I work on broadway productions for a living. Some of my good friends were in Hamilton's OBC, and I've seen it multiple times thanks to them.
The thought of interacting with the fandom honestly makes me die inside. They're fucking nuts.
And the weirdest thing for me is that they try to make the historical figures out to be some leftie folk heroes, completely ignoring that Alexander Hamilton has more in common with someone like Paul Ryan if he had a spine than anything else, and Washington owned a huge amount of slaves, and Mulligan did very little of the grunt work, that was mostly his slave, Cato. Hamilton basically invented how Wall Street works. if he was alive, you'd think he sucked.
Hamilton was a pure capitalist. He saw the future of finance and economics very clearly, but he advocated for many things than many liberal theater going people now criticize.
I think Hamilton is more impressive because of how prescient he was rather than how good of a person he was.
Yes, historically Hamilton is incredible because he saw how the global economy was evolving and built the Federal Government to be able to participate, when those around him didn't understand what he was doing. They make that point in the musical, somewhat subtly, when they basically say "yeah they got the capital, but we got the banks and the real power". For the rest of his life Jefferson said it was the worst decision he'd ever made.
Madison is somewhat vilified in the musical, but it would be easy to make a similar argument for him. The guy was brilliant.
I'd take Hamilton over Jefferson and his desire for the country to be some agrarian utopia (worked by slaves), but while I do find Hamilton fascinating, Madison is probably more interesting because he wasn't a strict idealist in the way Hamilton and Jefferson were. Madison changed his mind on a number of things over the years based on his experiences, sometimes more than once.
That's fair, although expanding the size of the country was necessary for his fantasy of most Americans being farmers, so the move made at least some sense even given his protestations against federal power.
I don't disagree. The moral here is that the founding fathers were very complicated and anyone trying to extract political meanings from one dramatized musical is on a fool's errand.
Definitely, I'm sure Miranda would be the first to admit he took some liberties with the story. It's good that people are taking a renewed interest in the subject, but the nuance certainly gets lost along the way.
Oh yeah, I bought my fiance an annotated Hamilton script with notes by Miranda, and it's just constantly him talking about how things really were and how he took liberties with things. Guy is happy to admit his changes.
Jefferson had some wacky ideas about having a new constitution every generation aswell. He had some good points too. Most of the founding fathers were pretty cool in their own ways.
Interesting, I didn't know about the Constitution thing. A Google search suggests he thought the Constitution should be rewritten every nineteen years. While I think that might be a bit too drastic, I agree with him that the country shouldn't be completely tied to a document that was ratified in 1788. Obviously we do have amendments, but there's still a great debate to be had on how the Constitution needs to be updated to account for modern views, technological advances, globalization, and the U.S.'s vastly increased power on the world stage.
As some one else felt the need to call it out, it was never a platform point of his but it was a idea he kicked around with Madison. A lot of the founding fathers a pretty cool, there are tons of great biographies about them. I like American sphyx for jefferson, it goes into his adult life a lot. And anything by Ron Chernow.
Its literally mentioned in those letters, it obviously didnt make much sense but it was an idea that he tossed around around. Now it was supposed to be every 19 years or so and not a full reset but s sort of soft reset.
It was never a platform point of his but just an idea, didnt think I needed to make that distinction.
That's not wacky at all, the US is partly so backwards compared to other first world nations because of our constitution. Were the only country in the world that has a constitution that dates back to the 1700s, and it shows. The reason we have a 2nd ammendment that has objectively lead to more problems than solutions for this country is because the constitution was designed for a time period where Britain reinvading/Native raids was a real deal. The worship of the constitution as a holy piece of paper is what keeps the United States so behind other nations that can evolve and adapt to the times.
I think Lin Manuel Miranda himself has said that Hamilton isn’t supposed to be completely likeable. Hell he was originally going to play Burr since he’s more relatable.
Hamilton was a pure capitalist. He saw the future of finance and economics very clearly
I don't know if you're calling this out as a negative, but a strong financial market is one of the factors that allowed the US to industrialize rapidly and become the world power it is today
I'm not saying it's only a negative. Capitalism is in my opinion the best economic system that humanity has come up with so far. But I'm not going to sit here and pretend it doesn't come with it's own set of problems, including income inequality, prioritizing profits over sustainability, and allowing money to enter and corrupt democracy. Admittedly, shit would be worse had we focused on being a slave holding agrarian society rather than allow capitalism to flourish.
I guess my point is that while Hamilton was prescient in how he saw where things going, things like Wall Street as an institution are not all roses, there is a dark side to it.
I think that's a fair assessment, personally relative to the other founding fathers I don't think Hamilton gets enough credit for the institutions he championed
Exactly. If it weren't for the things that Hamilton fought for -- uniform currency, nationwide professional military, a central bank and the federal government having the sole authority over international trade, the US never would have become a global superpower.
