In our pantheon of heroes, Americans of Italian stock can look back some 3,000 years to a people who struggled to reconcile human existence with Nature. That struggle encompassed the many goals of revealing the secrets Nature, of controlling Nature, and of confronting that most perplexing challenge: Human Nature.
If there is one thing I have distilled out of my decades of Italic studies it is how close we are to both Nature and Human Nature. Whether it’s cultivating a home garden, creating a cuisine of sublime simplicity, or reducing the philosophy of life down to “common sense,” we and our ancestors have had a profound effect on humanity.
Ancient proto-scientists Pythagoras and Archimedes, both Greco-Italians, explored Nature through mathematics and physical laws like specific gravity. Italic philosopher Lucretius suggested, before the birth of Jesus, how everything is made up of atoms and how natural chaos (“the Swerve”) rearranges atoms to create countless varieties of animals, plant life, and minerals. Ultimately, these principles of Nature were confirmed by later generations.
Meanwhile, Etruscan and Roman engineers saw Nature as an obstacle to be overcome using aqueducts, sewers, bridges, roads, and machines. In the non-physical world, Roman jurists may have been the first to base laws on Nature rather than religious dogma. Marcus Tullius Cicero resolved that all laws should conform to “natural law” because human beings are a product of Nature. It’s no coincidence that Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence cites “the laws of Nature,” right out of Cicero.
May 3rd marks the birth of Niccolo Machiavelli in 1469. It was his seminal books on political power – The Prince and Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy – that inspired our Founding Fathers to create our Republic and a written Constitution. Adams, Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Franklin, and others accepted Machiavelli’s primary observation: “…whoever desires to found a state and give it laws, must start with assuming that all men are bad and ever ready to display their vicious nature, whenever they may find occasion for it.”
These men learned from Machiavelli how the Roman Republic endured for centuries by developing a system of checks and balances. The patrician Roman Senate was balanced by plebian assemblies, courts, and Tribunes of the people who could veto the powerful Senate. They learned how republics were the only antidote to kings and dictators. They learned from The Prince how “democracies” and “majorities” could be swayed by the elite to subvert a nation’s traditions, so they invented the Electoral College to protect minority states. In short, our system is based on reality not utopia.
Lately, radio stations have been playing John Lennon’s 1971 hit Imagine – his utopian response to the war in Vietnam. The song was an un-Machiavelli view of humanity: “Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can, No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man, Imagine all the people, Sharing all the world.” The irony, of course, is that Lennon was murdered in 1980 by a Beatles fan. So much for the brotherhood of man.
But Italians are not without their utopians. Even our saints, like Dominic (Dominican Order) and Francis (Franciscan Order) recognized human weakness and failings – they required a degree of “Roman” discipline among their members in order to be worthy instruments of the Lord.
Although pagans, both Cicero the senator and Marcus Aurelius the emperor fervently pondered the human condition and how to adjust to life’s challenges. Cicero wrote On the Good Life, and Aurelius penned his Meditations. Both attempted to find the right balance in life. Yet, both were doomed to finish their lives amidst war and violence.
In this vein but on a lighter note, I recall a story actor Peter Ustinov told on a late night talk show about some Italian soldiers during World War II. The men were huddled in a trench facing bombardment from German artillery. This was during the time Italy switched sides in 1943. Perhaps thinking their old German comrades owed them some slack, one Italian soldier rose from the trench with a clenched fist and yelled, “Don’t you know there are people down here!” Ustinov’s moral was that even in the heat of battle, Italians were the most rational people on earth.
To be rational requires common sense. Common sense is a thing of Nature. Changing the nature of things is to be irrational. Apply this logic as needed. -JLM
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