Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Pericles' Funeral Oration, paragraph 6





 'Φιλοκαλοῦμέν τε γὰρ μετ' εὐτελείας καὶ φιλοσοφοῦμεν ἄνευ μαλακίας· πλούτῳ τε ἔργου μᾶλλον καιρῷ ἢ λόγου κόμπῳ χρώμεθα, καὶ τὸ πένεσθαι οὐχ ὁμολογεῖν τινὶ αἰσχρόν, ἀλλὰ μὴ διαφεύγειν ἔργῳ αἴσχιον. ἔνι τε τοῖς αὐτοῖς οἰκείων ἅμα καὶ πολιτικῶν ἐπιμέλεια, καὶ ἑτέροις πρὸς ἔργα τετραμμένοις τὰ πολιτικὰ μὴ ἐνδεῶς γνῶναι· μόνοι γὰρ τόν τε μηδὲν τῶνδε μετέχοντα οὐκ ἀπράγμονα, ἀλλ' ἀχρεῖον νομίζομεν, καὶ οἱ αὐτοὶ ἤτοι κρίνομέν γε ἢ ἐνθυμούμεθα ὀρθῶς τὰ πράγματα, οὐ τοὺς λόγους τοῖς ἔργοις βλάβην ἡγούμενοι, ἀλλὰ μὴ προδιδαχθῆναι μᾶλλον λόγῳ πρότερον ἢ ἐπὶ ἃ δεῖ ἔργῳ ἐλθεῖν. διαφερόντως γὰρ δὴ καὶ τόδε ἔχομεν ὥστε τολμᾶν τε οἱ αὐτοὶ μάλιστα καὶ περὶ ὧν ἐπιχειρήσομεν ἐκλογίζεσθαι· ὃ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἀμαθία μὲν θράσος, λογισμὸς δὲ ὄκνον φέρει. κράτιστοι δ' ἂν τὴν ψυχὴν δικαίως κριθεῖεν οἱ τά τε δεινὰ καὶ ἡδέα σαφέστατα γιγνώσκοντες καὶ διὰ ταῦτα μὴ ἀποτρεπόμενοι ἐκ τῶν κινδύνων. καὶ τὰ ἐς ἀρετὴν ἐνηντιώμεθα τοῖς πολλοῖς· οὐ γὰρ πάσχοντες εὖ, ἀλλὰ δρῶντες κτώμεθα τοὺς φίλους. βεβαιότερος δὲ ὁ δράσας τὴν χάριν ὥστε ὀφειλομένην δι' εὐνοίας ᾧ δέδωκε σῴζειν· ὁ δὲ ἀντοφείλων ἀμβλύτερος, εἰδὼς οὐκ ἐς χάριν, ἀλλ' ἐς ὀφείλημα τὴν ἀρετὴν ἀποδώσων. καὶ μόνοι οὐ τοῦ ξυμφέροντος μᾶλλον λογισμῷ ἢ τῆς ἐλευθερίας τῷ πιστῷ ἀδεῶς τινὰ ὠφελοῦμεν.

We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy; wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it. Our public men have, besides politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still fair judges of public matters; for, unlike any other nation, regarding him who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as useless, we Athenians are able to judge at all events if we cannot originate, and, instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all. Again, in our enterprises we present the singular spectacle of daring and deliberation, each carried to its highest point, and both united in the same persons; although usually decision is the fruit of ignorance, hesitation of reflection. But the palm of courage will surely be adjudged most justly to those, who best know the difference between hardship and pleasure and yet are never tempted to shrink from danger. In generosity we are equally singular, acquiring our friends by conferring, not by receiving, favours. Yet, of course, the doer of the favour is the firmer friend of the two, in order by continued kindness to keep the recipient in his debt; while the debtor feels less keenly from the very consciousness that the return he makes will be a payment, not a free gift. And it is only the Athenians, who, fearless of consequences, confer their benefits not from calculations of expediency, but in the confidence of liberality.

This, to me, is the heart of the oration, at least for those of us who hear it, not as vindication for fallen loved ones, but as an epitome of the Greek spirit.

