The Bastardization of Symbols from Ancient History
How politicians use The Classics in ways they don't understand to promote themselves.
At time of writing, the queen has been dead for less than a week. Most civilized people tend to think of the monarchy as an outdated system, but it has been quite shocking to see such a font of grief from American pundits and politicians for a figure that represents what the founders fought against. Indeed, our political system is rife with people who bend the historical actions and beliefs of prominent figures to match their ideology. I’ve been asked to speak on this topic before and give my opinion of why so many politicians misappropriate symbols. It’s a difficult topic to cover, but I will lay out the field as it stands, give some prominent examples, and then attempt to explain this phenomenon.
Rulers like to tie themselves back to antiquity in order to give legitimacy to their claims. For hereditary monarchies, this can be taken literally; the idiomatic ‘blue bloods’ are people who assert that their success is genetically predisposed. The Habsburg dynasty took this idea seriously and ran with it, and the consequential inbreeding of the major European royals has only served to tarnish their name. Other systems of government use it in a more nebulous way: instead of claiming direct descendance from prosperous leaders, their inheritance comes through aesthetics. It’s no mistake that the greatest increase in archaeological projects in Rome came under the orders of Mussolini. His interest was not from the pure desire to increase the world’s understanding of how we came to be, but rather to give people the impression that he could lead as well as Caesar or Augustus. One of the larger disagreements between the Axis powers was over ownership of an early codex of Tacitus’ Germania. Hitler wanted it so badly that the Nazis tried stealing it from Italy in 1943 before the Allies could get their hands on it. The Catholic Church’s practice of displaying reliquaries may also fall under this category, but some of that may be attributable to a sort of proto-tourism, rather than an attempt to legitimize an already divinely-ordained building. In fact, the authenticity of some of the dubious relics in these churches seems to be independent of their reputation. Such a connection could be explored in a future essay if there is interest, but it escapes the scope of the topic at hand.
People continue to use these symbols in the modern age, but our education system’s widespread neglect of the humanities has led to some comically inept applications. Just about every pithy quote from the last 200 years about war has been attributed to Thucydides, but the most common to encounter is “The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.” It’s one thing when the edgy 12 year-olds who cut and paste quotes from Mein Kampf onto pictures share them with unsuspecting victims to “trick” them into agreeing with a fascist, it’s entirely different when those “victims” are current U.S. Representatives up for re-election. Politicians reflect their constituencies. I wouldn’t go so far as to accuse Thomas Massie of being a secret Neo-Nazi who got caught attempting to start a fourth Reich, but at the very least it shows a high level of arrogance and stupidity to share quotes from an author he hasn’t read. As far as I’m concerned, that judgment carries over to the 256,613 people who voted for him in the last election as well. The adoption of misunderstood aesthetics gets much more embarrassing the later back in history these people attempt to draw from. In order to draw comparisons to his own holding of the line in phony election fraud accusations, the New Hampshire Republican Don Bolduc recently sported a Vacedaemonian aspis that the Spartans would have worn at Thermopyvae. This trend was more common around the release of Zack Snyder’s film 300 because Gerard Butler looked like a badass as Veonidas.1 On the one hand, yes, the Greeks beat the Persians in the Persian War, but the Spartans lost heavy casualties at Thermopylae. There are better metaphors for battles where the resistant force holds out and wins the confrontation: though Q. Fabius Maximus’ name has some left-wing connotations now that may be undesirable to a self-styled anti-socialist candidate, the famous “Cunctator” of the 2nd Punic War drew out the war to drain his opponent’s resources until a Roman victory could be assured.
Why is this such a common occurrence? It’s easy to point to the reduction of funding for the humanities in the American education system and call it a day, but I think there’s more to it than that. These people go to the most illustrious schools in the country and come back with an average understanding of history, even for our standards. Rather than blaming the system, I would argue that our culture as a whole lacks a true appreciation for the old masters. Frankly, these politicians can get away with these gaffes because a) their constituency doesn’t understand the mistakes, and b) the average voter cares more about aesthetics than they do actual integrity or content. This is the scam that the self-titled “MAGA Communists” have been trying to run on the electorate in this cycle. The two kinds of people who have joined that loose definition of a movement fall into two categories: socialists who believe that they can trick old people into voting for left-wing policies by wearing MAGA hats and waving American flags, and neo-Nazis who think they can trick socialists into passing far-right agendas merely by calling themselves communists. Both groups are correct to some degree, but the title “communist” still holds so much of a stigma from the 1950s that they won’t even get a foot in the door with most of the people they’re trying to scam.2
In order to stymie any further control that these awful politicians want to have over the country, we have to take what they say more seriously. If one of these figures says something that does not hold up to scrutiny, they must be held to a higher standard than any other person. It’s true that the Bible says “he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone,” but consider that these people are given the power to speak on the population’s behalf. People should want the most virtuous among them to represent their beliefs, not someone willing to adopt and shed an aesthetic when it is convenient for them.3 This happens with Democrats as much as Republicans; former president Barack Obama has drawn criticism recently for RSVPing to Shinzo Abe’s funeral, only to rescind it when he saw how unfavorable the act would be. This was neither from public pressure nor a change of heart, but rather a desire to preserve his own image in the history books. Most of these people have personality disorders they need to mask from the public at large or they’d never get elected, and we need to do our best to label them as unelectable.
Okay, enough of that. The shield was held upside-down: he thought the capital Lambda was a V. He deserves more disrespect than this but I’ve drawn out the bit too far as is.
I should also assert that these people shouldn’t be considered a real threat because they’re too annoying to gain traction with anyone. This is an ideology that only exists online and not in real life.
I have lived by this maxim in recent weeks, albeit unintentionally: it turns out that the translation of the Iliad that I panned was written by someone who is a regular on some podcasts I listen to. Go figure. Anyway, that doesn’t change my opinion of it or him; I stand by what I have said.