of freedom. As I use my phone as a clock, I was not able to walk freely and explore the shops and attractions as I normally would. Painfully aware that if I lost my wife it would be very difficult to find her again, I kept a close distance and reluctantly followed her into many places of little interest to me. Returning home, I raced into my bedroom and picked up my neglected phone; no missed calls or texts.

In 2008, mobile phones reached saturation point in Australia (that is to say, there are more phones than people). Mobile phone addiction, or nomophobia, is a real affliction comparable to drug or alcohol addiction. Diana James of Queensland University of Technology notes that addicts will experience increased heart rate, extreme anxiousness and, as one addict put it, feel like a limb is missing if they are without their phones. Many psychiatrists are suggesting that mobile phone addiction is one of the biggest non-drug addictions in modern times. Barcelona psychologist Andres Gonzalez estimates that up to 15 per cent of Spanish teenagers sleep with their mobile phones in case they get a text or call late at night.  So are mobile phones an essential item, worthy of their lofty colleagues, the keys and wallet, or are they a dangerous new commodity keeping young people in an unnatural state of constant connectivity? In short, do they increase or decrease freedom?

St Augustine once mused that ‘complete abstinence is easier than perfect moderation’. In some ways it is easier for a drug, alcohol or gambling addict as they can cut themselves off from their vice completely. This is why overcoming obesity is so perilous. Food is both a vice and a necessity so rather than cutting it off it must be eaten with moderation. In the same way, mobile phones can be a vice but they are effectively a necessity due to the nature of our technological society.  The challenge for addicts is not to quit but to use in moderation.

Mobile phones have a unique ability to both increase and decrease freedom depending on their use. They give us the ability to quickly contact people, to find missing friends, to relay important messages and simply to talk when we need to get something off our chests. On the flip side they can be a virtual leash making us contactable at all hours of the day in all areas. There is something positive and healthy about turning the phone off occasionally behind any desire to contact or be contacted.

I suppose I think deeply about phones because I am part of the last generation to grow up without them. Before I went on my first date at age 13, I had to complete the time-honoured tradition of dialling the landline, making polite small talk to the parent or sibling who would invariably answer the phone before finally getting through to the desired person. I am no troglodyte and for the most part I fully embrace the inclusion of mobile phones into the trinity of essentials. I do propose three principles of protocol.

1. Turn your phone off (not on silent) during a lecture, movie, religious service, wedding or similar occasion. It may seem suffice to have your phone on silent but there are two important ideas here. Firstly, we should not be contactable at all hours. By turning the phone completely off during an event we are freeing ourselves from harassment but more importantly we are keeping things in perspective. We are showing respect for our fellow guests and for the event organiser and we are establishing that we do not need to respond instantly to all communication.

2. Give due respect to the person you are with. If you have met someone for a coffee or are with friends, you should acknowledge that their physical presence is valuable to you. Of course you may need  to take a call or reply instantly to an important text (and if that is the case you should apologise to your company). For the most part, however, the phone can and should wait. Friedrich Engels lamented in the mid-nineteenth century that strangers pass each other in the street without tipping the hat or in any way acknowledging a fellow human. How much sadder is it if we barely acknowledge our own friends and family member in our presence because we are captivated by our phones?

3. Take a regular break. Go for a walk or a drive, pop down to the shops or just stay at home with a book but turn the phone off for a few hours. On the weekend at least, we should take a few hours without the virtual leash just to be free to enjoy an activity without the prospect of interruption.

We live in a society where we jog while listening to music, iron with the television on and keep the phone constantly charged and within earshot but we mustn’t be afraid to be alone with our own thoughts from time to time. Mark Twain once quipped that he displayed moderation by never smoking when asleep and never refraining while awake. It is a rule I’m sure he would not have applied to mobile phones had they been around in his day. There is undoubtedly a freedom that comes from our increased means of connectivity but there is a corresponding freedom that comes from cutting off that connectivity for a set period. Mobile phones are a great thing but like the keys and wallet they must be an asset, increased means to greater ends. We must avoid mobile phone addiction, lest they become cellular manacles, keeping us distracted and distanced from our goals our friends and ourselves.

Mosaic law contends that the sins of the father shall be visited upon the son. In the travelling circus known as the Australian Labor Party it seems that the sins of the Right faction, ironically known as Labor Unity, have been visited a thousand times on Julia Gillard. It doesn’t matter if the Prime Minster wins the leadership spill on Monday, she is now an official sitting duck. If not Kevin Rudd, someone else, anyone else, will lead the ALP to the next election. Why has this all happened?

