Quote:
Originally Posted by Engine
I'm going to break up your post to respond. I know some people don't like that (the post fragmenting responses) but you've got a couple interesting points / allegations in there that I want to address and this stuff is highly interesting to me:
I'm seriously interested. Depending on your response I may read the book.
On topic: I'm still reading Infinite Jest and probably won't be done until like November but I have a feeling that I'll be craving some good ol' fashioned US History at that point. Maybe I'll read Wood's book - that's why I bothered with this.
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I do hate when people break up posts because it has only ever ended up in snarky retorts that come down to responses like...
"yeah
that's really intelligent"
We're a long way off from that, but I'm still weary of engaging in debates like that.
Jefferson is a prick because he sold out his own ideals. When you double back on your beliefs, it means you've either not thought long enough, or you're taking your football and going home.
His complete 180 in his later years on most of his positions, because of a realization that he'd miscalculated humanity and their trajectory toward "enlightenment", smacks of either the death grip of senior insanity or that in the face of the honesty of people, he realized that we'd never be a nation of dandy fops drinking tea and bantering about Adam Smith.
When people attack the society and the actions of a person some 200 years ago, I find it a little ridiculous, but I think that philosophic visions are always up for discussion. Jefferson was plenty of things: American Sphinx, Perennial Optimist, Consummate Virginian...but he was also someone I think who gave up on his beliefs because he didn't like the ignorant masses and their relation to him.