Although I didn't find this selection of works particularly pithy or epigrammatic, I nonetheless came away from it considerably moved. It's easy to see from the structure of his works why Cicero is considered one of the fathers of modern rhetoric. The structures and devices he uses feel perfectly modern, and would not be out of place on the floor of Parliament or a Presidential debate. And like most of that sort of thing, it is the effect of what is said, rather than any particular point, which lingers in the memory. Cicero himself seems to acknowledge that he is offering no new thought, but merely putting existing ideas into a nice package.
In spite of all that, I put the book down with the feeling of being personally admonished by a great man.
What good have I really accomplished in life? My father recently told me that, out of his children, I was the one whom he felt had done the most real good in the world. I was surprised at this, not because my brother and sister are great philanthropists, but because I don't think of myself as having contributed in any meaningful way to the rest of society. There are no doubt some few students whom I, In my years as a public school teacher, was able to help. I count this as nibbling at the edges of good, and not any great credit to me. I do what I can, and I am admittedly invested in the welfare of those around me, but I don't feel like any marginal difference I might have made even tips the scale against some of my rather foolish and harmful decisions.
And even if life were not measured in a grand ledger of good accomplished versus harm done, how would I fare when measured against Cicero's standard of virtue: wisdom, fortitude, justice and temperance? It would be disingenuous of me to deny that I have accrued some wisdom over my lifetime--a combination of copious reading and the ability to piece things together in a logical way. I don't think I can allow myself to say that the remaining three virtues have found a home in me. I have behaved unjustly--not often, but seriously. My fortitude is marginal, and my temperance nonexistent. What in me is there worth admiring? My father seems to think there is something worthy in me, but surely his judgement is less than objective. I could wish that he were more like Cicero, in fact: to be able to see my worst qualities, and give me sound advice on their remedy.
As it is, I will have to make use of the burst of motivation I received from Cicero, thousands of years after his death, to make some small adjustment in my habits before it wears out. Or at least, as the determination he has given me fades, to revisit his writings and be stimulated once again by this great rhetorician.
Tuesday, August 05, 2014
Birth of a Nation
It's easy to see why this film was included on AFI's list of 100 influential films. The staggering ambition of the project is evident from the very first captions, and its contribution to cinematographic technique is non to be underestimated.
Nonetheless, one can't help but feel that it was included for other reasons altogether. Griffith's subject is understandably abhorrent to modern eyes, but it was not without controversy in its own time as well. The eponymous nation, after all, is not the newly united America after the civil war, but the abhorrent Ku Klux Klan. And it is not only the decision to lionize that organization that puts the film squarely in the indefensible column. Every characterization, from the lascivious mulatto carpetbagger to the conniving mulatto housekeeper is so nauseatingly racist as to make it very nearly unwatchable, and this is aggravated by the fawning treatment of the heroic Klansman protagonist.
All of which need scarcely be said again by me, as thoroughly as it has been treated both by the viewing public at the time of its release and film historians since then. I will add, however, that the chief thing that bothered me about the film was not any of the aforementioned racism, but rather the aggrandized tone that Griffith himself takes in the filming. Although the film was on the surface about the post-war South, I can't help but feel that the whole thing was really about Griffith's own ego. Perhaps he thought at the time that such an illustrious name as his would give gravitas to what even contemporary viewers recognized as horseshit. It did not, and it does not, and I wonder if his subsequent film "Intolerance" will reek in the same way.
Nonetheless, one can't help but feel that it was included for other reasons altogether. Griffith's subject is understandably abhorrent to modern eyes, but it was not without controversy in its own time as well. The eponymous nation, after all, is not the newly united America after the civil war, but the abhorrent Ku Klux Klan. And it is not only the decision to lionize that organization that puts the film squarely in the indefensible column. Every characterization, from the lascivious mulatto carpetbagger to the conniving mulatto housekeeper is so nauseatingly racist as to make it very nearly unwatchable, and this is aggravated by the fawning treatment of the heroic Klansman protagonist.
All of which need scarcely be said again by me, as thoroughly as it has been treated both by the viewing public at the time of its release and film historians since then. I will add, however, that the chief thing that bothered me about the film was not any of the aforementioned racism, but rather the aggrandized tone that Griffith himself takes in the filming. Although the film was on the surface about the post-war South, I can't help but feel that the whole thing was really about Griffith's own ego. Perhaps he thought at the time that such an illustrious name as his would give gravitas to what even contemporary viewers recognized as horseshit. It did not, and it does not, and I wonder if his subsequent film "Intolerance" will reek in the same way.
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