Plebeian Assembly
This morning it felt and smelt of fall. It was one of my beloved rainy mornings, and world seemed just a little sleepy; the streets were blessedly empty. A good way for any morning to begin.
Consternation was soon to follow. My roman history class shows every sign of being fascinating, but it has a problem which is rather difficult to escape on a college campus. my fellow classmates are all cynics, and they are searching hard for a theme they have been taught to seek in all history--a theme which has been given to them as the motive power of all historical events.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I mean class struggle.
None of them there seem to want to understand what made Rome great; they are there to figure out why it was not as great as purported, and why we are so much better. Nevermind that Rome boasted an average standard of living that was not to be matched again for 1400 years, or that they valued and perpetuated a form of government that has proved to be the only form which reliably provides freedom and liberty to its citizens.
Rome is evil because there are the rich and the poor, and the rich--as is the case in all history--wield the majority of the political power. It is demonstrably even more evil, because they were a patriarchal society; this is unforgivable.
One thing in particular that the class seems to be having difficulty with is the Roman ideals of duty and honor, and why they leave so much to trust. Why are Roman officials given such a tremendous amount of unchecked power. My classmates keep asking questions, and are almost disbelieving when the professor assures them that the system was almost never abused during the first 500 years of the Roman republic, and that Roman officials held their offices as sacrosanct.
They cannot understand why the Romans held their duty so high, and that is because Americans are not a particularly dutiful or responsible people anymore. And that, as would be noted by Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Machiavelli, and other great republican philosophers, is because we lack the Romans chief virtue and duty. Americans do not believe in the gods. Religion has been the source of moral vigor through all ages of men. Men should be good, because that is what the gods desire of them. De Tocqueville and Jefferson knew Americans must be religious for the system to work, they did not particularly care what religion, just so long as there was a system of belief to keep their desires in check.
The early Romans were extraordinarily religious; they did not go to war against obviously inferior enemies if the omens were bad; they subjected their judgements and actions to the portents of the gods.
Where there is freedom, freedom must be used well for the society to survive. Where the gods are the highest good, then their service must be a course of action which is esteemed among men. And where the gods--as is, again, almost universally the case--demand just and honorable action amongst men, then will the people be constrained to virtue, lest they lose place in the eyes of men and the gods.
In the eyes of the Roman Consuls, the good of the state, their families, and their own persons, was inextricably tied to their serving the desires of the gods; they did not abuse the offices, because they believed that the gods--and men who also fear the gods--would deal with them accordingly and also with their household.
These notions are very difficult for my class to grasp. The physically apparent is the real, not this god gobbledygook. Moral truths do not exist as abstract concepts, and the highest good is equality...which is not at all an abstract concept.
They expect the Roman officials to act in their own interests, but they fail to realize that the Roman officials believe that they are acting in their interests, because they place their highest interests outside of immediate physical goods and pleasures.
A concept most difficult for college students to grasp.
Consternation was soon to follow. My roman history class shows every sign of being fascinating, but it has a problem which is rather difficult to escape on a college campus. my fellow classmates are all cynics, and they are searching hard for a theme they have been taught to seek in all history--a theme which has been given to them as the motive power of all historical events.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I mean class struggle.
None of them there seem to want to understand what made Rome great; they are there to figure out why it was not as great as purported, and why we are so much better. Nevermind that Rome boasted an average standard of living that was not to be matched again for 1400 years, or that they valued and perpetuated a form of government that has proved to be the only form which reliably provides freedom and liberty to its citizens.
Rome is evil because there are the rich and the poor, and the rich--as is the case in all history--wield the majority of the political power. It is demonstrably even more evil, because they were a patriarchal society; this is unforgivable.
One thing in particular that the class seems to be having difficulty with is the Roman ideals of duty and honor, and why they leave so much to trust. Why are Roman officials given such a tremendous amount of unchecked power. My classmates keep asking questions, and are almost disbelieving when the professor assures them that the system was almost never abused during the first 500 years of the Roman republic, and that Roman officials held their offices as sacrosanct.
They cannot understand why the Romans held their duty so high, and that is because Americans are not a particularly dutiful or responsible people anymore. And that, as would be noted by Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Machiavelli, and other great republican philosophers, is because we lack the Romans chief virtue and duty. Americans do not believe in the gods. Religion has been the source of moral vigor through all ages of men. Men should be good, because that is what the gods desire of them. De Tocqueville and Jefferson knew Americans must be religious for the system to work, they did not particularly care what religion, just so long as there was a system of belief to keep their desires in check.
The early Romans were extraordinarily religious; they did not go to war against obviously inferior enemies if the omens were bad; they subjected their judgements and actions to the portents of the gods.
Where there is freedom, freedom must be used well for the society to survive. Where the gods are the highest good, then their service must be a course of action which is esteemed among men. And where the gods--as is, again, almost universally the case--demand just and honorable action amongst men, then will the people be constrained to virtue, lest they lose place in the eyes of men and the gods.
In the eyes of the Roman Consuls, the good of the state, their families, and their own persons, was inextricably tied to their serving the desires of the gods; they did not abuse the offices, because they believed that the gods--and men who also fear the gods--would deal with them accordingly and also with their household.
These notions are very difficult for my class to grasp. The physically apparent is the real, not this god gobbledygook. Moral truths do not exist as abstract concepts, and the highest good is equality...which is not at all an abstract concept.
They expect the Roman officials to act in their own interests, but they fail to realize that the Roman officials believe that they are acting in their interests, because they place their highest interests outside of immediate physical goods and pleasures.
A concept most difficult for college students to grasp.
This makes me think of the ancient Mayans and Aztecs, and other tribes that practiced human sacrifice.
ReplyDeleteIn Maya, the captain of the winning team of a game of Tlatchtli would be sacrificed to the gods. To us this may seem like a really good reason not to win, but to them it was a sacred duty, and an honour. We really don't have anything in modern America that can relate to that.