2009: “Paul Jacob says ‘Thank You.’”
2011: “Plymouth’s Great Reform”
2012: “A Rafter of Turkeys”
2013: “Give Thanks for First World Problems”
2016: “Thanksgivings, 1623 A.D.”
2017: “Ingrates of the Fourth Estate”
2018: “My thanksgiving is perpetual.”
2020: “The Saddest Thanksgiving”
2023: “One by One”
It’s been expressed in American culture chiefly as an “official day” proclaimed by the State: Thanksgiving. We trace this back to the Pilgrims’ early days in Massachusetts — as I have done here and here — but there is much more to it than the Pilgrim story. On December 18, 1777, during the Revolutionary War, an official Thanksgiving was declared over a victory in battle. But as historian Brion MacLanahan has noted, Virginians experienced not only “the first representative government in North America” but also “hosted the first English thanksgiving.”
In 1619.
Sadly, the “nationalization” of late November’s holiday was not anodyne, as MacLanahan has taken pains to elaborate: it was a way for Yankees to replace Christmas, which Southerners celebrated but Purtian-dominated New England did not.
Still, let’s not relegate gratitude to sectarian politics or religion. For the philosophy of appreciation is much, much older than our America.
“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others,” said Marcus Tullius Cicero, whom our Founding Fathers called “Tully.”
Epicurus, earlier, found the key to happiness — or “ataraxia,” as he called it (a kind of spiritual peace) — in storing up good memories and concentrating on them, rather than on one’s woes. This is gratefulness. It is a discipline.
It is not just a day or a good idea, it’s a key to virtue, as Cicero said.
But most of us of my generation probably remember the idea in a Sunday School song: “Count Your Blessings.”
Name them one by one.
As the world seems to spin into a kind of craziness, it may be hard to begin. So much madness and folly! Let me help:
We live in interesting times, and it is fascinating.
And maybe, if we keep our heads, we can help in setting some things right.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Illustration created with PicFinder and Firefly
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The times may not seem to indicate jubilations and thanksgivings, but any time is a good time to practice gratitude — to those who deserve it, and on a more basic level, too — so, regardless of the pandemic, the misguided responses, social unrest, racial mistrust, the threat of totalitarianism and war, remember: things could be worse.
At Thanksgiving, especially, it might do us good to consult William Bradford’s account* of the History of “Plimoth Plantation,” a document that recounts how his fellow Pilgrim settlers established, endured, barely survived, recovered, and eventually thrived in Massachusetts.
By the spring of 1623 — a little over three years after first settlement in Plymouth — things were going badly. Bradford writes of the tragic situation:
[M]any sould away their cloathes and bed coverings; others (so base were they) became servants to [the] Indeans, and would cutt them woode & fetch them water, for a cap full of corne; others fell to plaine stealing, both night & day, from [the] Indeans, of which they greevosly complained. In [the] end, they came to that misery, that some starved & dyed with could & hunger.
The problem? The colony had been engaging in something very like communism.
The experience that was had in this comone course and condition, tried sundrie years, and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanitie of that conceite of Platos & other ancients, applauded by some of later times; — that [the] taking away of propertie, and bringing in comunitie into a comone wealth, would make them happy and florishing; as if they were wiser then God.
Bradford relates the consequences of common property:
For this comunitie (so farr as it was) was found to breed much confusion & discontent, and retard much imploymet that would have been to their benefite and comforte. For [the] yong-men that were most able and fitte for labour & service did repine that they should spend their time & streingth to worke for other mens wives and children, with out any recompence. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in devission of victails & cloaths, then he that was weake and not able to doe a quarter [the] other could; this was thought injuestice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalised in labours, and victails, cloaths, &c., with [the] meaner & yonger sorte, thought it some indignite & disrespect unto them. And for mens wives to be commanded to doe servise for other men, as dresing their meate, washing their cloaths, &c., they deemd it a kind of slaverie, neither could many husbands well brooke it.
Yes, the s‑word: Slavery. Common property was mutual slavery.
