Governments Are Against Critical Thinking Teaching the Humanities Differently Ten years ago I retired after 40 years of teaching the Humanities. Going to high school in the 1950’s was a far different world from today when there was more time to be human and the academic standards were high. As…

Carneades Creates a Sensation & Banished from Rome You may recall that the Romans were also intrigued by the Greeks even before the philosopher Carneades made his legendary visit to Rome in 155 BCE and created a sensation with his back-to-back two-day lecture course. The first day he made a…

Flattery is a drug to control someone . . . or a way of making someone compliant before asking a favor, or even silencing a potential critic. Many wish not to be virtuous, but only want to give that impression. They delight in flattery, and when someone pays them a…

Scipio used to complain that men were more painstaking in choosing their animals than they were in choosing their friends. Everybody could tell you how many goats and sheep he had, but not how many friends; that men took pains in choosing the animals they bought, but careless in choosing…

Not all friendships last a lifetime/Different views of treating friends/Political Friendships/If you’re everybody’s friend, you’re nobody’s friend Just getting something off your chest instead of keeping it bottled up is marvelous therapy. Having a sympathetic ear can spell all the difference in the world because talking it out can lift…

Reading Cicero at 17 in 1950’s America (1) I was a high-school senior in the late 1950s when I first read Cicero’s celebrated treatise De Amicitia (45 BCE) On Friendship, . I thought it an inspired choice to begin Latin IV. …

Seven Republican Gifts to Americans If House Republicans have their way, this is what they’ll do to make America great again: Block student debt relief plan. Do away with climate-change protections. Make it easier for mass shooters to buy semi-automatic weapons. Gut Affordable Health Care Act for millions of Americans. Raise prescription drug costs even higher. Cut Social Security and Medicare for older Americans.

The Romans on Managing Slaves (1) Frons domini plus prodest quam occipitium. A master’s face produces more work than the back of his head (Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 18. 6. 31). When a slave owner supervises what his slaves are doing, this is time well-spent since the slaves are…

Bearing hatred is the first art of kings The Romans on Governing (11) Ars prima regni est posse invidiam pati. Knowing how to bear hatred is the first art of kings. (Seneca, The Mad Hercules, 353). If you want to govern, you’ll make many friends, but also many enemies if you don’t vote for their…