Tyranny is hateful not merely because it abridges the inalienable rights of man, but also because it cheats humanity of what might have been, what should have been our common gift.
How many artists, inventors and authors must surely have perished in the Holocaust!
How many great minds live and die unknown today in lands ruled by criminals – in Byelorus, in North Korea – for only rarely in history does the genius of a Solzhenitsyn survive in spite of oppression and his work slip across the border into free lands!
Caesar Augustus, whose month this is, had a freedman in his employ, one Phaedrus, who apparently suffered no ill at his hands, and whose fables are extant today, though barely known.
From Phaedrus we get the brilliant observation:
“Homo doctus in se simper divitias habet.” (A man of learning always has riches within himself.)
But this same Augustus also banished Ovid, one of the greatest poets of the Roman Empire, to what was then the edge of nowhere (a settlement in today’s Romania) over some outrage that no one has ever quite diagnosed with certainty.
And so he who gave us the beautiful Metamorphoses and Love Poems, died in that place, bitter and unhappy – and humanity must always wonder, what might have been.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Stealing from humanity
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7 comments:
You suppose that day will ever come when all war, disease, hate, tyranny will end? Will we be alive to witness even just a little bit of that success? What might have been...indeed, humanity dies every day.
The worst thing about it all, is that such evil COULD end tomorrow, or five minutes from now.
Unlike cancer or dengue fever, oppression and war are completely human-caused and totally unnatural.
Then, with the trillions of dollars not being spent on jails, military forces and weaponry, we could actually do something about problems such as cancer.
It all could end but doesn't and how these people cannot see beyond themselves for the greater needs of humanity is just beyond me. I just can't wrap my head around it!
Just stomp em, Empress. Just put on Your shoes and stomp their selfish heads.
Today, I viewed a display of Russian Faberge eggs at our local art museum and wondered how the czars could sleep at night among such luxury while their people groaned in poverty.
It is all so senseless, and, with us sensitive souls, it seems so against the nature of man, however, we are the minority. Unfortunate but true. There is far more evil recorded throughout time than decency. You are right, it COULD end now, but, most people do not see the sense in ending the evil, for they feel that it too has its purpose in life, which, it does; cannot argue that, still, it grieves me night and day, and, like you, I wonder will it ever go away... nice post; thought inducing and true... take care dear one...
My shoes are on ECD, I'm ready! You got the cleaning cloth ready?
After stomping such putrid evil, Empress, even the best cloth won't get those shoes clean. Have to get You a new pair.
Lyn: In spite of the historical record, perhaps good people are not quite such a minority as You think -- they're just too busy living good lives to go down in history for starting wars and hurting other people.
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