Not self-evident

As a history professor, I repeatedly covered different aspects of the US Declaration of Independence in class. As a patriot, I want students to know and think about our nation’s vital texts. One of the most novel uses I have found for discussing this text lies in the question of the meaning of Thomas Jefferson’s statement: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

This statement has been useful to me both when I used to teach English comp, back in the 1990s, and more recently, when I talk about syllogisms in intro to philosophy. The point in each case is “how we define terms of an argument” and “language in context.” To begin, I ask the students repeatedly to define the word “man” — and once I have led them down that path, I ask them if I am a man and they always insist that I am not. Then I read them Jefferson’s sentence. This lesson works pretty much 95 percent of the time, since everyone insists that I am not a man, but none of them have so far been willing to say that I am not included in “all men.” As a tendency the men in the class think this is a silly way to make the point, and the women are somewhat more bothered.

I picked the example because I would have agreed (in the contemporary present) that of course, “all men” includes me. I could note that the point is not limited to the Declaration of Independence; there are issues like this in almost all English literature, and certainly in the Bible. Does anyone seriously think that “Happy is the man …” at the beginning of Psalms refers only to men? Or that when the angels announced the good news to the shepherds, that it was only intended for men and not women? Although Christian congregations have been fighting about how to word things at least since I was a little girl, in the wider world, times have changed and language reflects the changes. I’m not a radical in either direction when it comes to language changes. My response to charges of exaggerated political correctness has always been that (a) I want to be polite and not hurtful to others; and (b) I want to be accurate.

In US history, I have told students that in 1776, “all men” did not even mean all men, but through a series of painful struggles, the nation has moved to a place where at least in ideal terms, “all men” meant “all people.” Depending on my mood, I have also tended to say that there is good evidence that the trend would continue. I tend to take the long view, although I have never wanted to say “be patient” to marginalized groups while their civil rights were in question. A human life is only so long, and daylight is burning. But things I have said certainly contributed to the impression that I held that view. And now, several days ago, five justices erased me from the society of “all men.” “All men” have an inalienable right to things like the bodily autonomy that is the very basis of liberty. I no longer do.

I’m doing the Erma Bombeck fourth again this year. The green peas ripened this week and so I made a pea salad and in a little bit, I will go over to Obscura‘s. I am hoping for a smaller version of the classic Wisconsin summer potluck kind of meal. But I can’t help but think, “Gentlemen may cry peace, peace, but there is no peace.” I have declared an embargo on political discussion with HL and my family (who are all conservatives of various stripes). At work we have implicitly agreed not to talk about it. We’re all frightened, I think, of what could happen if we did.

Arguably, a more important part of the Declaration than its brief throwaway about human rights — Jefferson assumed that we all knew what John Locke and his contemporaries had said — lies in its justification of popular sovereignty.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

More and more people I know are thinking this, even if they aren’t saying it.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.-

We’re going to have to find a way to talk about it. Before there is no more “we.” We’ve been headed that way for a while.

~ by Servetus on July 4, 2022.