Cicero on Generosity

A few of Cicero's thoughts on generosity.

"Whereas one's purse must not be tightly closed against every generous inclination, it must also not be opened so wide that its contents are available to everybody and anybody."

"Those who have got accustomed to being subsidized are bound to want more."

"Nothing wins so much gratitude and enthusiasm as generosity (applied with discrimination.)"

From On the Good Life, translated by Michael Grant, Penguin Classics edition.

Reading Cicero's "On Old Age" At Any and Every Age

by Robert M. Woods

Among the many readings that Dr. James Schall recommends, he places special emphasis on the value of reading Cicero's "On Old Age." Schall suggests that this should be read "preferably before old age." Starting this year, I am having my Great Books Honors students read this work and discuss it. We have already had a most enjoyable and fruitful conversation. Mind you that I am blessed to have fourteen, 18 year old Christian students who have actually read this work and genuinely desire to read such works and think through them together.

I asked them to consider the possible value of reading this work while being "so far from old age." The response was instant and verified the students had not only read it, they were engaged with the rich truths present. Even when Cicero speaks of that out dated notion of "character" (319), the students seemed particularly engaged.

As we moved beyond interpretation to actual application there were several fine suggestions of living out Cicero's assertion that the best preparation for old age is "culture and the active exercise of the virtues"(320). One of the dignified and courteous members commented that Cicero recognizes that preparation for old age is now. Cicero would be pleased.

These wonderful students did struggle with the notion of a "quiet, pure, and cultivated life" (321). Sadly, they recognize that the bulk of college life, including Freshmen orientation, tends toward the end of the spectrum of the loud, the prurient, and the spectacle. Some of these students will begin living the cultivated life despite college.

In a culture such as our's, it is hard to imagine Cicero's exhortation that "the great affairs of life are not performed by physical strength, or activity, or nimbleness of body, but by deliberation, character, expression of opinion" (323) actually being heard by college students. As I looked at the first three weeks of classes and saw "the busyness with which student services busy students" it occurs to me that God would urge them to follow His example. Even the busyness He imposes on humanity is inherently rhythmic and moderate. Leisure time for deliberation is yet to be placed in the schedule!

These delightful students noted the how Biblical Cicero sounded with the words, "You should use what you have, and whatever you may chance to be doing, do it with all your might" (325) Ecclesiastes 9:10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going and Colossians 3:23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men. It was not missed on their young but sound minds that Cicero, Solomon, and Paul may be talking about a similar idea, but they are talking a very different talk.

Of course there was some rich conversation (again, Cicero would be pleased) about the nature of nature in Cicero's essay and the distinctions between Cicero's view of death and that of a Christian living out hope in the resurrection of Christ. While there was acknowledgment that Cicero's view of pleasures (at times) sounds more like a fundamentalist, there are many things he says that can be redeemed as one aspires to "think Christianly" about these giants who came before us and did the ground work of the Great Tradition.

Dr. Robert M. Woods is Director of the Great Books Honors College at Faulkner University. This essay was originally published on Musings of a Christian Humanist and appears here with Dr. Woods' gracious permission.

A Conservatism of Hope: Response from the trenches

by John Barnes 

(A response to "A Conservatism of Hope? Still?")

"The greatest is love," we are told. "The most difficult is hope," we could also say.

The view from the public policy world is increasingly grim, I confess.  Mark Steyn, commenting on the sad ensemble constituting the GOP presidential field, captured the problem recently:

"It’s very depressing that in the debates so far there’s no sense, from either the questions or the answers, of the urgency of the situation. On every meaningful indicator, this country is accelerating toward the cliff. If the multi-trillion debt pile-up is not halted and dramatically reversed within the next presidential term, America will slip too far too fast to recover within its present political arrangements. Were the nominating process to fail this time round (as it did in 2008) it would be not merely a disappointment but an existential threat.

Yet the center of these debates is nowhere near where it ought to be. I accept that there’s an element of don’t-frighten-the-horses calculation going on, but it’s doing the nation a huge disservice. Much of America is seizing up. There are too many barnacles encrusted to the hulk, and the 'viable' candidates are arguing about giving them a paint job."

Much of the populace, too, seems blissfully unaware of the magnitude of the problems facing our Republic.  Yet not entirely.  Underneath the silliness, hypocrisy, incoherence and patchouli oil, the "occupy" movement does (even if indirectly) give voice to one genuine concern: Something is dreadfully awry with our government.  The tea party movement, not without problems itself, also gives voice to that legitimate concern. One colleague suggested that, given some overlapping concerns, the tea partiers should march into the streets with the occupiers. Now that would make for fun watching.

I won't go into the pregnant irony of Nixon inquiring about the remnant of hope, but Kirk's response is poignant: "If most intelligent and energetic people come to believe the prophets of despair, then indeed ruin falls upon the state, for many folk withdraw to hidie-holes, there to conceal themselves from the coming wrath."

The temptation to become or listen to a "prophet of despair" can be a powerful one, and I grapple with it regularly.

Most Americans have jobs that don't involve swimming in political and policy affairs, and these concerns notwithstanding, they're saner for it. What most consume briefly via the evening news and talk radio, I spend all day plowing through and digesting.  The great danger for policy wonks mired in the minutia of government is to not see the forest for the trees, and all too many are focused on tuning up the Titanic's engines while she's down at the bow. Hence we have a field of GOP presidential contenders largely aloof from the frightening cultural and economic challenges we face.

I would trade vital organs (what I can spare, anyway) for the opportunity to share cigars and libations with Kirk as we discuss the perennial challenge of maintaining hope for the Republic today.  Despair, like the misguided notion that man is fundamentally depraved, is an alluring temptation when all indications are that, barring a course change, our civilization is careening into a dark abyss.  It's a temptation that lulls a great many into inaction.  Admittedly, a mere glance through the news headlines on any given day seems to bolster the case that all is lost.

