Jefferson changed 'subjects' to 'citizens' in Declaration of Independence | Hacker News Reader

Jefferson changed 'subjects' to 'citizens' in Declaration of Independence

washingtonpost.com

40 pointszeynel135 comments

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On a similar note:

I'd like to see an effort to eliminate the word "consumers" from our leaders lexicons.

Cows are consumers... Hogs are consumers...

Consumers are commodities that are fattened until they're slaughtered!

Words have significance on both conscious and subliminal levels.

Beware a government AND a corporate elite that has come to think of you as a 'consumer'... a 'subject'.

'Citizens' are a nuisance!

Jefferson, Franklin and Adams knew that words were important.

Personal Democracy: Disruption as an Enlightenment Essential http://culturalengineer.blogspot.com/2010/06/personal-democr...

Cows are consumers... Hogs are consumers... Consumers are commodities that are fattened until they're slaughtered! Words have significance on both conscious and subliminal levels.

How about "Bunnies are consumers. Kittens are consumers. Consumers are cute and fluffy!"

Actually, consumers are, umm, those who consume things. As opposed to producers.

If you've got some subliminal association between consumption and livestock, well, that's you.

I don't think it's subliminal. The issue isn't the technical meaning of "consumer" but the fact that it has replaced "citizen" as the default for referring to human beings in our society. Humans walk, but one would never hear "What does this mean for walkers?" in a news item, unless of course it were a news item about traffic or something.

The implication of this usage of "consumer" is that consumption isn't just something we do, it's what we are. That is deeply fucked. I couldn't care less about the political agenda of everybody-should-consume-less, but the idea that humans' primary role in society is not to be active members of a polity (the meaning of "citizen") but rather essentially to eat things, is a violation of our best traditions and intuitions. We are called to more than that.

The replacement of "citizen" with "consumer" is as significant as the replacement of "subject" with "citizen" was in the first place.

Where do you see "consumer" used with "citizen" would do better?

Besides the Consumer Protection Agency (where it is completely appropriate), I can't remember hearing it used by the government.

I only hear "What does this mean for consumers?" when it is in reference to prices, or purchasing, etc. "What does this mean for citizens?" only makes sense when discussing civic issues.

Could you provide a concrete example of the mis-use you claim is rife?

Ok, this is me reporting back. Based on the few minutes I was willing to spend on this, and the data sources listed below, I've come to the conclusion that I was wrong about the word "consumer" being widely used where "citizen" should be. I looked at a few dozen usages of "consumer" and they were all appropriate, i.e. in sentences concerning some sort of economic consumption. I hardly saw any borderline cases, and even those were not misuses of the word so much as encroachments of the economic domain itself into areas it didn't use to dominate.

One can still argue about the status of the concept "consumer" in our society, but that becomes a much more subjective thing without tangible linguistic evidence to point to. I'd be interested if anyone has further ideas about how to test this.

Sources:

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:nytimes.com+consumer

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:nytimes.com+citizen

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:npr.org+consumer

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:npr.org+citizen

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:obamaspeeches.com+consum...

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:obamaspeeches.com+citize...

Search "consumer" and "citizen" on http://www.presidentialrhetoric.com.

Next time I see one I'll try to remember to come back and post it here. In the meantime, any suggestions for how we can measure this? One crude measure: Google comes up with 88M hits for "citizen" and 270M for "consumer".

Searchable full-text databases of political speeches. I've done it. You'll find both words used all over the place, with roughly the same meaning.

I see "consumer" used in place of "citizen" all over the place where it shouldn't be and frankly, I find it a little disingenuous that you're even arguing this point.

Obama: "And we created hospital report cards, so that every consumer could see things like the ratio of nurses to patients"

Americans/Westerners are widely seen, referred to, treated as, and labelled as "consumers" the world over. This is common parlance. This is accepted. "Citizen" is becoming synonymous with "consumer" and this is a Very Bad Thing. You're welcome to disagree, and if so, I'm welcome to tell you that I think our education system has failed you.

Do a search in any political speech database for these two words and you'll find they are interchangeable.

Hospitals provide (or produce) services, and patients consume them. That's entirely apropos. That's a perfect example of "consumer" used in its correct economic context.

I see your point, but by that logic: "Governments provide services, and consumers consume them."

