Why Read Tacitus?

As I'm reading the Annals and Histories of Tacitus a few pages an evening I've decided to record why Tacitus is so important to us at the moment politically, historically, morally and personally.

1. Tacitus gives a careful and comprehensive picture of the early Roman empire. Seeing his picture enables us to better contextualize and understand current world events.

2. Tacitus is a sinuous and versatile prose master, even in translation, and thus a great teacher of how to speak, think and write.

3. Tacitus is the model historian, to be copied and defined against for all future tellers of true tales.

4. Tacitus really understands tyranny. To educate and reveal the abuses of absolute power, his vision is supreme, and a kind of negative picture of human liberty.

5. Tacitus sees with absolute clarity the differences between liberty and license, and the differences between civic virtue and private immorality. As such, he is in one book a citizen's education.

6. Tacitus is concerned with the nature of civilization as individual virtue. He constantly shows non-Romans as virtuous and noble free men, and Romans are savages, highlighting the reality of virtue as a property in men from all walks of life. He is truly cosmopolitan, concerned with civilization in its most intimate and personal reality as personal virtue. Thus Tacitus is a great moral teacher.

7. Tacitus gives one of the earliest non-Christian reports of Christianity, thus showing us a fascinating outside view of the young cult.

8. Tacitus gives an example of ruthless honesty in assessing one's birth culture, and how to maintain integrity throughout and avoiding alienating oneself from the culture.

9. Tacitus is a wisdom writer, giving the basic mentality of republican virtue in his words, ideas and personality, showing how one can be free even in the midst of a slavish society.

10. Tacitus is a great maker of sayings. For example:

"The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise."

"Crime, once exposed, has no refuge but in audacity."

"To show resentment at a reproach is to acknowledge that one may have deserved it."

"It is a principle of nature to hate those whom you have injured."

"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."

"Viewed at a distance, everything is beautiful."

"Men are more ready to repay and injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure."

10. For the first and last time in history the entire Mediterranean basin was united in one political unit during the time of Tacitus' histories, so his work is a unique and primary insight into the management of large enterprises such as are commonplace today. Tacitus himself served in this organism as consul and governor.

11. Other than Suetonius and Dio Cassius, both considered inferior historians compared to Tacitus, his is the only history of this key period of time to come down to us mostly intact, and it is said to be by far the best of the three.

12. Critics may equivocate all they like, but Tacitus is self-evidently republican, oligarchical, humanist, and reason-centered. As such, he is an elder contemporary to the Founding Fathers of the United States and valuable as a teacher to the creators of the modern world. He is still relevant for these essential values.

13. Tacitus examines mass psychology alongside and in contrast to individual psychology, delivering acerbic judgements of both; his description of psychology remain powerfully accurate and instructive.

14. Finally, I can no longer see or read the news without seeing them through the eyes of Tacitus, who is the original scholar of dissidents everywhere, and I must record that tyranny is alive and well in the public media - a view which is all thanks to the tutelage of this long-ago Roman historian.

On Thucydides and the Peloponnese War History - A Rampage of Appreciation

Although I have reservations about the practice, I'd like to include some web links about Thucydides and his work on the History of the Peloponnesian War.

Here's two introductions to the topic for newcomers:

Squidoo lens on the Peloponnesian War.
Wikipedia on the Peloponnesian War.

Many folk try to convert Thucydides' work into a modern and specific political agenda. Or they try to divorce Thucydides from the Athenian context in some way. This kind of intellectual busywork abounds online because, firstly, if you have an agenda and can read, you can shoehorn Thucydides into it, and secondly, Thucydides is writing universal history, history for the ages, and the interpretations generally fall short of the book itself. But they are illuminating attempts, and sometimes shines a great light on the modern political realm by comparison with the smaller Thucydidean realm.

Iraq war opinion piece. - 'Thucydides: Ur-Historian of the Ur-War' (Great title!)

A really sensationally interpreted piece on the famous Melian Dialog - 'The rape of Melos: Thucydides as great thinker'.

A rather brilliant and austere analysis of the failure of Athenian democracy - 'Contemporary Analysis of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War'.