Julia Gillard’s Prime Ministership should have been a feather in the ALP’s cap. It should have been a landmark occasion for all Australians as we celebrate our first female national leader. Gillard had all the right qualities to be Australia’s answer to Elisabeth Kopp, Mary Robinson, Chandrika Kumaratunga or Megawati Sukarnoputri. Cool under pressure, committed to education and the working class, endorsed by Emily’s List, all the ingredients were there to create a cult hero for progressive politics in Australia.

Her achievements in office are numerous. Her masterful ability to negotiate has seen her hold together the most fragmented Australian parliament since World War II. Despite governing with the tenuous support of a Greens MP, two nominally conservative independents and a Liberal in the Speaker’s Chair, under Gillard’s leadership the ALP has been extremely productive, often succeeding in policy areas where Rudd failed. None of these achievements have made any headway with a disillusioned and impatient electorate. The toxic way in which Gillard gained the leadership has neither been forgotten nor forgiven.

There is a long standing tradition in both major parties that you can never challenge a new MP for their seat before their second term and you cannot touch a minister. Even the ambitious young head-kickers in the far-right of the Liberal Party adhere to this and won’t seek pre-selection against a back-bencher in their first term. It is beyond scandalous that an election winning Prime Minister was rolled in his first term after ending nearly 12 years of conservative rule. The factional war lords in Labor Unity committed an act of hubris and it has followed poor Julia every second of every day. In particular, Mark Arbib and Bill Shorten flexed the Right’s muscles and both were rewarded with cabinet positions.

Conventional wisdom says do not cut your nose to spite your face and yet the ‘faceless men’ of the ALP have somehow managed to do this (remarkable for people who have no face). Labor Unity achieved their short term goal but they have poisoned Gillard’s Prime Ministership. The Socialist Left faction have sniffed blood and are preparing for the return of Rudd. Doug Cameron, a powerbroker for the Left has come out for Rudd, as has Robert McClelland and Kim Carr. The undecided back-benchers will likely follow suit. Corangamite MP Darran Cheeseman has already called for Gillard’s resignation. Many of the back-benchers rode to office on the back of Rudd’s popularity. Now desperate to keep their jobs, they will look again to the most popular Labor MP.

The facts remain stubbornly clear in the public’s mind. What happened to Kevin Rudd was wrong. Of course, we do not have a US style presidential system and we pride ourselves in Australia on voting for party and policy not personality. Be that as it may, the Kevin 07 campaign saw a landmark victory against a four-term winning Liberal leader. The people rightly expected Rudd to serve his first term. The Australian people have never even denied a new Prime Minister a second term. In that sense, we really do believe in a fair go.

Gillard is, rightly or wrongly, facing the consequences of low politics from Labor Unity. The resurrection of Rudd just goes to show, the public do have a long memory  on certain things and you cannot simply hope the passage of time will sweep political dirt under the rug. Kevin Rudd is the only Labor leader in the past 17 years to win government for the ALP in its own right. He is the only person who can stop the Australian people reluctantly voting for the dismally unqualified Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott.  Rudd never should have been dumped and it is now painfully clear that the Labor Right got it horribly wrong.

A very wise professor of British history once pondered in front of his class, ‘why do we study the nineteenth century?’ Elaborating, he explained that the year 1800 was not overly significant and that conceptually, the French Revolution of 1789 might be a more sensible starting point for nineteenth century studies. The reason 1800-1900 is considered a worthy and sensible topic of scholarly enquiry, he concluded, is simply that by accident of history our ancestors accepted a Papal Bull in 1582 and adopted the Gregorian calendar (named for Pope Gregory XIII). There is no particular sense to it but we humans like order and symmetry. We enjoy documenting the passage of time and celebrating significant numbers – compare the celebration on 31 December 1999 to the previous or following year. And so it is with New Year’s Resolutions. It makes no more sense to examine your life and goals at the start of a calendar year than it does to do so at any other point but for reasons of culture and biology, we find ourselves glibly asking our friends as the clock counts out another year, ‘what are your resolutions?’

New Year’s Resolutions are generally an exercise in futility. A University of Bristol study in 2007 by Richard Wiseman suggested that 88 percent of resolutions end in failure. John Lehrer suggested in a Wall Street Journal article that the problem was simply that will power is a weak mental resource. His solution was to simply pick one thing rather than pushing your will power to breaking point by resolving to lose weight, start a journal, keep the house clean and quit smoking. Of course, that is fine advice but I wonder if there is more to it than this.       

