2 Greco-Roman

Freestyle

I’ve been asked about the somewhat odd title of my last blog entry: “Ave atque vale.” Ave means “welcome,” and vale means “adieu”; perhaps I’ll leave the TwitLonger commentary for now.

I want to explain it more thoroughly.

My salutations, and the writing that follows, are in Latin because I feel entirely Roman myself: say, one from the time of Lucian. One born under the same kind of imperialistic power that feels itself permanently threatened and thus compelled to defend itself by measures up to and including unlimited spying on its own citizens. Exhausted and almost sickened by the excessive luxury of the times, at least regarding (over-)nourishment, species- and self-preservation.

Moreover, one who finds himself trapped in confusion and uncertainty of thought and its laws, where everything is relative and in which everything is possible and seems permissible without limit, especially morals. My favorite philosopher in this regard is Sextus Empiricus. Thesis and Antithesis can be, according to him, equally well proven (the principle of isothenia). Absolute truth cannot be presently identified. This may lead, in the words of Lucian, to an “abominable desolation of the mind.” It is, however, a fact, that truth as we understand it develops dialectically (in Hegel’s sense). But synthesis, and thus consensus, don’t always materialize. It is thus essential, in the sense of the French philosophers (i.e. Lyotard), to suffer opposites, sometimes even tolerate them, and occasionally refrain from seeking consensus.

Last but not least, the gods have taken their leave of us (at least, as I believe, temporarily). They have been replaced by other gods: of numbers, of science, of power, of lust, or of money. In ancient Rome triumphant Christianity and Stoicism victoriously entered the breech left vacant through disorientation and the pluriversal “anything goes” mentality. Julian Apostata was the last apologist of the old manner of thinking and of the old Greco-Roman gods – in vain, it turned out. Before the age of Constantine the Great, there was a long period of confusion and experimentation, of new replacement gods, a hedonistic multiplicity, and intellectual disorientation.

I am thus a Roman. Not a Greek: for the Greeks didn’t struggle so obdurately to achieve their indomitable Imperium, they weren’t as imperialist as the Romans– but neither were they so cosmopolitan, so … pluriversal.
I might perhaps also be Roman in my sexual conduct. I exhort, like the Stoics, marital union, faithfulness, and family. But I could – and can – empathize with, perceive, and sense male sexuality just as well as feminine. I think here of the love poems of Catullus, for instance, directed in equal measure and with equal passion towards men and women alike.

And where are the slaves of the present day, rooted in the labor of this enormous Imperium? They are still to be found, they simply aren’t called slaves anymore. They are indeed “freeborn,” but the bulk of them are merely tolerated onlookers. And don’t ask me from what dangers or from which country they had to flee, what sort of jobs they have, or how they can languish at subsistence level, compared to the wealth of the affluent and ruling classes whose idleness takes such advantage of their services. Lastly, many women in this country still (!) live out their lives in ignominious servitude, dependent on the wallet and credit card of their husbands, who expropriate them of every right. Still.

I am thus a Roman, and it is only with a heavy heart that I reconcile myself to English as an international language. The Vulgate Latin of the Middle Ages would be better, to say nothing of the elegance and musicality of French, that must likewise struggle to survive the future.
Who would wish to learn more about me, my thought, my attitude, my opinion – whether right left over under authoritarian anti-authoritarian ascetic green blue SPD CDU homophobe homophile hedonistic ascetic etc. etc., should read my Whohub interviews: google “Reinhold Urmetzer.”