Much of the commentary for and against Donald Kagan's wonderful history of the Peloponnesian War is politically loaded and divisive, but nevertheless it shows up the precise corruption of language and manners which Thucydides analyzed in the fourth century before Christ. Here's the best:

'Thucydides = Spinmeister' by Neko Bijin. - superb and direct analysis. Especially read the comments.

Anthony Grafton in Slate's 'Did Thucydides Tell the Truth?' critiques Kagan rather than Thucydides.

Alan Gilbert at Democratic Individuality brilliant delineates the moderate position on public corruption using Thucydides in 'How public corruption happens - or Thucydides and the day by day removal of the word torture from New York Times' Reporting'.

Here's what seems to be a marvellously cogent take on Thucydides would-be perspective on the war on terror: 'Thucydides, Aquinas and the GWOT' which, alas, is cut short.

Here's a simply awesome re-vision of the passage in Book Three where Thucydides describes the breakdown in human nature after the Corcyran revolution: 'The Attribute of Manliness', by Eric Lippert.

Here's an earnest 'Lessons Learned from Thucydides' by a blog/person named Newrisks, connecting it with modern strategic war theory. He links to a superb pdf essay on the topic here.

Another contemporary crit of Thucydides vis-a-vis modern global politics: Herodotus vs Thucydides. argues against a narrow interpretation of Thucydides.

Now, against these temporal interpretations of interpretations of Thucydides, I want to contrast the scholarly lights of one Mike Anderson, whose fine web log on the ancients casts light in every direction without dispersing views into opinions.

'- The Greeks and their foolish attack of Syracuse'

- Pericles and the defense of democracy.

- The Peloponnesean War and its Causes.

- The Athenian Polis - Golden Age Decay.

I rate this weblog highly for its insight into the Thucydidean worldview. Because Mike doesn't form views unwarranted by the facts, nor does he tend to introduce modern political controversy, his views remain pristine and clear. He doesn't depart from the source of politics in ethics, it seems to me, and thus remains modest and humane in his views.

Finally, outside politics or perhaps meta-political, see the fine essay at Malaspina about the roots of our political thinking in Thucydides' mathematic worldview: Thucydides as Geometry. You need to scroll down to see it, but it's worth it for the insight into the way we think now.

For fun here's a few juicy quotes from Thucydides himself.

In conclusion, I suggest reading the primary author above these secondary and tertiary views. The work is illuminating in itself; the function of commentary is just to illuminate the primary text. If you read Thucydides now then I have here done my job well.

Reading the Jewish Book of Samuel, Part One and Two

I was delighted to read the two books of Samuel in the old testament in the last week, as part of my Great Books readings.

The two books form one story, which is the transition of the rulership of Israel from priestly judges to kings. One can assume this is the shift from oligarchy, or perhaps a federated tribal system, to a centralized monarchy.

In many ways the books of Samuel parallel the Annals of Tacitus when he writes about Tiberius. The same transition from a loose system of government to a focused one is taking place. But in the books of Samuel the transition is located in a kind of primitive mythical state of consciousness.

That is not to say the history is not good. Rather, the characters about which the history are written think in simple terms about complex issues. For example, time and time again, reading about Saul's psychotic jealousy and David's brutal and ruthless realpolitik, I find evidence of the most base desires and instincts in these folk heroes. And what are we to make of Jahweh himself, a character who seems at best whimsical? At times the god of the books of Samuel kowtows to the Israelites, and at other times he reacts with brutal unfairness. The Jahweh of the books of Samuel makes Homer's Zeus look positively humane!

In any case, the way the story is written is remarkable given its antiquity and coherence. I found it an enjoyable read somewhat similar to reading a Robert Jordan fantasy novel, and just as barbaric.

Some subjective impressions:

I keep wanting (as Harold Bloom adjures us) to admire King David, and finding in him nothing to admire beyond the machiavellian intrigue of a Renaissance head of state. I find his brutality disarming. Is this is the blessing of Jahweh, the mercy of the Israeli's? Obviously harsh times require barbaric measures, but more than once I find myself dismayed by David's ethical conduct.

Absalom is an sympathetic character. The tragic dimensions of father against son seem obvious to me, with Greek drama under my belt, but to the historians of old Israel they see only a harsh justice against he in whom Jahweh is not pleased. Absalom dies and David triumphs, but one cannot help but wonder what kind of king Absalom would have made instead of Solomon.