The word resolution came into English usage around the beginning of the fifteenth century. Coming from the Latin term, resolutionem, it literally means to break something down into its simpler parts. It is also a linguistic relative of the word solve, coming from the Greek, lyein. A resolution is not simply a decision to do something or an agreement made between certain parties. Etymologically, it requires a process of deep thought and meditation. It means a mental exercise in breaking down something into its essential parts and then coming to a solution. It is an exercise in improvement.

New Year’s Resolutions used to border on the spiritual. Similar to the Catholic tradition of Lent, a period of serious, sustained, quite self-reflection was encouraged to examine one’s sins and resolve to live a more Godly life. Similarly, the Judaic holidays culminating in Yom Kippur was intended as a time of deep thought and the asking and giving of forgiveness. The ancient Greeks inscribed the immortal Socratic maxim, Know Thyself, on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. If a New Year’s Resolution is to be a real point of change, it needs to be the result of deep contemplation on what a good life really entails and how you can get closer to being a person you can be proud of.

The current mood of Western culture is schizophrenic in that it is self-absorbed without putting much emphasis on self-reflection. It is all well and good to decide to be healthier or to give up some bad habits and for the millions who will make a resolution along those lines, I wish you well. For a more fulfilling exercise, however, and one with more chance of success, spending an hour or so in serious contemplation, breaking down aspects of your life and coming to a solution may be even more rewarding. It may be time to think about reading more, meditating, re-opening the lines of communication with someone, being a more encouraging, optimistic person, visiting more museums, being kinder, volunteering or giving to charity. These are just generic suggestions of course and only if you take the time to examine yourself will the right choice become apparent.

What kind of person are you? What kind of person to you want to be? Those are two of the most basic human questions you can ask yourself. They are also two of the more difficult as, to a greater or lesser a degree, we will always find the former is not quite the same as the latter. That is the true joy of a New Year’s Resolution. It is a considered and resolute determination to be a better person, a person who is a positive impact on others and who can, without the least bit of pride or narcissism, honestly say they love themselves. I leave you with the words of American Methodist Episcopal Bishop, John Heyl Vincent, who in the horrors of the First World War, published the following postcard:

A Resolve for Every Morning of the New Year

 I will this day try to live a simple, sincere and serene life. Repelling promptly every thought of discontent, anxiety, discouragement, impurity and self seeking. Cultivating cheerfulness, magnanimity, charity and the habit of holy silence. Experiencing economy in expenditure, carefulness in conversation, diligence in appointed service, fidelity to every trust and a child-like trust in God.

 Happy New Year.

Ignorance truly is bliss. It means, after all, that you are free from the burden of knowledge, knowledge that perhaps would require some moral action. Increasingly our society in Australia and the broader Western world has developed the most powerful WMDs (weapons of mass distraction) known to humankind. We are bombarded with a level of stimulus utterly unknown since the dawn of existence. We find ourselves surrounded in a cocoon of plastic celebrities, sports results and news puff pieces. We are peddled the latest mass produced frivolities without mercy. We complain both that we are being exploited by consumer society and that we cannot live without the utterly useless luxuries that society creates. Perhaps it is our unconscious conviction that we do not have the power to change anything that makes us so hostile to those who champion change. Are we so comfortable in a languishing, apathetic, bottom-end-of-the-middle-class that we choose wilful ignorance over knowledge that could rock the shaky carvel that has never dared to venture out beyond the sight of shore? 

On 2 December 1980 three Catholic nuns and another church woman were brutally raped then murdered by a death squad in El Salvador’s tragic civil war. This in itself is shocking enough but there was another reason why people wished they could ignore the horrific crime. The murder was part of a long-running campaign of terror by the El Salvadorian military government which was being funded by the United States. In 1980 the US gave even more financial and military aid to the El Salvadorian junta than it did to Israel. Nearly 12 000 civilians were murdered by government forces that year, including the high profile Archbishop Oscar Romero who was shot through the heart while saying mass.

Less than a month after the nuns were killed, the actor turned politician, Ronald Reagan was sworn in as President of the United States. The killings had been widely reported. The New York Times in particular had run several articles on the death squads and their direct link to the government. Reagan chose the path of wilful ignorance. His administration went on the offensive and branded the Times journalists as communist sympathisers. Military aid and equipment increased in 1981. The number murdered that year is estimated at 16 000. In 1982, US aid nearly doubled to $82 million and Reagan assured the public that despite the reporting of ‘rouge’ journalists, the killings were the result of independent guerrillas, not the government of El Salvador.

