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An Intellectual Debt Owed to Cicero

2/10/2017

16 Comments

 
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​ By Olivia Pierson

The profound ignorance of philosophical and historical matters in modern politics today depresses me beyond words.  Politics is the fifth branch of a disciplined philosophy which covers the important human question: “In what way are men to be governed?”  A monarchy?  A republic?  An oligarchy?  A meritocracy? A timocracy? A direct democracy? A totalitarian state?  Anarchy?  History is literally littered with real life examples of all of these governing systems, yet the average voter now would be hard pressed to describe what any of them actually represent.

Someone recently asked me why I care so much about American politics and not so much about the politics of my own country.   In our New Zealand election two weeks ago, I nearly didn’t vote at all.  Nearly.

The reason for my interest in American politics is simple: small Western democracies such as New Zealand (and the rest) owe not only a philosophical debt to America that they are never honest enough to admit was ever transacted, but also a military debt. Because so many people today have such little interest in history, they remain militantly ignorant to the point that most Kiwis under 50 today are not even aware that only 70 odd years ago we were protected by America from the Japanese when Winston Churchill could not spare resources from Mother England to make sure we were not attacked by the Empire of the Sun, as Darwin was in Northern Australia.  We were literally a sitting duck, an indefensible island jewel of natural resources in the South Pacific, until America sent around 45,000 troops here to protect New Zealand civilian life in exchange for having an allied base from which to launch American attacks on the Japanese.

But I digress from my main topic.

Aside from this important detail of World War II, the philosophical debt Western democracies like NZ owe America has its roots originally in ancient Rome, planted firmly by Marcus Tullius Cicero, who died in 43 BC. 

It was Cicero who acquainted the ancient Roman people with the Greek philosophies of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.  It was Cicero who during his time on Earth wrote and spoke of the wisdom of the Greek philosophers and the knowledge they could impart to a Roman Republic, at a time when Romans had strong anti-Greek sentiments and had forgotten that they had learned everything worth knowing about republics from the ancient Greeks - just as the modern world today has strong anti-American sentiments and has forgotten that we learned everything worth knowing about democracy from the United States.

The 18th Century framers of the American Constitution: Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Hamilton, et al, drew heavily on the 17th Century Enlightenment thinkers: John Locke, James Harrington, Baron de Montesquieu and Algernon Sidney.  Those thinkers had drawn heavily on the 13th Century philosopher Thomas Aquinas, who drew from the writings of the ancient Greeks, especially Aristotle, and from Cicero - the man who delivered the Greek philosophers into readable Latin for the Romans (when Mary the mother of Jesus was not even an immaculate glint in her grandfather’s eye).

In 66 BC, the Roman Republic was already over 400 years old when Cicero, a consul of Rome, was considered one of its greatest statesmen as well as being an eloquent and prolific writer. He came from an ordinary equestrian family. Through the vehicle of practising law, he distinguished himself as an orator and rhetorician and became the most powerful defender of the Roman Republic version of governance in a time when the Republic was dramatically disintegrating into tyrannical rule via what would go on to become the cult of the Caesars; the end of the Republic and the beginning of an empire.

Cicero was not invited to partake in the brutal murder of his friend Julius Caesar on the senate floor because his colleagues thought he would disapprove.  He did not.  He quietly celebrated Caesar’s death because he equated Caesar’s rule with dictatorship.  He believed in the constitutional rule of natural law, laws that were in accordance with the nature of man:

   “True law is correct reason congruent with nature, spread among all persons, constant, everlasting. It calls to duty by ordering; it deters from mischief by forbidding. Nevertheless it does not order or forbid upright persons in vain, nor does it move the wicked by ordering or forbidding. It is not holy to circumvent this law, nor is it permitted to modify any part of it, nor can it be entirely repealed. In fact we cannot be released from this law by either the senate or the people. No Sextus Aelius should be sought as expositor or interpreter. There will not be one law at Rome, another at Athens, one now, another later, but one law both everlasting and unchangeable will encompass all nations and for all time.” [Cicero - On the Republic]
[Emphasis mine]


Some 1800 years later, Thomas Jefferson expressed the same idea when he wrote two years before the American Revolution:

