Things must be bad if I am turning to the ancients for some thin comfort as our democracy slides into autocracy, as corrupt tyrants ascend to the throne of a country that aspired to be without thrones. Our country has never been wholly good -- what country is? -- but at least it aspired to leaders who put country before ambition, who peacefully relinquished power and nobly sacrificed self for others. I cannot forgive or forget that too many American voters have betrayed not only our country but our allies and the planet itself to such a vile, infantile, corrupt mistake of a human being -- for nothing.
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480-524 CE) was a Roman senator and great scholar who was unjustly persecuted by the tyrant of his time, the Ostrogothic emperor Theodoric. While he languished in prison, he wrote this masterpiece of philosophy, later translated by Chaucer, through whom I first came to love him. In the end, he was brutally tortured and killed -- just 44 years old -- leaving behind a wife and two sons reduced to poverty. But he also left us with words of wisdom that echo across the centuries.
How to be impervious to misfortune, resilient in the face of evil triumphant? As Chaucer translated it, Boethius rejected many of the joys of this world as "fals felicitees" -- things that seem to be goods that upon inspection, are not. What is truly worthwhile is one's own sense of goodness in the face of evil and dignity under duress.
And here, in Book II, Chapter vi, as he discussed the vanity and emptiness of fame and wealth, he said these words, words I happened upon in January 2017, at the beginning of the first tenure of Trump the Terrible.
Atqui nec opes inexpletam restinguere auaritiam queunt, nec potestas sui compotem fecerit quem uitiosae libidines insolubilibus adstrictum retinent catenis, et collata improbis dignitas non modo non effecit dignos sed prodit potius et ostentat indignos.
And yet wealth cannot extinguish insatiable greed, nor has power ever made him master of himself whom vicious lusts kept bound in indissoluble fetters; dignity conferred on the wicked not only fails to make them worthy [dignos], but contrarily reveals and displays their unworthiness [indignos] to the world.
Those who are inherently indignos cannot be made worthy and dignified by any external honors or riches. Dignos is a result of virtues -- of which Trump is entirely bereft. Boethius follows this passage with a poem about Nero. Awful people who are famous are simply more widely known to be awful. And certainly, Trump's name will be limned in the history of infamous leaders, right alongside Theodoric, Mussolini, Stalin, and Hitler.
As I've suggested, this feels like scant and meager consolation when we have lost so much so heedlessly, so needlessly, when we are losing more, more irreversibly every day. Yet it is not only our own sense of dignos that upholds us. As I have worked on this project, I have been inspired over and over by these men and women -- scientists, activists, and healthcare practitioners -- who have put the safety of children before their own comfort, who have labored long and hard to make Earth a little less toxic for us and for future generations. I do find consolation in looking up to those who strive for virtue and excellence. At the very least, it is clarifying to see such stark contrasts between good and evil, benign and malignant, humble and arrogant, selfless and selfish, intelligent and idiotic.
Hang in there.
