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i am currently reading thomas paine's rights of man: a biograhy by christopher hitchens for the program, and in the introduction it refers to a parody of the american ditty 'My Country, 'tis of thee' which starts:


God save great Thomas Paine,
His 'Rights of Man' explain
To every soul.
He makes the blind to see
What dupes and slaves they be,
And points out liberty
From pole to pole.
( rest of hymnCollapse )




but onto a criticism of mather's criticism: for all that joseph mather is criticising the claims to power and to oppressiveness of theocracies and claims to power via (alleged) divine sovereignty in the name of kings, his hymn sacralises the concepts of democracy, liberty and freedom. he attributes their value with a higher set of moral values (or jus naturale), which, has its roots (in one ideological school anyway) in religion (ie they are the laws given us by our God). his belief that democracy hails to a higher order, particularly an ordained one, is evidenced by the statement that the "good Lord" will save us from the hypocrisy of an aristocracy. clearly identity politics hadn't come about yet.

he holds paine up as if a messiah (well at least metaphorically) when he says, "He makes the blind to see" which is a miraculous ability often attributed with Jesus (mind you he does qualify this by saying that paine makes them see "What dupes and slaves they be"). equally, in the first stanza he says, "God save great Thomas Paine", which is a blessing bestowed upon monarchs (think 'God save the Queen').

and finally, the final lines in the final stanza - "Satan may lead the van, / And do the worse he can / Paine and his 'Rights of Man' / Shall be my song" - implies that democracy will prevail over 'evil' in a way that seems similar to beliefs that god's word will prevail. equally, the ideologically opposed icon to Satan is God, and in this stanza mather opposes the "bad" rule of religion and kings to the "good" rule of Paine and 'Rights of Man' (the link is then emphasised by the pairing of the despots with Satan).

his idea of planting liberty "through the universe" can be equated with the idea of universal law (which for some is seen as another way of describing natural law, although i argue it is more a hybrid of the traditional view of natural law and utilitarianism). even the reference to "Liberty's Tree" could be construed as a reference to the trees of Eden (but i guess the question is, is liberty the tree of life or the tree of knowledge?)

it is interesting that he also uses the phrase in the second stanza that those who are devout to Church and King "deserve to swing" which i take to mean deserve to be hung? it seems that people should die for not believing in democracy, which is a criticism he has of oppressive practices under theocracy.




and now, about the book itself: the discussion of freedom and the principles behind 'Rights of Man' that the book sets out to do is interestingly tarnished by the dedication which reads:


"Dedicated by permission to President Jalal Talabani: first elected president of the Republic of Iraq; sworn foe of fascism and theocracy; leader of a national revolution and a people's army. In the hope that his long struggle will be successful, and will inspire emulation."


americans seem obsessed with the idea that democracy is the only path to freedom (regardless of how oppressive their push to force other peoples around the world to take up the democratic ideology and system). with all the (mis)information around the "war on iraq/terrorism" practically all of the fifth stanza applies to george bush.

in a similar way to mather's inadvertent re-imbuing of democracy and (religious) morality, hitchens also imbues his biography and discussion of freedom with (an american ideological) morality.