Reading Dan Rosolini’s book “Cato the Younger: Rome’s Last Republican”, one can’t avoid thinking about today’s events. The sad state of our politics, where those in the national administration have lost all sense of decency.
Virute, the old-fashioned and passe ideal of decent households, has long been dismissed as a weak, outdated, and useless principle. Nobody (nearly) thinks that seeking a virtuous life is a good idea. And, of course, the modern way to dismiss virtue is by saying that nobody knows what virtue is and what a virtuous life would look like. But, of course, we know. Philosophy in general, and Stoic Philosophy in particular,
We have a long history of clarification. Virtue is the cardinal compass that guides the good life. Based on “justice, courage, temperance, and wisdom” as the four pillars that sustain it. Without getting into a long and convoluted semantic analysis of these words, we can say that they are generally understood, and they are clear guides for virtue. Legislators have based their decisions on these values and written laws that put into practice these principles. Yes, we have had laws that are not just, but with time, these laws are replaced by better, more just laws.
When a society gets to the point when laws don’t matter, that some are above the law that society is at the brink of breaking appart, at the brink of ending as an organized entity. That happened two thousand years ago when the Roman Replublic ended and the Roman Empire commenced. Dictatorships are the replacement of Republican Democracies, and the law now is prescribed as an individual (the dictator) capricious desires.
Looking back at history can distort the timing of events. Nothing happens suddenly. There is a. long process, many times impercetible. But looking back we now that it did happened. Cato the Younger new that it was happening and he took a personal decision. He asked himself if life is worth living under a dictatorship. His, well known, answer was no. We know, as narrated by Plutarc, that Cato the Younger was incorruptible and he proved it with his own life.
We might not have to live to the same standards, but more recent history, say the 1940s demonstrate that we might not have a choice. Then the question I posse myself is: What will I do?
David J Terrell 