...plus it's the nature of big urban centers. Jefferson foretold this. He saw the ever increasing development of big cities to be the thing that corrupted Europe.Originally Posted by Sidheshooter
...plus it's the nature of big urban centers. Jefferson foretold this. He saw the ever increasing development of big cities to be the thing that corrupted Europe.
state of Georgia too...…….
Greed begets corruption; that's what Jefferson never saw, because I'm not sure he was aware of how greedy he was as a person. In his, self-aggrandizing way, Jefferson believed he was very much an egalitarian and the myth of yeoman farmers and agrarian society is one of equality through hard work and perseverance. When in fact in the time of Jefferson, such equality not only didn't exist, it was entirely mythical. The haves and have-nots had already invaded America before Jefferson. By the time of Jefferson, plantations were basically commercial farms that actively sabotaged smaller farmers and controlled local government with money. The growth of urban areas supplied much needed centralization of commerce and trade, without such centers failure was the only result for most. Urban areas provided (and still provide) substantially more job opportunities than disconnected agrarian communities ever can. As a result it is urbanization and industrialization that brought much greater equality.
Derpitude exists today, because of a profound failure of the American educational system. The continuation of, nay encouragement of, American anti-intellectualism, spurred forth by the fallacy of continued American Exceptionalism. A concept first proffered in many respects by Madison and Jefferson.
In that realm, I see not urbanization as a cause of stupidity. Rather, it is a blatant (and at times, I believe, deliberate) attempt by the controlling members of our country (i.e., politicians) to keep our fellow citizens stupid through concerted efforts at the educational level on up. We're not much different than the Roman Empire in terms of where it was when decline began. Huxley got it right in Brave New World when he figured that oppression would come in the form of amusement, rather than by state-sponsorship. If we want to begin reversing or at least slowing our (inevitable) decline. It starts with turning off the screens and going outside and taking others with us...
Yeah thanks for the lesson. Jefferson never strove for what we call "equality" by today's definition and I wasn't holding him up as a paragon of virtue by the modern world's standards. In the minds of the Founders, a person either had "standing" or did not, and it was based on certain attributes including land ownership and a person's good name. In fact the protections afforded by the 2nd Amendment were considered intrinsic to being a man of good standing -- inseparable actually.
I don't think members here (even us old guys) by and large hold that Jefferson and other notable men of his day were perfect; that doesn't mean they were not exceptional thinkers whose writings have nothing to teach us today.
I never claimed Jefferson was without merit. Just that certain aspects of his writings were not as well informed as he believed them to be (hindsight is 20-20, after all). Jefferson may have viewed urbanization as a corrupting influence in Europe, but at best he misunderstood the need for urbanization or at worst deliberately misconstrued the ideas. I think he was, fundamentally, a romantic. And a bit too idealistic for his own good at times. His real coup came in convincing Madison to construct a bill of rights for the constitution and of course during his first term as president with respect to the Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, heck he is even, oft cited, as America's first vertebrate paleontologist. A founder, of my literal employment field.
But that doesn't mean Jefferson was right about urbanization.
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