     “A free people claim their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.”  [Thomas Jefferson - Rights of British America, 1774]

After Jefferson had twice served as President, he wrote in a letter to Henry Lee:

    “With respect to our rights, and the acts of the British government contravening those rights, there was but one opinion on this side of the water. All American whigs thought alike on these subjects.
     When forced, therefore, to resort to arms for redress, an appeal to the tribunal of the world was deemed proper for our justification. This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion.  [Emphasis mine]
     All its authority rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, etc..“ [Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Henry Lee, 1825]

John Adams, who had a particular fondness for Cicero, wrote:

    “As all the ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher united than Cicero, his authority should have great weight.” [John Adams]

Thus Cicero’s love for his dying republic was transmitted through the ages to the American Founding Fathers as they busied themselves creating a new one - a better one - not only for American citizens to flourish within, but also as an example to the whole world of what living under self-governance and true liberty would look like.  Their success was staggering evidenced by the fact that their  example is now the common, daily experience of all Western democracies today. 

​
But can it be preserved?

Without understanding our history of how we came about this radical idea of self-rule, whether one lives in NZ, Australia, England or America, I do not believe we can preserve it, for the condition of freedom requires knowledge and a tenacious spirit of vigilance - protecting that which is valuable, right and ideal is befitting of a free people.  But how can a free people protect what is valuable, right and ideal when they by volition prefer to remain ignorant of how we even came to have the immeasurable gift of hours, days, weeks, months, years and decades of liberty?

I refer back to Cicero to have the last word on this, since not only was he put to death under the new Emperor Octavian/Augustus (at the will of Marc Antony) - the Roman Republic was lost from that point on,  never to be revived again over the next 500 years of its existence as an empire, where it died on the doorstep of the new dark age of  Catholic theocracy.

    “Ancestral morality provided outstanding men, and great men preserved the morality of old and the institutions of our ancestors.  But our own time, having inherited the commonwealth like a wonderful picture that had faded over time, not only has failed to renew its original colours but has not even taken the trouble to preserve at least its shape and outlines.  What remains of the morals of antiquity, upon which the Roman poet said that the Roman state stood?  We see that they are so outworn in oblivion that they are not only not cherished but are now unknown.  What am I to say about the men?  The morals themselves have passed away through a shortage of men; and we must not only render an account of such an evil, but in a sense we must defend ourselves like people being tried for a capital crime.  It is because of our vices, not because of some bad luck, that we preserve the commonwealth in name alone but have long ago lost its substance.” [Cicero - On the Commonwealth]

That’s Cicero’s eloquent way of saying “where have all the real men gone?”

OK, I’ll let myself have the last word after all…

I recently stood in Rome and gazed in wonder over the ancient ruins of the Roman Forum where the glorious senate once gleamed in white marble, where Cicero himself frequently orated, where Julius Caesar was stabbed to death.  This haunting, melancholic question was with me all the while I looked: “how did all this come so irretrievably undone?”

I believe Cicero has answered this for me.  The commonwealth lost its substance through failing to bring forth outstanding men to preserve the morality (wisdom) of its founders.  To preserve the morality of a civilisation’s founders requires an acute knowledge of history. 

​
The people in my country today are not even knowledgeable about who helped to preserve us right here on our own soil only 70 years ago, but they are frightfully knowledgable about the correct pronoun - which is not even in the English language -  to use when addressing some confused weirdo who is taking powerful drugs to make the transition from one sex to another.


​ 
If you enjoyed this article, please buy my book "Western Values Defended: A Primer" ​


​

16 Comments
Don McKenzie
3/10/2017 09:29:21 pm

First Class essay. ( I have a library and a garden).

Yes a knowledge of history is so important and in my opinion American politics is much more important than our own at the moment.

The observation of the debt that we owe to America apparently of no consequence to people who should no better is depressing.
Having lived as a child through WWII I well remember the great apprehension of my elders and the relief when the Americans landed. (We knew of the atrocities committed in China, Singapore and the Dutch East Indies )

Yes we do need the wisdom of Cicero.
Great post.
D

Reply
Olivia
3/10/2017 10:29:26 pm

Thanks for your comment Don. I really appreciate the memories of those closer to that time period. What a thing to have lived through.

