Acropolis Now

Above is a picture I took of Athens, on a full moon night last month.  You can see the Acropolis in the distance.  You can see moonlight on the sea.  I'm rather fond of the picture, taken with a cell phone in the early morning.

I've been away from the blog for some time.  I've lacked the energy, perhaps, but also the interest.  It's difficult to be interested in these times, though they're no doubt interesting to some, and will be interesting to historians of the future.  I nearly wrote "if there is a future."

I'm being over dramatic, of course.  There will be a future.  We go on and on, and are none the better for it if I am any judge. There is something remarkable about us.  We don't change but we survive.  We don't adapt, we don't learn, we simply still are here, and will be here until our unchanging nature exhausts the world.

I've now been to many places.  I've walked where Cicero, Cato, Augustus and Caesar walked when I visited the Roman Forum.  More recently, I walked where Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Diogenes and Zeno walked when I visited the Agora of Athens. It's unfortunate to live in this time, when there are no people comparable to those who went before.  Is anyone now living who can be described as great, or noble, or heroic?  Is there anyone who will be worth remembering or studying when this time is past?

If the Pythia was still sitting on her tripod at Delphi, which I was also fortunate enough to visit, perhaps she could answer such questions.  I suspect she could and even would, but in no clear manner, as it seems was her practice in ancient times.  She could also be quiet droll, as Croesus learned.  Any answer would do, comforting or not.  Delphi's magic is long gone but we still strive to learn the future in ways not all that different from consulting oracles.

In this disturbing, dull and shabby age, it's particularly pleasurable, to me at least, to see the ruins of the ancient world.  As unremarkable as we are, the achievements of the ancients were remarkable.  I cannot imagine how the Parthenon and the other structures were built on the Rock, as it was called by one of our guides.  Nor can I imagine how the great temples were built in the mountains at Delphi, or how it was that so many traveled so far and so slowly to reach the oracle.  Were they actually better than we are now, in many ways?  Perhaps we do change then....for the worst.

Moralists and the religious enjoy declaring that we become decadent over time.  I don't think we're more decadent than those who lived in the past, though.  I think that we're merely more stupid than they were.  How else explain how a prosperous people and nation have come to be ignorant, bigoted,  petty and cruel?  A certain degree of dullness is required.  The bovine are self-satisfied, fearful of change, content with what is, resentful of what is not, is different.

Well, let's carry on.  Stoicism is not a philosophy of the status quo, as some have said.  It is a philosophy, instead, which grants us a measure of peace and serenity when the status quo is deplorable.

What Comes After Disgust?

This has become a pressing question, for me.  Not with respect to life in general, I hurry to say.  I suffer no existential crisis.  How could I, being an aspiring Stoic?  Not for me the despair and nihilism felt by some.  In the broad sense, what is, is, whether I accept it or not, and it happens I accept it.  But enough about me.

What prompts the question is the state of our nation.  More particularly, the state of our nation's politics and politicians.  More and more, day by day, sometimes hour by hour or minute by minute, it and they inspire nothing but disgust in me; loathing, even, that most extreme form of disgust.  To be clear, I refer not only to the scatter-brained oaf inhabiting the White House and those who facilitate his caperings (and there are many Republicans, alas) but all those who participate in the corruption that overwhelms our governors and government.

I'll speak plainly.  Politicians are by their nature liars.  Perhaps it's more correct to say that politicians must be liars.  In order to be a politician, one must dispense with honesty and honor as it's necessary to please those who have the wherewithal to maintain one's status as a politician, regardless of what they believe, think or do.  The fortunate politician may accept the same beliefs, thoughts and acts, but in order to be successful at politics must placate more and more people, again regardless of what they believe, think or do.  The politician has committed to the sale of his/her soul, assuming they have such a thing.