I notice the high quality of the story. Knowing the end of the story from earliest childhood, I cannot help but find these histories exciting reading. At times I try to reconcile this violent and primitive folk story with what I know of Jesus, and cannot. The books of Samuel fall so far short of the gospels as to be hardly of the same dimension of existence. Jesus is to David like salt is to sand; Christ accumulates on top of the ancient king's story without being at all the same as it.

A middle path between gradual reform and revolution in Australian politics.

Gradual reform is not working. Australia can manage her finances prudently by backing into a corner whereby corporations globalize or vanish into backwaters, but she cannot manage her politics that way. The only way is to turn around and take the bull by the horns. Australians need to come to grips with reforming capitalist democracy.

But the commonest middle path between reform and revolution is based on evolution. This posits a blind force which selects for advantage in the moment, thereby giving rise to advantage for the greater whole. But trusting nature leads to winners and losers. Nature to be compelled must be understood, and we can see through the eyes of evolution that change proceeds through disaster, stochastically by chaos, if we take the evolutionary route. This ought not be allowed to happen.

I want to suggest that evolution is not the mean between reform and revolution. I want to suggest evolution is a false friend, and a mimic of the true change we are seeking for. It is by asking for a new way to change we find it, because open questions reduce us to first principles. At the level of first principles we are equals, and that is where I propose to search.

Aristotle proposes an ethics as the basis of a politics. His Nichomachean Ethics follows directly before the Politics, and one echoes the other substantively. Putting aside the theory for a moment, the form itself teaches us that before we can presume on political reforms, we must be clear on what ethical reforms we might want to make to ourselves.

Confucius makes this point explicit when he states that in order to have a good country we most need to be a good child to our parents, a good parent to our children, a good spouse to our partner, a good worker to our business, and a good leader to our community. Practical politics starts and ends in every day ethics.

So the form of political reform must reflect real world and actual ethical reforms. Practical politics advances from hypocrisy to hypocrisy - we tolerate less the more civilized we become, and we must refine our brutal measures of control the more sophisticated we become. I should say, practical politics advances from brutal hypocrisy to cruel hypocrisy to invisible hypocrisy. There is nothing wrong with being a hypocrite - we all fall short, are only human, and can be trusted to let ourselves and others down sometimes. The ill is in failing to try.

Without ethical reform there can be no political reform - is this true?

If so, then ethical reform is the path of choice for capitalist democracy to move forwards.

Dan and I Visit Open Day At The South Australian Governor's House

Dan and I visited the governor's house on March 29 2009 and here are the most memorable aspects:

The governor of South Australia has lots of mirrors in his house. "Because," Dan says, "he needs to make sure he looks good all the time."

All the art is either distinguished portraiture or realistic landscapes. Why? We decided between us that it has been decorated by previous governors, with a consideration of the taste of future ones and the dignity of the previous ones; and if it is bland it is nevertheless in excellent taste.

We come across two unfortunate activist friends in the ballroom. Their suits are too tight; they seem puffed up a little with anxiety; unfortunately, their tight suits are matching green and maroon.

They show us their document, which is unintelligible. It asks immediately for something undefined for big group of people. It uses exclamation marks and the words "we demand". Like I said, unfortunate.

I hand it back and smoothly lie: "It's clearly written."

"It's been through many drafts," they tell us, "We're going to present it to the governor today."

Dan, fortunately, has noticed something shiny which requires we attend to it instead of arguing with fanatics. I reckon Dan's social graces make Michelle Obama's seem gauche.

Out in the yard a crowd of about forty tourists have gathered around a tree where two Kookaburras laugh. Other nations have governors' maisons galore, but no hilarious avians. The crowd is still there discussing the event excitedly when we leave.

The pool is meagre - private enough for a nudie dip, but not large enough for embarrasingly fatal set of swimming laps while drunk.

I spot the Great Books of the Western World in the main office, with great satisfaction. The office is roped and officiated.

"What does the governor do?" I ask the official.

He rambles about presiding over occasions requiring a show of pomp domestick. I nod until he lapses into silence, and for a few more seconds while he looks at me.

"He's a figurehead really," the official says sadly.

"And what," I ask, "does he symbolise? What values or ideas?"

