Tom Paine would have loved the Internet. He would have been a master of the vicious comment on other people’s Tweets. His Facebook rants would have circulated widely. He was born too soon.
Then again, because he was born in an age where you had to write essays longer than a blog post, he is still worth reading. Consider Common Sense.
First, a digression: When I was 9 and 10 years old (4th and 5th grade), I was fascinated by the Revolutionary War. I loved reading about it. I have a vivid memory of finding a book with the complete list of battles in the Revolutionary War, and thinking that such information was unbelievably invaluable, the sort of thing that simply needed to be preserved for easy reference, I sat down and copied the whole list onto several sheets of paper (it’s a long list when you have the oversized handwriting of a 9 year old). (Note for youngsters: this was in the pre-internet era, so Google was not yet your friend.) I also, for reasons I cannot explain, was particularly excited when copying over said list to discover that there were two battles of Saratoga, the second one duly named “The Second Battle of Saratoga.” (I suppose being unbelievably excited about finding this list was a pretty good indication of the type of career toward which I was heading—though interestingly enough, never once in my life—and I mean never—did someone say to me, “You should be a college professor.”) I also have a vivid memory of excitedly discovering in the library a whole book devoted to Spies in the Revolutionary War. This Revolutionary War thing you may have heard about was a Big Deal.
In the course of my reading about this War, I kept seeing references to a book by Thomas Paine entitled Common Sense. It seems at this most exciting time of history, when people were saying really exciting things like “Give me liberty or give me death!” and “I regret I have but one life to give for my country!” that this book by Paine was electrifying. In an era of exciting rhetoric, this seemed to be the most exciting book of all. So, I decided that since reading about the Revolutionary War was about the most exciting type of reading there was, then reading the most exciting book from this most exciting time period would be the sort of thing that would send Young Jimmy Hartley into Paroxysms of Joy.
So, on my next voyage to the Public Library, I boldly marched up to the Front Desk, looked keenly into the eye of the librarian, an elderly woman (well, she seemed elderly to me, so that means she must have been somewhere between 40 and 100), and said in my most reverent, excited, and undoubtedly slightly hesitant (after all, I was about to talk to The Librarian) voice, “Do you have a copy of Common Sense by Thomas Paine?”
The Librarian….scowled. “Yes,” she said in a vaguely disapproving voice. “It would be in the Adult section,” she added. And right then I knew the “Adult” section was not the place Young Jimmy Hartley belonged. The Adult section was obviously the place for books which young people like me really shouldn’t be reading. The Librarian then told me to follow her and we went to the Adult section. She found the book and gave it to me with that look that said, “Kid, you are never going to read this book.” I checked it out, took it home. It sat on my dresser for a bit. I finally got up the courage to open it to the first page, looked at that page, but knowing I probably shouldn’t be reading this book, I never quite managed to convince myself to start it. Two weeks later the book went back to the library. Unread.
(I never again entered the adult section of that library. Never. We moved when I was 14, and (fear not) I have been to the adult sections of other libraries. I also checked out adult paperbacks from that library because, you see, the paperbacks were in a rack that was near the checkout desk, so I didn’t actually have to enter the Adult section.)
For three and a half decades, I had this nagging feeling that I should read Common Sense. But, I have never read it. Was I really old enough yet? Am I sure it would be a book I would like? Maybe it was really boring. Maybe that librarian was right that the book just wasn’t for me. I finally read it—35 years after I first checked it out.
The first thing to note is that it is highly unlikely that 200 years from now any kid is going to have the same experience wondering what was contained in the musings of the Great Twitter Warriors of today. Maybe we should bring back the pamphlet!
The second thing to note is that Common Sense, which I recently reread, is actually quite good. By the end I was ready to throw off the despotism of the English Crown. It did all seem like so much common sense.
It begins with an interesting distinction between “society” and “government,” a distinction about which many people still seem unaware. If there is a problem, is it the job of society or government to find a solution? The dividing line these days is between those who think there is a difference between those two possible answers and those who are confused about the question.
It also has a curious passage in which Paine seems to suggest that democracy, and not despotism, was the original form of government. At one level all these prehistoric ruminations are just prehistoric science fiction, but it is hard to believe that governments arose when a bunch of people just started chatting about how to improve their lives. I find it much easier to imagine the strongest guy subjected others. Paine also offers an early version of the argument that democracies do not go to war with one another.
But the real charm of Common Sense is theinvective—those who oppose Paine’s preferred scheme of government “would have joined Lucifer in his revolt.” Or this: “Though I would carefully avoid giving unnecessary offence, yet I am inclined to believe, that all those who espouse the doctrine of reconciliation, may be included within the following descriptions. Interested men, who are not to be trusted; weak men who cannot see; prejudiced men who will not see; and a certain set of moderate men, who think better of the European world than it deserves; and this last class by an ill-judged deliberation, will be the cause of more calamities to this continent than all the other three.”
I was talking about this book with a couple of former students, and one of them pointed to this bit: “But if you have [suffered at the hands of the British], and can still shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy the name husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.” Now that, sadly, could be the mantra of the modern world for offenses far less than the actual murder of a loved one. Like I said, Paine would have loved living in the modern age. Then again, it is no longer clear his invective would stand out.
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