The U.S. is too often compared with ancient Rome, generally to late Republican Rome.  That's an unfair comparison--to ancient Rome.  Rome even as the Republic decayed produced men of honor and even genius--Cicero and Cato, for example.  Who do we have to compare with them?  We're fortunate if our politicians are able to speak coherently, let alone speak the truth.  The Roman Republic was an oligarchy, of course, but in what sense are we better?  Juvenal (I think) wrote that all things were possible in Rome if one has money, and that is the same here and now.  But money is all that we honor and respect.  It's no longer a tool, it's an end in itself.  Our politicians aren't oligarchs, they're clients, in the Roman sense, and are bought and sold like slaves.

Assume, then, that politicians will lie when it suits them.  What reason is there to believe anything they say?  What reason is there to believe they will do anything if they say they will?  One can make estimates as best one can based on the undoubted fact that they will do, as often as possible, what it is in their interest to do as politicians.  So, they may be predictable as self-interested liars are, but though predictable remain, entirely, dishonorable and disgusting.  A government of shills, of whores, in fact, though whores at least provide a service many think is desirable.

Accept that our politics and politicians inspire disgust.  What, if anything, is next for them and for us?
Do we simply resign ourselves to disgust?  Do we tell ourselves that we will abide with what is disgusting provided we are left alone with our disgust?  Is cynicism (small "c") our default position?  That's one option, certainly.  But disgust can become anger and anger can become violent.  What is disgusting can become too disgusting if left unchecked.  Ultimately, we will become one of the disgusting or one of the disgusted.

Reflections on Independence Day, 2016

This post addresses the Fabulous Fourth, not the movie sequel, which it seems based on reviews is unworthy of reflection.

For two hundred and forty years, our Great Republic has existed and more or less thrived.  Particularly in the last one hundred years, it has been a dominant if not the dominant nation of this Earth.  The United States has been compared to ancient Rome for quite some time.  That comparison has become commonplace.  Those who make the comparison generally mean to condemn Rome if not us, or at least warn us to take care that the fate of our nation not be that of Rome.  Let's indulge in the comparison for a brief time.

The First Punic War commenced in 264 B.C.E.  Augustus established the principate in 27 B.C.E.  During that period of time, Rome grew from a city which held sway over a good chunk of the Italian peninsula to the master of the Mediterranean world and most of Europe, successively defeating and destroying Carthage and the successors states formed from the dissolution of Alexander's empire.  The United States has in a similar period done much the same, relatively speaking.  This seems appropriate as Rome, or at least the Roman Republic, served as a model of sorts to the Founding Fathers as they created the U.S.

It's doubtful, though, that the Founders thought they were founding an empire like that of Rome.  We have for the most part denied imperial ambitions at least though the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, though Wilson submitted meekly enough to the imperial ambitions of England and France, thus participating in the drafting of the Treaty of Versailles, reluctantly signed by many in 1919.  Even before then, though, America had acquired by conquest the American West and a good part of the American East, Puerto Rico and the Philippines and other territories from Mexico, Spain and the indigenous people of North America.  The U.S. managed to buy a great deal of land as well, through the good offices of Napoleon.  So, if imperialism consists of the conquest of territory and its rule by the conquerors, it would seem that America has been de facto an imperial power.

So simplistically far, so simplistically good.  So we carry on.

It's generally thought by many that the fall of Rome began when the Empire replaced the Republic.  If that's so, however, then it was a long, slow fall.  What's usually considered the end of the Empire in the West took place about five hundred years later, and the Empire in the East vanished about a thousand years after that (though it slowly became a very small empire).  Moralists of all kinds seem to be unaware of or ignore the longevity of the decadent Roman Empire.  If it fell due to the sexual and moral corruption they're fond of citing (usually by reference to Nero), we shall be lucky if we last as long no matter how we conduct ourselves or what God we choose to worship (and then ignore when it's convenient to do so, that being our usual practice).

It happens, though, that at its end the Roman Republic was dominated by several gifted and ambitious men, e.g. Caesar, Pompey, Crassus, Marcus Antonius, Cicero, Cato, Octavian the Augustus to be.  Most of them weren't particularly moral in our sense, though Cato certainly was ostentatiously virtuous and Cicero at least contemplated what was and was not moral.  Cicero, though, faulted Cato for his stubborn, uncompromising virtue, famously remarking that Cato thought he lived in Plato's Republic, not Romulus' shithole.

