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We hold this absurdity to be self-evident…
The first sentence of The Declaration of Independence begins, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” Many people stop right there and think, “huh?” I mean, I can’t play basketball as well as Michael Jordan. I can’t run like Usain Bolt. I can’t sing like Luciano Pavarotti. I’m too big to be a jockey and too small to be an offensive lineman. You get my point. People are different. Obviously. Perhaps Jefferson misspoke. Perhaps he intended to say, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created unequal…” Stupid auto-correct. But regardless of why, that’s exactly what he said.
Perhaps he was trying to express the Christian belief that we are all equal before God. That would make sense. But that’s not what he said. The rest of the document is very clear in its meaning. It seems unlikely that Jefferson just goofed up. Well, no biggie, right? It’s just a nice platitude to get the Declaration rolling – like singing The National Anthem before a baseball game, right? Whatever.
Right. Well, maybe not. I think this has created a real problem in our society. Since we’re all created equal, then any difference in outcome must be the result of some form of unfairness. The playing field must not be level, otherwise, a bunch of equal people would be equally successful, right? It must be racism, or sexism, or some other form of discrimination. That’s the only thing that makes sense, obviously.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, when the study of Darwin led to ‘scientific consensus’ that eugenics was obviously true, many people took that as proof that America was built on a lie, and could not last for long. Before the Civil War, there were some in the South who defended secession using similar reasoning. In the late 1700s, many kings around the world predicted that the American Experiment would crash and burn quickly, because of this apparent defect in its founding.
As America outlawed slavery and gave full citizenship rights to women, blacks, and everybody else, the country became better and better. Rather than falling apart as some anticipated, America has been strengthened by acknowledging the worth of every individual. As each individual citizen was freed up to achieve whatever they could with the talent, work ethic, and opportunities available to them, then America as a country became wealthier, happier, and more powerful. It’s the greatest success story of all time.
But now we’ve moved past the Civil Rights movement. With the push for reparations, critical race theory, affirmative action, and various other wealth / power transfers, America seems to be paralyzed into compliance. I think part of the reason is that if we are all created equal, than any inequality must be due to unfairness. And that unfairness must be corrected. That’s the whole point of government, right?
Now, a modern American conservative would say that the government’s job is to provide equal opportunities, so that citizens of varying abilities and talents can make the most of their potential, whatever that is.
But that’s not what Jefferson said. He said that we are all created equal. It’s a lovely sentiment, even it if it is clearly untrue, which would become clear if I ever tried to play one on one with Michael Jordan. And since we’re all created equal, then the fact that Michael Jordan is wealthier than I am is clearly the result of some sort of unfairness. Right?
But I think that this lovely sentiment may be creating real problems for us now.
I wonder what Jefferson meant by that? I presume he meant that we all had equal worth before God, but if that’s the case, why didn’t he just say that? Jefferson was not a sloppy writer. And you don’t begin the founding document of your new country with sloppy writing. Surely he gave that first sentence some thought, and he said precisely what he intended to say. As he did in everything else he wrote.
So why did he say that?
Does it matter that our country is founded, at least partially, on a statement that is obviously not true (beautiful and optimistic though it may be…)?
I wrote a piece on this topic a couple years ago, and when I couldn’t get it to make any sense, I dumped it. I do that a lot.
Anyway, last week I listened to Steven Hayward & Michael Anton debating this topic on a podcast. I was somewhat gratified to learn that I wasn’t the only one who wondered about this, and even scholars like Hayward and Anton couldn’t get it to make sense, either. And neither could Jaffa or Strauss or Lincoln. So if nothing else, I’m in good company.
So I tried once again to get something coherent out of this mess. I failed again, shrugged, and hit ‘publish.’ Sorry about that.
This seems a bit esoteric. But I don’t think it is.
I look forward to hearing your perspective. Am I placing too much importance on one sentence (even if it is the opening statement of our Declaration of Independence)?
Is this apparent glaring flaw in reasoning important to current events, or to the structure of our society?
If so, can it be reasoned out?
Thanks in advance for your help on this…
Published in General
Not to the writer of the declaration or its signers.
