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As you might have guessed, Common Sense is Thomas Paine. My biographical entry is from the beginning of the first edition of Common Sense, which I wrote anonymously as “an Englishman.”
I will post on occasion as I carry out my term in Purgatory. God is still upset about my book, The Age of Reason, and as punishment for that and my other sins has forced me to be that most miserable of all human beings, a blogger. Luckily, God is merciful, and he has allowed me to join what I think is the best blog on the net. Similarly, David Beito is merciful (and wise), and has required me to make only occasional entries as a Contributing Editor.
I’m using a pseudonym to remind readers that I am no longer the Tom Paine of 200 years ago. I am, rather, Tom Paine with 200 years of hindsight. I will not always say what old Tom would have said because I have changed some of my views. For instance, I now see that Edmund Burke had a better grasp of the French Revolution than I. I have come to greatly admire the work of F. A. Hayek and must admit that I see a bit of Burke in him. I greatly regret my support for that warmongering dictator Napoleon. One can spread liberal institutions best by example, not by force.
My general outlook still holds. Although my libertarianism has grown more conservative with age, I still believe that there is some wisdom in the view I expressed in The Rights of Man that
“A great part of the order which reigns among mankind is not the effect of government. It has its origins in the principles of society and the national constitution of man. It existed prior to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished. The mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has made upon man, and all the parts of a civilized community upon each other, create the great chain of connection which holds it together. The landholder, the farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the tradesman, and every occupation, prospers by the aid which each receives from the other, and from the whole. Common interests regulates their concerns, and forms their law; and the laws which common usage ordains, have a greater influence than the laws of government.”
That’s enough for now. I must complete my primary task for the day (rolling a boulder up a hill over and over again) in time to watch my favorite TV show, Six Feet Under.
I appreciate your comments. I’m sorry we got off to a bad start. We have more in common than you think. During a graduate fellowship I was at the same university at the same time as you north of the Charles.
I once again suggest that we refrain from commenting on each other. There are plenty of other things to talk about besides you and me.
I admire your website. I cannot link to it right now, but I recall photos of your family and especially your child’s bris. I’m glad you are at a department at which an assistant prof feels he can express the most important parts of his life without intolerable amounts of flak.
You rightly reserve your right to response should I comment on your posts. I have no intent to do so. We are neighbors, but neighbors with a personality conflict should keep their distance in the interest of peace.
Respectfully yours,
CS
Jonathan Dresner -
7/27/2004
No, I don't think avoidance is the way to handle this sort of thing, generally. And, unless you want to be really formal, I don't insist on the title from colleagues, including fellow HNN posters/writers.
If a half-dozen comments constitutes a 'blog-war' then I'm a battle-scarred veteran and didn't even know it. I thought it meant something else; that's what I get for spending too much time reading news, and not enough reading non-HNN blogs. I didn't "go out of my way" to attack you: I'm a regular reader of all the HNN blogs and I comment on most of them, sometimes positively, sometimes critically. I consider it part of participating in the intellectual community here.
I do understand your concerns about tenure and politics, and under those grounds I have no serious objection to your posting under a pseudonym. If, however, you comment on my posts at Cliopatria, or my HNN articles, under a pseudonym, I will request that those comments be deleted, in the interest of fairness to all the other pseudonymonous contributors who've been kicked off the boards. If you comment on my posts or articles under a real name, I will treat you like I treat any other poster. I am as civil as possible, and substantive as possible. I fail sometimes, too.
I will not refrain from reading or commenting on your posts, if there is something that I feel needs correction, questioning or praise. If you find that comments pose an unacceptable burden, you may avail yourself of the 'no comments allowed' feature (by the way, I'm the guy who finally convinced the site managers to make that feature work, after staring at a functionally useless option for half a year). If my comments are uncivil, you may call me on it; if they are egregiously uncivil, you may have them deleted. If my comments are unjustified, you may correct me.
Sometimes humor does not succeed. My reaction was overliteral, which I regret, but I also think that your post raises issues of historical identity and intellectual heritage that could have been interesting to talk about. What humor there was in the post, and yes there was some, was overshadowed for me by the substantive issues distorted in the process of getting to the joke. I think you'll find that we on HNN like a good wit, we appreciate irony (the dominant trope of so much history), and even satire, but that we take history and ideas seriously.
Disagreement can be uncomfortable, it's true, but if we all agree, or disagree but never engage, will we grow? Let's engage on ideas and facts, and try not to let style stand too much in our way. Welcome to HNN!
Common Sense -
7/27/2004
This is what I get for trying to inject some levity into the world of HNN blogs. First of all, Dr. Dresner, I have no intention of writing what I think Paine would have written because I do not agree with many of his views. Neither am I trying to assume Paine’s “mantle.” I want no such thing as I do not really care for the man, although I do favor *some* of his ideas, in particular the quote about the spontaneous order of civil society that I used in my first post. I use a pseudonym because I want googling tenure committees to judge me on the quality of my teaching, service, and published work rather than my very unpopular politics as a libertarian conservative. I chose the name “Common Sense” because I am an expert on Paine and Paine used that as one of his many pseudonyms. I introduced myself as “Tom Paine in purgatory” for no greater reason than that I thought it was funny. Big mistake, as I have spent almost all of my blog time since then defending myself from your attacks.
