Regarding Tom Paine

This is not intended to be a general discussion about Thomas Paine. Far from it. But there’s something about Paine that I would like to talk about.

Thomas Paine has been called “…a corsetmaker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination” (Saul Padover). His being a corsetmaker was appropriate; When the American Revolution threatened to come apart at the seams, Paine’s pamphlets (Common Sense and The American Crisis) kept the cause from unraveling. John Adams said, "Without the pen of the author of Common Sense, the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain."

It should be remembered that, by the time of his death, he wasn't remembered. Some of his later writings had attacked Christianity, and many people never forgave him for that. He had been a supporter of the French Revolution, but that revolution had become too radical for him. He had been an early supporter of Napoleon, but Napoleon had become to dictatorial for him. This is a common theme in Paine's later life; he even accused Washington of conspiring against him.

One widely reprinted obituary said this of Thomas Paine: "He lived long, did some good and much harm." I can't agree with that; his anti-religious stance and his revolutionary fervor may have fallen out of favor, but he remained true to his beliefs and I can find little harm in anything he did.

Pundits are forever at the whim of fashion. One who is praised for his insight one day might be reviled for those same opinions the next. Nothing goes out-of-favor easier than radical politics, especially when yesterday's radicals become today's traditionalists. The pundit who stands by his opinions regardless of the changing winds of political fortune should be admired, but seldom is.

But let's get back to Paine's work during the American Revolution, to his American pamphlets (Common Sense and The American Crisis) The thing to remember about Thomas Paine is that his intent with these works was never to inform, to educate, or to debate. His single purpose was to enflame. He had a gift of speaking in sound-bites, of reducing complex matters to easily quotable cleaver-sounding Thought McNuggets.

Don’t get me wrong; I admire Tom Paine and his writing. His work kept the American Revolution alive when its future looked darkest. As to his being highly quotable, I often quote him myself. But he wasn’t a Jefferson, a Hamilton or a Washington; he wasn’t a leader or a great political theorist (some authorities will disagree with me on that one). He was a rabble-rouser. But he was a rabble-rouser at just the time when the cause of rebellion most needed a rabble-rouser.

Tom Paine was more of a Rachel Maddow or a Rush Limbaugh, an advocate for a cause rather than the father of one. It would be wrong to credit him with originating the great thoughts of his day, but it has to be said that he was better at expressing those thoughts than nearly anyone else. Being wise wasn’t his genius…being clever was.

We need to remember Thomas Paine, his passion and his fate, when we consider the pundits of our own time. We need to consider which ones are willing to alter their opinions as fashion changes, and which ones will stand by their opinions when those opinions, inevitably, cease to move the public to action.

And we need to consider the value of what is said when our favorite pundits, even a less-than-praiseworthy one like myself, climb up on their soapboxes to offer their opinions phrased in easily digestible sound-bites.

Like that.

The Blues Viking
The opinions expressed here are my own and if you don't like them you can get your own damn blog.


Common Sense (pdf)

The American Crisis (pdf)

Thomas Paine on Wikipedia