The solution? The plan for society that Bradford attributed to God. He brooked no pleading that common property didn’t work because of corruption, sin. As he put it, “seeing all men have this corruption in them, God in his wisdome saw another course fiter for them.” The course? I’ll use a word of coined by Robert Poole, one of the founders of Reason magazine: Privatization.
Basically, what the Pilgrims privatized was land, and the fruits thereof, assigning to
every family a parcell of land, according to the proportion of their number for that end, only for present use (but made no devission for inheritance), and ranged all boys & youth under some familie. This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corne was planted then other waise would have bene by any means [the] Govror any other could use, and saved him a great deall of trouble, and gave farr better contente. The women now wente willingly into [the] feild, and tooke their litle-ons with them to set corne, which before would aledg weaknes, and inabilitie; whom to have compelled would have bene thought great tiranie and oppression.
Thus began the years of bounty in Massachusetts. There’s much more in Bradford’s account worth reading, including the increasingly tragic relations with the native Americans. And, indeed, one learns from reading such first-hand accounts how imperfect a creature is man.
But it is obvious that some systems of property and governance work better than others, and, on the day that our government has set forth as a day of Thanksgiving, it is worth being thankful for living in a land that has upheld — to at least some degree — the system of private property that America’s Pilgrim’s learned to see as God’s “fitter course” for corruptible man.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* This episode of Common Sense is adapted from this site’s 2011 Thanksgiving message.
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I hope that the still-anonymous North Korean refugee who jumped a three-meter high, barbed-wire fence a few weeks ago — details are just now emerging — has paused to thank himself for his daring and initiative.
Now is a good time to do it. Thanksgiving is an American holiday, but we’re happy to let others around the world borrow it for their own thanks-giving purposes.
On November 3, a former 110-pound, North Korean gymnast leapt over a ten-foot fence in the demilitarized zone to reach South Korea.
The man has confirmed his story to the extent of proving his ability to leap tall barriers in a single bound in front of South Korean officials. He says he wants to defect.
I wish we knew more about him. But until I hear different, I’m going to assume that he is not a double agent. Just a guy who dislikes being oppressed and who wants a better life.
Every time a person leaps from totalitarianism to freedom, we should all be thankful. Here is someone who made it! This, despite pandemic-incited lockdowns that have made it even harder to escape North Korea. His feat shows others stuck behind country-wide prison walls that escape is still possible, even if few can do it the same way.
It also inspires those of us already on this side of the fence to keep working to preserve and expand the freedom, so often jeopardized, that we still enjoy.
Thank you, sir.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Though President Donald Trump has one of the best stand-up acts in America, his bit, on Tuesday, about the ‘traditional’ pardoning of turkeys, was not his best. But it was mildly amusing, and what the occasion required.
Now, I’ve written about this goofy tradition before: “For a photo-op,” I explained seven years ago, the president “saves the gift bird’s life, only to have another unpublicized turkey killed and then devoured behind closed doors.”
Gruesome? Bizarre? Or all-too-symbolic?
I suggested the latter, arguing that “the fake pardon symbolizes more than Washington insiders can comprehend.
In our nation’s capital, politicians
• argue for fiscal responsibility one minute and then plunge us further into debt the next,
• demand sacrifices from the people while living high on the hog, and
• decry the influence of special interests at press conferences and then deposit their checks at the bank.One famous turkey lives, thanks to the powerful public kindness of our potentate; another, unknown (no doubt “middle-class”) bird dies for the benefit of that same boss.
With Trump rather than Obama in office, that quip about class warfare falls a bit flat.
But our Stand-up-in-Chief was more topical:
The two turkeys, which he told us were named Bread and Butter, were raised “to remain calm under any condition,” he riffed, “which will be very important because they have already received subpoenas to appear in Adam Schiff’s basement.”
Not bad; worth a chuckle.
“It’s not the first time Trump has used the traditional turkey pardoning to make jokes about his political opponents,” USA Today informs us. But unfortunately the paper misquoted one of the president’s lesser quips.
“It seems the Democrats are accusing me of being too soft on turkeys,” USA Today tells us. But what Trump clearly says is “Turkey.” Yeah, just a pun.
Does that ‘land’?
Seems like a laid egg.
But on Thanksgiving we can pardon the president.
And even USA Today.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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