THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

WHAT THE DECLARATION WAS WRITTEN FOR | 2010-07-08

Jefferson's intent in drafting the Declaration was to write something all thirteen delegations could agree to. At the same time it had to appeal to the world in general.

Historians always assume he was writing in a peaceful atmosphere about his abstract philosophical world view. No one ever mentions that there was a war going on at the time. No one mentions that if Jefferson's side had lost it, they would have been hanged.

I get a laugh out of looking at the situation as they see it. It is like expecting an abstract philosophical view from a government engaged in World War II.

There was a war going on, but Jefferson is not supposed to have NOTICED it.

To win the war, the Declaration had to appeal to two desperately needed groups. There was an anti-War segment of parliament, extreme Whigs, who referred to the Americans as "our army." As Americans foresaw, it was THEIR victory in the British elections that forced the King to make peace after Yorktown.

The other group Jefferson had to appeal to was French liberals. That is the crowd which brought on the FRENCH Revolution, which led to slaughter and despotism worse than the one it replaced. To appeal to them Jefferson wrote his "all men are created equal," which made no sense to anyone outside a French salon.

That is the only part of the Declaration anyone can quote. That is because the ideas that led to the French Revolution were utterly alien to Americans. Which is the reason the two revolutions led to such entirely different results.

The preamble aimed at French liberals was the only part of the Declaration that makes sense to Mommy Professor.

When the war was over and Americans wrote their own Constitution, there was not the slightest hint of the sort of crap the Declaration is famous for. The only part of the Declaration anyone ahs been taught by Mommy Professor is a Wordist World View that is totally absent from the Constitution was wrote for ourselves.

The Preamble to the Declaration is Rousseau and Marx. But it is NOT American.

At all.

What is truly admirable is that the Declaration, written by a 33-year old Virginian, was so perfectly aimed at the two alliances abroad that were in fact critical in winning the war no historian notices was going on at the time.

Mommy Professor loves to point out that the Declaration was hypocritical. ALL war documents are hypocritical. But again, no one ever mentions that there WAS a war on at the time.

Historians are always discussing the Constitution in terms of the groups who formulated it. But they never say anything about that in the case of the Declaration, or, to put it more accurately, about the Preamble which is the only part of the Declaration they ever quote.

This is because, for Wordists, the Preamble to the Declaration is unique. It is the ONLY wording produced by the Founding Fathers which sounds Wordist. It WAS Wordist. It was aimed at the French liberals who were limousine liberal non-working followers of Rousseau.

COMMENTS (3)

#1 backbaygrouch | 2010-07-08 07:28

Bob's observation that the Declaration was war propaganda is on point. The bulk of it bears a strong resemblance to many, many other declarations made throughout the colonies in the years and months leading up to the split in 1776. In Massachusetts the Suffolk Resolves are emphasized but the same wind was blowing up and down the Atlantic coast. Much of the Declaration is boilerplate. Jefferson had a lot of models to choose from.

Fifty years ago FDR's Four Freedoms, articulated as he was trying to gin up a war, were treated as sacred writ. Today, who remembers them? They are just Marxist tinged verbiage.

#2 BGLass | 2010-07-08 11:57

When I was really young, and learning models of interpretation (how to read), it was truly different from later on. Author intention was really important, and "historical context," as well as the historical context of the intended receiving audience. So, reading was mostly about studying the general situation in which the writing was produced, and then what effects it had.

By high school, none of that mattered any longer. Whole sessions were spent on how you really can't know anyone's intention anyway, so just forget thinking about that. After all, the writers were dead and you couldn't ask them what they meant, and so on.

"Reader Response" theory got big in the 70s, I think. That was where everything you read was ABOUT your own stupid knee-jerk response to it. Like, how did Jefferson make you FEEL? Did you want to be FREE when you read that, little Janey and Joey? Did you FEEL stupid b/c you FELT Jefferson was a better writer than you??? Does Jefferson make you FEEL uncomfortable b/c he was a white male patriarch and slave holder?

It just became a way of teaching students radical self-reflexive idiot self-centeredness and how bad white people are. The idea that anything outside themselves even EXISTS is just too much for wordist types, I guess.

The weirdest thing was that reading in first grade was far more engaging and complex than was reading in college, due to having mostly foreign teachers by then who taught the touchy-feely model and had no knowledge of context.

#3 Gator61 | 2010-07-08 23:07

Bob often writes about how history is misunderstood. I can show you why. I'm taking a course of study right now so that I can get a teaching certificate. I could just go on and on about the bullshit that I have to trudge through to get that certificate, but it will be much easier to let you look for yourself.

This is a typical site offering lesson plans on a number of subjects for middle and high school students. Pick any plan at random and you will find very little content and lots of group work. Some of them even have group work about working in groups. See for yourself.

http://www.lessonplanspage.com/SSJH.htm