Reply
Olivia
3/10/2017 10:30:32 pm

P.S - A library and a garden? You are a rich man! :-)

Reply
Andrew Jones
4/10/2017 03:32:16 pm

Thank you for writing this excellent essay. It is a perfect antidote to the conservative claim that America is a Judeo-Christian nation!

Reply
Mike Gemmell
4/10/2017 06:01:08 pm

An outstanding essay, Olivia. I learned much from it. I would like to offer some hopeful words concerning the point you make about understanding our history. I did not enjoy history in school, and I now know why: in the U.S. they make little effort in the public schools to teach things in sequence. One might study the explorers of the New World in one semester and the Roman Empire the next. Done in this fashion, history is just a bunch of disconnected facts and few can make sense of it. To be properly taught, it must be presented in chronological sequence from ancient times to the present. I learned to love history years later as I put things together on my own. Although I enjoyed that process, it was rather time consuming and one few adults have the time for.

History can be properly taught in the schools, and I know at least one school, the Van Damme Academy (vandammeacademy.com) in southern California, that does that. In my opinion, their approach to history, and every other subject for that matter, is precisely what is needed to educate young minds to systematically develop their rational faculty and independent reasoning in every area, including a firm grasp of history.

Although it is only one school, with skillful use of the Internet and modern communication vehicles, I believe its methods can be widely distributed and, hopefully, one day emulated by other interested parties. Also, for adults who wish to educate themselves in history, I highly recommend The Great Courses DVDs (thegreatcourses.com) on the numerous eras of history that they cover. They recruit the top 1% of instructors in the U.S. and I have found every course that I have taken to date (history and otherwise) to be uniformly of very high quality.

Reply
Olivia
4/10/2017 08:16:16 pm

Thanks for that Mike - good to know there are a tiny handful (if that?) of schools that consider historical education so important.

I truly think civilisation hangs on this point.

I went to your website by the way, Restore Our American Republic... it is magnificent. Salute!

My only quibble would be to not promote Yaron Brook in any way. He is a disgrace to the philosophy he represents and is hysterical with his Trump Derangement Syndrome and advocation of open borders etc. He was advising people to vote for the crooked Hillary in last year's election. That is a man who cannot think clearly or morally about politics.

If he cared about not pulling down the prosperous or successful he would self censor his relentless attacks on Trump, who is the nearest thing you guys have to a President who will act to restore the American Dream. I cannot make this point loudly enough.

Reply
Mike Gemmell
5/10/2017 07:24:42 am

Thank you, Olivia. I assume your reference to Yaron Brook and my promoting him is where I reference a book he co-authored? If so, I plead guilty to that infraction, but not to the larger issue of promoting him and ARI in general. To put it politely, I do not care for the organization at all, although I do buy their valuable reference materials from time to time. He and ARI are seriously flawed in their methods and outlook, and I would never give an explicit endorsement of either of them. However, I don't know how to reference an important idea/work where he is involved without at least mentioning his name. If I don't do that, then I'm plagiarizing his work.

As time goes on more people will be drawn to the Atlas Society rather than ARI because of the reasons you indicate, not to mention the irritating arrogance of too many of the ARI leaders. ARI will then have the choice have facing their own internal problems or continue to wither on the vine. Thank you again for your comments and valuable feedback.

Peter
4/10/2017 08:01:50 pm

You complain about ARI but you lack the courage to confront my posts deleting them on the quiet rather than answering something that makes you uncomfortable. Cicero died for the truth yet you run from it like an ARI droid.