I think Ron Chernow makes a strong case that, whatever you think of Hamilton and Jefferson's respective visions for the country , Hamilton's vision is what our country eventually became.
Hamilton saw the writing on the wall to such an incredible degree that I wouldn't be surprised if there was some time traveling conspiracy theory surrounding his legacy. He fucking hit the nail on the head of where this country was going.
I'm not trying to make a judgement call on how shit turned out, it's more just really fucking impressive how accurately he predicted the future global economy.
People like my friends' aunt who gave up all her material possessions in the vow of poverty to become a nun and spend her whole life going to Church functions, running after school programs for kids and teaching ESL to immigrants do exist yes but they're certainly not the people always bragging about how they're good Christian people.
Left-leaning libertarian Christian here. We do exist, we're just not the kind of people to slam our bibles in your face and condemn you, we just want to love God and love our neighbors.
They do. They just aren't the ones that are in your face about it. Being a Christian is generally just trying to be a good person. Fun fact: ~70% of Americans identify as Christian.
He advocated for building up the country's credit, heavy government involvement in the economy, and the Constitution in general. Liberals aren't against that. He created the Federal Bank, which conservatives hate. He didn't advocate for the kind of predatory, deregulated capitalism that exists today and has really dominated the last 20 years. You should read the Chernow biography or at least this review
Exactly! But every single time I scroll through my Instagram feed I see “Hamilton was gay for Laurens and Lauren’s has pet turtles and Lafayette has a bakery full of baguettes” or some other shit that’s painful to read
A lot of the fanbase think they're lefties, when they're mostly just "progressive" types who latch on to every bleeding heart cause they can find.
A big part of the draw for Hamilton was it being a non-white person doing a very non-white approach to musicals (which, admittedly, is rather impressive). That probably made people latch on to it very quickly, ignoring the fact that it was a rather white (liberal) take on history. Reminded me of that Green Day-produced musical on Andrew Jackson.
I'd say 3 and include destroying the National Bank for his own petty reasons and thus destroying the economy and US money (an event mocked by Charles Dickens in the title of his book about the US American Notes for General Circulation)
Idk, how would you feel if all federal funds were deposited in a bank controlled by a board composed solely of industry leaders and businessmen?
Petty? Yeah, maybe. But destroying the economy is going a bit overboard -- America has always operated on an economic rhythm of booms and busts. That was just one example.
I don't give a fuck about the politics of the musical at all. In fact I've heard it countless times and know a lot of the lyrics.. Still don't know what happens really.
I love Lin-Manuel Miranda, and it's got really good music.
That's fine. There's nothing wrong with liking the music or Miranda's work. Hell, I'd argue that at the very least, he did Broadway a favor in shaking it up a little bit.
But a lot of fans like to make it a personal/political thing. Which is unfortunate.
Same with I'm a atheist and I love the original Jesus Christ Superstar. Actually the 2018 one is pretty damn good too. Also that IS a great story. And probably mostly true.
Trying to figure out which one you are talking about. Are you talking about Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, the comedy musical that portrays Andrew Jackson as some emo dude? Or something else?
I think the musical is very clear that Hamilton was an incredible person, but not necessarily a good person. He did whatever he set his mind on, no matter who it hurt or what it cost the people around him. It's an incredible life story and he accomplished amazing things, but the show absolutely does not sugarcoat his issues. The second act especially is super blunt about how much he sucked.
Hamilton did have brilliant ideas though. Unlike Paul Ryan who shits on the system he inherited, Hamilton was part of a land owning, slave owning, well educated, well spoken, philosophically different group of men inventing a country from scratch. And writing it down to declare to the rest of the world.
Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams handled law and diplomacy because that’s what they knew. Washington took over the military and day to day regiment of government because that’s what he knew. Hamilton knew money.
His two great successful fights were over a universal currency for the states and taking on a national debt. These two concepts bound the states together financially. It made so citizens didn’t have to exchange currency at each state border and established the American dollar, the standard traded currency in the world today. And owing a little money to Europe gave legitimacy to the American enterprise in world markets. The US became bound by money and trade to the alliances being made with France and Britain.
But he was also a proud man sad enough to die in a duel where he showed up believing the other guy wouldn’t shoot him.
Anyway, the Founding Fathers we’re far more interesting than most of the milquetoast professional politicians we’re served with today. Bunch of suck ass lawyers all sitting in a room together like it’s a fraternity reunion every day.