Implied here are the repudiation of conventional attitudes.  "Φιλοκαλοῦμέν τε γὰρ μετ' εὐτελείας...."  We are lovers of beauty in a right proportion.  "...φιλοσοφοῦμεν ἄνευ μαλακίας."  We are lovers of wisdom ("philosophoumen") apart fromt softness.   The Ancients were not alone in the assumption that there's something unbalanced about loving beauty, something not quite manly about philosophy.   Pericles is meeting those assertions head-on.

That poverty is no disgrace, and keeping to oneself is...this is the spirit of Athens, a collective spirit, but a collective that values, indeed demands, individual talent (when not taken too far outside the norm).

 In again praising "daring, "τολμᾶν," Pericles is drawing a contrast with the Spartans, whose counsels, detailed time and again in the History, value carefulness above all else.

Finally there is the boast about the Athenians' superior use of friendship, based on a calculating usefulness to others.

The whole paragraph breathes an air of confidence born of a self-assured superiority, a surface disclaiming of expediency that can't help but appear hiddenly and rather hypocritically manipulative.

This, then, is the fruit of daring and deliberation, a source of our endlessly-talking, ceaselessly innovating civilization. It is a commitment to restless improvement, not conservation of the way we live now.  Untouched as yet by the Christian concepts of faith, hope and love, it can't help but suggest a dangerous hybris, a pride that indeed is going before a fall in very short order.

And again I ask the question I still can't answer:  Is Thucydides celebrating it, or relishing the last gasp of a splendid illusion?




Different equalities


Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, Egalitarian

A month or two ago I finally finished Robert Kann's History of the Habsburg Empire, 1526-1918.  One of the reasons I say I "finally" finished it is that, frankly, it was kind of a dull read.

But this post isn't so much about German history as a train of thought begun by the following from Kann's history:

"To him [the Emperor Joseph II] the measures taken against discrimination meant the first step toward complete equality.  For that reason he wanted minorities to be protected, whether he respected them as he did the Protestants or disdained them as he did the Jews.  Nevertheless, he wanted to raise their standards after his fashion by legislation similar to the Tolerance Edict.  To him, equality under the law to decreed and enforced by an absolute government was not a matter of sentiment but of utilitarian rationalism.  To the extent that this rationalism ran in many respects counter to the feelings of the majority of his subjects, the absolute character of government had to be strengthened....Egalitarianism and absolutism may have been a strange mixture even in the eighteenth century; in the nineteenth century in the era of constitutional government, it appeared paradox.  Just the same, it is the decisive factor, which differentiates the idea of Josephinism from that of mere adherence to the German-directed, centralized bureaucratic state."

The idea of equality is undoubtedly the most potent in American political and legal rhetoric, from "All men are created equal" to "the equal protection of the laws."  But its application can be hightly problematic.

Equality is, to begin with, a metaphor.  Literally, equality is a mathematical relationship between two quantities.  And to the extent that any characteristic of human beings may be quantified--height, weight, age, I.Q. (questionable, I know)--there is certainly no empirical, measurable equality between all human beings in the literal sense.

And of course that's not really what we mean by the term.  On a first pass we might say that we mean that all people should be treated alike.  That's good as far as it goes, but of course a moment's thought shows we don't really believe that.  I treat my own children differently from others' children, and no one thinks that that's an offense against equality.  I am not treated in the same way, I don't have the same authority as the President of the United States.  That is one example from a whole extensive system of hierarchy and authority that is universally and largely-unthinkingly accepted, rightly, as just, even though in fact it's hardly consistent with the notion that all people should be treated alike.  Likewise, we treat convicted thieves differently from those who are not thieves.

Does this sound trivial or ridiculous?  Maybe.  But it seems important to occasionally acknowledge that our entire social, legal and political worlds consist of detailed guidelines for to how to treat people differently (or how to, using a loaded word, discriminate). The criminal law tells us which people must be punished.  The law of torts tells us which harms people will be held responsible for (and which harms are overlooked).  The law of property tells us who may or may not cross that sacred boundary between meum and tuum.  We cherish equality above all else in our rhetoric, but we swim in an ocean of distinctions and privileges that we hardly acknowledge.

