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beginning of his diary as a young kid
uh he is practicing in
front of a mirror
the mannerisms of cicero
uh really body posture
um...
he has no
respect
for somebody who's highest asperation is to make money
or to get wealthy right
there's a higher form of
so significance
which is
to serve the public
and to be remembered right
that's the key
to be remembered as as a public figure who's
behavior
significantly affected uh…policy
in this case the winning of the american revolution
uh... but so when
the imperial crisis begins really in seventeen sixty four sixty five with
british legislation chiefly the stamp act
adams is looking for it okay
he is looking for a cause
to lash himself to
larger than himself
his father had wanted him to be a minister
and he went to harvard and at that time
most people became ministers although they were starting now to become lawyers
a dangerous trend i should say
it has gone beyond all..
and uh...
he had his calling to public service was like the calling of a minister to a cause
that is also other worldly and uh but he
harbored this
obsession about
the letters and about
fame
in part because he really wasn't sure there was
a spiritual life after death in the traditional christian sense of the term
he and jefferson and a few other people exchanged letters on this and
adams' ultimate position is agnostic well
i don't know if there isn't one i'll never know it
uh...
he has a funny line that i think i have in the book he says if it can ever be
shown that
conclusively that there is no life after death my advice to every man woman and
child on the planet is to take ***
which is a great line
uh...
but it's
only a person who does
significant
public service
is worthy of being in the history books right
and history books keep alive your memory
as well as the letters that you will also leave
so he wants us to remember him
and in some ways the fact that we're sitting here in massachusetts on this
day
uh... in two thousand eleven confirms his fondest hope
namely that he will live on
you say at one point that we are the audience for whom
he was striving in a sense yeah
yeah like we're in some sense complicitous in in his greatness because he's performing
for us he's on his best behavior
uh... because he knows we're looking but you also said it took
two hundred years why did it take two hundred years
because uh... and there still isn't an adams monument in the middle of the mall
or anything like there is for jefferson uh...
uh... and washington uh...
which would surprise that generation they would be surprised not that
washington was there but
that jefferson was there an adams wasn't they would have reversed that
when adams the first public elections after the
constitution was essentially a referendum on the founders who was the
greatest washington was first adams was second
partly
adams is tough to make into an icon
because he tells you too much about himself
one of the reasons the supreme court stays above it all and one of the reasons
that washington stays above it all is because we don't really know what
they're talking to people their meetings are secret
um until recently you didn't allow a camera in there right
i don't know wether you still can get a camera in there's somebody petitioning for that
for the case uh...
of the uh...
C-span is yeah the uh the uh...
medical healthcare case yes adams
is imperfect
he's vain
he's ambitious
uh... he has a temper
uh...
he's also
extremely lovable extremely honest
uh...
he's got all he's a he's a human being
of considerable interesting parts
but to the extent that we want our founders perfect
he's never going to make it on mount rushmore
right now of course none of them is perfect right
and i think the resurgence of interest in adams is a sign that we have finally
matured and recognize that
we can't be expecting perfection from our historical heroes
and just because they're capitalized and mythologized as founding fathers
we've got to see them as imperfect creatures great in many instances but
imperfect adams is the breakthrough guy he is the most the greatest and the most
imperfect of them right and um...
uh... and i think in the h_b_o_ series that uh...
that was put together a few years ago
a miniseries
uh... the depiction of him is very very accurate
i mean the characterization of him by giamatti the actor
is uh... is well done yeah
uh...
and he's
he's a hero for our time
at last
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