Burr’s murder of Alexander Hamilton in their famous duel was what he is best known for, yet it was his greatest shame. Alexander was his friend and his comrade, who shared many of his ideals and life experience… but at the time, killing him seemed the only way to finally rise up.
In “The World Was Wide Enough”, the song where the duel takes place, Burr is guessing Hamilton’s motives and passionately reiterating how he always seems to surpass him in every sense. His level of frustration reaches a boiling point when he realizes that he can never, ever, no matter how much he tries (and he’s been trying for the entire musical- i.e. many years of his life), beat him. At 1:11 of this song, Burr says:
“They won’t teach you this in your classes, but look it up, Hamilton was wearing his glasses. Why? If not to take deadly aim. It’s him or me, the world will never be the same.”
Burr is audibly distressed at this point, at the full recognition of Hamilton’s intellectual invincibility, and commits a fallacy in his emotional blindness: begging the question. He says: “Why? If not to take deadly aim,” which is assuming Hamilton’s motives before his question of why is answered. Fallacies aside, his stoicism is no longer in play here- he is abandoning his philosophy to adopt a new one: kill or be killed, a branch of the sociological theory Social Darwinism. This philosophy is the idea that if you do not kill those who can easily kill you, you will be killed- “it’s him or me.” (Hamilton could both metaphorically kill Burr in overcoming him in life, or actually kill him in the duel).
“It’s him or me, the world will never be the same.”
Burr believes, in this moment, that if Hamilton doesn’t die and disappear from his life, he himself will, as a result, eventually fade away into someone else’s history. In other words, he must get rid of Hamilton or Hamilton will metaphorically kill him by erasing him from the narrative. Burr’s argument is inductive, looking something like this:
Premise: In my experience, Hamilton has surpassed me in everything we’ve both accomplished.
Premise: Based on my experience, Hamilton will continue to surpass me until I fade away and become nothing.
Conclusion: I must kill Hamilton, my life will lose its meaning.
There are a few fallacies in Burr’s reasoning here, one being accident- Burr is overlooking the unusual circumstance of murder to support his point that he can’t go on if Hamilton survives. He’s also committing a slippery slope, from referring to only himself and Hamilton then quickly broadening to a global scope: “It’s him or me, the world will never be the same.”
At this point, Burr has completely done a 180 with his outlook on life, mostly due to the heated, emotional nature of the situation. He’s done waiting- he’s finally standing up for what he wants to do. He’s finally taking the shot he never took.
In the song I’ve been referencing, the lyrics return to those of Wait For It after Hamilton is killed, in the profound line at 3:58:
“Death doesn’t discriminate, between the sinners and the saints, it takes, and it takes, and it takes, and we keep living anyway. We rise and we fall, we break and we make our mistakes.”
The reprise of these lyrics at the end of the musical reflect his idea of the circle of life, and they are an example of how Burr’s philosophy has come full circle; he used to sit and wait for things to happen in his life, and when he went out and did what he knew he had to, nothing changed. Hamilton is dead, but life goes on for him and everyone else- Hamilton rose and he fell like everyone else would- nothing changed.
At the end of the song, Burr goes for a drink, reflecting upon his deed. He regrets it deeply, and also realizes through his philosophy that despite his own painful awareness of Hamilton’s absence, the world keeps on without him, and history will continue to be painted. Nothing in life ever really changes.
vaporwave
blakekathryn
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