Ecrasez l'infame!

 

Voltaire used this maxim or motto in his correspondence.  It may be translated as: "Crush the infamous (thing)!"  That thing was the Catholic Curch of the time, busy banning and sometimes burning books, including some by Voltaire, and it's oppression of thought and freedom in combination with the government of Louis XV.  It became a sort of war cry of the Enlightement, and was directed not merely against the Church and the autocratic King but also superstition, bigotry, stupidity, ignorance and what the superstitious, bigoted, stupid and ignorant people in power were prone to do then and remain prone to do now.

Though centuries have passed since the time of Votaire, it seems human nature hasn't changed in any significant sense.  But we have, through the application of science and technology, become vastly more capable of communicating and imposing the most contemptible aspects of our nature. In this fashion our capacity for reasoning and problem solving is placed at the service of our cruelty and cowardice--reason serves the irrational.  We're only capable of reason, not reasonable.  We are reasonable only when we must be, or it pleases us to be.

Those who want to impose their religious beliefs on others are still trying to do so.  Efforts are being made to display the Ten Commandments in public schools in Texas and other states.  While lower courts have enjoined these exhibitions, as our Supreme Court has allowed group prayer in the middle of high school football fields, the First Amendment be damned, it's likely it would bless even the recitation of the Commandments at the start of each class.  

Our peculiar Secretary of Defense proselytizes on behalf of a very peculiar church which asserts that Jesus doesn't want women to vote and are subordinate by the will of God.  The subjugation of women seems to be common to all Abrahamic religions from their inception. 

Subjugation is characteristic of the times, perhaps of all times, for us. As freedom is being eroded one comes to appreciate the allure of a solitary life. Oh, to be a hermit!  Or at least to be otherwise apart from the scene of our current crimes. One wonders if this was the attraction of a monastery, or still could be.

Perhaps the infamous things surrounding us can't be crushed, and escape is the only reasonable option. But it seems ignoble not to oppose infamy. And perhaps what Pierre Hadot called the inner citadel available to Marcus Aurelius and other Stoics can protect us from being subjugated, while we oppose it subjugation.