I think the answer to the question lies in European history, not in ours. George III, who reigned from 1760 to 1820:
This was a pretty typical situation in Europe: inept and incompetent bipolar monarchs. In fact, there’s a great story about Napoleon’s visit to Spain in 1808 or thereabouts. These are the barebones facts of the case:
An account I read years ago of this situation said that Napoleon had no intention of overthrowing Charles IV. But when he actually reached the king’s castle and met him and his inner circle of advisors, he found them to be completely corrupt and incompetent. That’s when he took over the country and put his own brother Joseph Bonaparte in charge of it.
These monarchs throughout Europe with their standing armies ready to move at the monarchs’ whim were a sorry way of life in Europe. Governments throughout Europe were at peak screwed up. :-)
In contrast, the colonies actually had a robust self-government apparatus. That was true for a lot of Britain’s colonies throughout the world. Self-governing–the endless arguing as equals–makes people smarter. You could own land here too, which you couldn’t in Europe because the monarchs owned everything. Property ownership can really sharpen the mind. So the picture of Europe, seen through the lens of the colonialists’ sanity, was frankly scary and infuriating on those occasions when Europe’s dysfunction brushed up against America’s good mental health. :-)
The opening words were more like a dramatic statement of separation: “I don’t even know you. And my rights don’t come from you. They come from God.”
Boy, I’m glad we’ve moved past the problem of inept and incompetent rulers.
I have to add that I have the greatest respect for the British empire. Everywhere they left their little packet of self-government instructions and their religion and philosophies, the people eventually found their independent feet. That’s the way the world should work from one generation to the next. “Here are your tools to build your life.” When I compare the historical arcs for Spanish, German, Italian, and French colonies, the other colonizing European countries aren’t even in the ballpark for creating functioning governments and people the way the Brits did.
(In fact, I once read a truly funny account of the American Revolution from the Brits’ point of view. The upper middle class–the House of Commons class–was surprised by the anger in the colonies toward the new taxes Britain had imposed. To them, the taxes were pretty cheap and a good deal because the British Navy was protecting American trading ships. :-) )
It was the intelligence that came with the British governors that allowed an strong and vibrant country to grow here. At the time of the American Revolution, the colonies together had a higher GDP than any other country in the world. (I wish I could back up that assertion somewhere on the Internet. I came across it in an economics book I read a few years ago. I wish I had known at the time I read it how many times it would come back to me later so I could look it up and quote it myself. :-) )
That may in part explain the oversized freak-out over January 6 by the incestuous royals of the uniparty. Just sayin…
Quite an interesting perspective they held there. As long at the tax was small and for the greater good, those silly American Individualists shouldn’t care that is was imposed without the authority to do so. Maybe Parliament should have marketed it as an “individual mandate” under the Affordable Trade Act (ATA).
Yes. I have always understood the phrase to refer to equality under the law.
And the only government remedy would be to ban basketball.
There. Now you’ve got equal outcomes.
I think Jefferson meant we are created equal in the sense that babies are born as tabula rasa. They haven’t formed any opinions, biases, committed any crimes, loved, hated, achieved, or done anything other than get conceveied, grow in the womb, then get born. Once born, they can over time come into all the things I mentioned and more. As for God, everyone is equal in His eyes, even as adults (although some like the Hitlers and Stalins of the world might be equal, but they have a different destination in the afterlife, courtesy of The Big Guy).
The left wants us to believe white babies are born with an inner prejudice, further reinforced once born into white families where they see only white people for the first few months and years. We know this isn’t true, but the left comes up with all sorts of whacky theories. Unfortunately, the left is making it harder for us folks trying to be colorblind to do just that.
I would join as well, but as far as I can tell none exists. Trying to have a reasoned discussion with leftists elsewhere on the web invites argument-by-the-greater-insult. Most unsatisfying when one is trying to understand the reasons that underly leftist beliefs. One is left with the sad conclusion that leftist beliefs merely substitute emotion for reason — which they deny despite rarely attempting to persuade by reason.
And arguing with them in person invites argument by who’s loudest.
Socratic dialog leads to growth, and since they have already arrived at the Answer, further growth is intolerable. Dissent is a sign that you just don’t belong. Even at knitting sites: ask @she.
Now they have to be lucky to have that happen.
“Define assault weapon” lol
Just in case you thought that was over the top:
De Blasio’s DOE takes its war on learning to a new extreme with ‘no honor roll’ push
Then we will all be Equal. Me with all my wits, and Bill De Blasio with his half.
