In the first scene of William Shakespeare’s play “Julius Caesar,” a military official named Flavius reveals his disgust with a dashing military and political official named Julius Caesar, by asking, “Who else would soar above the view of men, And keep us all in servile fearfulness?”

In the second scene, on a crowded street filled with people cheering for Julius Caesar as he passes by, he hears a single voice above the din, and asks, “Who is it in the press that calls on me? I hear a tongue shriller than all the music cry, ‘Caesar!’”

It is a soothsayer, who speaks up and warns Caesar, “Beware the ides of March.” Caesar ignores the fortune teller, saying, “He is a dreamer, let us leave him. Pass.”

It is not until Act 3, near the middle of the play, that the conspirators—Marcus Brutus, Cassius, and Casca—fall upon Caesar and assassinate him, on March 15, the ides of March.

Historians list details of Julius Caesar’s murder. Some 60 Senators participated in the plot. He tried to escape, but tripped and fell. He died from loss of blood, and it occurred on March 15, 44 BCE.

The Senators acted out of fear that Julius Caesar planned to claim the title of ruler for life, push aside the Senate, and rule as a tyrant forever. They wanted to retain some measure of power.

The Republic’s officials could point to a constitution, to a Senate, to a body of laws, to courts, to interpretations of justice, and to all the remaining mechanics of a functioning republican government.

And yet, the Romans believe that on certain occasions, during an emergency, the Republic would not react quick enough. For those cases, officials would elect a “director,” or a dictator, for six months, suspend the constitution, and give the director total autocratic control.

On Jan. 26, 44 BCE, Julius Caesar had won a new title, “director in perpetuity,” not for six months, but for life. The Senators had reason to fear Caesar’s grab for power, hence their conspiracy.

The public though hated the Senators for killing Julius Caesar. For a dozen years, a host of men, filled with ambition, grabbed for power, stirring up a series of civil wars that shook Rome’s Republic.

Finally, in 31 BCE, Caesar’s grandnephew and adopted son, Octavian, emerged as Rome’s leader. He assumed a new name, Caesar Augustus, and in 31 BCE, he declared himself Rome’s first emperor. An imperial government, the Roman Empire, superseded the Roman Republic that year.

Luke, a New Testament writer, wrote the most telling words, “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.” The Senate did not issue the decree, because power now resided in a man, an emperor, who could tax who he wanted.

In the eighteenth century, a British historian named Edward Gibbon, wrote a chronicle of Rome’s Empire, and entitled it “The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” It includes six volumes, and covers 2,442 pages.

Gibbon begins on page one. “In the second century of the Christian era, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind. Their peaceful inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth and luxury.

“The Roman senate appeared to possess the sovereign authority, and devolved on the emperors all the executive powers of government.” In other words, the Senate still existed, but in name only, and had granted all authority to an emperor, to tax, to spend the receipts, to wage war, to negotiate treaties.

Gibbon believes his duty is “to describe the prosperous condition of the empire.” It may have been, and yet its citizens lacked an opportunity to vote and kick out of office a corrupt emperor, like a Nero.

On page 2,441, Gibbon writes, “Of these pilgrims, and of every reader, the attention will be excited by an History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: the greatest, perhaps, and most awful scene in the history of mankind.” It may have been.

Two millennium have passed, and people living in the 21st century are still trying to reconcile the same issues, as did the ancient Romans.

How can a republic move quickly? Is there ever a need for a temporary director? What is the proper relationship between executive and legislative branches? How does a republic deal with a director who will not leave office, but wants to claim “director in perpetuity,” because of a supposed crisis?”

In a republic, like the United States of America, the answer to most of these important questions boils down to one thing, the will of the people, the voters, the ultimate sovereign authority. In their hands lies the power to direct the wheels of government.

One final point. Shakespeare understood very well the raw emotion that power can unleash when consolidated in one person, in a demagogue. Flavius said, “And keep us all in servile fearfulness.”