While America is full of ambitious men and women at this time, none seem particularly gifted, or moral for that matter.  Given the civil wars which resulted from the conflicting desires of the great of the Roman Republic, perhaps we should be thankful for this lack of ability.

Unfortunately, though, it's ability that might make the difference in the type of empire America will become if it follows the path of Rome.  Augustus, who created the Roman Empire, was a remarkably able politician.  Our politicians are craven and venal and have been for some time, and it may be that the political success of a capering, stridently ignorant man indicates that in the future they'll be craven, venal and boisterously stupid as well.

It's amusing to indulge in comparisons of this kind.  Overall and in the context of history I think the United States has done well in becoming what it is, but just what the future holds can't be predicted through the study of ancient Rome or any other Empire or nation.

There is one sense in which America now resembles old Rome, however, which may give us a hint as to our political future.  Money was of great importance at the end of the Roman Republic; votes were bought, directly or indirectly.  Roman politicians came from a restricted class, but required the support of the people at election time and treated them very generously in return for their support.  Money dominates our politics now, as well.

The difference is that money isn't used as it was in ancient Rome, to pacify and reward common people for their support.  It's used instead by the rich and powerful to pacify and reward politicians who require it to be elected.  Perhaps this accounts for the quality of our politicians.  It's demeaning to be, for all practical purposes, a lackey, a mere chattel in effect, of special interests, corporations, the very rich.  It's demeaning to be a panderer, and an American politician must pander.  What self-respecting, intelligent, able person could stand such a life?

Now, the votes of electors aren't bought; legislators and their votes are bought instead.  It's hard to say which practice will promote a greater degree of corruption in a nation.

About Cato the Younger

Marcus Porcius Cato, called the Younger to distinguish him from his grandfather, Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder, is not an easy man to like, a grim and dour personality, but has been one that is admired.  That was the case while he was alive and has remained true through the centuries since his death. 

It seems that he is more fortunate in his reputation than his censorious grandfather who, although he had a distinguished military career and also one as a senator and consul, is remembered primarily for a treatise he wrote on agriculture and for declaiming, after every speech he made in the Senate, that "Carthage must be destroyed."  It was destroyed eventually, in part due to his relentless urging.  Grandpa Cato wasn't a likeable fellow either, but was revered by his grandson as a representative of old Roman virtues, unlike the foppish patron of Greeks, Scipio Africanus, who was one of the targets of Grandpa's vindictive style of conservatism.

Cato the Younger was noted for his adherence to Stoic philosophy, and so it's difficult for an aspiring Stoic to be critical of him.  I'm critical of him nonetheless, but not entirely so.  Even his ally against Caesar, Cicero, was critical of him at times, for good reason.   Though Cicero admired the Stoics, he wasn't above ridiculing them and Cato for their extremes--at least as part of a case, in the course of advocacy.  Cicero was a lawyer, after all.

Cicero also was critical of him for his obstinacy and refusal to compromise.  But Cicero admired him as have many others for his refusal to submit to Caesar's rule of the Roman Republic, soon to be the Roman Empire.  When Caesar portrayed Cato as a drunk in his triumph after his victory over Pompey and the optimates, Cicero responded with a kind of panegyric in his praise.  Caesar found it necessary to reply to it; Caesar was never able to forgive Cato as he forgave many others, even after Cato's suicide to avoid submission--perhaps even because of it.

Cato is admired as a hero in the ongoing battle against tyranny.  He was admired as such by the Founding Fathers of our Republic, all of whom looked to Rome in its creation.

Cato's commitment to freedom, however, is more accurately seen as a commitment to custom and Roman traditional virtues and institutions (the mos maiorum).  Individual rights and freedoms were not a concern to Roman government or society generally.  Romans, at least traditional Romans, served the state, not themselves.  Romans were not libertarians; Cato certainly wasn't one.  Cato wanted Rome to be ruled as it had been; by an oligarchy making up the Senate, with some powers held by the plebs and their tribunes as created over time.  Rule by one man or a few by virtue of their control of the legions and catering to the people is what Cato fought against.

