True, the grace and depth of revolutionary protagonists grew from extraordinary times; nothing less than a continental stake gambled with untested, even radical theories. The game of government building and societal remolding must have been, as the younger generation might put it, quite a "rush," invoking all their creative juices.
Yet in the aftermath of the Cold War we are in a sense cultivating a new world, and one would think out of this endeavor we'd be treated to far more than "vision things" and "I didn't inhale." We underplay or miss altogether through our words the real import of these times - the last accusation one could plausibly apply to 1770s thinkers. The only profundity modern politicians seem to be capable of articulating is a call for civility.
Even in incivility did 18th-century wags have us beat. One yearns for the surgical ridicule of a James Otis who could belittle foes and their traditional arguments as "the flutter of a coxcomb, the pedantry of a quack, and the nonsense of a pettifogger." Today, though admittedly counterbalanced by an economy of words, we read of Dan Burton's labeling the president as "a scumbag." Oooh. What rapier-like wit.
With much greater access to educational opportunities than 200 years past, one might expect an explosion of genuine thoughtfulness laced with eloquence. Such is hardly the case. The standard explanation is that today's politicians pander to the masses: in short, playing to the "Roseanne" crowd has a predictable dumbing-down effect. My own pet peeve as way of causal theory, though, is that too few simply take the time to think. Really think. It is a pardonable flaw, if a flaw at all, because the quickest, not the soundest mind has become the valued attribute of today. (This indictment is more than my imagination run amok. I recently heard a business consultant express that very sentiment - and gleefully so.) The substance that spurts from the mind is often regarded as, at best, secondary. Like your new modem, speed is all that counts.
A return to the pace of 18th-century contemplation might feel awkward, but work wonders for the quality of our political discourse.
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