Horse Racing still has races where the racing secretary assigns different weights for the horses to carry. Theoretically he wants the finish to be a dead heat among all the participants. Punish the best horses with more weight to make the race “equal”. I’m sure that’s what the left is trying to accomplish. A horse race to mediocrity.
These kids ought to read “Harrison Bergeron” and think about it some more.
When one reads the bible, the meaning is often missed due to the reader’s lack of reading the whole. My idea is if you want to understand why those who read the bible have such different ideas of what it means, consider that many of them read everything out of context.
I think it is correct to observe that the phrase, “that all men are created equal” doesn’t have much of a meaning that would be widely held. If the phrase were removed from the document, the document would lose part of it’s meaning as well. The document is about a people being governed. The phrase in that light would mean that all men are created equal when it comes to being governed. A more modern thought may be treated fairly. I think this agrees with the idea of being equal under the law, but have to consider the word “created” brings a deeper meaning which also needs the phrase in the first paragraph, “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” to get there.
“There, save for the grace of God, go I” is a sentiment that I have always thought explained the equal status of people as good as any other statement. We’re all in the same boat and one that is inescapable. (The actual quote here may be a little different.)
I appreciate the post and the comments. It prompted me to read The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America. It was long enough ago that I imagine we studied it in school, though I do not remember. I wonder how many of our elected leaders have never read it?
Now that you have (re-)read the poem, I recommend the direct and thorough (and sometimes, funny) Fisking: The Farmer Refuted by Alexander Hamilton. (Seriously, I got more history out of these 50-odd pages than anything our formal education system of the 1980s variety ever offered.)
Well, they don’t want valedictorians, so no honor roll is no surprise . . .
Welcome!
Indeed! Welcome, LNT!
Several years ago, someone at Hillsdale College (Larry Arne, maybe) gave a lecture on how the meaning of “equal” has evolved. At the time, it was argued, it was universally understood that equal meant of equal worth and, by extension, equal before the law. (Note that the Declaration reads as a something of a legal document.) Over time, equal came to be understood in the “equal opportunity” context that most on the Right (mistakenly, I think) parrot today. That the Right does this is, in my opinion, where the real problem arises. We don’t believe in equal opportunity and couldn’t ensure it even if we did — so we should stop saying we do. The Left, of course, blew well past that (mis)understanding and settled on equal outcome (though they rarely use those words).
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”
Jefferson is transferring a lot of meaning in few words which is why he was an elegant writer. To be successful with that there needs to be established facts that everybody knows. If I were to translate without assumptions I think it would be something like this. “You know it, I know it, and anybody who denies it is an idiot. God put all of us here with equal souls.”
If our physical bodies and abilities were equal we would have all died out in the very beginning. This truth is self-evident.
Equality activists might suggest snipping a tendon or two of the athletically gifted.
I was going to say the same thing. The full sentence:
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.
It’s a series of modifying clauses in parallel construction all explaining what “these truths” refer to.
So you have the right to pursue basketball as a career but that doesn’t mean some professional team has the obligation to select and pay you to play for them.
People are obviously created with different circumstances, physical abilities, genetic makeup, etc., so that’s not what Jefferson was saying. He was speaking to human rights, which we all should share to an equal extent. In other words, we are all created in God’s image.
This ought to be clear to any reasonable person. To the extent that anyone would insist that Jefferson was saying that we all ought to be equal in socioeconomic status, etc., is to the extent that they argue in bad faith. Self serving bad faith, as is usually uttered by people who want wealth and status they haven’t earned and don’t deserve. There is no shortage of that going on.
This is what I think. It is “self-evident” now even if it wasn’t before that government doesn’t create “equal opportunity,” either. In fact, it doesn’t create opportunity much at all! I would circumscribe the role of government much more tightly to only the protection of our natural rights (not positive rights to “healthcare,” for example) from being abrogated by other individuals or entities in society. That’s what the executive, legislative, and judicial branches are for. And that’s all. Giving them power to do anything more is a certain path to our ultimate demise as a country, as we’re seeing.
I would recommend that everyone read the entire document before making any comments about it. This rule should apply everywhere otherwise absurdities can seem brilliant and the brilliant seem absurd if you rip a quote out of its context.
Here is the link for the document: https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript
Hear hear.
This is part of what I hate about people picking apart scripture by jumping on a single line.
Why Polk?