Author: Thomas Fleming

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Feature / FF

10 Dec, 2015

Cicero, De Officiis, A ON THE HOUSE

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As a Roman moralist, Cicero is seen at his best in the three books of his De Officiis, a work that Dr. Johnson said ought to be read once a year.  Officia are not public offices but duties, the responsibilities it is incumbent upon us to carry out.  Cicero  draw his primary inspiration from Plato and his followers in the Middle Academy, a phase of Platonism that emphasized epistemological skepticism.  However, he was  also very eclectic and fair-minded, seeking useful truths wherever he could find them–especially from Aristotle but also from the Stoics whose extremism he objected to.  For all his...

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Feature / Fleming

8 Dec, 2015

Properties of Blood I.2: Love and Hate, C

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The Realm of Love But on this side there is no end to strife, where violence has taken love to wife– a pagan tale of Venus and of Mars, matter of fact and heedless as the stars of carnage done in our too human wars. “Love makes the world go round,” as an old proverb has it.  Does this mean anything more than the obvious fact, celebrated in Valentine cards and romantic novels, that sexual attraction between male and female is a necessary condition for propagating many species, the human species in particular?  What is love?  Philosophers since Plato and...

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Feature / FF15Dec / Fleming

7 Dec, 2015

How to Combat Islamic Terrorists?  Quit Sponsoring Them!

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I did not watch, hear, or read President Obama’s brilliant address offering a range of eminently practical solutions to the terrorist threat.   Why bother?  Like most of his recent predecessors, this President would not tell the truth if it were tattooed onto his brain, and if he did accidentally blurt out some particle of reality, the state media would  immediately cover up his gaffe.     The security of the United States and of its citizens is menaced by Muslims, but neither the President nor the media is willing even to state thate fact.  Without reading the speech, I...

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Feature / Fleming

5 Dec, 2015

The Genius of Burke–and His Limitations ON THE HOUSE

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This is a slightly modified version of a piece originally published in The Spectator under the  title “Tories Back Wrong Philosopher.”  It is being made available “On the House” for five days. TWO hundred years ago, the career of Edmund Burke was drawing to a close under a cloud of accusations. The Duke of Bedford and his friends had denounced the one-time budget-cutting reformer and enemy of the royal prerogative for accepting a pension from the Crown. In his ‘Letter to a Noble Lord’, published in February 1796, Burke rebutted the charges of inconsistency and hypocrisy. It was Burke’s last stand,...

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Feature / Fleming / From Under The Rubble

3 Dec, 2015

San Bernardino: The American Nightmare

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As Americans went to bed on December 2, they knew little of what happened in San Bernardino, where mysterious “white” assailants murdered 14 people  at a “social services center.”   Like most people, probably, we were otherwise occupied. We were watching an old episode of Comissario Montalbano.  Even this morning on NPR, which featured an interview with two “experts” on mass shootings, I  only accidentally learned that one of the shooters had a Pakistani Muslim name. Checking out the stories in the Washington Post, LA Times, and New York Times, I was able to glean only a few facts:  a...

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Best Revenge / Fleming

2 Dec, 2015

Greece IV: On the Gulf

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Greece IV We had brief interchange, four hours into the trip.  We stopped for lunch at Menidi on the Ambracian Gulf.   We were not expecting much from Menidi.  The morning had been spent on the endless drive along the superhighway, every mile under repair, from Athens to Corinth and then along the northern coast of the Peloponnesus.  It is true that the road got worse and the landscape better, after  we crossed the bridge across the Gulf of Corinth at Rhio. I thought about stopping at Missolonghi,   where Byron had died in 1824, raising money for Greek independence...

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Feature / FF / Fleming

30 Nov, 2015

Properties of Blood II: Love and Hate, Part B

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This text will be available only briefly without cost.  When “the gate comes down,” it will be accessible only to subscribers. The Heart Has Its Reason The City of God, wherever and however it exists, is ruled by that kind of love that used to be referred to as “charity.”  “He that loveth,” (ὁ γὰρ ἀγαπῶν), far from being in conflict with the moral law (νόμος) taught by the Decalogue, is fulfilling it.  Most professional philosophers since Descartes would immediately raise the obvious objection that love or friendship or charity are irrational feelings, sub-rational reflections of our character and experience.  We...

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Autodidact / Fleming

30 Nov, 2015

Cicero:The Writer

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Cicero Cicero was one of the most important men of the Roman world.  Although he ultimately failed as a statesman, as virtually every statesman does, but he only increased in stature as the years went on. Cicero’s style has been rightly held up as the standard for Latin prose, and his writings on rhetoric and philosophy—as well as his speeches and letters—became the basis of Roman education.  Cicero was the model for Christian orators like St. Jerome and Augustine, and his works were taught and read throughout the Middle Ages.  The Renaissance, to a considerable extent, began with the Italian...

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Fleming

24 Nov, 2015

Properties of Blood II: Love and Hate, A

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Love and Hate in the Cities of Man  Shall I tell you the little story of Right-Hand-Left-Hand—the tale of Good and Evil? …H-A-T-E…It was with this left hand that old brother Cain struck the blow that laid his brother low!  L-O-V-E!… See these here fingers, dear friends!  These fingers has veins that lead straight through to the soul of man!  The right hand, friends! The hand of Love!  Now watch and I’ll show you the Story of Life.  The fingers of these hands, dear hearts! –They’re always a-tuggin’ and a-warrin’ one hand agin’ t’other. (He locks his fingers and writhes...

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Autodidact / Fleming

22 Nov, 2015

Cicero IV: An End and a Beginning

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END OF CICERO Cicero played an ambiguous role in the final years of the republic.  He loyally supported Pompey in the vain hope that he would uphold the old order, but he also allowed himself to be courted by Caesar.   He was out of Rome, as governor of Cilicia, in the period leading up to the civil war, but he bravely refused an attractive invitation to join Caesar, but gradually faded out of the picture.  When the plot against Caesar was formed in 44, Cicero was not even invited to join: The conspirators did not trust him. He did...