It is clear that we do not like each other’s style. That’s fine. I was not a reader of Cliopatria and you would have never heard from me if you did not go out of your way to attack my first post. As I mentioned in my recent post, I suggest that from now on we both refrain from mentioning the other person’s name or commenting on his posts. Fair enough?
Jonathan Dresner -
7/27/2004
I wasn't planning on launching a 'blog war' [I had no idea what that meant until recently] counter-posting, anyway: I'm perfectly happy having a discussion here, or under the 'civility' heading. That's what coments sections are for. I read this group regularly (we're neighbors, after all), so I'll spot your comments when they appear in the sidebar.
Common Sense -
7/26/2004
I have a book proposal due. Let's discuss the issues you raise soon through this comment section as to not take up space on the big boards. CS
Jonathan Dresner -
7/26/2004
I don't have a problem with historical recreation, trying to project the voice of historical figures into the present, when it's done carefully: it's not history, but it can be interesting. But you're not doing that. You can't, or won't, speak in the voice of Tom Paine without qualifying it to fit your own contemporary beliefs. So what you're doing is claiming the mantle of Tom Paine without the responsibility of actually consistently agreeing with his expressed views.
You're right, I'm an East Asian historian (I have a graduate field in Modern European intellectual history, and I've taught Western Civ and World history for the last five years, always including very substantial discussions of the range of political philosophy from the 18th century on; by the way, what are your qualifications?). My background in Japanese history, in particular, makes me very sensitive (conservative, you might say) to anachronistic and acultural projections, which can seriously distort and distract from more meaningful and fruitful questions and directions. For example, it seems odd to call Paine a libertarian when, as you point out, he supported Napoleon's state-building. What were Paine's views on property? That seems a better gauge of whether we should classify him as libertarian, liberal or something more radical.
This discussion is a fine example, by the way, of why I supported the HNN policy forbidding pseudonymonous posting and blogging. There are very rare cases in which anonymity is justified as a shield against reprisal and to focus attention on the subject instead of the person; otherwise it tends to promote incivility by both the anonymous and those who respond to them without considering the person behind the shield.
Common Sense -
7/26/2004
Good to hear from you, Edmund. Most historians do not know that we were friends before the Revolution. I still have fond memories of Beaconsfield. I think you are quite right that there was some worth to what we said back then, and Hayek is indeed quite a bright fellow.
Common Sense -
7/26/2004
How naïve of me. I thought blogging might allow some fun and an opportunity to play around with ideas in a constructive way. But then I find that the first comment to my first post is an attack by the University of Hawaii at Hilo assistant professor Jonathan Dresner, who apparently scours HNN bloggs to zap persons daring to add some levity to the discussion of ideas. Grad school has trained him well.
In response to your comments, Dr. Dresner, let me note that it is not anachronistic for Tom Paine to call himself a libertarian. Referring to someone who “upholds the principles of absolute and unrestricted liberty esp. of thought and action,” the term goes back to 1789, according to Webster.
Even if the term did not go back that far, concepts are often antecedent to the words that describe them; reality more often generates words than the other way around. The term “liberal” in the political sense did not arise until the early 19th-century, but historians of late 18th-century Anglo-America use the word regularly without raising objections from professors of East Asian studies.
As for my use of the word “conservative,” let me explain to you that the term does not mean “wife-beater.” As is clear from the context of the usage, I meant “conservative” in the Burkean sense. That is, I am less libertarian and more Burkean than I was back in 1789. In elementary school, this is called “finding the meaning of a word from its context.”
Jason Pappas -
7/26/2004
I’m pleasantly surprised – indeed, shocked – to hear you’ve come around concerning the French Revolution. I must admit I’ve grown, too. After seeing the relative success of liberal societies – I have the US and UK in mind – perhaps, I admit, I’ve been too nostalgic for the old feudal institutions. Perhaps if we combine the best of your camp with the best of mine ... wait there’s this young upstart, F.A. Hayek, who has some interesting things to say ... let me catch up on the last 200 years.
Edmund Burke
Jonathan Dresner -
7/25/2004
I certainly hope this little historical conceit is a rare intrusion into this otherwise well-sourced group. The general principle of standing on one's own merits, instead of borrowing those of someone who can't defend himself, is a good one, I think.
To call Tom Paine a libertarian is an interesting anachronism, projecting back strains of liberal thought which hadn't really separated itself from the rest of liberalism at the time. In fact, 'liberalism' itself is something of an anachronism at that point.
And what does it mean when a 200-year old voice claims to be "more conservative" than he was? He's in favor of slavery and wife-beating? Religious intrusion by the state is a good idea?