Yet as clearly as if it were yesterday I remember sitting alone in the cavernous nave of St. Dominic's Church in San Francisco years ago. As a brother there I had the privilege of a key, so in the wee hours before dawn there was no better place to find silence and solitude. The only light came from a few softly flickering candles, from my seat the most distant being the sanctuary lamp. But it was the most meaningful light---a light representing the ultimate hope amidst the pre-dawn darkness, the unfailing remnant of hope before the resurrection. It was the most perfect analogy that I have ever experienced.

As a worker in the policy vineyard who sees the news and trends every day, hope is difficult. So very difficult. As a Catholic I know hope is a necessary virtue, no matter how dire the circumstances. As a conservative I know that I cannot abandon it and seek refuge behind the walls of some imagined redoubt.  The gathering darkness may indeed overcome the Republic, or, as Kirk (echoing Edmund Burke) reminds us, "often the historical determinists are undone by the coming of events that nobody has predicted." We do not know which, and it's not our business to know.  It is our business to keep hope, no matter the challenge, lest with our heads bowed in despair we miss those opportunities to change the course of history.

A Conservatism of Hope? Still?

Cicero

by Winston Elliott III

Last evening, after watching another Republican debate slug-fest, I was reminded of the brief piece below which I first posted here in July 2010. By the time the debate was over I was yearning for conservative voices offering great depth, thoughtfulness, and dare we hope, grace. Is it possible to be strong in conservative principles and to present those principles in a manner which is attractive, persuasive and genuine? Where is our American Cicero? Is there hope for the American Republic? Perhaps. As Russell Kirk said: "A conservatism of instinct must be reinforced by a conservatism of thought and imagination." The Imaginative Conservative will continue to present a conservatism of thought and imagination in the hope of preserving the best of the Western tradition and restoring the virtue of our Republic. Let us commence, and let us pray.

"Long before our own time, the customs of our ancestors moulded admirable men, and in turn these eminent men upheld the ways and instituions of their forebears.  Our age, however, inherited the Republic like some beautiful painting of bygone days, its colors already fading through great age; and not only has our time neglected to freshen the colors of the picture, but we have failed to preserve its form and outlines.

For what remains to us, nowadays, of the ancient ways on which the commonwealth, we are told, was founded? We see them so lost in oblivion that they are not merely neglected, but quite forgot.  And what am I to say of the men? For our  customs have perished for want of men to stand by them, and we are now called to an account, so that we stand impeached like men accused of capital crimes, compelled to plead our own cause.  Through our vices, rather than from happenstance, we retain the word "republic" long after we have lost the reality."--Cicero, De Re Publica

Do we too retain the word "republic" long after we have lost the reality?  Is the American Republic beyond hope? President Richard Nixon once asked Dr. Russell Kirk if we "we have any hope." Dr. Kirk replied that "...it is all a matter of belief.  If most intelligent and energetic people come to believe the prophets of despair, then indeed ruin falls upon the state, for many folk withdraw to hidie-holes, there to conceal themselves from the coming wrath."  We should ask ourselves if we encourage our fellows to have hope.  Do we suggest paths to cultural renewal as often as we lament the present discontent?  Or have we given in to a conservatism of nostalgia where we immerse in mourning the loss of what we can never regain? Are we prophets of despair?

Alternatively, is ours a conservatism of restoration as well as preservation?  Dr. Kirk went on to tell Nixon: "But if, rather than despairing, people recognize the gravity of social circumstances and hopefully resolve to take arms against a sea of troubles--why, hope breeds hope, and a nation's vitality is renewed...the American Republic is still young, as civilizations go, and that despite our present discontents we Americans conceivably may enter soon upon an augustan age."

A conservatism of hope which helps to bring about an augustan age.  I like that.

Quote of the Day: Cicero

Long before our own time, the customs of our ancestors moulded admirable men, and in turn these eminent men upheld the ways and institutions of their forebears. Our age, however, inherited the Republic like some beautiful painting of bygone days, its colors already fading through great age; and not only has our time neglected to freshen the colors of the picture, but we have failed to preserve its form and outlines. For what remains to us, nowadays, of the ancient ways on which the commonwealth, we are told, was founded? We see them so lost in oblivion that they are not merely neglected, but quite forgot. And what am I to say of the men? For our customs have perished for want of men to stand by them, and we are now called to an account, so that we stand impeached like men accused of capital crimes, compelled to plead our own cause. Through our vices, rather than from happenstance, we retain the word "republic" long after we have lost the reality.--Cicero, De Re Publica

The Old Republic, Part II

By Bradley J. Birzer


Continued from: http://www.imaginativeconservative.org/2010/10/old-republic-part-i.html

As Cicero watched his own republic descend into chaos and madness, he recorded as quickly as he could the most important aspects of the Roman Republic, preserved if not in temporal reality, than in poetry, history, and memory.


Famously, he wrote (quoted by our patron Winston often):

Ancestral morality provided outstanding men, and great men preserved the morality of old and the institutions of our ancestors. But our own time, having inherited the commonwealth like a wonderful picture that had faded over time, not only has failed to renew its original colors but has not even taken the trouble to preserve at least its shape and outlines. What remains of the morals of antiquity, upon which Ennius said that the Roman state stood? We see that they are so outworn in oblivion that they are not only not cherished but are now unknown. What am I sot say about the men? The morals themselves have passed away through a shortage of men; and we must not only render an account of such an evil, but in a sense we must defend ourselves like people being tried for a capital crime. It is because of our vices, not because of some bad luck, that we preserve the commonwealth in name alone but have long ago lost its substance. [Cicero, On the Commonwealth, Book 5; Cambridge Texts]