Over at De Novo, there’s a discussion about the impact of the Internet on culture. It started with an online symposium De Novo held (great idea, that) on the topic of Internet, Law, & Culture. And Jeremy Blachman, one of the site’s founders, then writes an article titled, “Would Thomas Jefferson Have Surfed Porn Sites: An Internet Reflection.”

If Thomas Jefferson were alive today, he might surf once or twice for porn. Somehow I doubt it would be much more important to him than that.

If it were, he would not be Thomas Jefferson.

This has nothing to do with my thinking that Jefferson was a man of deep moral convictions. I believe he was that — but I’m not even sure that being a man of deep moral convictions and the occasional enjoyment of Internet porn are mutually exclusive.

It seems to me that there is a juxtaposition of the potential anyone has and the material to which they become exposed which makes that person who they are — and makes them either memorable, or not.

“Potential” would depend upon the mix of characteristics of a person, such as drive, intelligence, organizational skills, and one’s rapidity or vapidity of knowledge acquisition, among other things. Take someone with the greatest potential and stick them in solitary confinement for 20 or 30 years. It’s doubtful when the door opens, a Thomas Jefferson will pop out. On the other hand, there are high school seniors who are without a doubt of lesser “potential” (in the sense I’ve been using it here) than Copernicus, who will probably achieve more, in terms of actual volume of output relating to hard science. The education they receive affords them exposure to a richer scientific milieu; they see and do more because they stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before.

No doubt the matrix is more complicated than this. For example, another key component would be the population in which they are found. I may be in the top five or top ten of my law class, or not, dependent at least partly upon who else is in my class. Al Gore may lose an election to — wait, bad example; he would have lost that election anyway.

Seriously, every class has a valedictorian (and usually only one). But the valedictorian of 2005 might not be valedictorian if he (or she) were placed into the class of 2006; either that, or the “real” valedictorian of 2006 is no more a valedictorian. After all, only one of them is going to get that title. (Theoretically, it would be possible to have co-valedictorians, but this is rare.) In fact, the valedictorian of 2005 might even be “only” seventh or eighth in their class, were they moved to another class. And it doesn’t stop there. Ironically, a good Harvard law student could find himself bested by a good San Joaquin College of Law student on a consistent basis. It’s perhaps not likely, because of the greater quality of the Harvard student’s education (which itself is due to similar factors working at a different level), but it is possible. Yet that Harvard student is going to have better opportunities after graduation based on nothing more than the fact that he is a Harvard graduate.

Clearly this will have an impact upon future opportunities. Valedictorians and Harvard law students may receive more and better job offers than non-valedictorians and non-Harvard law students. One job offer may lead ultimately to connections that bring one to political office, while another does not, for example.

Well, what’s all this got to do with whether or not Jefferson would have surfed porn?

Just this: Jefferson would not have been the Jefferson he was but for (at least) the juxtaposition of his abilities with both the intellectual milieu in which he found himself and the period in which he lived. Given his demonstrated abilities, he would likely have still done very well — maybe even become famous — if he lived in our era. However, this would depend upon the information to which he was exposed, the intellectual milieu in which he found himself immersed. Likely as not, he would not have been overwhelmingly interested in Internet porn. If he were, this would have decreased his focus on other bits of information. Jefferson would have been a different person, probably not even recognizable as the Jefferson we know, were it even possible for him to surf the Internet — for porn or anything else.

Because on top of everything else, the amount of information — trivial, useless, mundane and profane as well as stimulating, intriguing, inspiring and transmogrifying — that Jefferson was exposed to is nothing like what the world today, particularly with the Internet, has to offer. And not only does one not “need to read the sports section of all seven major New York-area newspapers to find out whether Cliff Floyd [whoever that is] is going to be on the disabled list,” anyone doing so would be hampered in leveraging their potential.

At any rate, all my prattling aside, I think if Thomas Jefferson were alive today a) he would likely not surf Internet porn sites (at least not often) and b) we wouldn’t even know he was here. Because, in a very real sense, he would no longer be. He would just be someone named Thomas Jefferson.

And there are plenty of those to go around.