Thomas Paine, Rights of Man (photos from Google images)
Thomas Paine differentiates between natural and civil rights of man, with the latter originating from the former. He interprets the aristocracy’s use of language as a means of establishing a sense of power. Echoing the consciousness of the eighteenth-century philosopher, John Locke, Paine elucidates for his readers an emerging global consciousness in Rights of Man:
The progress of time and circumstances, which men assign to the accomplishment of great changes, is too mechanical to measure the force of the mind, and the rapidity of reflection, by which revolutions are generated: All the old governments have received a shock from those that already appear, and which were once more improbable, and are a greater subject of wonder, than a general revolution in Europe would be now…. what we now see in the world, from the Revolutions of America and France, are a renovation of the natural order of things, a system of principles as universal as truth and existence of man, and combining moral with political happiness and national prosperity.[1]
Our politicians of the twenty-first century could do well to consider Mr. Paine's words. These fundamental beliefs authentically provide his readership with contrasting attributes of the narrow vision present in governmental hierarchy in contrast with those belonging to humanity in general. A correlation between humanity and nature formed the consciousness of revolutionary thought, which eventually fed into the elaborate (and beautiful) artistic, musical, and literary expressions of romanticism.
It's October 18, 2023. Are we on the brink of realizing free expression, found within the core of human creativity....or... are we on the brink of a constrained life experience, found in a contrived order as the result of total control of the human mind?
[1] Quoted in Foner 536-37.
