Running head: PAINE AND PROPAGANDA

Thomas Paine and Propaganda

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Institution

Paine and Propaganda

Thomas Paine was an English-American political activist, philosopher, political theorist
and a revolutionary. He is regarded as one of the founding fathers of the United States. Paine
authored two most influential pamphlets, The American Crisis and Common Sense, at the start of
the American Revolution. The latter inspired a rebellious demand for independence from Great
Britain. It explained the advantages of the need for immediate independence in a clear simple
language. Published anonymously at the beginning of the revolution, it became an immediate
sensation. Common Sense presented the American colonists with an argument for freedom from
the British rule at a time when the question of whether or not to seek independence was the
central issue of the day. Paine wrote and reasoned in a style that common people understood.
His ideas reflected enlightenment-era rhetoric of transnational human rights. He has been called

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"a corset maker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination" (Saul,
1952, p.32). Propaganda is any information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help
or harm a person, group, movement, institution or a nation. My aim in this paper is to find out
the extent to which Common Sense was or was not propaganda and how it was useful.
The Common Sense concept actually belongs to the realm of propaganda, protest and
power. Pains Pamphlet showed insights into how the belief in plain people's access to truth
contributed to demolishing established forms of authority, whether law, tradition, or faith. His
enlightenment idea of common sense implied a revolutionary, groundbreaking trust in the people
and their capacity for self-rule. While he used the phrase common sense only three times in his
famous pamphlet, he linked it to his democratic vision of politics. No matter how unconventional
and hyperbolic his positions were, Paine insisted that he offered nothing more than simple facts,
plain arguments and common sense. His satirical and indignant "partisan manifesto," as
Rosenfeld calls it, deployed common sense as a tactical weapon to attack the absurdity of
monarchical authority, which he said rested on nothing more than custom and fear.
While Paine tied Common Sense to self-rule, what he provided was less a vision of
democracy than a new political style. Rival notions of Common Sense followed quickly. Only a
year after Paine published his pamphlet, the friend who had suggested the title Common Sense,
the physician and revolutionary leader Benjamin Rush, decided that it was a mistake to integrate
common sense with equality. The natural distinctions of rank that followed from the inevitable
inequality of property, education, experience, and virtue, Rush held, corresponded more to the
actual world than the abstraction of equality did.

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Paines Common Sense is a good example of this propaganda because it was full of
unfounded allegations that portrayed the British as murderers. It further showed Britain's attempt
to justifiably protect its investment as repression. All these allegations just sounded like the rant
of a militant socialist. Pains propaganda said they were fighting for the inalienable rights of life,
liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness, yet the colonists were living well. The British
administrator then, King George, had given them the freedom to live in America, to virtually
self-govern, to own property, to set up businesses, and allowed them to trade. The land was theirs
to own, buy, and sell and most were happy and content having a higher quality of life than the
average person living in Britain. They in fact had no reasonable right to rebel. The revolution
leaders had been motivated by personal greed and employed propaganda as a way of disguising
this fact.
Another type of propaganda Paine used to induce a desire for freedom in the reader of his
works was over generalization. His use of broad generalities was demonstrated when he
concluded, Not a man lives on the continent, but fully believes that a separation must sometime
or other finally takes place (Paine 1776). Another type of propaganda used was fallacy. Paine
had the sentiment that a man either fought for freedom or would always be known as a coward
when he stated, The heart that feels not now is dead; the blood of his children will curse his
cowardice who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the whole, and made them
happy. The final use of propaganda was the bandwagon appeal. To truly be an admired
American, Thomas thought that one had to support and fight for freedom for all. This was
exemplified when he said, The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis,
shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of
man and woman. At the time when American soldiers were fighting in the Revolutionary War

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under the command of George Washington, they had little food, insufficient shelter, and many
were deserting. Reading Paines book to these troops had a profound effect upon their morale
which led to a victory at Trenton. George Washingtons famous crossing of the Delaware River
ultimately became a turning point in the war.
Paine hoped to appeal the common man and decide what actions they would take
for the sake of their progeny. He said, The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. This
same sun would shine on future generations their generation had to decide whether their children
would live in freedom or under the tyranny of England. He went on to state that their heirs would
benefit or suffer for their action or inaction. Paine argued that the then state of the government
was not reliable enough. He hoped to appeal to mens sense of masculinity by persuading them
that anything less than freedom from America resulted in their own emasculation. Paine insisted
the true character of a man was found in those who would look beyond themselves to generously
enlarge his views beyond the present day. All these were aimed to incite the colonies against the
British.
Common Sense on the other hand was viewed as an opinion piece designed to get people
to support the Revolution against Great Britain and not propaganda as most people saw it. The
main impact of this pamphlet was to help make the American colonists to decide to fight for
independence. The first battles of the revolution took place in 1775, but the colonists had not yet
decided to actually try to become independent. In Common Sense, Paine addressed the problems
of monarchy, the advisability of separation, the nature of society, and made modest proposals for
a new form of government. He also considered practical considerations such as Americas
relations with other countries in Europe, whether its diplomacy and trade should be governed by
the self-interest of Britain, and the feasibility of winning a war of independence. He considered

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the issues of population, resources, and the navy and concluded that it was possible. Overall, he
applied rational argument, supporting his points not only with philosophical but also with
economic and political advantages.
Americans suffered heavy taxation while the nobility shared little or none of the burden
of running the country. This claim by Paine was actually true and not propaganda. The English
tax system was designed to benefit the aristocrats at the expense of the commoners. Tax on
consumables was increasing, making life more unbearable for the poor.
Thomas Paine's Common Sense was a brilliant persuasive essay. The first type of
persuasive style used was parallelism. He noted the similarities between England and a home
burglar when he stated, but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property,
and kills or threatens me, or those that are in it, and to bind me in all cases whatsoever to his
absolute will, am I to suffer it?
Before Common Sense was published, except for a few radical thinkers, the people of the
American colonies were on the fence about independence. Individuals were in conflict with
themselves. The publication helped them make decisions and choose what they actually believed
in.
Despite the fact that Thomas Paines used his great literary capacity to bring the
American people against a common enemy, the tyranny of England, his work was viewed much
more of propaganda. Paine used this ability for rhetoric and language to create one of the one of
the worlds most powerful and effective pieces of propaganda through the use of various themes.
The use of the title Common Sense inferred that his ideas were the result of logic and reason,
coming from basic and universally known facts, known to the majority of sane, educated people.

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