It all began when I was re-reading Gordon Wood's The Radicalism of the American Revolution (trying to escape from obsessively tracking the DC rollercoaster.) As Wood observes, the Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians divided over basically the same issue that plagues us now: How much of a role should government play in people's lives? (Though the clash back then was so fierce, and split American society so sharply, that it makes today's politics look rather mild by comparison.
But Wood takes us deeper into the substance of the issue. Jeffersonians were willing to limit government only because they assumed that there was "a principle of benevolence ... a moral instinct, a sense of sympathy, in each human being." They were founding an American nation upon the European Enlightenment's belief that "there was 'a natural principle of attraction in man towards man' [as Hume put it], and that these natural affinities were by themselves capable of holding the society together."
This was exactly the point that frightened Alexander Hamilton most. He summed up his opponents' view quite accurately: "As human nature shall refine and ameliorate by the operation of a more enlightened plan," based on common moral sense and the spread of affection and benevolence, government eventually "will become useless, and Society will subsist and flourish free from its shackles." Then Hamilton, the greatest conservative of his day, dismissed this vision of shrinking government as "a wild and fatal scheme."
The Republicans who now control the House obviously have a very different view of what it means to be a true conservative. But that doesn't mean they have become Jeffersonians. Not by any means. In many ways they would be closer to Hamilton, who scorned Jefferson's trust in human nature.AlterNet
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5 comments:
The 'shackles' are made of the metals from Column 11 of the Periodic Table of the Elements...
rsp,
"In many ways they would be closer to Hamilton, who scorned Jefferson's trust in human nature."
And this is another example of why mainstream liberals drive me f-ckin nuts. Why in the hell should we trust human nature? Many humans are unintelligent, greedy, psychopathic. They f-ck up the world.
Actually, the libertarians and anarchists have those same extreme attitudes toward the all-saving power of benevolence and spontaneous organization that Hamilton mocked. But I think Hamilton has been partially vindicated. The foundations of a decent society have to be built on a deliberate plan, and held in place with a firm rule of law. When you remove the legal sanctions, you get the unleashed avarice and chaos that destroyed the financial sector and our economy.
Also, it's quite silly to line things up in such a stark way as though one must choose between an "optimistic" or "pessimistic" view of human nature. Most people contain within themselves the capacity for love and benevolence, and the capacity for savagery, cruelty and viciousness. Part of the challenge is to build societies in which those pleasant emotions can express themselves and re-enforce themselves, and to prevent the kinds of conditions that are conducive to the expression and intensification of the more nasty emotions.
We foolishly decided during the neoliberal era that if we both loosened all the rules and told everyone that the purpose of life was the pursuit of one's own individual whims and gratification, it would all work out. Well, no.
So Dan... Life, Liberty & the Pursuit of Happiness was not such a good idea?
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