Here is my column for this week, some thoughts on Ides of March and Roman history.
Bill Benson

A 17th century philosopher named René Descartes struggled to make sense of the mind-body problem. He understood that thoughts originate in the brain, but he observed that mental activity is ephemeral, without physical substance. How can this be? he wondered.
Ever since, philosophers have called Descartes’s philosophy “dualism.” They concur that what occurs within the mind exists in a separate reality from what occurs in the physical world.

The 16th century writer Michel de Montaigne tried to describe the way a human mind works. “Men do not know the natural disease of the mind; it does nothing but ferret and inquire, and is eternally wheeling, juggling, and perplexing itself like silkworms, and then suffocates itself in its work.”

He compared the human mind to: “A mouse in a pitch barrel.”

An issue that upset Montaigne was the abundance of laws on the books, designed to curtail crime. He wrote, “We have more laws in France than all the rest of the world put together,” and then he quotes the Roman historian Tacitus, “As we were formerly overburdened by crimes, so we are now by laws.”

Mind vs. body; crime vs. law.

Edmund Burke, the late eighteenth-century British politician, read of events unfolding in France during its revolution, and was horrified. He wrote, “Everything seems out of nature in this strange chaos of levity and ferocity, and of all sorts of crimes jumbled together with all sorts of follies.” “Levity and ferocity.” Wild hilarious laughter matched point for point with rage and harsh words. Crimes jumbled with follies. Mind vs. body; crime vs. law; levity vs. ferocity; crimes vs. follies.

Thomas Paine witnessed events during the French Revolution, but unlike Edmund Burke, Paine was pleased, because he detested France and England’s monarchy. He wrote, “Reason and Ignorance, the opposites of each other influence the great bulk of mankind. Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.

“The two modes of government which prevail in the world, are government by election and representation; and government by hereditary succession. The former is known by the name of republic; the latter by that of monarchy. “Those two distinct and opposite forms, erect themselves on the two distinct and opposite bases of Reason and Ignorance.”

Only Thomas Paine could write that way. Whenever he put ink to paper, he exuded confidence, certainty, fearlessness, and intellectual snobbery. Only he would dare to fix a republic upon a solid base of Reason, but place a monarchy upon a slippery slope of Ignorance.

Mind vs. body; crime vs. law; levity vs. ferocity; crimes vs. follies; Reason vs. Ignorance; a republic vs. a monarchy.

In a recent podcast, I heard the author Simon Winchester describe how journalists and politicians have moved from a former-day respectful “suspicion” of each other to a now distasteful “cynicism.”

Back in the mid-twentieth century, journalists expected politicians to lie, or to embellish, or to leave crucial pieces out of their statements. As a result, a reporter’s boss expected his or her journalists to confirm everything from multiple sources, in order to ferret out the full truth.

But today, suspicion has given way to a raw brand of cynicism. Each party is convinced that the opposing party is wrong about all issues, distrustful of their intentions, anxious to crush them, even to annihilate them, and unwilling to ever cooperate with them to achieve a meaningful result.

The Founding Fathers envisioned a different outcome.

Another example of dualism: deference or democracy. Some people’s minds are geared toward getting in line and following a leader. These people want someone to lead them.

We all know of pitiable examples where a woman will submit to a man, or a man to a woman, or a political party to an elected official, or a flock to an ill-advised theology, or a committee to the loudest and most forceful member, much to their detriment. Yet, they do it.
Democracy though relies upon equality. Each member in the group has a vote. The group’s body of delegates votes and selects a leader to represent them. If that representative fails to perform his or her duties, the group can and will fire him or her, and hire another.

In a democracy, it is the group that retains the power, not a king or an elected official.

Mind vs. body; crime vs. law; levity vs. ferocity; crimes vs. follies; Reason vs. Ignorance; a republic vs. a monarchy; suspicion vs. cynicism; and deference vs. democracy. Each an example of dualism.