Reply
Olivia
5/10/2017 11:10:27 pm

Mike, yes was referring to the book he cowrote, I didn't scroll through the entirety of your whole site. :-)

Reply
Peter
6/10/2017 01:11:51 pm

Where is your offensive attack? Without a strong ideology to rally the "good" the "bad" wins out. You criticize but where are your solutions? Of course, you will delete this because the truth of it threatens you! You can escape reality but you can't delete it

Reply
Mike Gemmell
6/10/2017 01:55:16 pm

Peter, Although Olivia is perfectly able to address comments such as yours, I hope she will forgive me for making a response of my own. You're basically ranting here with only oblique references to the actual essay she wrote. The topic was the importance of history of philosophic/political ideas to today, and being aware of that history as a first step is her solution for some of the world's ignorance to the causes of problems that we are currently facing.
You then make some vague reference to the "good" and "bad" which really has little to do with her essay. Yes, there are good and bad people in the world, but there are many who are misinformed and can be reached by those who have the ability to ask and answer questions in a non-inflammatory matter before jumping to unwarranted conclusions and judgments-- such as you have done here.
It is clear that you are upset about the conditions of our world and frustrated about wanting to see reforms take place. I can sympathize with that sentiment. However, no one will take you seriously if you go off on unwarranted rants as you have here. I strongly suggest the next time you wish to comment on a blog post or essay, have someone else review your response before posting it. And, preferably, it should be someone with a somewhat different viewpoint than your own. That way you will have the opportunity to defend your response before posting it as you have done here and save yourself some embarrassment.
If it is any consolation, and speaking from personal experience, it takes a long time to write/critque in a manner that is clear and thought-provoking. Practice--usually a great deal of it-- is necessary. You NEED practice and constructive feedback from people before you enter responses to essays such as Olivias. I KNOW outstanding writing when I see it, and she is an outstanding writer. That doesn't mean she is perfect, but your starting point with her, at least in my opinion, is to recognize you are writing to an outstanding professional and should act with some measure of respect, which she has definitely earned.

Reply
Olivia
6/10/2017 04:16:06 pm

Thanks Mike, for your kind defense of me which is so very refreshing.

"Peter" sends comments to my site all the time using different pseudonyms, sometimes even posing as a woman. Sometimes he is polite, sometimes he is unspeakably foul and abusive - he knows what I'm talking about. He is schizophrenic on the best of days, and mostly comes here to post about what is going on Solopassion.com - he's an avid reader of that site, but has not the courage to post there and deal with the formidable Lindsay. Hence he trolls here.

I owe no one a platform for their freaky anonymous weirdness.

Reply
Peter
6/10/2017 07:56:15 pm

Mr. Gemmell

You wouldn't know what I was referring to because she deleted my previous posts. I assume you are familiar with Rand and thus you will know how critical she was of the conservatives who opposed but had no strong ideology that could defeat the "bad." If you know the history of Lindsay and SOLO all they do is fight. In all the years of their existence they can show no positive achievements. On the other hand, Lindsay is at constant war with somebody, the present target Yaron Brook. The whole history of Lindsay is war.

My words to her were simply a reminder that Solo has no offense. That you with your limited knowledge of the situation reify my one post that she didn't delete into a "rant" is nothing more than an attempt to create reality with words.

I have to laugh at your patronizing advice as if I was a Objectivist novice. The reality is I am close to 80 years old and very experienced in the Objectivist world.

Along with this, Olivia's accusations against me come from her head and not reality. I hate "foul and abusive" language and have never posed as a women or others. With all the enemies Lindsay and Olivia have my supposed "schizophrenia" could be a very real payback by the army of people who have fought with Lindsay.

Perhaps your post was an attempt to please Olivia, the outstanding writer. In this, I agree with you. She has a great deal of talent and writes very well. But in the end, without a strong ideological program rooted in the culture, the future will be more of the same.

Reply
Olivia
7/10/2017 02:30:19 am

"Peter":

You have shown yourself, once again, to be morbidly obsessed with Lindsay, as all your posts to me have been. Here's a reality check for you and your schizophrenia - this is not Lindsay's site. He never comes here and he and I are not the same person.
Unlike me, he does not block anyone, so why do you not go to his site, the one you read everyday, and spew your ramblings to his face? I assure you, he will be far more tolerant of your antics than I am.

Reply
Ron
20/8/2018 08:49:59 pm

Olivia - thank you so much for this inspired and inspiring article. It will be filed in my 'Politics and Ayn Rand' for my future reference.

Reply
Olivia
21/8/2018 12:18:15 am

So glad you enjoyed it Ron.

Reply



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