The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine - Essay Example

150884 ‘These are the times that try men’s souls’ said Thomas Paine while referring to American Revolution. Born in England, failed in education and occupational attempts, Thomas immigrated to America with the help of Benjamin Franklin, whom he happened to meet in London, and as a journalist, his career took off to dizzy heights with Common Sense. When he returned to Europe to pursue other, rather confusing ventures, he wrote The Rights of Man, in 1791-92 as an answer to the criticism of French Revolution. For his anti-monarchist laws, he almost got arrested in England and had to take shelter in France. But in 1793, he was imprisoned in France for not supporting the execution of the French King, Louis XVI. While being imprisoned, he wrote the Age of Reason, an anti-church work, and very narrowly escaped execution due to efforts of US Minister James Munroe and later went to America on an invitation from Thomas Jefferson where he died a rather disillusioned man in 1809. Thomas Paine was undoubtedly one of the most intellectual products of his time. His time was dominated by the French Revolution, the most important and horrifying event in Europe. While completely supporting the French Revolution, Paine was against the total anarchy, lawlessness and brutality that the revolution unleashed in the name of liberty. He could not bring himself to support the terrible execution of the monarch and was unhappy about the pointless murders and humility of noble families. Even modern thinkers of the time, who had supported the Revolution, could not celebrate the unending rule of terror that eliminated a large number of guiltless and wiped out great scientists like Lavoisier While answering Mr. Burke’s attack on French Revolution, he argues on the need of man in his own times: “Every generation is, and must be, competent to all the purposes which its occasions require. It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be accommodated. When man ceases to be, his power and his wants cease with him; and having no longer any participation in the concerns of this world, he has no longer any authority in directing who shall be its governors, or how its government shall be organized, or how administered1” He was very conscious of the changing needs of people and societies. He always emphasized that the needs have to change according to times, needs could not be stagnant and old principles could not apply to new surroundings. Men can only take the old times as guidance wherever applicable, but they definitely cannot replicate old times to suit the new ones. In that context, again he argues: “The circumstances of the world are continually changing, and the opinions of men change also; and as government is for the living, and not for the dead, it is the living only that has any right in it. That which may be thought right and found convenient in one age may be thought wrong and found inconvenient in another. In such cases, who is to decide, the living or the dead?2” He was the product of his time, a time which was rebelling against conventional political systems in Europe and America. He thought it was the duty of all well-informed to support this fight for freedom. In his letter to his celebrated friend General de la Fayette, he expresses the hope that despotism in Germany would end bringing down misery and taxation both in France and Germany. “Mankind, as it appears to me, are always ripe enough to understand their true interest, provided it be presented clearly to their understanding, and that in a manner not to create suspicion by anything like self-design, nor offend by assuming too much” Where we would wish to reform we must not reproach3”. Paine always lived in the periphery of society, because it was a changing society, not yet fully changed and he could not mingle with such a society, where most of accepted institutions including marriage his inner self could not accept. This definitely does not mean that he was anti-social. It means he was against most of the accepted institutions that have become burdens to society and cannot pretend that he agreed with those principles. “It was a romantic, anti-institutional, spiritual, and alienated self….it was a man who believed that most of us, just like him, are “savages” at heart…It was Paine’s genius to claim life on the periphery as a virtue and to see the metropolitan culture as inferior, morally bankrupt, and a vice,” Slaughter (2001, p.26). In spite of this alienation, Paine was an intellectual not far removed from reality, but blessed with rare common sense, armed with which he warned the French revolutionaries not to punish the French Royal Family beyond a certain limit, because ‘despotisms have a nasty habit of ruling from the grave’. He recommended that the Royal family should be exiled to America where they would eventually sink into oblivion. His plea for clemency was rejected by one single vote. He knew that a punished and executed royalty would evoke much larger sympathy and this would eventually work against the freedom seekers and such a revolution would be useless. Paine was right; because the horror of executing the legitimate Royal Family combined with unspeakable humiliation was such that other European countries recoiled from such a revolution. Even though time was ripe for revolutions, France did not set an example and till Russian Revolution, which was of course Communist and not democratic, in 1929, European countries lived in the dread of another revolution. Paine was politically astute and could judge people accurately. He knew that the Monarch was trying hard to dismantle the monarchic despotism and was not given an opportunity to do so. With all political freedom he demanded, Paine had great common sense and knew that centuries of despotism would take some time at least to change. He had recognized the humanity, magnanimity and natural leadership in the humbled monarch. “Paine was convinced that there was something different about Louis XVI, that the house of Bourbon was not driven by lust for political power, and that instead, it was engaged in a pathbreaking attempt to dismantle French despotism,” Keane, 