I now have a footnote in my thesis citing Matt Yglesias and George W. Bush’s speech to this year’s Republican Convention. The footnote lurks in a chapter on the Philippics right now, although it will move, in the final showdown, towards the conclusion as I chat happily and not at all ominously about the problems of the existence of multiple understandings of political concepts in the Late Republic. Basically my line of argument, at the moment goes something like Cicero says so-and-so is a good citizen because the things that so-and-so has done benefit Rome, which begs the question of who gets to decide what actually benefits the Republic. Answer, pretty much no-one, they all just fight about it, which is all pretty much fine until someone rocks up with an army to back up their side. That someone in this case being Mark Antony, whilst Cicero, having attempted to push Antony out of Rome as a non-citizen ended up with his head and hands cut off and nailed up in public.
So this is me on Cicero on good citizenship: ”Nonetheless, this remains Cicero’s own understanding of the good citizen, not a universal one, and his tendency to define other understandings of political concepts, as wrong and dangerous for the Rome, rather than accept the possibility of their validity in a different understanding of the nature of the res publica precludes the opportunity for negotiation and compromise that might have enabled Rome to avoid civil war.”
I wrote that on Tuesday. Yesterday I was doing my usual trawl of the internet, being thoroughly entertained by the noise and comment coming out of the US election and especially the Republican Convention. It’s much more fun to watch when it’s not your political system that’s the circus.
This is a line from George W. Bush’s speech on Tuesday night: ”Fellow citizens: If the Hanoi Hilton could not break John McCain’s resolve to do what is best for his country, you can be sure the angry left never will.”
This is Matt Yglesias on that line: “The analogy between American liberals and Vietnamese Communists is extremely offensive. As is the analogy between criticizing McCain’s policy ideas and subjecting him to physical torture and imprisonment. As is the imputation of bad faith — that right and left can’t just disagree about what’s best for the country, but rather in Bush’s view the left is self-consciously pushing a bad-for-America agenda.”
What Bush is doing – and what his government and the Republican hierarchy (hello Karl Rove, especially) – has been doing is to make the left, personified in the Democratic Party into dangerous un-American criminals who have no place in American public life. It’s more than a little terrifying – especially if they win the debate. Of course if they don’t, they probably won’t end up with their heads on sticks. I’m not saying that that’s a shame, but I wouldn’t mind people being able to at least throw eggs.