The civil war in El Salvador went on for 12 bloody years. It ended in 1990 claiming some 75 000 victims. The United States finally reduced their aid after the United Nations stepped in. With the 1992 release of the UN Truth Commission and the confirmation of serious abuses of human rights on the part of the government, the US ended all aid. In 2002, George W. Bush visited El Salvador on the anniversary of Archbishop Romero’s death to celebrate the success of his father (who was Reagan’s vice-president before winning the top job). As the BBC deftly put it, ‘it takes a serious re-writing of history to portray El Salvador as a US success story.’

Why is ignorance so much easier than the truth? Why would a government and most of the nation prefer to ignore the facts than face them and change policy? Is it to do with pride? Are our egos too fragile to admit when we are in error? Or is it fear? Are we too afraid to have our worldviews challenged?

Consider climate change. How much clear scientific consensus does it take before deniers submit to the obvious? How about evolution? Why is it that opposition has been so fierce for so long? Ultimately, we are left with the haunting realisation that wilful ignorance is fuelled by ideological warfare. When someone is fundamentally committed to a worldview, they will dispute, discredit, ridicule, but preferably just ignore any and all evidence to the contrary. Reagan’s America simply did not want to believe that their government was funding a brutal regime of terror, so they didn’t. They simply ignored the crimes and where they could not ignore them, the obfuscated the facts and sought a scapegoat. The big oil and coal companies have no interest in learning what damage they do to the environment just as tobacco companies ignored health science for decades. Those Christians who read Genesis as a literal scientific text are similarly disinclined to entertain anything that undermines six day, young earth creationism.

Wilful ignorance is part of the human condition. We prefer to explore new ideas in a controlled environment where we expose only a small aspect of our worldview to the microscope. It is easier still, to simply retreat into a self-righteous shell of fear and to despise the ideological other. Although a valuable defence mechanism, it is healthy to challenge ourselves. It is crucial for our intellectual finesse to at least question a few things from time to time. It may be discomforting to think that the party you always voted for may actually be in the wrong or the war you always supported may be unjustifiable. Surely that is better than looking back, decades later and learning you were consistently on the wrong side of history. I will always respect the people who change a major aspect of their worldview. That is not weakness. That is the ability to think, to reason and reassess. That is the greatest strength of all.

Dear friends,

This is my first post since May 2011. I wrote that particular article in the Library and Achieves of Canada when I was in Ottawa completing research for my PhD. Returning home to Sydney in June, I took a job teaching at the University of Sydney while editing and refining the last few chapters of my thesis. Between the two, I did not have much time to write. On top of those academic commitments, I also bought my first house in September and got married in October. With so many demands on my time, it was simply not possible to keep writing.   

Firstly, I’d like to apologise for the lack of communication. I should have formally explained and closed the site but I kept thinking I would steal a few hours and post a new article. Secondly, I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to read my articles over the past couple of years. Writing is a beautiful art and it is a great joy that I can do it for a living. I truly value the feedback and comments I receive.

Lastly, I would like to announce that articles will recommence. I will aim to return to regular postings with at least one or two per month. I would love to hear any suggestions you may have for topics or anything else. I am thinking I will refine the style here a bit to shorter, punchier articles.

Thanks again for your patience. It is with great pleasure that I inform you benjaminthomasjones.com is once again operational. If you ever feel like sharing a link on your facebook page that would be greatly appreciated.

Warmest Regards,

BTJ

It seems clear that the cause of white liberty in America was advanced by the subjugation of blacks and Indians. By the beginning of the eighteenth century, however, the colonists increasingly saw England as an impediment to their liberty. The Catholic King, James II, had established a new organisational structure in 1686 to take power from the colonists and give it to the crown. Although he was highly unpopular in England and removed after only three years his colonial policy was continued under both subsequent Stuart monarchs. None aroused more resentment, and fanned the revolutionary flame, however, than the Hanoverian King, George III. It was he who enacted two violently opposed laws; the Proclamation of 1763 and the Stamp Act 1765.

There is no doubt that during the second half of the eighteenth century liberty was the subject of continual debate in America. Eric Foner notes that “no word was more frequently invoked by critics of the Stamp Act than liberty.” It is crucial, however, to ask what the colonists meant by liberty? It is a popular myth that the colonist fought for, what we would call, human rights. This was a later, and somewhat conditional, development. The majority of rebellions, boycotts and uprisings were aimed at achieving British liberty and establishing the colonist’s rights as free Englishmen. Even in 1776 a great many people sought a renegotiated relationship with England rather than a separation.

