Nature's Man: Thomas Jefferson's Philosophical Anthropology

1. Dissolution of Tradition: The New Affiliation

1 d dissolution of tradition the new affiliation Everyone knows that Jefferson was modern; but do we know precisely what modernity meant to him? The new “man” Jefferson wanted to create, and the possible new men he resisted and feared, was undeniably shaped by new visions. The momentous historical, cultural, and intellectual transformations that eighteenth-century society underwent conditioned every anthropological vision, both in Europe and in the Unites States. Jefferson’s philosophical anthropology, too, was influenced by the new trends in politics, morality, and science. After setting forth those declarations of Jefferson’s that seem the most straightforward and the most memorable in their embrace of a modernity we might think we recognize, I then proceed to contextualize them, to break these assertions down into their components, to make them less and less familiar, but closer to Jefferson’s real intellectual world. This analysis will show that, in the antonym traditionmodernity , Jefferson’s philosophical anthropology never did and never could renounce tradition entirely. In portraying the characteristics of human beings, Jefferson was suspended between tradition and innovation. Tradition held that there was a strong link between God and humans, as well as between the supernatural and the natural dimensions. Genesis 1:26 set the canon firmly: “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.’” One does not have to read metaphysicians and theologians to be ac- 14 nature’s man quainted with this perspective. The economic elite, intellectuals, but also simple farmers and in general people who received little or no formal education , knew more than something about this kind of divine investiture. “Investiture” suggests both a partiality shown by God toward human beings and the idea of a cast-iron hierarchy. Humans are not animals; they are superior to animals. And also: man is not woman, he is superior to women, he rules over women. As far as hierarchy is concerned, the implied corollaries of the biblical dictum were, of course, manifold. Man must not only rule over women, but also over other men—whites over blacks, the pope over the king, and kings and nobles over the common sort. Tradition, so to speak, did not leave individuals to themselves. Innovation rebutted the traditional hierarchy built upon the idea of a communal continuity between God, the king, and the numerous orders or guilds that formed civil society. We could select from Jefferson’s writings and letters plenty of examples to show that he was inspired by this novel antihierarchical view. Let me provide a paradigmatic example to begin with. In the famous letter written on 24 June 1826, he depicted images of “arousing men” who “burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves,” and who “assume the blessings and security of self-government.” Jefferson could not restrain his satisfaction in the “general spread of the light of science,” which “has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.” God-given hierarchies have been finally overturned.1 That, for Jefferson, individuals must be regarded as self-sufficient appears to be an obvious conclusion. Nevertheless, although he embraced modernity, he did not renounce what we may call “affiliation.” Affiliation implies that, according to Jefferson, a superior good, although not the God of the Bible, still bestowed on each individual his or her exclusive and noninterchangeable roles, characteristics, and value. Such affiliation prompted an attachment to a more-than-egotistic cause, and stimulated a sense of direction and purpose. Jefferson’s modes of thinking about affiliation, which obviously included social differentiation, hierarchy, and investiture, changed, but his belief in its necessity never disappeared. The solution to the mystery can be summed up in this simple statement: Jefferson was modern; he praised the “blessings” of self-government, but not to the point of really leaving individuals to themselves. He often seemed to announce that individuals had become free to create themselves as they liked, but this requires dissolution of tradition 15 qualification. To leave individuals to themselves would have meant to treat them...