1995, p. 283). The Common Sense was hailed as ‘nothing could have been better timed than this performance – and its astonishing effects4” and this work was enormously popular during that time. “Paine’s Meticulous craftsmanship of the American ideology is so enduring that it still today forms the foundation for the foreign and domestic policy of countless American administrations.” (Ibid). In Second Treaties of Government some of Locke’s arguments look very close to that of Paine, exhibiting how influenced both thinkers were by their times. “A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another, there being nothing more evident than that creatures of the same species and rank, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of Nature, and the use of the same facilities, should also be equal one amongst another….” http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=oOjoGkmMWUMC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&sig=N4TTMz32VtTPp4kYfxDF-E-dmPU&dq=+LOCKE#PPA3,M1 These arguments are not far removed from Rousseau’s lamentation that “Man is born free; but everywhere he is in chains.” When he argues on the ‘simple governance’ where all are free to make their own decisions, he says: “A State so governed needs very few laws; and, as it becomes necessary to issue new ones, the necessity is universally seen…..But when the social bonds begin to be relaxed and the State is to grow weak, when particular interests make themselves to be felt, and the smaller societies to exercise an influence over the larger, the common interests changes and finds opponents; the general will ceases to be the will of all,” http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=UGgqik90J98C&oi=fnd&pg=RA1-PA21&sig=qtuW-EuxORumwuzjxNrePaCEOcM&dq=JEAN+JACQUES+ROUSSEAU#PRA3-PA72,M1 Exemplary thinkers like Paine, Rousseau, Kant and Locke were the cream of humanity of the times in which they lived. Their thinking was unparalleled and they are relevant even to this day. Humanity has reached present level, shaped and nurtured by such thinkers. They were no doubt plagued by the problems posed by their own times, but they rose above the rest in tackling those problems, simultaneously influencing many generations to come. Henry Collins (1969), in his introduction of Paine, Rights of Man, (p.38), says: “He said what he thought on all subjects and at all times, without the least regard for the consequences,” and this quality of fearlessness set him apart from his contemporaries. He also said “When the tongue or the pen is let loose in a frenzy of passion, it is the man, and not the subject, that becomes exhausted” (ibid, p. 61). Paine was not a mere theorizing thinker. He combined his theories with slight cynicism and a great amount of common sense. Though he defied society, he also knew that social acceptance was necessary to run a political institution even in democracy and free world. He always argued that persecution and victor’s law in any form would provide a reaction by creating a precedent and this would again lead to slavery and enmity that has to end up in war once again. “It may perhaps be said that it signifies nothing to a man what is done to him after he is dead; but it signifies much to the living; it either tortures their feelings, or hardens their hearts; and in either case, it instructs them how to punish when power falls into their hands,” (p.79). There is absolutely no doubt that Paine was perhaps one of the assets of his age. Whatever he did or said was mainly dictated by the times and the compulsive requirements. The Democracy that we value today, sometimes, to a maddening extent, was the brain child of achievers like Rousseau, Voltaire, Kant, Locke and Paine. What is easy for us to live with today, was carefully introduced, nurtured and developed by them at a time when it was absolutely unknown to humanity. They were sidelined, humiliated, faced persecution and spent entire life for introducing these ideals to an acceptable limit. Paine was such a person, who had unlimited intellectuality stemming from the demands of time and compulsions of his age. He used it for introducing free ideas into a terribly conventional society. “Simple democracy was society governing itself without the aid of secondary means. By ingrafting representation upon democracy, we arrive at a system of government capable of embracing and confederating all the various interests and every extent of territory and population; and that also with advantages as much superior to hereditary government, as the republic of letter is to hereditary literature,” (ibid, page 202). Paine also had an uncanny sense of timing, bringing out his revolutionary ideas exactly when they are needed and could foresee the future of his ideas clearly. He was the genius product of his time. He was people’s philosopher and world citizen who showed sympathy and understanding to every person and tried hard to bring reformation in social, political, educational and philosophical fields of his time. Also referred to as an icon of Age of Reason, he became popular during his lifetime as one of America’s Founding Fathers. He remained all his life a radical propagandist and an acknowledged voice of common man. His logical argument that all humans are equal and have claim to equal political rights is prevalent today as never before. BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1. Collins, Henry (1969), ed., Rights of Man, Penguin Books, London. 2. Keane, John (1995), Tom Paine, A Political Life, Bloomsbury, London. 3. Slaughter, Thomas P. (2001), Common Sense and Related Writings by Thomas Paine, Bedford/St. Martins, Boston. ONLINE SOURCES: 1. http://www.ushistory.org/paine/rights/c1-010.htm 2. http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/thomas_paine/rights_of_man/part2.html 3. http://robjoustra.com/paine.pdf 4. http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=oOjoGkmMWUMC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&sig=N4TTMz32VtTPp4kYfxDF-E-dmPU&dq=+LOCKE#PPA3,M1 5. http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=UGgqik90J98C&oi=fnd&pg=RA1-PA21&sig=qtuW-EuxORumwuzjxNrePaCEOcM&dq=JEAN+JACQUES+ROUSSEAU#PRA3-PA72,M1 6. Read More