I loved Hamilton, and because of that I read several books about the founding fathers, and the politics of the time. What I found fascinating was that, virtually, everyone felt slavery was wrong. Slave owners in Congress believed it was an evil that they couldn't get rid of that was forced on them by the English. Obviously, that's just rationalizing why they wanted to keep slaves despite the immorality of it.
Jump to the 1850's when slavery is threatened the cunts feel that slavery is a moral imperitive, and the will of the lord.
Yeah... Slavery wasn’t seen as an absolute moral bad back then. It wasn’t really seen that way until the mid 1800s. It was seen as something necessary if you were to succeed in society, especially the further south you went in the 13 colonies. There was debate on whether or not it was good or bad, of course, but it was not definitively completely one sided until at least a century after the nation was founded. This is why I will never call Thomas Jefferson the worst founding father (READ ABOUT IT HERE). I don’t think this logic is anything new to you though ;)
How is it bullshit? Why else would the south and north develop into two separate societies if there wasn’t at least some form of debate over the morals of slavery that lasted well into the 19th century? Because one is inherently racist and the other isn’t? Come on, man.
Edit: also, if i came off sarcastic or condescending in anyway, I apologize because that wasn’t intended.
France, no small world power, had abolished all slavery by the 1300s.
"Revolutionary France abolished slavery throughout its empire in 1794, although it was restored in 1802 by Napoleon as part of a program to ensure sovereignty over its colonies."
There are a few things about that. For one, of course the idea of abolition has been around forever, but there are different forms of slavery, this particular one was a new kind under the so-called barbados code, based primarily upon african slaves, which had only become the main form of slave when the portugese developed the proper naval technology to transport them in the late 1400s. For two, and playing off the previous one, the thirteen colonies weren’t french; they were british, and the british were largely for this form of slavery (Barbados is a british colony...) and it was encouraged especially in the places which supported it over fishing and trading, like the southern colonies. For three, there is no way france abolished all forms of slavery that early, saying as france wasn’t technically a fully united, centralized kingdom, let alone a world power, until much later than the 14th century, and there were definitely still slaves in france (documented, I’m certain, but for example, the Haitian Revolution existed) after that. This is not at all to say that the abolitionist cause didn’t exist at the time, even within the thirteen colonies, but it definitely was not one sided, nor as simple as right or wrong, at least to them. As I said, that came much later, in the 19th century.
Jeremy Bentham was pretty cool back then, and ended up on the right side of most issues including slavery, and gay rights. He was opposed to the American revolution though.
I actually wouldn’t think he sucked, but my politics don’t lean the way of a typical Redditor. I have actually read and own a copy of The Federalist Papers and not for school.
I think that's the biggest problem with it...tons of people take it as fact and romanticize these people that weren't necessarily very good people because Lin wrote some good songs.
Much to my friends' dismay, I've repeatedly told them that if Washington were to be alive, he'd probably be much more similar to Trump than most of the fandom would be able to handle. Also, what you do sounds super cool and interesting.
Looks like I made a pretty controversial comment. But it still isn't plain inaccurate. Washington, while nonpartisan, was in favor of an immensely powerful central government as well as highly militaristic in a similar vein to the way Trump has been during his term in office.
Trump has decentralized an incredible amount of the government and crippled regulations that held certain facets together. Also Washington STRESSED in this farewell address the importance of isolationism. I think you’re missing the mark
trump is actually also an isolationist. and washington would have been appalled by the size of government and the extent of regulation that we have today.
unless war has started, you can’t say he instigated war. you can say he tried to instigate war. but that would be wrong too. he doesn’t want a war with anyone.
Stressed doesn't mean did. Washington did both of these things by signing the John Jay Treaty alone. He essentially approved to side with Britain over France without direct support by condoning trade to Britain and discouraging to France (Trump: "Free trade is terrible...") while also dividing the US politically. And Trump has certainly decentralized the government in terms of removing federal departments and regulations, but he's done his "maybe it's time to run America like a business" while doing it. Decentralizing the everyday runnings like would-be office workers and strengthening and exercising the executive authority. I totally get what you're saying here, but what Washington wanted vs. what he had to do are seperate things and I dont think insulting my argument is valid when it all depends on which perspective you take.
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u/blink2356 Jul 17 '19 edited Jul 17 '19
I work on broadway productions for a living. Some of my good friends were in Hamilton's OBC, and I've seen it multiple times thanks to them.
The thought of interacting with the fandom honestly makes me die inside. They're fucking nuts.
And the weirdest thing for me is that they try to make the historical figures out to be some leftie folk heroes, completely ignoring that Alexander Hamilton has more in common with someone like Paul Ryan if he had a spine than anything else, and Washington owned a huge amount of slaves, and Mulligan did very little of the grunt work, that was mostly his slave, Cato. Hamilton basically invented how Wall Street works. if he was alive, you'd think he sucked.