"Let them eat cake" - the need for one dominant culture within a polity

NCR and their goddamn nicknames, as if Caesar himself is gonna piss and run if he hears them.

(Rose of Sharon Cassidy, Fallout: New Vegas)

As he viewed the bloody, lifeless body of his friend, lying on the filthy swamp of Philippi, Marcus Junius Brutus Minor, or was it Quintus Servilius Caepio Brutus(?), must have felt the crushing weight of the consequences and concomitant responsibilities of his decision on that fateful New Year’s Day. Was it New Year’s Day, or did even the date of that fateful day become mythologized by the poets already, into their hyperbolic, ludicrous panegyric for the recently deified Tyrant?

Why had he abandoned everything - political power, established friendships, popular prestige, economic security - for such a foolhardy endeavor? Had he wasted months of his life in planning for the tyrannicide, beguiled by men whose only conviction was that of envy? How naive they all were! How absurd he had been to think that the death of one man would solve all their social ills! He should have heeded the advise of Cassius and “deified” Marcus Antonius as well; then perhaps, Cassius would not be face-down in the swamp, with his life ebbing-out into the bog; with Antonius dead, perhaps, he would not have been hounded out of Rome, like some common thief, by the mob.

Despite rising to the highest political office in the Republic, Marcus Antonius never quite rid himself of the boorishness that betrayed his plebeian origins. What was it that Cicero quipped? The ship of the Republic is truly at her low ebb being steered aimlessly by the son of Marcus Antonius Creticus, who was only given power because he was incompetent in its use and impotent in its abuse. If this be a hereditary trait, his namesake son had broken the curse. Marcus Antonius outmaneuvered Cicero politically in Rome and outflanked Cassius militarily in Philippi. Who would have thought that such shrewdness would reside in a man from an unremarkable family of an unremarkable gens? It had been a monumental mistake allowing Marcus Antonius to live.

The bombastic egotist Marcus Tullius Cicero imagined himself as the stalwart defender of the Republic. What was it that he prattled interminably every time he engaged in any conversation? Sex de re publica quos tum scripsimus cum gubernacula red public tenebamus (that he had written the Republic when he held the rudder of State). For all his talk, Cicero never could decide any course of action with conviction. How he conveniently forgets that while he dithered in indecision during the critical days of Cataline conspiracy, it was Marcus Portius Cato, who decisively recommended summary execution of the Catiline traitors and mobilization of the Legions, thereby crushing the conspiracy promptly.

The boob even named his invectives against Antonius philippicae, associating himself with the great rhetorician Demosthenes. Was he chagrin at being murdered, while fleeing into exile? After all, Demosthenes also died in exile when the Athenian tyrants demanded his head to appease Alexander. Sadly, Cicero was butchered by the vicious Fulvia, his head and hands being displayed on the Forum, like some swine carcass at a butcher’s stall. Plebeian scum ought to have no place in civilized government.

What was all this for? Why is Marcus Junius Brutus Minor, one of the most illustrious patricii, praetor urbanus, propraetor of Macedonia, one of the wealthiest men in the world sitting in this miasma infested swamp watching his dear friend Gaius Cassius Longinus, along with everything he holds dear, wither away into the void? He had received word of Portia Catoni’s death, while hiding in exile. Was his grief and anger the impetus behind this mobilization and victory over Gaius Julius Caesar? He had killed a Caesar to face yet another, albeit a child inadequate to inherit such a distinguished name. Was he, Brutus, adequate for his name, the name of his unfortunate father and the name of his illustrious step-father? Unlike them, Brutus had little military experience or inclination; his tendency was more towards politics, law, and finance.

He embarked on this hapless journey for the sake of a name: liberare. How insidious this word! For the sake of this abstraction, his father lost his life. In defense of this notion, his uncle, Marcus Porcius Cato, precipitated the Third Civil War. Led by this perversity, he had butchered his friend, mentor, and benefactor. It seemed so clear; with the removal of the tyrant, the Republic will be saved, and libertas restored to the people. How wrong he was! How wrong they all were! Merely being anti-tyranny does not engender pro-Republic; liberare does not equate libertas.

