There are two inscriptions on the walls of the Temple
at Delphi: Know Thyself; and Nothing in Excess. They were inscribed there some twenty-five hundred years ago. These two aphorisms were wise then. They remain so today. Few would disagree. Fewer still manage to get through life without confounding both
The downhill slide from passionate conviction to public zealotry is easy. If you’re in the right, shouldn’t you make sure everyone else gets in line with you? If that requires coercion, then so be it. Stalin famously said, “You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet”.
Stalin’s omelet ended in the death of several million people. All murdered for the sake of the greater good.
Stalin’s excesses at the altar of communist purity typify all zealous convictions. If you’re doing what’s right, how can you overdo it? You become blind to your human fallibility when you’re convinced of the absolute righteousness of your cause. You’ve forsaken the wisdom of, “Know Thyself” and “Nothing
in Excess”
Two examples, hundreds of years apart, illustrate.
1498, Republic of Florence – Fra Savonarola and, confederates, Fra Domenico, and Fra Silvestro are arrested by order of Florence’s Council of Ten. They are tried, convicted, and then burned at the stake, their ashes thrown into the Arno River.
The burning at the stake was intended to mock Savonarola’s despised, Bonfires of the Vanities.
In our own enlightened times we know that Savonarola was a hateful vicious thug who got what he deserved. In his own time, many thought he got a flim-flam trail based on phony charges complete with an unjustified execution.
After his death an ardent supporter, Francesco Guicciardini, wrote in 1509 about the shameful dishonor done
to this great man.
“The works he performed for the enforcement of good morals were most holy and marvelous. Even at his trail, although his detractors hunted zealously, they found not the slightest little defect to be noted in this regard”. There was never such goodness and piety as in his time”.
Guicciardini went on to make a convincing case
for mistrial. He may have gone too far though when he decided to list the good works performed by Savonarola’s associate,
Fra Domenico who organized companies that went about chastising the fallen.
“. . . pursuing with stones and insults dishonorable men and gamblers, and woman with too seductive clothing. They went about during the carnival gathering up dice, playing cards, cosmetics, indecent pictures and books and burned them publicly (Bonfires of the Vanities) in the piazza of the Signoria”. Every day sinners were encouraged to put away pomps and vanities and return to the simplicity of living piously like Christians”.
Actions taken for the good of all usually aren’t good -
at all.
The Council of Ten could hardy get rid of Savonarola and company with only charges of disrupting the peace, or malicious destruction of private property. The charge of heresy was their sideways expedient, much the way the FBI put Al Capone away on tax evasion.
Savonarola and friends were probably well intentioned. Most zealots are. Even the best of intentions go wrong when they’re enforced by coercion. You can’t shove something down someone’s throat without them suspecting you don’t really have their best interests at heart.
In our times we find much similar to the Bonfire of the Vanities in the ragging, threats, calumnies, and outright violence of modern Leftist orthodoxy.
2021, Activist Progressivism – The current dismal state of affairs has been bubbling on the stove of public manipulation for a half century or longer. It started with charitable notions of fairness - concerns for aid and the uplifting of the downtrodden, mostly the poor, alcoholic, and the homeless. These hapless people were traditionally helped by private organizations like
the Salvation Army, Stella Maris, and many others.
These organizations did a lot of good and still do.
It started going bad when personal charity was downplayed in favor of Government mandate Although preceded by Roosevelt’s New Deal, it was Lynden Johnsons’ Great Society that did the most to establish the delusion that only government mandate really matters. People will be good only when Big Brother forces them to be good.
Orwell’s 1984 arrived on schedule. Though unnoticed by many, it took root in 1984, growing like kudzu, suffocating coherent thought with politically-correct Newspeak.
It’s hard to argue with people who insist on new meanings for words previously considered quite clear. Especially when the new meanings are revised every other week.
The result, intended by the chosen, and unnoticed by the converted, is that language is no longer useable as a means of persuasion.
Cogent thought is undone by meaningless slogans.
It’s easier to manage totalitarian ambitions when the Prolitarians are denied a common tongue.
“Black Lives Matter”, as though White lives don’t, and what about. “White Privilege”, many poor white folks wonder what happened to this privilege they’re supposed to have.
“Woke”, effectively means, brainwashed. “Activist”, means trouble-maker.
So much emotionally charged gobbledygook that cannot be challenged without being called a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal.
Right-feeling substitutes for reason. But it’s all done for the greater good.
Isn’t it?
I guess “Know Thyself “ and “Nothing in Excess” is silly old-fashioned wisdom no longer applicable to our enlightened modern world.
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Totalitarians usually mean well. “You have to break
a few eggs to make an omelet”. Savonarola’s bonfires of the vanities were lit with the best of intentions, salvation from sinful behavior for the public good. “. . . only government mandate really matters”. Zealots are always looking out for your best interests, never for their own benifit.
Maybe we’d be better off with selfish people who mind their own business.
Then they won’t be minding mine.