Thoughts and Reveries

I so enjoy chatting with informed and perceptive people. Their insights and observations on things are so often revelatory in both a surprising and pleasant manner.

Yesterday evening I was conversing with a good friend de rerum natura, so to speak, and while treating of the socio-political aspect of this world I mentioned a paragraph I’d run across while reading the biography Caesar by Christian Meier.

At first I found the book to be something of a slow and turgid go. But then I encountered a remark the author made which seemed to me to so closely mirror the contemporary nature of things that the parallel instantly came to mind.
In the late Republic the august and powerful of Rome (we’ll avoid such nasty terms as "venal" and "grasping") identified their own interests so closely with the established order, i.e. the Republic, that any criticism directed at them they regarded as an assault on the Republic itself. As a consequence of this, these people of power were willing to undermine the very order they claimed to protect in order to defend themselves. Thereupon followed Caesar, the Empire, unbridled tyranny, etc.

The current Administration and the powerful who own it claim to be the true inheritors and defenders of the freedoms which are the foundation of this nation’s political order. At the same time they are willing to abrogate those very freedoms in defense of their own interests. It is as though political liberties are too precious to be entrusted to the people. The privileged and the powerful tell (not ask) the rest of us free-born citizens to trust them to dispense our liberties to us as they see fit. At the same time they shamefacedly would have us believe that the blood of our children is being nobly shed. They prefer we believe this, rather than have us think that our loved ones are being led to the slaughter in furthering the greed and cynical avarice of the rich and powerful.

For shame.

There is no heroism in the sight a faceless, dismembered body lying in a splash of blood. Nor is there nobility in the screams of the torn and burning victims of battle. War is an obscenity. Period.
We should regard as heroes those who teach and nurture the young. The compassionate and caring, those who give of their strength to support and shelter . . . these are the people who deserve our praises and laurels. The mild and the merciful deserve our praise and emulation.

Imagine a happy world at peace, with no hunger, where those who hurt find healing and are comforted. And where those in need find mercy and compassion. We can make such a world, if we choose to do so. We are humankind, and we have been given the gift to craft such a world.

At times the world can be a hard and difficult place, it’s true. What with droughts and plagues and all manner of natural disasters. But despite these things the world is never heartless. It is only people who are heartless, and they must choose to be so. Even the most fearsome beasts do not kill to prove a point or in pursuit of abstractions. It is people who choose to create misery where there is no reason for it. Then they seek to justify their hatred and brutality by saying simply "That’s just the way things are", and think themselves clever in perpetuating this miserable philosophy.

But that's not the way things are. People choose to act in a way that perpetuates a world of hate and brutality.
Because it's easy to be cruel. It was easy to win the war. We're finding it far harder to secure the peace.

We must choose to live in such a way that it becomes easier to love than to hate. The choice, after all, is ours.

"You rant, my friend."

Ah, perhaps. But it's for a good cause. What a beautiful day. More wine?