He surprises and delights me by giving a really great reply:

"The governor symbolises the Westminster System of law. He stamps all the legislation that goes through State Parliament, just as the governor general stamps legislation through Federal Parliament."

"Cool.. thanks mate!" I tell him. His reply inspires me with considerable respect for the position of state governor.

Later Dan spots in the ballroom a little man in a shiny suit puffed up anxiously into his shoulders and chest half bowing as he shakes old ladies hands who cluster around in a dense cloud of perfume. Dan whispers "It's the governor!" and I spare him a glance.

But respect goes to principles not people. And I have already met the governor in my conversation with the official in the office.

'Mind Your Own Business' - How We Are All Living In a J.S. Mill World

John Stuart Mill wrote in 'On Liberty': "All that makes existence valuable to anyone depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the action of other people." This striking quote is a good entry point to Mill's consideration of freedom as a choice of what kind of coercion we submit to.

In Mill's life, I see that there are two forms of opinion:

1. Reasoned Judgments with evidence supporting,

OR

2. Love and passion backed with experience, true motive and practice.

JS Mill has both forms. But here is a man who lived a virtual world, feeling false passions, loving what he was always taught to love, and praciting his father's will until he fell in love. That he didn't abandon intellectual life altogether is a pretty grand drama to me.

The question which Mill seems to have lived is: what does theory look like in practice? What role does idea play in forming motive passions that infuse powerful opinions? From these questions arises the theory of representation and his (in my opinion) extreme views on liberty.

Mill's first principle: the only good motive for coercion is self-protection.

This is flat out useless as a practical standard of political power. The 'self' that is protected of a gang of thieves is not the same 'self' that is protected within a cloister of monks. 'Self' is a moving target, dependent on context for validity. So this rational ideal of coercion is only valid for rational agents. And, to be honest, rational agency is a little thin on the ground in human history so far.

Mill qualifies this standard by limiting it to those who can be convinced or pursuaded, but again... this is a hopelessly idealistic burden for reason to carry alone. Mill quite overrates the power of reason to effect pursuasion in my opinion - but this comes back to my enquiry on theory and practice, reason and passion.

Freedom that matters, for Mill: the right to go chasing your own unharming good in your own unharming way. This is the liberal enlightenment view of freedom without an end (telos), or freedom as an end in itself.

What is the latest application of freethinking liberal philosophy for Mill? I can sum it in four words: MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS.

From all this, I conclude that we are living in a John Stuart Mill kind of world. When I walk down the street and nobody says hello to me, that's because they are free not to. Courtesy and community are secondary or irrelevant. The key consideration of a liberal society is that you mind your own business.

This also accounts both for the intense sense of alienation in the West, on the one hand, and the strong sense of purpose and rational passion in Western liberal movements. All three of these qualities - the alienation, the passion, and the MYOB - are all essential traits of JS Mill's personality.

When I walk past a sloppy drunk, a glossy hiphopper, a neat businesswoman, a greasy mechanic, and more ethicities than i can name, with a perfect equanimity and complete indistraction from my own affairs - when I walk this way I see I live in the world of John Stuart Mill's imagining, from almost two centuries ago.

Contra Niall Ferguson and Moral Relativism

I watched Niall Ferguson's propoganda piece on the end of World War Two thisafternoon on SBS Australian TV. Ferguson takes the view of Primo Levi that the war was a "tainted victory".

This is a specious claim and a truism, not a wise judgment. ALL wars are tainted, victorious or otherwise, morally and emotionally, for both sides. War is tainted - so what?

Ferguson props his view up with poor Primo Levi's authority. Because Levi was a sophisticated intellectual with scientific training (he was a chemist), we impute the authority of good judgment to his views. But Levi's judgment is that of a suicide overcome with horror and despair - not of a survivor. Levi's view of the war is not just not good for life - it's anti-life. He willfully rejects facts that may make meaning of the event. You only have to compare Levi with Viktor Frankl's 'Man's Search For Meaning' to see that Levi left historical documents while Frankl left great literature as a result of the same experience of interment.

So Niall Ferguson is culpable of propagandizing this despairing view in his documentary. Let's look at his claims:

First: Bombing of civilians occured out of a desire for vengeance.