I have no reason to doubt Cato's commitment to Stoicism, but it strikes me that his very ostentatious displays (walking barefoot, wearing a simple coarse tunic), railing against clothing and conduct which was not similarly rustic and simple, isn't Stoic.  It's posturing and prideful.  No doubt it had a political purpose and was a kind of propaganda.  But it reflects a concern with what should be indifferent, with appearances--with impressing others.   Living simply, foregoing luxury is appropriate, but vocally condemning those who do otherwise doesn't seem to me to be something advocated by the Stoics.  Perhaps Cato, in this, was more Cynic than Stoic.  Diogenes enjoyed flaunting his simplicity, much to the annoyance of Plato.  But nobody doubted the honesty and integrity of Cato, not even his enemies.

I think what can be doubted was his wisdom--his practical wisdom, in any case.  There is an argument that his refusal to compromise in any respect played a part in ending the Republic and creating the principate.  And certain warnings are self-fulfilling.  Political and military chaos creates opportunities for the ambitious, and Cato contributed to the chaos, and perhaps even invited it.

Those interested in Cato may want to read Rome's Last Citizen:  The Life and Legacy of Cato, Mortal Enemy of Caesar, an interesting book written by Rob Goodman and Jimmy Soni, which I plug here despite their annoying use of diminutives in their names.

O Bella Roma

Relatively fresh from a visit to Italy, specifically those cities which seem to be most visited by tourists like myself (Rome, Florence and Venice), I'm inclined to expound on them here--that place where I am emperor, of ice cream (or gelato?) if anything at all.

As may be guessed from my nom de blog and a review of this blog itself, I'm fascinated by the history of ancient Rome.  At long last, I've personally seen many of its ruins.  Edward Gibbon on viewing the Roman Forum was inclined to bemoan its condition, and this he wrote motivated his history of Rome's decline and fall.  It seems in much better shape now than it was when he viewed it, but in viewing it myself I'm inclined to marvel at its ruins.  Perhaps I entirely lack any Romantic instincts, but I'm too impressed by the remains of ancient Rome to indulge in pontifications along the lines of sic transit gloria mundi.

The ruins of the Forum including the rostra and the Curia, the arches of Titus, Septimius Severus and Constantine, Trajan's Market, his column, his forum; those of Augustus and Nerva, the Ars Pacis Augustae, the mausoleum of Augustus, the baths of Caracalla and Diocletian, the Flavian Amphitheater a/k/a the Colosseum, the tomb of Hadrian, the column of Marcus Aurelius and his equestrian statue, represent only the most evident architectural monuments of Rome and its empire, and they're stunning to one such as me.

It's difficult to imagine how impressive they were thousands of years ago.  Henry James, I know, found Roman ruins (or at least some of them) indicative of a kind of brutality and baseness.  They were just too big for Henry.  I wonder, though, whether his attitude and those of others with similar views is more an implied acknowledgement of how small we and our civilization became after Rome fell.  It's easy in a way to resent the Romans as it took us centuries to achieve what they achieved even in matters of plumbing and hygiene, in the building of roads, the supplying of water to cities, let alone the fine arts.

One thing I find disturbing was the tendency of the popes who restored certain of the ruins to emblazon their names on them.  I suppose the desire was that they be granted a kind of immortality by association with monuments which represented ancient glory and would clearly last far into the future.  Restoration by Christians seems entirely appropriate in any case, however, as various Christians after the fall of the empire regularly took stones and marble from the ruins of Rome to adorn their buildings.

Even more disturbing are the figures of popes and saints which were plopped on top of the columns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius.  As those columns depict scenes of the conquests and campaigns of those emperors, it's unclear why any pope or saint would be glorified by appearing at the summit of such military monuments.  Churches, of course, were regularly placed on top of pagan temples.  There's something profane about the imposition of Christian icons on and over these pagan relics; something profane about the physical triumph of the Christian sacred.  But who remembers those popes, compared to those who know the names of the emperors who lived centuries earlier?