Thomas Paine was one of the earliest to realise that there could be no reunion with England. In his famous work Common Sense he argues this point; “I have heard it asserted by some, that as America had flourished under her former connexion with Great-Britain, that the same connexion is necessary towards her future happiness…. Nothing can be more fallacious than this kind of argument.” If, even in 1776, Paine had to argue for complete independence from England, it must be deduced that liberty came into its modern meaning only gradually. Foner adds that “many colonists shied away from the idea of independence [as] pride in membership in the British Empire was still strong and many political leaders … feared that a complete break with the mother country might unleash further conflict.” Few, if any, would have predicted that a new nation was about to be birthed. Consequently, the question facing Americans after the revolution was what kind of society should be created?

The founding fathers of the American constitution are shrouded in so much myth it is often hard to discern fact from fiction. Within the modern American mind, the concepts of liberty and democracy are essentially indistinguishable. This modern paradigm is in stark contrast to the views held by many of the fathers. The authors of the constitution held a Hobbesian philosophical position, maintaining that men were essentially carnal and, in General Knox’s words in a letter to Washington, “possessing all the turbulent passions belonging to that animal”.

Far from the sacred ideal it would later become, democracy was seen as a dangerous but necessary condition which must be appeased to form a legitimate government. Richard Hofstadter notes the distain with which many of the fathers viewed democracy:

Edmund Randolpf, saying to the convention that the evils from which the country suffered originated in the ‘turbulence and follies of democracy,’ and that the great danger lay in ‘the democratic parts of our constitutions’ … Rodger Sherman, hoping that ‘the people … have as little to do as may be about the government’; William Livingston, saying that ‘the people have ever been and ever will be unfit to retain the exercise of power in their own hands’; George Washington, the presiding officer, urging the delegates not to produce a document of which they themselves could not approve simply in order to ‘please the people’.

Hamilton, in particular, “candidly disdained the people”. It cannot be rationally argued that the fathers sought to create a nation founded on liberty and democracy. Ironically, it seems that the opponents of the constitution did more to increase democracy in America than the founding fathers.

It was not the fathers but the anti-federalists who fought to create a bill of rights to enshrine and protect the notion of democracy. After the publication of Hon. Mr. Gerry’s Objections to the constitution in 1787 the anti-federalist movement consolidated behind a common set of grievances. Elbridge Gerry’s essay encapsulates these concerns:

My principal objections to the plan, are, that there is no adequate provisions for a representation of the people – that they have no security for the right of election – that some of the powers of the Legislature are ambiguous, and others indefinite and dangerous … and that the system is without the security of a bill of rights.

So it may be argued that the driving force behind establishing and protecting the rights of the common American lay not with the founding fathers at the Philadelphia convention but with the opponents and critics outside.

Similar to the myth surrounding the founding fathers is the myth surrounding Thomas Jefferson. Hofstadter notes that:

Jefferson has been pictured as a militant, crusading democrat, a Physiocrat who repudiated acquisitive capitalistic economics, a revolutionist who tore up the social fabric of Virginia in 1776, and the sponsor of a “Revolution of 1800” which destroyed Federalism root and branch. Although there is fact enough to give the color of truth to these notions, they have been torn down by shrewd Jefferson scholars. 

Although Jefferson’s achievements are indeed significant, there remains several peculiarities in regards to how he is often portrayed by historians. Traditional historiography regards Jefferson as the pedagogue of liberty who penned the most famous words in the declaration of independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” It appears, therefore, as something of an anomaly that Jefferson owned somewhere between one and two hundred Negro slaves. There is a tragic irony to the fact that “the leisure time that made possible his great writings on human liberty was supported by the labors of three generations of slaves.”

Thomas Jefferson’s life work produced many advancements for the cause of liberty, however, it was not the same kind of liberty which Americans associate with today. Perhaps the greatest of Jefferson’s achievements was to realise that the elite could not simply rule and ignore the masses. By the time Jefferson came to office in 1800, all white males were seen, at least theoretically, as equal. To credit Jefferson, however, as a democratic crusader, in the modern sense of the word is to ignore the vast inequalities of the time which he never addressed nor sought to address. Some forty per cent of the population of his native Virginia were slaves. Women were confined to be second-class, non-citizens and Indians were viewed as a contemptible dying breed. It is important, therefore, not to allow social reverence to overshadow the historical reality concerning Jefferson.

Part three, the final part in this series, will examine the popular mythology surrounding the American civil war.