An example:  the recent political conflict over whether relationships between people of the same sex should be considered marriage--at least before it was removed from the ordinary democratic process--was largely waged in terms of whether the law should embrace "marriage equality"--except that, of course, marriage in the law is a personal status which carries distinctive rights and duties.  The law of marriage in a fundamental sense has as its purpose the maintaining of a distinction between the married and the unmarried.  And in fact no one really wanted to end that fundamental discriminatory division, only move one relatively small group over the line, from one side to the other.

So, the more I think about it, the notion of equality seems, if not empty, at least arbitrarily malleable.  Yes, of course, persons similarly situated should be treated the same.  That principle of equity is about as old as the law itself.  The norm that legislation should be of general application, that courts publish opinions and follow precedent, are results of that same principle. But the substantive question of whether two persons, two actions, two relationships are in fact similarly situated is the real heart of the matter.  The demand for equality merely frames the question; it doesn't provide an answer to whether two things are so similar that it would be unjust to treat them differently (or so dissimilar that it would be unjust to treat them identically).

Josephine equality was, in essence, the dilution of manorial jurisdiction in favor of Hapsburg absolutism.  It brings to mind the old saw about the Ottoman Empire, that all men were equal, because all were equally slaves of the Sultan.    I do not say, of course, that equality, in the old sense of equity, is not fundamental.  But it can obscure if appealed to with an unspoken implication that any differentiation whatsoever is necessarily unjust.

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Rursus facere Romam magnam




Hoc ut facilius diiudicetur, non uanescamus inani uentositate iactati atque obtundamus intentionis aciem altisonis uocabulis rerum, cum audimus populos regna prouincias; sed duos constituamus homines (nam singulus quisque homo, ut in sermone una littera, ita quasi elementum est ciuitatis et regni, quantalibet terrarum occupatione latissimi), quorum duorum hominum unum pauperem uel potius mediocrem, alium praediuitem cogitemus; sed diuitem timoribus anxium, maeroribus tabescentem, cupiditate flagrantem, numquam securum, semper inquietum, perpetuis inimicitiarum contentionibus anhelantem, augentem sane his miseriis patrimonium suum in inmensum modum atque illis augmentis curas quoque amarissimas aggerantem; mediocrem uero illum re familiari parua atque succincta sibi sufficientem, carissimum suis, cum cognatis uicinis amicis dulcissima pace gaudentem, pietate religiosum, benignum mente, sanum corpore, uita parcum, moribus castum, conscientia securum. Nescio utrum quisquam ita desipiat, ut audeat dubitare quem praeferat. Vt ergo in his duobus hominibus, ita in duabus familiis, ita in duobus populis, ita in duobus regnis regula sequitur aequitatis, qua uigilanter adhibita si nostra intentio corrigatur, facillime uidebimus ubi habitet uanitas et ubi felicitas.


That this may be more easily discerned, let us not come to nought by being carried away with empty boasting, or blunt the edge of our attention by loud-sounding names of things, when we hear of peoples, kingdoms, provinces. But let us suppose a case of two men; for each individual man, like one letter in a language, is as it were the element of a city or kingdom, however far-spreading in its occupation of the earth. Of these two men let us suppose that one is poor, or rather of middling circumstances; the other very rich. But the rich man is anxious with fears, pining with discontent, burning with covetousness, never secure, always uneasy, panting from the perpetual strife of his enemies, adding to his patrimony indeed by these miseries to an immense degree, and by these additions also heaping up most bitter cares. But that other man of moderate wealth is contented with a small and compact estate, most dear to his own family, enjoying the sweetest peace with his kindred neighbors and friends, in piety religious, benignant in mind, healthy in body, in life frugal, in manners chaste, in conscience secure. I know not whether any one can be such a fool, that he dare hesitate which to prefer. As, therefore, in the case of these two men, so in two families, in two nations, in two kingdoms, this test of tranquility holds good; and if we apply it vigilantly and without prejudice, we shall quite easily see where the mere show of happiness dwells, and where real felicity.


from St. Augustine, The City of God, Book IV, Chapter III