But seriously, are you really saying that it's natural for hospitals to speak of their customers as "consumers"? Do you have kids? You provide services for them? Are they consumers?

"Patients" would be a better word for a hospital to use, but in the economic context Obama was using, "consumer" is the general term.

Parenting and governance aren't purely economic interactions. The producer/consumer roles don't exist per se, which is why we have words like "parent", "child", "state", and "citizen." (I certainly don't want to become Microsoft's "citizen" just because I have an Xbox Live membership--I'm happy to be their "consumer"!)

You're raising some interesting issues. I don't see medical care as a purely economic interaction either, although the non-economic aspects have largely fallen away. Perhaps the rise of "consumer" as the default term is concomitant with the view that everything is economics. In that case we are all Marxists after all.

Isn't it interesting, as well, that you almost never hear the term "producer", given that there is no consumption without production?

In that, there is a problem, but it's a lot more subtle than the issue being discussed here-and-now.

Essentially, by focusing only on how legislation impacts consumers, politicians set aside the effect on producers. New laws and regulations are generally considered good if they help consumers, but no expense to producers is ever mentioned, and neither is the possibility that the laws and regulations may be a net loss to us all.

Of course, if you replace "consumer" with "citizen" you've turned implicit political omissions into explicit political lies, and totally buried the issue.

(Fun aside: I view my interaction with my doctor to be just as economic as a date with a prostitute. Sure, they do a lot of personal things and have to demonstrate some care for you as a person, but in the end they are a professional, they have a job to do, and they are entitled to be paid for it.)

No it isn't. Obama isn't the hospital director doing a press release about some new service, he's the US President directly addressing the citizens who elected him to solve pressing social problems.

That's a complete non-sequitur. "Consumer" denotes an economic role, and if the president is discussing a solution to a socio-economic problem that benefits people in that role, "consumer" is the correct term to use.

If I had time I'd dig up some links on this issue, but I don't. I can only repeat what I posted elsewhere on this thread - read up on the historical development of the use of language and linguistics to shape culture and society, both from the advertising industry and from the feminist movement.

The contemporary labeling of citizens as consumers is no accident, and not just an artifact of the mainstreaming of the economics field.

You haven't demonstrated that the "contemporary labeling of citizens as consumers" even exists, yet. The only example in this entire thread uses the word "consumer" in the correct economic sense.

But while you mention it, I actually am irritated at the feminist movement for trying to redefine and taboo commonplace words. I consider this campaign against "consumer" to be a similarly misguided mistake.

I'm just surprised people are arguing this point, I see it everywhere. Maybe now it's been brought to your attention you'll catch more instances of government officials using 'consumer' when 'citizen' would be more appropriate.

As for the feminist movement, IANAE but if I understand correctly thats where idea of changing the words used for certain things was really made into a science and a practice, at least for social change.

I'm not sure if the ad industry started doing it before or after that for commercial purposes, but there's a really good documentary on Google Video and Youtube called 'The Century of Self' that covers the ad industry side of it. Fascinating, when you have an hour or so.

That stuff combined with a study of the of tools of psychological and social influence originating in Europe in 1800s and 1900s (from Hegel to Dialectical Materialism) makes it difficult to believe that anything about our modern world is a coincidence.

"I'm just surprised people are arguing this point, I see it everywhere. Maybe now it's been brought to your attention you'll catch more instances of government officials using 'consumer' when 'citizen' would be more appropriate."

That's not an argument. You show me the instances. (Having heard this argument several times in the past few months, I still haven't seen any myself.) You're punting.

"That stuff combined with a study of the of tools of psychological and social influence originating in Europe in 1800s and 1900s (from Hegel to Dialectical Materialism) makes it difficult to believe that anything about our modern world is a coincidence."

Oh Christ, don't trot that Hegel bullshit out to me again; I had enough of that during my philosophy degree.

It's not a matter of whether we're consumers or producers; it's that, for purposes of government, that's not the relevant appellation. We're citizens. Citizens have a government that serves their interests. Consumers are passive; the sheep some politicians prefer. A consumer might raise Cain over a corporate made product, but not over a government policy; that's something a citizen would do.

Labels matter.

Specifics matter. Please give several valid examples of the word "consumer" being used by contemporary Western politicians where "citizen" would be more appropriate.