FALSE. Allied bombing arose from the practical need to break the will of the enemy. The Nazi bombing of civic populations was motivated by vindictive hate; the Allie motive was to end war.

Second: The Allied colluded with the evil reign of the Soviets at the end of the war.

FALSE: the Allies spent 40 years to defeat the Soviets after the war. (That was called the Cold War - remember?) In addition, starting a war against Russia immediately after defeating the Germans was not feasible; the Soviets were not an immediate threat, and we had no responsibility to save the Russians from their poor choices of governance.

The most evil aspect of Niall Ferguson's documentary is implied, because if it were clearly stated we would see its falsity immediately:

Ferguson implies that the Allies were morally no better than the Axis powers, that the atomic bombings were not preceded by the most painful and delicate moral deliberations; worst of all, Ferguson implies that human nature is inexplicably evil and without a reliable source of absolute goodness and truth in the world. It is this last implication that reveals Ferguson for the bleeding moral relativist, and really sinks his propaganda piece.

Because we are still here and alive, and for the most part happy and free, Niall Ferguson and his relativist crew are proven wrong.

A Chance Meeting In Aristotle After Buying Plato's Gorgias

“Corgi-arse” seems to be the correct pronunciation. I don’t suppose the ancient Greeks had Corgi-like dogs.

I got it from Mary Martins for 13 dollars. I read Polus’ lovely sentence in Gorgias on the way home on the train about art and experience versus chance and inexperience. I had a chuckle at Socrates’ generally inquisitorial tone. I don’t think our friend Socrates was a very nice man.

As it happens, I contemplate Socrates’ key idea every day: “Every man does the good, the trouble is that they don’t know what the good is, therefore humbly accept that you don’t know anything and live from there.” This idea is a brilliant summary of Socrates, but no-where yet can I find the precise formulation of it. It is all in parts, scattered across the Gorgias and other texts.

To my delight, when I got home I read the first few pages of Aristotle’s Metaphysics before falling asleep on the couch with it open on my chest. Aristotle happened to mention Polus’ speech. It was like running into a stranger who knows a mutual friend.

The pleasure of books is the acquaintance with the wise. The pleasure of thought is the acquaintance with your own self through mind. And the joy of philosophy is to go beyond thinking out of love of truth.

The Power of Primary Texts

If you want to learn philosophy, read Plato. If you want to learn metaphysics, rhetoric, politics, or psychology, read Aristotle. If you want to learn about reason and faith, read Thomas Aquinas.

Don’t settle for second best. Go to the source. Read the primary texts.

Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. You will probably be able to rediscover a few things on your own, but you don’t have twenty six centuries to consider them. Only fools, rebels, narcissists and young people try to go it alone intellectually. You have one life to live and wasting years on reproducing a conclusion you can learn from Plato or Aristotle is not smart. Start at the start with Plato.

Can’t understand the primary texts? Neither can I. But in saying that, we need to draw a distinction between two kinds of difficulty with these texts.

There are difficulties in primary texts that should be avoided, and difficultiesin primary texts that should be embraced.

The best way to show you this is give examples from my own experience:

In reading Plato’s Republic the first time I recognised that I wouldn’t be capable of understanding most of the middle books of the text without more effort than I was able to give the text this first reading. I learnt this from reading the introduction of the Penguin Classics version. This kind of difficulty is worth avoiding until I am more capable of comprehending them, and more motivated by a broader base of understanding. Had I ploughed through, I would have discouraged myself, then dispirited myself, then demoralized myself (had I kept going: I would have quit the moment I became dispirited rather than be demoralized).

Then there are difficulties with primary texts which are what Harold Bloom calls the “difficult pleasure” of a classic. Simply put, what some people might find a problem or a hassle, I find a stimulus and a challenge in these texts. The marvel of these texts is that on the other side of the difficulty is a stark simplicity that comes from their irreducible basic truth.

Intellectualism that does not respect and honour the past is snobbery and arrogance, and in fact fake or pseudo-intellectualism because it leads to circuitous ramblings which mainly appeal other to other poor people seduced by intellectual falsehood.

The basis for genuine intellectual ability is humility. Specifically, being humble enough to accept that most of the things you can usefully think have already been long since thunk by Mister Aristotle and Mister Plato!