Even if Caesar’s death accomplished liberation, to what would the Republic be restored? Was his friend’s life worth a politically crippled and fractured Senate? Did his mentor perish to restore Clodius' and Milo’s political gangs rioting in the forum? Was his Republic, so rife with corruption that bribery of the electorate was not only accepted but expected part of the electoral conformity, that syndicate publicani directed provincial and foreign policies, that the plebeians’ only cares were the next grain dole and electoral bribery, and that the Legion was reduced to mercenary bodyguard force of great families, worth salvaging? Even now, his liberatores army is clamoring for bonuses, while his Eastern “allies” are deserting. Perhaps Marcus Portius Cato could hold his ragtag band together, or Gaius Cassius Longinus would lead the hirelings to a military victory, but he, Marcus Junius Brutus Minor, was neither.

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Image credit: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Arcade_Gannon

If you set aside his leadership capabilities, extensive knowledge, and ruthless cunning... he's just another jerk who steps on people to get his way.

(Arcade Gannon, Fallout: New Vegas)

Marcus Antonius surveyed the carnage ruefully. How did this inadequate boy garner so much political support? He supposedly was “sick” on arrival at Dyrrachium, leisurely meandering his way to Philippi, while his men were forced to maneuver into this somewhat less than stellar defensive position, for the lack of manpower! And faced against that accountant, the boy could not even hold his position with eight veteran legions, losing three legionary standards. The boy didn’t even have the honor to fall on his sword, instead running into the bog like some frightened swine, while his men were cut to pieces. What was Gaius thinking, adopting this fool as his heir?

For all his talk of the “sovereignty of the people,” Caesar was just another patricius looking to increase his family prestige. Too bad, he killed-off many of those whose approbation he sought, being forced to rely on partisan hacks and sycophants to provide him with empty platitudes. These patricii and their jockeying for stature! Caesar was virtual rex, yet he still longed for his opposition to formally acknowledge his status, his prestige. What nonsense! It was probably his unquenchable thirst for perpetual adulation and propitiation that got him offed; heck, even Antonius was becoming irritated by Caesar’s histrionics: offering a diadem during Lupercalia that Caesar publicly rejected, while secretly organizing the crowning of the diadems on his statues. The monumental hypocrisy of these aristocrats would insult even a Dacian catamite.

In some aspects, these Senators were more enslaved than his slaves, bound by their mos maiorum, they couldn’t even shit without following some ridiculous social ritual. They were always performing some grand gesture, fretting over legitimacy and tradition, while ignoring reality. For Antonius, a centurion’s sturdy sword conveyed the message efficiently over a praetor’s useless scrolls. It was Lepidus’ command of eight legions that garnered for him the co-rulership of Rome, not his office of Master of Horse. It was Octavius’ association with four legions that granted him alliance, not his appropriation of the name Gaius Julius Caesar. It was the loyalty of his nine legions that made him dux, not the lofty title of proconsul. The optimates lost sight of reality, he, Marcus Antonius, would not.

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Image Credit: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Lily_Bowen

Didn’t your mother ever tell you it's polite to help an old lady carry her bags?

(Lily Bowen, Fallout: New Vegas)

The modern Western thought seems infected with opposition causes: anti-fa, anti-establishment, anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity, anti-something. As Brutus discovered, near the end of his life, being against something does not equate to having a conviction for an idea or a vision. Opposition cause is not even a political theory; it is a fad of rebellious teenagers. Sadly, the political gangs that riot in the streets of Western cities do not even have the ethos of the worst political or social theories of the modern era; the opportunistic looters who accompany these hooligans have clearer vision of their future. Western political thought has been subverted by adolescents rebelling against any organized system. For our atheist friends, their philosophy seems to have been hijacked by malcontents who are merely anti-Christian. Many so-called “atheists” have little to no logical consistency, who only ape emotional invectives, discontented at perceived intrusion of an angry god into their sordid lives.

The lack of intellect, logic, or argument inherent within oppositionalism has resulted in the current social fragmentation. The West no longer possesses any normative social decorum to limit dysfunctional behaviors. Ideological violence is inevitable in a system that lacks accepted channels of adjudication, as even Western judicial system is held hostage by malcontents who riot at the slightest affront to their desired legal outcome. A polity with disintegrating dominant socio-cultural norms, governed by populist prostitutes, will inevitably dissolve into factionalism and civil war. It is not political solution that the West needs to combat oppositional ignorance, but social restoration that establishes a dominant culture and traditions. Otherwise, the West is destined to be subjected to plebeian scum who delight in displaying their enemies on meathooks.