In three of my classes today we had a Socratic seminar on an essay by historian Douglas Wilson about Thomas Jefferson called Thomas Jefferson and the Meaning of Liberty. The essay is almost 30 years old and is a bit out of date with regards to Jefferson’s relationship with Sally Hemmings. Nevertheless, Wilson makes some interesting points about how modern Americans should think about viewing figures such as Jefferson, whose lives contained such glaring contradictions.

One of the specific points Wilson makes has to do with the idea of presentism, which he describes as judging those in the past through the lens of our modern societal norms and values. It is always an interesting idea to hear teenagers discuss. Often in years past students were quick to dismiss the logic of avoiding presentism. With ‘cancel culture’ on the rise, students often self-righteously condemned imperfect historic figures such as Jefferson and James Madison. Indeed, learning of Dr. King’s infidelity was often a hard blow for many of my former students.

However, in today’s discussions I noticed students were generally more wary about judging too harshly. It wasn’t that they couldn’t and didn’t call Jefferson out. They did. However, I was impressed to see that those students who spoke often articulated a nuanced take that both recognized Jefferson’s obvious moral hypocrisy, as well as the fact that historical figures are and were regular people and always far from perfect. It struck me because such nuance was often missing from discussions of this essay in the past. Indeed, students today recognized that social media has made it easier for people to judge others, both their contemporaries and historical figures. They noted that this was not a positive development.

At the end of the day, I felt good about the conversations we had for a lot of reasons. I especially appreciated the more sophisticated reading of Wilson’s argument about presentism. Indeed, a lack of nuance is present in the debates of the adults in our society nowadays, so I was happy to see young people going there. It will help in the coming days and months as they eventually take a look at Kermit Roosevelt’s take on the Declaration, American Revolution, and Reconstruction amendments.