Classical History, Modern Conspiracies
I wasn't aware until recently that twcenter has such an active politics forum, so I thought I'd bring over a few entries of mine from Dailykos for some discussion here.
Obviously, a lot of people here are passionate about politics and history so I hope for some lively discussion.
This particular series will look at conspiracies, politics, historical methodology and philosophy, both ancient and modern.
And now without any furtherting:
Going through C-SPAN's video library this weekend, I'm starting to remember how little Americans used the word "empire" or accepted the concept that America was a kind of new, Roman Empire before 2001, though the writing was on the wall well before the official disintegration of the Soviet Union.
I'd like to start a series on history and historical consciousness on the Kos, it will be extremely dry but also extremely informative I hope. I'm pretty well read on classical history, political philosophy and I keep a close watch on current affairs so most diaries will probably come off as being educational with a few comparisons to present issues.
It (global hegemony) was talked about in the aftermath of the Cold War, and the American people got a few glimpses of what our new military and commercial ventures would be as we bombed Yugoslavia and capitalized the Russian economy, but the new reality had not quite taken hold of the polity and would not until 2001. Iraq was a hostage state, starving in the desert and occasionally being whipped back into line with cruise missiles, Americans enjoyed economic prosperity as they had not throughout the 70's or 80's, there were distractions from serious revaluation of our position.
It wasn't clear what the costs would be, if any.
Vocabulary
Since that time, and due to our many "interventions" since 1989, we have devised every possible term to avoid accuracy and clarity on our standing in the world.
Hyper-power, World's Sole (or Last) Superpower, Great Satan, City on a Hill, Policeman of the World, Humanity's Last Best Hope, etc...
All these terms dance around the reality that America is an imperial power solely by virtue of her material and martial prosperity, or at least an imperious power, and thus America is an empire in the oldest sense of the word, older than the Roman concept even, and more akin to the Athenian Alliance.
America possesses, and has always possessed, an expansionist impulse, ideologically, financially, and materially, and since at least the end of the Second World War, America has also demonstrated a desire to subjugate or control the lives of other nations and people to preserve order according to our tastes, albeit without investing conquered or allied people with the full rights of American citizenship.
Which is to say, hundreds of millions of people around the world are subject to the control and protection of the American people, yet they have no functioning legal framework with which to address grievances or differences or matters of civil liberty.
American troops, security forces and intelligence, are the primary protectors not just of the North American mainland, but of Europe, Japan, and Israel, and now Iraq as well.
How did we get to this point?
The British liked to say that they acquired their empire through a "fit of madness," which is to say, not by design.
Obviously, what passed for a sufficient explanation for their greed and desire to dominate is now obvious to us as a blatant lie and looking back through state documents and memoirs, it's clear that British colonialism was quite conscious of itself, even from the beginning.
I almost titled this entry "A History of Tinfoil Hats," because I want to discuss our misconceptions about another word, and about our government compared to every available historical example we have, Roman or otherwise, especially in terms of how power and wealth have, and have always, consolidated into the hands of an oligarchy in every imaginable scenario throughout history, but especially when imperial projects are pursued.
If we read history and make the assumption, as Ben Franklin did, that eventually a small group, or at least not society at large, will eventually control the levers of power, and will gain them through illegality, then we are naturally a conspiracy theorist.
I'm amazed at how we have banished that word "conspiracy" (a common, often-used legal description) from the public vocabulary, and insinuate that those who use it are facilitating cranks and crackpots who believe in Space Lizards and Demonic Bavarian Secret Societies.
If we reach that conclusion about the word "conspiracy" we might as well say, "well, we can't discuss the merits of a war because then we're just encouraging serial killers to speak out as well."
And if we stop discussing the merits, or drawbacks, of issues of war and peace, because the potential for killing might excite a few lunatics, how do we continue to function? How do we have dialogue or put anything into context?
The answer of course, is that we don't.
New-Old Definitions
The first thing we have to do when having any discussion is define our terms.
Conspiracy doesn't indicate Aliens, Lizardoids, or a Sadistic Global Elite, if you are incapable of dissociating those connotations from the word than you are just as infantile and more dangerously deranged than the person who ALWAYS associates those things with one another.
Nevertheless, I'm not going to use the word any longer, instead I'm going to use the words which the Romans and Greeks first termed to describe people who had intentions running contrary to legality and contrary to the public, or popular interest.
