Month of New Subjects - Days 2 and 3

So there I was last night--reading my sociology essays and planning a brilliant, and let me emphasize brilliant post, when I fell asleep. Obviously, I hadn't gotten to Machiavelli as no one could relax enough to fall asleep to Machiavelli. Blame it on St. Augustine.

In this round, I started with St. Augustine and excerpts from The City of God. This is the last essay from the period in which Western Civilization had one unified religion. Being an American where we have 30 different denominations in every 10-block square, that's always a difficult concept for me to imagine. America's past is largely formed by disagreement in religion. Would we have nearly the same hangups about sex and who is or is not having it if a large part of our cultural heritage didn't stem from a bunch of Puritanical Calvinists who found Cromwell's England just a little too free-wheeling and liberal (if you can imagine the folks who banned Christmas because it was a bit too "merry" as being liberal) and who hanged (hung?) free-thinkers as "witches?" But I digress.

I didn't find much in St. Augustine that I would say I readily identified in American society. I wish some of it was, like the last line, "....because being a citizen, he must not be all for himself, but sociable in his life and actions." Having grown up in a small town (which involves both good and bad), the sense of community was very strong (again, both good and bad), and I still find the general lack of community spirit in the "outside world" a bit disconcerting, though maybe I'm just thinking of it more because we have the new problem of the parents speeding down our street each morning in total disregard of the safety of the children/elderly/pets/etc. who live here, just because they are running a few minutes late dropping off their child at the new school. I remember a line from a college civil liberties class, "My right to swing my fist stops short of your nose." I always liked that one, and have thought of making a very large sign and posting it on our front lawn, or maybe variations:

* Your right to own a dog stops short of it pooping on my lawn.
* Your right to live in this neighborhood stops short of violating the neighborhood covenants which you agreed to when you bought your house.
* Your right to ride a motorcycle without a helmet stops short of taxpayers having to pay your medical bills when you crash and end up a vegetable for the next 20 years
* Your right to drive a car with an incredibly loud engine stops when your neighbors are sleeping
* Your right to have a large family stops short of needing public assistance to pay for all of them
* Your right to drive a vehicle is dependent upon obeying the speed limits and all traffic rules. If you insist on endangering other people's lives, you have no right to drive.

I have been a member of a Kiwanis club for about 15 years now, and the purpose of such groups is to improve the community. It's a fantastic thing to be a part of, but over the years when I've asked people to join, I've been shocked at the number of times I've been asked what do I get out of the club. I've stopped even trying to explain the feeling of being part of the community or helping others or building things. That's what I get out of the club--these people would get nothing.

My next essay was selections from Scienza Nuova, published in 1725 (BIG time leap now), and the author sets out at least 114 principals. Though I'm not sure how far I agree with them, the ones I found most interesting:

* Philosophy considers man such as he must be. Thus it can be of benefit only to a very few people, those who desire to live in the republic of Plato, not among the scum of Romulus.

* Legislation considers man such as he is, in order to make good use of him in human society. Legislation transforms three vices, greed, ambition, ferocity, into courtly life, art of war, commerce. Thus wisdom, fortitude, wealth, spring into being; and out of greed, ambition, ferocity, which if left to themselves, would destroy the human race, legislation compounds the happiness of society.

* Men ignorant of the truth of things stick to certainty.

* When nations have become savage through warfare, so that human laws no longer command respect among them, the only powerful means of controlling them is religion.

* Men, ignorant of the natural cuases of things, whenever they cannot explain them by similarities, attribute to things their own nature, as the common people, for example, say that the magnet is in love with the iron.

* Every heathen nation had its Hercules, who was the son of Jupiter.

* The human mind tends to take pleasure in uniformity.

* The nature of nations is at first crude, then severe, then benign, then refined, and finally dissolute.

* The weak clamour for laws, the powerful refuse them, the ambitious, in order to gain a following, promote them, the kings, in order to equalize the powerful with the weak, protect the laws.

* Dull-witted people think that whatever is expressed in legal formulas of a fixed character is just law.

Not sure how many of these I agree or disagree with, but they are the ones that made me stop and think.

Today it's on to Machiavelli. I will be getting a large cup of coffee first.