In recent days, I reread Daniel Boorstin’s book, “The Image, or What Happened to the American Dream.” Boorstin trained as a historian, but in his 1961 book, he steps away from history long enough to peer deep into American’s modern-day thought processes.

He identifies certain illusions that, he insists, hamper correct thinking.

I would agree. Illusions abound in modern-day America. We wonder, “what is true, what is false, what is real, what is fake?” We fill our minds everyday with truckloads of information, but we are at a loss what to do with it. The illusions float upon the wind. We imbibe them in the water. They live in us.

We repeat them. Others repeat them. The illusion bounces into our ears again and again, as if we reside in an echo chamber. If we hear the illusion enough times, we believe it true. Boorstin says, that “the thicket of unreality stands between us and the facts of life.”

In the first chapter, Boorstin points at an American illusion that he calls “extravagant expectations.”

He writes, “We expect too much of the world. We expect new heroes every season, a dramatic spectacular every week. We expect everybody to feel free to disagree, yet we expect everybody to be loyal, not rock the boat. We expect everybody to believe deeply in her religion, yet not to think less of others for not believing.

“We expect the contradictory and the impossible: compact cars which are spacious; luxurious cars which are economical. We expect to be rich and charitable, powerful and merciful, active and reflective, kind and competent.

“Never have people been more the masters of their environment. Yet never has a people felt more deceived and disappointed. For never has a people expected so much more than the world could offer.”

Is he right about our extravagant expectations? Do we expect too much from our employers, our spouses, our children, our friends, our communities, our government? He thinks so. I wonder.

A second illusion that Boorstin points to is the “pseudo-event.”

True news reveals a new event: a birth, a marriage, a death, a tornado, an earthquake, a volcano, an election result, a revolution, a battle, a wheat harvest, and so on, each a legitimate form of new news.

But Boorstin argues that the daily news now in America revolves around what he calls, “pseudo-events.” Into that category he lumps “press conferences, interviews, and leaked information.”

At a press conference, a politician or a company official stands before a gathering of journalists and answers a series of their questions by drawing from a stack of memorized canned answers. In an interview, a single journalist directs the same questions to the same politician or company official.

Leaked information is more often an unsubstantiated rumor, and few can judge its veracity.

Boorstin says that we suffer daily from “A Flood of Pseudo-Events.” They “are more dramatic, are planned for dissemination, repeated at will, cost money to create, are more sociable, more conversable, more convenient to witness, and they spawn other pseudo-events in geometric progression.”

He concludes, “Counterfeit happenings tend to drive spontaneous [real news] out of circulation.”

Boorstin then points at a third illusion: when American society mistakes a celebrity for a hero. A hero is a person who achieves a worthwhile goal. For example, consider the scientists who developed the Covid-19 vaccines in record time. I say, give them a Nobel Prize. We call them heroes.

But a celebrity is someone different.

Boorstin says, “she is neither good or bad, not great or petty. She is the human pseudo-event, fabricated on purpose to satisfy our exaggerated expectations of human greatness. She is morally neutral, made by all of us who read about her, see her on television, and who buy her songs.

A hero makes new news. “A celebrity hires a press agent.”

On May 21, 1927, twenty-five-year-old Charles Lindbergh became a global hero, when he flew the Spirit of Saint Louis across the North Atlantic and landed in Paris, France, but then newspapers decided to convert him from hero into celebrity. They asked him to inspire, to lead, and to speak.

Boorstin says that when Lindbergh “gave into these temptations, his pronouncements were dull, petulant, and vicious. He acquired a reputation as a pro-Nazi, and a crude racist. When in Germany, he accepted a decoration from Hitler. Very soon the celebrity was being uncelebrated.”

A celebrity is known for being know, not for any remarkable achievements.

Ralph Waldo Emerson ended his essay on Illusions, saying, “The mad crowd drives hither and thither, now furiously commanding this thing to be done, now that. What is he that he should resist their will, and think or act for himself? Every moment new changes and new showers of deceptions to baffle and distract him.”