To Caesar: on bias, perspective and local democracy

Book 2, letter 18

Part 3 of 4

To Julius Caesar; on bias, perspective and local democracy

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I sit by lamplight, smoking my pipe and listening to the faint whisper of rain on the tin roof. I think a lot about you Caesar, about what you mean to me, and to my world. I mean the entire world. What do you really represent? Are you the pinnacle of the Roman Republic, proof that the will of the people is absolute? Or are you proof that the will of the mob can be manipulated towards violence, towards endless wars to feed an insatiable societal hunger for blood? I'm sorry, comparative, 'either/or' questions are terribly misleading. Life is never a choice between just two options.

Is there even such a thing as historical proof?

How are beliefs and memories and ideas represented in the world? For instance, what does it mean, that we have ancient Roman style architecture in my home city in Adelaide, South Australia? We are a long way, through time and space, from Rome.

The monumental structure of Parliament House in my home state, has been the site of many gatherings of the mob, to protest and to attest significant events in the history of this tiny city on the southern edge of the world. I have a tendency to downplay the value of Adelaide, it seems such an insignificant place on the world stage, that grandstanding of any sort seems ridiculous. Yet South Australia has been the home of some important political movements. While reading about the history of the Adelaide Parliament House, I found this little reminder of something that I am very pleased to tell you about.

At the base of the West Wing steps is a plaque relating to women’s suffrage. In 1894 South Australia became the first colony in Australia to grant women the right to vote. It also became the first place in the world to give women the right to stand for parliament. On the centenary of women’s suffrage a time capsule, to be opened on the bicentenary in 2094, was placed in the vaults of Parliament House. The plaque notes the time capsule and the granting of parliamentary franchise to women.

We tend to think of ancient Greece as being the birthplace of Democracy, but it seems sometimes that democracy is born, and born again all over the world at different times and in different ways. South Australia has a proud heritage to build on in this regard.

 Live animal export protest

 Armistice Rally November 1918

 Arts industry funding rally 2018

Worker's Rally for better wages

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In the morning, I am woken by a thunderstorm. I stand in the doorway staring out across the pond, watching the chaotic orchestration of dancing rain drops on the surface of the water. These stormy summer days in the borderlands are exquisite, listening to the sound of galahs winging their way joyfully through the falling sky, while the air is pink at dawn over the grey-brown rocky hills, and between the gum trees, along the green folds of the creek, frogs creak and croak a song of the divine living soil.

I have been reading Epictetus, perhaps I should quote something for you, from Discourses, Book I, Chapter 11:

“You see then, that you really must become a Scholsticus, an animal whom all ridicule, if you really intend to make an examination of your own opinions: and that is not the work of one hour or day, you know yourself.”

Bias and perspective and opinion and prejudice. A forest of mental concepts to get lost in, and your books Caesar, are strange territory to navigate through. Reading your works is an exercise in examining my own opinions, and in doing so, I find that so much of what I assume about both the past and the present, does not stand up to much scrutiny. Certainty is quickly replaced with doubt, which falls away to reveal only ignorance. Even with all the evidence we have, it seems impossible to be certain of anything.

Certainly, Julius Caesar, you were a man of controversy and influence.

You still are.

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