Read the Psalms, especially the Psalms of grief and complaint. You'll find more to go on there then you will from the pundits and the on-screen lawyers, much as you might want to believe them. Look at Jeremiah who is as relevant as anyone. Democracy is in exile, democrats are in survival mode, those of Color and minority status most of all. As I said, we should learn from themOddly enough (or coincidentally, if you prefer to believe in coincidence), I was reacquainting myself with Jeremiah the other day. The readings for the First Sunday of Advent include a passage from Jeremiah 32 (IIRC; you can check me in a month), so I decided to get the context by starting at the beginning.
Gonna keep up with that now. Suddenly it seems like a real good idea. Gotta pick up my volume of the Psalms, too. Good accompaniment to that book on monasticism I’m getting a great deal from.
"For one thing in particular I had learned from Plato and from philosophy, that certain revolutions in government are to be expected; so that states are now under a monarchy, now under a democracy, and now under a tyranny. When the last-named fate had befallen my country, and I had been debarred from my former activities, I began to cultivate anew these present studies that by their means, rather than by any other, I might relieve my mind of its worries and at the same time serve my fellow-countrymen as best I could under the circumstances. Accordingly, it was in my books that I made my senatorial speeches and my forensic harangues; for I thought that I had permanently exchanged politics for philosophy."
ReplyDeleteThis is from Cicero's de divinatione. He did in fact return to public life, but on orders of Marc Anthony (with the consent of Octavius) he was hunted down, cut down, and his severed arms nailed to the Rostrum in the Forum "to encourage the others."