Typo in the Declaration makes us selfish?

[Craig24]

Does the Declaration of Independence have a typo that makes us selfish?

 

A social science prof claims a typo may cause a misunderstanding of the meaning of the Declaration.

 

From the article:

 

But there's a chance we've been reading the Declaration wrong for over 200 years. According to Danielle Allen, a professor of social science at the Institute of Advanced Study, the most common reproduction of the Declaration contains an extra period that changes the meaning of Jefferson's original words. "It's the difference between good government and bad government," she says

 

...

 

It's a very small difference, but Allen argues that it changes the construction of Jefferson's argument significantly. In the popular version with the period, there are only two self-evident truths: all men are created equal, and they're endowed with certain unalienable rights like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That's the foundation, and everything after that is an argument in service of abolishing British rule and starting over. "A lot of people just stop reading after 'pursuit of happiness,'" says Allen. "What do you lose if you stop reading?"

 

Change that period to a comma, though, and the list of self-evident truths suddenly grows much longer: all men are created equal; they're endowed with certain unalienable rights; governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed; when government becomes destructive, it's the right of the people to abolish it and create a new system most likely to bring them safety and happiness.

 

"When you read the whole sentence, all of those points are equally weighted," says Allen. "It moves from the individual to the collective, from me to we. There's a lot more responsibility we all have in building a government. It's not just what do I get, or what's in it for me. It highlights the obligation to participate at all levels." Lose the comma, and we're all just pursuing happiness without any regard for one another.

 

 

This is a transparent, desperate and pathetic attempt to read a collectivist premise into the document and to teach others to do the same.

[softwareNerd]

This is a transparent, desperate and pathetic attempt to read a collectivist premise into the document and to teach others to do the same.

Wow! pathetic is the word. Make it a comma, or a semi-colon, or a colon... changes nothing in this particular case. Eats, Shoots and Reloads.

[bluecherry]

Yeah, I really don't see that changing the meaning at all.