The Greeks described such people as oligarchs, as distinguished from aristocrats.
Aristocrats ruled well, deserved to rule, and did so within a legal framework, oligarchs ruled arbitrarily and were especially detestable if they had inherited their wealth and position, that is, if they were without any merit or distinction other than birth.
They were hated if they had gained power through foreign association or intervention.
The Romans used the word societas to describe a small group who was working illegally to undermine the functioning of government.
All societas were considered a threat to the people and the constitutional order, not just those which were kept secret, because allegiance to any faction, or party, or the process of organizing votes in any way that placed the public good behind party or factional interests and short-term, internal, political power gains, was considered a threat to legality and order, even a threat to the very survival of the Republic.
A Roman societas was not simply a social club as we would understand such a thing today, or a group composed of those with common political aims, like a think-tank or a non-profit, etc...
A societas was not affirmed until a blood oath had been sworn between all participants or until a blood sacrifice had been made. This was a vital detail as the Romans were an extremely superstitious and auspicious people.
Keep in mind that this practice is long before Aleister Crowley and all the nonsense about Satanism and blah, blah, blah, conspiracy theories, and so on. Satan did not yet walk the earth, in these days, he was still responsible for turning on the lights each morning in Heaven.
But the story of Julius Caesar reminds us that all participants were required to strike at least one blow, there were somewhere between 20 and 50 counted on his corpse, thus 20 to 50 men had affirmed and cemented a bond only after each had participated in this blood sacrament.
This is similar to how our own founding fathers pledged their wealth, lives and honor when signing the Declaration of Independence.
Wealth, livelihood and honor were considered to transcend government, in their eyes. In order to form a union which was subverting or transcending the law, men (and women) had to swear upon the elemental aspects of nature, or their own natures, and in accordance with popular religion or superstition. In either case it is the same thing.
The point of all of this ritual relating to subverting government and so on, is the understanding that when the laws of government are being ignored and an appeal to a higher type of justice is taking place, for which the laws cannot account, individuals must stake their existence on the line.
Factional allegiance and ideology is to be placed above legality and constitutionalism, even if that requires suicide, deceit, or murder. This practice is at least 2500 years old, it is a human behavior and it is a naturally occurring political behavior which must be taken into account.
People will die and kill and lie in order to further an "illegal" or "supra-legal" agenda and empower their faction despite the popular will or constitutional order. Always and everywhere and for all time, this fact is what contributes to the disintegration of democracies, mixed regimes and constitutions, and as these things go, so also goes civil defense, public order, and finally the entire polity itself.
The head sometimes rots first.
Perspective
So conspiratus ubiquitus unless of course, we are fervent believers in American exceptionalism and believe that the entire history of human relationships holds no lessons for us today, as many people do believe whether they admit it or not.
Academics have long discussed the concept of historicism, and this bears discussion.
Historicism is the belief that history is an inevitable march towards something and all of history can be understood as the ascendancy of the proletariat, a countdown to Jesus' return, and so on...
Radical historicism believes in a culmination of history, or a revelatory sense of history, or in an inevitable march towards progress, as in Fukuyama's ill-titled book "The End of History" where he proves the arrogance and the ignorance of that idea unintentionally.
Though many people might not subscribe to Marx or the book of Revelations, almost every single American believes that the human condition will inevitably improve as a result of technological and material advancements, i.e. through science.
Thus, if we view technology and science as leading the way towards comfort and perfection we tend to look down on history, or backwards.
History is something below us or behind us. The people discussed in history books are less than us or to use modern terminology they are less "realized" or "self-fulfilled" than we are in our infinite wisdom and prosperity riding our rocket-ship to material salvation.
I think it is this fundamental misconception of time and history, and human beings, that prevents us from making accurate historical comparisons and contextualizing ourselves, and we'll leave off there before taking the plunge into classical conspiracy theory, or rather, classical conspiracy history.
Before we attempt to do that however, we must teach ourselves not to look down on history and not to bring all the ridiculous connotations of our modern language with us, we also must not consider ourselves in an overwhelming position of superiority, or inferiority for that matter.
I don't expect many readers but I hope that anyone who wishes to discuss the history of rebellions, assassination, oligarchies and democratic governments will contribute.
Taking a longer view of current events and current affairs has never done anyone interested in politics any harm.
I'd love to start with the degeneration of the Roman Republic today but I have a feeling this is already dry, boring, and sleepy enough for the average palate. I'll try to incorporate clips from "Rambo," "South Park," and Broadway musicals, and pictures of kittens and puppies and lollipops if that will help anyone out.
