In the United States, Thomas Paine is primarily remembered for his work “Common Sense,” and for some other stirring words written in his other work “The American Crisis.” (Words like “These are the times that try men’s souls.”) But relatively few have even heard of his 1791 work “Rights of Man.” The work was written in response to Edmund Burke’s 1790 work “Reflections on the Revolution in France.” To describe that work in detail would be tangential here, and I plan to do so later in another blog post. Thus, suffice it to say here that Edmund Burke was a major critic of the French Revolution, which was still going on when both men were writing these works. In this, Edmund Burke was closer to other American Founding Fathers besides Paine, such as John Adams and George Washington. Both of these men eventually shared Burke’s negative view of the French Revolution.
Thomas Paine
By contrast, Thomas Paine was a major fan of the French Revolution. He had actually been born in England – rather than in what became the United States, with which he is most associated today. During the American Revolution, he had written “Common Sense” – then the most popular work ever published in America. As a journalist, he had covered the battles of the American Revolution – which prompted his work “The American Crisis.” Very little of this background is covered in this audiobook. But, in fairness, this particular audiobook series does cover Thomas Paine’s early life in another installment of that same series. Specifically, they cover it in an audiobook on “Common Sense.” Nonetheless, it would have been helpful to get some information on the post-American-Revolution Thomas Paine, as background for this discussion. He had seen many battles during the war, but he had become something like a modern 1960s pacifist since then. His work “Rights of Man” includes many condemnations of war, despite his having participated in the American War of Independence as a sympathetic journalist. He is on stronger ground when attacking monarchy, but he seems to have little understanding of the true causes of war – and the true motivations that propel men on both sides to take part in such wars.
Thomas Paine
In fairness, Thomas Paine gives some good commentary on social contract theory in his work “Rights of Man.” In this, he seems to have been influenced by people like John Locke, who had pioneered the theory before Paine’s time. This is one of the few areas where I would agree more with Thomas Paine than with his target Edmund Burke. Edmund Burke did express some support for social contract theory in his “Reflections on the Revolution in France.” Nonetheless, Thomas Paine’s version seems to be better thought out. It includes a right of revolution, something which would generally have scandalized Edmund Burke. Thomas Paine also took Edmund Burke to task for his factual errors regarding the French Revolution. Paine was correct that Burke had gotten many of his facts wrong there, although Paine seems to have been wrong in accusing Burke of deliberate deception. Burke was simply misinformed, and later admitted that this was the case. Nonetheless, I tend to agree more with Edmund Burke’s realistic approach to politics in general, and to the French Revolution in particular, than with the perspective of Thomas Paine. Long after both works had been written, King Louis the Sixteenth and Queen Marie Antoinette were eventually executed by the guillotine in 1793. Thomas Paine actually condemned the execution of these two monarchs at that time, and finally came to see the French Revolution for what it was. Paine’s book had far outsold the Edmund Burke work to which Paine had been responding. This was despite the fact that Burke had tried to censor Thomas Paine’s “Rights of Man” – one of the few genuine criticisms that can be hurled at Burke’s methods here.
There is much to learn from both sides of the controversy between Burke and Paine. This may be why this audiobook is coupled with another audiobook, on Edmund Burke’s “Reflections on the Revolution in France” – the work to which Paine was responding here. I would highly recommend both of these audiobooks to anyone interested in political theory. Again, I would tend to agree somewhat more here with Edmund Burke, although I would acknowledge that Thomas Paine did have some good things to say – even in “Rights of Man.” I have acquired copies of each of these two works, and may one day undertake to read both of these works. In the meantime, I have these two audiobooks, and their elegant summaries of the works themselves. I’m a much bigger fan of Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense,” and of his other work “The American Crisis.” But I’m a big fan of both of these audiobooks in any case, because of the historical insights that are offered therein.
If you liked this post, you might also like:
Part of the audiobook series
The Giants of Political Thought
Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man
See also the audiobook series
The United States Constitution
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment