Mere Thuggery is Loosed Upon the World

In the drawing above, Senator Charles Sumner is shown in the course of being assaulted with a cane by Preston Brooks, a member of the House of Representatives.  It's an interesting moment in the history of Congress, and that of the United States.  Not all that long after Sumner was beaten unconscious, the Civil War began.  It's not completely clear whether Brooks was motivated to cane Sumner because of the latter's stance against slavery, or because the Senator vilified a fellow Senator who was Brooks' kinsman.  I think it's likely that Brooks felt his kin was being dishonored, as Sumner and others made their anti-slavery stance clear long before the incident.  Brooks evidently didn't challenge Sumner to a duel because he didn't consider Sumner to be a gentlemen.  So, he resorted to beating him as he would a dog or, likely, a slave.

"Thuggery" is variously defined as rough, violent or anti-social behavior by criminals or bullies.  I'd call the caning of one member of Congress by another an act of thuggery.  Happily, actual violence between members of Congress is relatively rare.  But thuggery of one kind or another is becoming commonplace, or so thinks your less than humble servant, Ciceronianus.

Why is this?  Consider those who have commonly been described as thugs.  There were of course the bandits in India from whom the word is derived.  Unfortunately, the word has become associated with some rap or hip-hop sorts who apparently find being considered a thug to be attractive.  But it's also been associated commonly with, e.g., mafiosos, low-level but brutal criminals, bullies, muggers, and even some political regimes, like the ever-repulsive Nazis (unless of course you're a devotee of Heidegger, the Nazi so esteemed by intellectuals, the good Nazi).

Thuggery by a political regime is most recently on display with the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.  The reasons given for the invasion have been baseless, and even obviously so.  Some are absurd.  There is some truth in the assertion that Russia and the Soviet Union has for a very long time always wanted and claimed the Ukraine, but though that may be a fact it's hardly grounds for an invasion, unless it is simply a means by which territory may be obtained that is claimed by a recognized, sovereign nation by another stronger nation through the use of force, which is to say by thuggery.

But thuggery is evident in other respects as well, though perhaps in a smaller and less violent way.  Here in our Great Republic, it seems to be increasingly characteristic of our politics and many of our people.  The person formerly known as the president was and is in several ways a kind of thug-wannabe--an admirer of real thugs on the world stage, and a (thus far) failed thug in his efforts to overturn a legal election.  This is not to mention the manner in which he ran his (often failed) businesses, blithely avoiding debts through the bankruptcy courts and, apparently, spreading unsubstantiated claims regarding their financial soundness.

It can also be maintained that he and his minions encourage thuggery.  As a friend recently said, through them an "ugly door" has been opened and several kinds of bullies, boors, bigots and others have flowed through it to run amuck in our society in a kind of celebration or festival of thuggery, sometimes of a low, mean kind and sometimes by those pretending to a grand manner in politics, media and culture.  Rudeness and the flaunting of ignorance and prejudice are seen as admirable; some people seem to think they're entitled to be louts.  It's become something of an honor.

We may be becoming a nation of Jonathan Swift's Yahoos, without Houyhnhmns to guide us.