Wait a second, no I won't.
UPDATE:
Since I managed to suck a few readers in and since it looks like it's a slow day on the Kos, I'm going to go ahead and start with the origins of the Roman Republic as compared with the origins of the American Republic, and by discussing those origins we'll also get into the origins of oligarchy and factionalism which was present in both foundings, i.e. the seeds of rebellion.
FOUNDING MOTHERS AND FATHERS
Kevin Phillip's came out with an excellent book not too long ago titled "The Cousin's War," which looks at the causes of the American Revolution in relation to religious and cultural identities that were largely first forged in England during the Glorious Revolution.
Similarly, to understand Rome one must look at the moral, political, and spiritual traditions which converged to form the people whom we simply refer to as "Romans."
They did not see themselves in this way, there were Romans, Albans, Etruscans, Greeks, Capuans, Samnites, Ligurians, and so on, just as John Adams didn't identify with Southern Plantation owners before, during or after the revolution.
Naturally, the ideas and methods of Adams differed from those of Hamilton, Washington and Jefferson, and the currents of political and moral sense in Roman society are no less disparate or antagonistic, if not more so. These supra-legal sensibilities, or perspectives, or values, are the foundation for the "permanent opposition" as we call it today.
Machiavelli points out, in his "Discourses on Livy" that Rome succeeded because while her first kings conquered, her later kings subdued the public under one religion. This is a fantastic lie, or rather, as he reveals later, Machiavelli knowingly deceives us.
The Roman people were religious, but their moral and religious traditions were quite different, and from these differences arose every difference in political viewpoint, wealth and conflict.
We can over-simplify the Roman religious, moral and political tradition, and the structure of government, into three essential strains: the Etruscan kings and kingship, the pious, simple, and superstitious Roman farmer, and the semi-Greek, coastal man of trade, industry, learning and commerce.
These three aspects of the Roman personality found expression in corresponding institutions within their government.
The high nobility controlled issues of war, strategy, ceremony and diplomacy, the broad, native, property owning class controlled the Senate, and the tradesmen, traders and speculators, controlled the General Assembly and issues of commerce and economic fluidity.
Similarly, in the United States at our own founding, we can find parallels with the Regal and aristocratic Jefferson and Washington, master diplomats in terms of ideology and ardent structuralists, the tenacious free-holder and self-taught lawyer Adams, who was something of an inconsistent yet fanatical libertarian, and the ultimate man of commerce whom they all equally detested and tried to keep away from power, Alexander Hamilton, who set up a power base of his own vis a vis the treasury, and by forging economic ties and coordinating finance, insurance and trade against static wealth and the war impulse.
Within the Roman tradition, they had a kind of love/hate relationship with the nobility and with positions of great power and prestige, as we do today.
After throwing off the yoke of the Etruscan kings, who were violent, chauvinistic and imperious, the Romans found that they needed to co-opt aspects of the vitality of kingship to make their government function efficiently.
It's also worth noting, that Rome was usually busy about self-defense and a number of Latin writers point out that common people will not follow anyone except a noblemen or a king into battle.
Such was the case with George Washington as well.
The Revolutionaries recognized that all the talk about bureaucracy and cabinet meetings and documentation was not very inspiring to the average soldier, and did not excite him to serve his country.
Instead he wanted two things: money, or the assurance of material comfort or gain for his participation, and a quasi-regal or noble figure to follow into harm's way; a natural leader.
The Romans preserved this ceremonial and martial function by appointing two consuls who ordered the business of the Senate, finalized it and also led the armies into battle.
Similarly, Washington and the presidency were conceived of along the same lines, the two things are intrinsically tied up together; Washington was to stamp the decisions of the Senate and sort out their quibbles wherever possible, he was also to legitimize their decisions to the people by his immense force of dignity, and let's not forget that he was General Washington, first and foremost, a real strategic leader who was to let the rest of the world know we could look out for ourselves.
And I will leave off there. I think that's more than enough to consider. I suppose I'll pick up where we're leaving off next time, with the political and moral perspectives of the pious, Puritan farmers, the Catos and the Adamses, the second of the three aspects of moral and political personality which will explain the tension of mixed-regimes, Roman and American, and the conflicts that eventually lead to overt and covert rebellion from one group or the other.
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Originally Posted by P.A.
