The Fragility of Power

Author(s):  
Stefano Rebeggiani

A new reading of Statius’ main poem and its relationship with the cultural and political life at Rome under Domitian is given. This book studies in detail the poem’s view of power and its interaction with historical contexts. Written under Domitian and in the aftermath of the civil war of 69 CE, the Thebaid uses the veil of myth to reflect on the political reality of Imperial Rome. The poem presents itself to its audience and to the emperor as a lesson on effective kingship and a warning on the fragility of power. Rooted in a pessimistic view of human beings and human relationships, the Thebaid reflects on the harsh necessity of monarchical power as the only antidote to a world always on the verge of returning to chaos. In the absence of the gods, the fate of human communities lies in the hands of the individuals in power. Although humans, and especially kings, are fragile and often the prey of irrational passions, the Thebaid expresses the hope that an illuminated sovereign endowed with clementia [mercy] may offer a solution to the political crisis of the Roman Empire. Statius’ narrative also responds to Domitian’s problematic interaction with Nero, whom Domitian regarded as both a negative model and a source of inspiration. This book shows that the Thebaid is particularly close to the intellectual activities and political views formulated by groups of Roman aristocrats who survived Nero’s repression and that the poem is influenced by an initial phase in Domitian’s regime characterized by a positive relationship between the emperor and the Roman elite.

2020 ◽  
pp. 52-57
Author(s):  
Эдиль Канатбеков

В статье рассматривается политическая культура Кыргызстана как одна из важных основ политической жизни общества. Уделяется внимание на необходимость развития политической культуры общества, как фундаментальной основы цивилизации, основ существования общества и общественных отношений. В работе анализируется сущность политической культуры. Описывается проблема формирования политической культуры Кыргызстана как одной из актуальных тем, на протяжении многих лет. Рассматривается формирование и становление политической культуры Кыргызстана, как очень трудоёмкий и долговременный процесс, обусловленный определенными аспектами политико-культурологического характера. Политическая культура конкретной общности состоит из представлений индивидов, их взглядов, политических ценностей, политической идеологии и символики, политических норм, стандартов, стереотипов. Каждый субъект страны являясь гражданином так или иначе становиться свидетелем и даже участником политической реальности, тем самым на основе этих элементов и опыта человек формирует собственный взгляд и определяет для себя систему ценностей и линию поведения. Макалада Кыргызстандын саясий маданияты коомдун саясий турмушунун маанилүү негиздеринин бири катары каралат. Цивилизациянын фундаменталдык негизи, коомдун жана коомдук мамилелердин негиздеринин маңызы катары коомдун саясий маданиятын өнүктүрүү зарылдыгына көңүл бурулган. Изилдөө ишинде саясий маданияттын маани-маңызына анализ жүргүзүлгөн. Кыргызстанда саясий маданияттын калыптануу көйгөйү көп жылдардан бери актуалдуу темалардын бири катары эсептелинет. Кыргызстандын саясий маданиятынын калыптанышы жана калыптануусу саясий жана маданий мүнөздүн айрым аспектилерине байланыштуу өтө эмгекчил жана узак мөөнөттүү процесс катары каралат. Белгилүү бир коомдун саясий маданияты жеке адамдардын идеяларынан, алардын көз караштарынан, саясий баалуулуктарынан, саясий идеологиясынан жана символдорунан, саясий нормаларынан, стандарттарынан, стереотиптеринен турат. Өлкөнүн ар бир субъектиси, ошол өлкөнүн жараны болуп туруп, кандайдыр бир жол менен саясий чындыктын интригасынын күбөсү, ал тургай, катышуучусу болуп калат, ошентип, адам ушул элементтердин жана тажрыйбанын негизинде өзүнүн көз карашын калыптандырат жана өзү үчүн баалуулуктар системасын жана жүрүм-турум линиясын аныктайт. Тhe article considers the political culture of Kyrgyzstan as one of the important foundations of the political life of society. Attention paid to the need to develop the political culture of society as the fundamental basis of civilization, the foundations of the existence of society and social relations. The paper analyzes the essence of political culture. The article describes the problem of forming the political culture of Kyrgyzstan as one of the topical issues for many years. The article considers the formation and formation of the political culture of Kyrgyzstan as a very labor-intensive and long-term process, due to certain aspects of political and cultural character. Тhe Political culture of a particular community consists of individual representations, their views, political values, political ideology and symbols, political norms, standards, and stereotypes. Each subject of the country, being a citizen, in one way or another becomes a witness and even a participant in the intrigue of political reality, thereby the basis of these elements and experience, a person forms his own view and defines for himself a system of values and a line of behavior.


Human Affairs ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Skowroński

AbstractIn the present paper, the author looks at the political dimension of some trends in the visual arts within twentieth-century avant-garde groups (cubism, expressionism, fauvism, Dada, abstractionism, surrealism) through George Santayana’s idea of vital liberty. Santayana accused the avant-gardists of social and political escapism, and of becoming unintentionally involved in secondary issues. In his view, the emphasis they placed on the medium (or diverse media) and on treating it as an aim in itself, not, as it should be, as a transmitter through which a stimulating relationship with the environment can be had, was accompanied by a focus on fragments of life and on parts of existence, and, on the other hand, by a de facto rejection of ontology and cosmology as being crucial to understanding life and the place of human beings in the universe. The avant-gardists became involved in political life by responding excessively to the events of the time, instead of to the everlasting problems that are the human lot.