It can't be doubted that brutality and cruelty were aspects of Roman civilization.  But walking along the Sacred Way, where emperors and generals rode in triumphs and religious processions took place, where Cicero, Cato and Caesar walked, one senses that much more was involved, good and bad, and that what we are now is in large part mere imitation or emulation.  And not merely that of "skirt-mad Mussolini" as Robert Lowell called him, unfurling the eagle of Caesar.

Rome remains a world capitol; a crowded, busy city apart from but existing in and around the imposing corpse of the Roman Empire and of course around the center of what may be called its ghost, the Roman Catholic Church, a sovereign state in its own right thanks to the Lateran Treaty (and Mussolini, it must be said).  But it's still served by the aqueducts which continue to bring potable water to its inhabitants.  Ancient Rome is a living presence in a living city.  It's filled not merely with monuments to the past or recalling the past, but with the past itself.  Rome's past is present.

Creta Delenda Est

I borrow here the phrase for which Cato the Elder, that jolly fellow, is famous.  He is said to have ended each speech he made to the doubtlessly stupefied Roman Senate with the words "Carthage must be destroyed" or more accurately I would think: "Furthermore, I think Carthage must be destroyed."  In Latin, Carthago delenda est.

Substituting for Carthago in my post is Creta.  Now it seems this is the Roman name for the island of Crete, but I am not urging that Crete be destroyed.  Creta is also, as far as I can determine, the Latin word for "clay."  Perhaps the Romans considered the island of Crete to be especially clay-like.  Regardless, clay is what I refer to, or more specifically clays, as in those targets which are called "clays" by those who blow them up using shotguns.  Since creta is a feminine noun in Latin, I think the title to the post serves to state, perhaps melodramatically, that these clays must be destroyed.

As one might guess, I have recently joined many others in shooting clays, in my case with a 12 gauge shotgun.  In this post, I confess that I enjoy doing this; yes, I enjoy blowing these little orange targets apart...something I wish I could do far more often than I've managed thus far.

It is in some ways a surprising, perhaps even disturbing, admission for me to make.  I'm not a hunter.  The little shooting I've done in the past has not been with a shotgun, but with a rifle when I was a wee lad, popping what I think were .22s at cans on one occasion, and more recently with a .357 magnum handgun owned by another, on another occasion.  I found this uninteresting.  I don't like the political stance of the NRA, which seems to be run by shills for manufacturers of firearms and ammunition.  I don't think the Second Amendment creates an absolute right to own guns, any more than the First Amendment creates an absolute right to free speech.

However, I feel a certain (and undiluted) satisfaction when I manage to shoot clays, particularly when I do so in such a fashion as to cause them to explode into many small pieces.  I'm not sure why I do.

Perhaps we humans have an appetite for destruction, as the '80s band Guns 'N Roses would say.  I think of the scene in the Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey in which the proto-human creature, thanks to inspiration received from the enigmatic monolith, begins to use a nearby bone as a hammer, bashing the other bones strewn about him.  Later, he uses it to beat the leader of a rival group of proto-humans.  Then, he tosses it in a fit of joy or ecstasy into the air.  We watch it fly up.  Cut to a view of a space vehicle or satellite of some kind.

Which raises the question:  Does our capacity for (and desire for?) violence lead us to develop tools, to think, to create not just weapons but everything else we create?  Another question:  What would we be without our capacity/desire for violence?  More questions:  Without that capacity/desire, what would we do, achieve, have done?

I comfort myself with the thought that the sport of shooting clays in its various forms (trap, sporting clays, skeet, etc.) involves a certain skill, and that the satisfaction felt results from the successful exercise of that skill.  But I tell others, in order to amuse them or perhaps only myself, that it is a great way to relieve stress, and that I like to imagine that I shoot not just clays but other things, even certain people.

