The Graves of Academe | Page 3

derive exactly eight propositions to
think about:

1. We can be ignorant and free in savagery. 2. We can be ignorant and
free in civilization. 3. We can be ignorant and unfree in civilization. 4.
We can be ignorant and unfree in savagery. 5. We can be educated and
free in savagery. 6. We can be educated and free in civilization. 7. We
can be educated and unfree in civilization. 8. We can be educated and
unfree in savagery.
Jefferson asserts that the second is impossible, thereby implying the
possibility of the first and the sixth. The fifth and the eighth seem
unlikely, for if we are indeed educated it will be both a result of
civilization and a cause of civilization. The fourth is just a quibble, for
the "freedom" at issue is not freedom from natural exigencies, to which
all are subject, but from the devised constraints possible only in a state
of civilization. The truth of the third and the seventh, unhappily, is
recommended by knowledge and experience.
Omitting those propositions that seem impossible or meaningless, we
are left with:
1. We can be ignorant and free in savagery. 3. We can be ignorant and
unfree in civilization. 6. We can be educated and free in civilization. 7.
We can be educated and unfree in civilization.
And, of those four, Propositions 1 and 6 are explicitly Jefferson's, while
3 and 7 are implicitly Jefferson's. They describe conditions not only
perfectly possible but perfectly real. Unfreedom, the forced submission
to constraints beyond those mutually admitted by knowing and willing
members of a civilization, is not unheard of. Indeed, it is, in greater or
less degree, the current condition of all humanity.
Civilization is itself an institution and has, like all institutions, one
paramount goal, its own perpetuation. It was Jefferson's dream that that
civilization could best perpetuate itself in which the citizens were
"educated," whatever he meant by that, and we do have some clue as to
what he meant. He wrote of the "informed discretion" of the people as
the only acceptable depository of power in a republic. He knew very
well that the people might be neither informed nor discreet, that is, able
to make fine distinctions, but held that the remedy for that was not to

be sought in depriving the people of their proper power but in better
informing their discretion.
And to what end were the people to exercise the power of their
informed discretion? The answer, of course, shouldn't be surprising, but,
because we have been taught to confuse government and its institutions
with civilization in general, it often is. Jefferson saw the informed
discretion of the people as one of those checks and balances for which
our constitutional democracy is justly famous, for it was only with such
a power that the people could defend themselves against government
and its institutions. "The functionaries of every government," wrote
Jefferson, although the italics are mine, "have propensities to command
at will the liberty and property of their constituents." Jefferson knew -
isn't this the unique genius of American constitutionalism? that
government was a dangerous master and a treacherous servant and that
the first concern of free people was to keep their government on a leash,
a pretty short one at that.
Consider again Propositions 3 and 7: 3. We can be ignorant and unfree
in civilization, and 7. We can be educated and unfree in civilization.
Imagine that you are one of those functionaries of government in whom
there has grown, it seems inescapable, the propensity to command, in
however oblique a fashion and for whatever supposedly good purpose,
the liberty and property of your constituents. Which would you prefer,
educated constituents or ignorant ones? Wait. Be sure to answer the
question in Jefferson's terms. Which would you rather face, even
considering your own conviction that the cause in which you want to
command liberty and property is just - citizens with or without the
power of informed discretion? Citizens having that power will require
of you a laborious and detailed justification of your intentions and
expectations and may, even having that, adduce other information and
exercise further discretion to the contrary of your propensities. On the
other hand, the ill-informed and undiscriminating can easily be
persuaded by the recitation of popular slogans and the appeal to
self-interest, however spurious. It is only informed discretion that can
detect such maneuvers.

And that's how government works. There is nothing evil about it. It's
perfectly natural. You and I would do it the same way. In fact, the
chances are good that we are doing things that way, since more and
more of us are in fact functionaries of government in one way or
another and dependent for our daily bread on some share of the
property of