Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Person of the Millenium: Jefferson?

Author:Brent Simmons
Posted:11/30/1998; 2:06:54 PM
Topic:Person of the Millenium?
Msg #:594 (In response to 590)
Prev/Next:593 / 595

I think every great man is in some way part of a collective movement of some kind. Without Thoreau and his essay on civil disobedience there's no Gandhi, or no Gandhi as we know him. I'm sure there were contemporaries of Gandhi equally as important to him as was Thoreau. (Gandhi was part of India's independence movement, and there were other leaders, whose names are not nearly as well-remembered.)

But Gandhi was still the man who did it. I don't think he invented much -- but he clarified much. His actions and speech were eloquent and inspiring -- and effective. Similarly with Jefferson, a part of a revolution, part of a movement.

Without the intellectual ideals of democracy and freedom, the American Revolution is more a tax revolt than anything else. Jefferson was not the sole thinker, but he was the most intense thinker, and he turned thought into action, and he inspired a nation and a world.

So: my answer is that the question is not that meaningful. Jefferson was personally responsible for his accomplishments. He was also the most prominent participant in a collective intellectual movement. That same movement, without Jefferson, isn't the same movement at all.

There's a quote from John F. Kennedy. He invited some of the smartest people in the world -- artists, physicists, thinkers -- to dinner at the White House one evening. It was an amazing collection of people. Kennedy said that this was the most intellectually gifted table to ever dine at the White House "since Jefferson dined alone."

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