Well, I'd rather not speculate that my enjoyment of the noise and feel of a shotgun and the effort involved in managing to shoot a flying target and watch it explode is in some sense profound, or gives me a knowledge of our animal nature, or even that it creates in me or others some kind of savage, primitive joy.  Perhaps it does. That in itself would not necessarily mean that this enjoyment will lead to the destruction of something other than orange clay discs.  I suspect that it is merely another and new way to amuse myself.  A hobby, in fact, to occupy my time.

But I wonder why I take this up now, and haven't done so before, and what it is that makes shooting a shotgun so satisfying, and how it relates to the gun violence we see and hear of with increasing frequency in these times.

On Censors and Censorship

In the Roman Republic, a censor was a public official who had duties concerning the census, and was also a kind of guardian of public morality.  One of the more famous censors we know of was M. Porcius Cato, commonly known as Cato the Elder for purposes of distinguishing him from M. Porcius Cato the Younger, who as one might guess was a descendant of the elder Cato.  Neither the elder nor the younger Cato were particularly jolly fellows, from what we know of them.  Cato the Elder famously "censored" Scipio Africanus, the great Roman general who defeated Hannibal at Zama, for being depraved and wearing "Greek dress"--in short, for being insufficiently Roman.  Since Hannibal had rampaged through Italy and defeated the legions in every prior engagement, in Scipio's place I would have been inclined to remark that if he was not a good Roman, being "un-Roman" proved to be very useful to Rome in at least one case.

Of course, our word "censorship" derives from the title of the dour busybodies who as censors made life miserable for the ancient Romans in so many ways.  It seems to me appropriate, therefore, that the word "censorship" carries with it a hint of self-righteousness employed in the regulation of free expression.

Currently, there is much ado about National Public Radio's firing of commentator Juan Williams for making some remarks to the effect that when he boards a plane and sees passengers wearing what is believed to be traditional Muslim garb, he becomes nervous.  I have not yet heard of anyone claiming his First Amendment rights were violated, despite the fact that NPR receives some government funding, and am grateful for this; which is not to say it hasn't been claimed by someone, or will not be claimed, as the claim is probably inevitable.  But, there are calls for the cessation of government funding being made by those people one would expect would make such calls, and NPR is being defended by those people one would expect would defend it in these circumstances.  Such is the predictable nature of our politics here in the United States, Rome's rather unlikely successor in today's world.

This latest circus is another indication of how very difficult and sometimes perilous it has become for any person, but especially public figures of any kind, to engage in discourse.  One of the reasons for this is obviously the fact that anything of a vaguely controversial nature which is recorded will be transmitted almost instantly all over the world, and have all sorts of ramifications.  Another reason, I'm afraid, is the fact that everyone has become a censor or potential censor.  Self-righteousness--the most despicable human characteristic, I think--has descended upon us in an almost pentecostal manner, and having received its fiery directive we are spreading out to note and condemn those with whom we disagree at every opportunity.

It is likely, whether we like it or not, that the nervousness referred to by Williams is shared by many others.  That's human nature, I think.  It shouldn't make anyone proud, and it's unquestionably regrettable, and even unjust.  But fear makes us irrational, and that irrationality is not limited to Williams.  His error, if error it was, was to admit he had such feelings on a popular TV show.

Self-righteousness played its part in his termination--there appears to have been nothing in the nature of a "there but for the grace of God" hesitance on  the part of the higher powers at NPR.  It seems that NPR was looking to part ways with him, and that may have played a part as well.  Self-righteousness is now playing a part in the condemnation of NPR, as are other things, most notably the desire to reap a political benefit. 

One wonders if there were different ways in which this incident could have been handled, and it's clear there were, and that it's likely that if there had been a little thought prior to action then we would not have to endure this latest irritating uproar.  But one also must wonder if we've reached a point where the honest airing of thoughts and feelings or reasonable resolution of disputes is even possible, now that words can be taken, in or out of context, and displayed for the world at large in an appeal for outrage to people all too disposed to outrage.