| Cato was powerful. Cato was a traditionalist. Cato was conservative. In many ways, he was an elitist. But the most important thing about him is that from an early age, he hated bullies. As we tell in Lives of the Stoics, at a birthday party for a friend, a group of boys were playing a Roman version of the game cops and robbers. One of the younger boys was caught and shut into a dark chamber by some of the older boys. Scared, the child called for Cato, who threw aside the boy blocking the door and took the scared child home to his parents. Later, in his teens, Cato was invited with his tutor to the house of Sulla, who then ruled Rome as a cruel dictator. As the tutor explained to Cato why everyone was afraid of Sulla, he watched as Cato's entire countenance changed. "Why don't you give me a sword," Cato said, outraged, "so that I could free my country from slavery?" And as Cato got older, that's why he hated the corruption in Rome's provinces, because it victimized the inhabitants who deserved better. The virtue of justice was for Cato and many of the Stoics, a north star that pointed them into opposition to anyone who tried to intimidate them or take away their rights. They hated those who abused power and wielded it against the weak. In fact, the expression sic semper tyrannis (Thus always to tyrants) traces itself all the way to Scipio Aemilianus, one of the great Stoic generals before the turn of the millennium. George Washington modeled himself on Cato his entire life. But his view on justice and of the goal of good government was captured in a line that he borrowed from the scriptures: "Every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid." His vision of America, he said in a famous address, gave "bigotry no sanction" and "persecution no assistance." Washington was talking about tolerance. He was talking about freedom and love and hope. He was talking about sticking up for the little guy. Now, neither Washington and the Founders nor the Stoics were perfect at this (ahem, slavery). They fell short. They made mistakes. But they set down a powerful ideal for us to aspire to today. As Marcus Aurelius writes, it was from the Stoics Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, and Brutus that he first learned the importance of "a society of equal laws, governed by equality of status and speech, and of rulers who respect the liberty of their subjects above all else." Tyrants, bullies, and jerks are the enemies of justice. They cannot be accepted. They cannot be accommodated. Whether it's an online mob or an economic system that exploits the impoverished, the belittling boss or masked government thugs, tyranny is tyranny and it puts us all at risk. Forget party, forget class, forget any perceived differences: We must speak loudly and with one voice against those who intimidate, those who violate, those who abuse and discriminate. We must not turn away when the meek and the vulnerable are being mistreated or scapegoated. We must stand up to hate and violence, aggression and cruelty. If we're not going to fight for the little guy, for the other, and do what we can for them, who will? And if we allow them to be hurt or exploited or left to suffer, what does that say about us? *** |
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