I think this is universal, the bigger question. Jefferson in particular is an American issue, but every community has someone who is a public hero and a private criminal. What’s the best way to deal with that?
For non-Americans, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, was one of our first Presidents, and just generally helped shape the philosophy of our country. The good philosophy, the “all men are created equal” parts of it. He also invented a ton of stuff and designed his own house and played music and was just generally very very intelligent. For almost 200 years, he was sort of the “thinking person’s Founding Father”. If you identified more with the thinkers and dreamers and inventors than the doers, you loved Jefferson. My grandmother loved Jefferson!
And then the stories about his second family with his wife’s half-sister who was enslaved started coming out. There were always sort of vague somethings, but as America changed those vague somethings started getting louder and louder, and finally were confirmed by DNA tests. Jefferson had a long term relationship (multiple children) with a woman he “owned”. There is no way, at all, that such a relationship could be considered consensual. And the part that, for me, makes it an unimaginable sin is that he let his children be raised in slavery. In America at the time, it was common for men to impregnate their slaves. And it was also not at all uncommon for them to then free their children, often paying for them to learn a trade, setting them up in life, etc. It’s a human thing to do, and also was sort of the “gentlemanly” thing to do. So Jefferson made a daily choice to rape this woman for years, and then calmly accepted watching his children grow up in one of the most unhuman systems in history. He had absolute power and could have done so many things differently, and did not.
So, how do we deal with this? Do we throw out the Declaration of Independence? Large parts of the founding concepts of our country? Or do we pretend we can set aside the personal and only look at the ideas?
For myself, I say that people can be very smart and have good ideas, and still be inhuman people. So I will hold on to those ideas, but I will also acknowledge that they came from a bad person and I will not turn that person into a hero.
I will also say that Jefferson is a really special case. I mean, he MADE THE COUNTRY. We can’t throw out the constitution, the Declaration of Independence, all these basic things. It’s not like just canceling a TV show.
I guess what is special is normally in this situation I balance the Bad of the person against the Importance of their creation when making the decision. Queen is a great movie, but I have given up on ever being able to watch it again after knowing what I know about Kangana and Vikas Bahl. On the other hand, I will continue to watch Lagaan knowing that Aamir Khan was possibly cheating on his wife on set. Because Lagaan is a good movie and cheating isn’t that bad. But what do you do in a case where the bad is unimaginably bad, but the creation is unimaginably important?
Very curious to hear from my Americans about Jefferson in particular, what did you learn about him in school? What are your kids currently learning about him?
And from my non-Americans, have you heard this story before? Is there something similar in your country’s history?
For everyone, how do you deal with this sort of situation?
