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Ron Peters's Reviews > Man of Reason: The Life of Thomas Paine
Man of Reason: The Life of Thomas Paine
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Last year I read a short book by Eleanor Roosevelt on the moral basis of democracy, and she frequently quoted Thomas Paine. I agreed strongly with her conception of democracy, so I wanted to know more about Mr. Paine, and Aldridge’s book is the standard biography.
If Washington was the military father of America, and Franklin its philosophical parent, Paine was Senior VP in charge of propaganda. He had an unparalleled ability to express himself convincingly to the common man on matters of ideology and politics. He was widely admired by key American revolutionaries because he could persuade citizens and voters to lend practical support to their cause.
But Thomas Paine led a strange life, often because of prejudice against his lower-class background, but also owing to his personality. He was an abrasive egotist with no filter and perceived as an uppity no-class nobody, so, whatever his talents, he constantly wound up in hot water and no one in power ever wanted to give him a steady job.
So, he lived as best he could by his wits and, despite how much Common Sense advanced the revolutionary cause, whenever he got himself in trouble the Feds typically threw him under the bus. He eventually eloped to England and France.
In England, he published The Rights of Man to counter the conservative Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France and this basically got him ridden out of the country on a rail.
So he went to France, supported the revolution, got elected to the National Convention, then was jailed for getting on the wrong side of Robespierre. He outlived Robespierre, but it was still just by fluke that he avoided execution. Weirdly he then went back to his seat in the Convention, then published The Age of Reason, angering most anyone else who was still on his side.
And so on and on, until he died a lonely man, having been buried in “an obscure grave on an open and disregarded bit of land.” Even his bones were ultimately lost. An amazing story. Now I want to read both Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France and Paine’s riposte, The Rights of Man.
If Washington was the military father of America, and Franklin its philosophical parent, Paine was Senior VP in charge of propaganda. He had an unparalleled ability to express himself convincingly to the common man on matters of ideology and politics. He was widely admired by key American revolutionaries because he could persuade citizens and voters to lend practical support to their cause.
But Thomas Paine led a strange life, often because of prejudice against his lower-class background, but also owing to his personality. He was an abrasive egotist with no filter and perceived as an uppity no-class nobody, so, whatever his talents, he constantly wound up in hot water and no one in power ever wanted to give him a steady job.
So, he lived as best he could by his wits and, despite how much Common Sense advanced the revolutionary cause, whenever he got himself in trouble the Feds typically threw him under the bus. He eventually eloped to England and France.
In England, he published The Rights of Man to counter the conservative Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France and this basically got him ridden out of the country on a rail.
So he went to France, supported the revolution, got elected to the National Convention, then was jailed for getting on the wrong side of Robespierre. He outlived Robespierre, but it was still just by fluke that he avoided execution. Weirdly he then went back to his seat in the Convention, then published The Age of Reason, angering most anyone else who was still on his side.
And so on and on, until he died a lonely man, having been buried in “an obscure grave on an open and disregarded bit of land.” Even his bones were ultimately lost. An amazing story. Now I want to read both Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France and Paine’s riposte, The Rights of Man.
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