>One of the coolest things a college professor of mine ever said to me was "I am the primitive of my way." Hm. I always saw things the other way around; Almo

>One of the coolest things a college professor of mine ever said to me was "I am the primitive of my way." Hm. I always saw things the other way around; Almost none of my ideas are new or original; that's the fun thing about reading philosophy; It seems that every weird idea I've had about how the world might work has been thoroughly labeled and explored by some philosopher. Now, I get to decide which ideas I reject and accept, but I think it's pretty hard to come up with a new idea that hasn't been beaten to death, dissected, masticated, digested and regurgitated by some greek; whenever I think I have accomplished the task, I find there are Greeks that I haven't read. >If he breathed life into new ideas, it is hardly surprising his own life did not 100% align with his ideals. That does not change the fact that it elevated other people who would not have been elevated had he not set pen to paper. Of course, and I agree with all that, but arguing that "all men are created equal" if you use the modern sense of 'man' at least, while owning slaves borders on the ridiculous. A far cry from merely living your own life in a way that does not 100% align with your own ideas. Most likely, Jefferson's idea of "men" would be rather more narrow than how we conceive the idea today, and that changes the meaning of "all men are created equal" to "some men are created equal, others are not really human at all" which, I'm sure you'll agree, is not nearly as admirable a thing to say. And certainly, I'm not arguing that Jefferson didn't fight for progress; I think it's almost unquestionably clear that Jefferson did help move the world from where it was in a direction we would call progress today. And yes, progress is hard, and certainly, "A man with a title of nobility is no better than a man who is otherwise similar but who lacks a title of nobility" - which almost certainly Jefferson would have agreed with, really was progress in those days; So yes, even if our full understanding of what Jefferson was likely saying diminishes our initial admiration quite a lot from what it would be if he meant "all men are created equal" in the modern sense, he's still an admirable historical figure.