Author(s):  
Sara Brill

This chapter tracks the role of shared life in Aristotle’s account of the political bond, including its formation, maintenance, and the factors that bring about its dissolution. Here suzēn forms a spectrum, from the familial bond of those who cannot live without one another to the reciprocal affection of chosen friends, and includes both the impulse to live together that exists by merit of the kind of animal the human is (a political animal) and the exercise of the capacity for choice when it is directed to other human beings. Its inclusion of both human impulse and choice indicates that a comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of shared life requires one to locate human political life within the context of Aristotle’s broader study of political animality.


Classics ◽  
2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luc Brisson ◽  
Richard Dufour

Born at Athens in a family of noble descent, Plato (b. c. 428–427– d. c. 348–347 bce) naturally sought throughout his life to play a political role as councilor or legislator, not only at Athens but also abroad, especially in Sicily. A writer and philosopher, Plato was above all a citizen who, as is attested by the ten books of the Republic and the twelve books of the Laws (which constitute almost half of his work), wished to reform the political life of his city by assigning power not to wealth or to military force, but to knowledge. Against the traditional vision of culture in his time, essentially transmitted by poetry, Plato proposed a new system of education based on knowledge, in which mathematics plays an important role, and which culminates in the contemplation of true realities and of the Good. Plato’s life is therefore inseparable from his thought. Fairly early, a dogmatism (the term being taken in the minimal sense of the exposition of a doctrine) developed, with the appearance of a doctrine whose principal points became more specific over time. This doctrine is characterized by a twofold reversal. First, the world of things perceived by the senses is a mere image of a set of intelligible forms that represent true reality, for they possess the principle of their existence within themselves. Second, human beings cannot be reduced to their bodies, for their true identity coincides instead with an incorporeal entity, the soul, that accounts for all motion, both material (growth, locomotion, etc.) and spiritual (feelings, sense perceptions, intellectual knowledge, and so on).


Author(s):  
Stefano Rebeggiani

In this chapter the author deals with the political implications of Statius’ account of Coroebus in Thebaid 1. He shows that certain traditional features of Roman narratives of political crisis (such as the idea of divine hostility and the notion of sacrificial substitution) are represented in the Coroebus episode to forge a connection with historical experiences of civil war. The author also shows that Statius builds on the ideological implications of Callimachus’ narrative of Coroebus to link the royal house of Argos to Imperial Rome, and that he turns to Virgil’s interaction with Argive mythology to transfer Callimachus’ story to a Roman civil war context. Thanks to this strategy, Statius can use the Coroebus episode as the mythical equivalent of a narrative, that of the providential outsider who comes and rescues Rome at times of crisis, which was particularly dear to both his patrons and the Flavian emperors.


2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-90
Author(s):  
Marisa Lopes

This papers intends to show that Aristotle's theory on the political nature of man implies a specific difference in relation to other animals and that this does not arise from his understanding of human beings as naturally vulnerable animals that would seek in political life an artifice to redress their insufficiency or individual vulnerability to live. The qualitative difference of human beings in relation to other animals - including political species, such as bees or ants - drives them to an equally specific type of life, whose foundation obeys values that ca be universalized. The political application of these values does not correspond to what is done in the domestic sphere, nor does it correspond to the mere transposition to a quantitatively superior community, because the universality of political values is extracted from what is understood by human beings as necessary for the realization of man as man, not man as an element of nature.


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (10) ◽  
pp. 38
Author(s):  
Ahmed Adnan Kazem ◽  
Jassem Mohammed Ahmed

The Turkish governments had witnessed dramatic changes during several decades ,So the article researched in realistic situations to estimate the contemporary events according to what happened now a days . Therefore , many challenges must be tackled in order to assessment the political scene specially after several military intervention in political life ,So these developments required making of amendments in constitutional law to change the political system toward presidential order instead of parliamentary system , and this  was happened in constitutional amendments which hold in sixteenth of April 2017 as a result of it . Turkish policies were stable politically and lawfully according to practicing democracy ,and it could be easily to know the nature of political participation as followed constitutionally .So the potentially strongest forces are being enabled to renew the political elites ,and the economic miracle would redistribution of roles among active actors in political life .Erdoğan's supporters point out since the attempted coup which happened in amid of July 2016 ,So the governing party and its government tried to reconstruction of trust between the peoples and political elites mutually , in order to override all challenges and to  stabilize the process of democracy


1969 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-574 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank L. Wilson

In early spring of 1968, French political observers found the most lively issue of debate in the question of whether or not the nation was bored as a result of the political and economic stability insured by the Gaullist regime. One noted French political scientist in contributing to this debate wrote: “What is certain is that the France of 1968 does not seem able to give itself the luxury of a political scene as passionate as that of Czechoslovakia, as dramatic as that of the United States, or as glorious as that of Vietnam. Neither the agitation of a minority of the students of a few universities, nor certain workers’ demonstrations, nor the discontent which reigns in Brittany affects seriously our political life.” In a few weeks student riots and a general strike provoked the most serious political crisis in the years of the Fifth Republic and brought France to the brink of civil war.


2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 292-307 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriel M. Trott

Departing from Aristotle’s two-fold definition of anthrōpos (human) as having logos and being political, the argument of this article is that human beings are always fundamentally political for Aristotle. This position challenges the view that ethical life is prior to or beyond the scope of political life. Aristotle’s conception of the political nature of the human is developed through a reading of the linguistic argument at Politics 1.2; a careful treatment of autos, or self, in Aristotle; and an examination of the political nature of anthrōpos in the context of Aristotle’s candidates for the best life in Politics VII.1–3 and Nicomachean Ethics X.6–8. From this consideration the compatibility between Aristotle’s claims that anthrōpos is fundamentally political and that the highest end of the human is achieved in theoria is maintained, since even in pursuing the theoretic life, human beings take up the practical question of what the best life is.


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