And no, a single example--or an expression of disbelief that not everyone agrees with you--will simply not do here.

"Consumer" is a useful term in economics, but it has negative stereotypical meanings in everyday use.

"negative stereotypical meanings in everyday use."

For whom?

And when does it come up in "everyday use"? I mean, aside from being used by economists or businesses when talking about economics or business?

You should read up on the historical development of the use of language and linguistics to shape culture and society, both from the advertising industry and from the feminist movement.

The contemporary labeling of citizens as consumers is no accident, and not just an artifact of the mainstreaming of the economics field.

I'd like to see an effort to eliminate the phrase "our leaders" from the lexicon.

These are people who happen to have access to power. Not much leading going on, and I certainly don't consider anyone as leading me.

Stop conceding authority.

Or we could just redefine 'leading' to mean avoiding doing the right thing and instead trying to guess which way the prevailing wind is blowing and positioning yourself to both exploit it and retroactively take credit for it.

I've yet to see that many inappropriate uses of the word "consumer". For those of us versed in economics, it's a real word with a real meaning, and there's no evidence in this thread that the usage of "consumer" deviates very far from that meaning.

Changing language for political purposes is a dubious business to begin with. Everyone just learns what the new euphemisms mean and no one's actual thinking is changed.When the existing semantics are already pretty accurate, the process of euphemism just makes the language inelegant and confusing. "Citizen" has a distinct meaning--there's no need to turn it into a euphemism for "consumer", or to discourage frank and precise discussion of how things affect people in various economic roles.

Your argument tends to support the point that it is better to be a citizen than a consumer, but that doesn't imply that it is better to call Americans 'citizens' rather than 'consumers.' If Americans really are better summed-up as 'consumers,' then it would be a kind of political correctness not to apply that label. Do you see it as inaccurate to call most Americans 'consumers'?

Yes, it would be inaccurate - true americans consume much, but they also produce a great deal (even if, at present, they consume more, on average, than they produce).

This board, if any should see how Americans produce.

Nope, not inaccurate at all. We're also 'excreters', 'respirators' and metabolizers generally.

The document discussed here and the word 'citizen' refer to a conscious sense of responsibility to and for the "Commons" in addition to oneself.

This is, of course, why I favor a rational solution to our undocumented resident issues. This involves BOTH a more secure system... but also a path to CITIZENSHIP for those here.

The 'elites' of BOTH the LEFT and RIGHT, each for their own reasons have encouraged a lax approach to the issue of labor... and thereby have degraded both the role of work and of citizenship.

Being a CITIZEN is about taking back that power over and responsibility for... the Commons.

And so now American workers and Undocumented people who've been given a very mixed message are pitted against one another.

Degrading the role of citizenship for everyone.

Ask yourself who benefits from this division?

Have an upvote. I just clicked this thread to say the same thing.

You are a Citizen, not a Consumer!

The article fails to mention Benjamin Franklin and John Adams were the other two members of the committee charged with drafting the document. Producing a hard copy in those days was a real chore, and probably only done in order to present a working document to the full committee.

So did Jefferson make this change on his own, and take the extra care in changing the words so the rest of the committee wouldn't notice? Or in discussions with Adams and Franklin did they all recognize how momentous the change was and expunging "subjects" was a kind of ritual?

I don't think there's need for either alternative. The most parsimonious explanation, it seems to me, is that he wrote "subjects" out of habit, and then (quickly, I imagine) realized that it was no longer appropriate. No hiding, no ritual-- just a correction.

I guess it would be hard to make that change on a completed document where ink has already dried. I believe they used to have special rollers that would sock up fresh ink if one wanted to make a change.

Instead of arguing the politics over this, I am more interested in the discovery of the revision. How cool is that we were able to peak into amateur version control of over 200 years ago?

Imagine the possibilities of all of the online stored version control of documents and code today. I bet it won't too long before the government publicly version-controls laws (it could already exist for all I know). Then think about some junior congressman who wanted to change the wording of some clause 10 years from now and how in 20 years from now the populace can look back in amazement of how much might have changed if that changeset was never merged and tagged as HR_123. Headlines in 2030: "Researches searching through git histories from 2020, find that Congressman Santos is to 'blame' for the 'Google-Monopoly Loophole'"

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