653. Passionate Sage by Joseph Ellis. I learned a great deal from this book. I found it well written and stimulating. Ellis makes the case that Mr. Adams deserves more respect and credit for his part in the formation of the country, his contributions to political philosophy and contributions to his perspective of what is the essence of history.
His admiration of Mr. Adams is infectious. This book makes clear how much, how long and how deeply Mr. Adams contemplated the purpose and meaning of the revolution and numerous other topics. His running commentary in the books he read, his marginalia, reveal not only a fascinating person but someone who has/had much to offer.
But as I read this book I came to realize that Joseph Ellis sees little or no place which Latin Classics, particularly Cicero, had/have in the mental make up of Mr. Adams. This is a blessing because I began, because of what Mr. Ellis left out, to think of Cicero, his contrast and similarity to Mr. Adams and the value to be derived there from.
John Adams felt that political leaders needed to remain disinterested in their own political future and maintain purity of public virtue. I wonder if Mr. Adams derived this from Cicero's De Officiis wherein Cicero makes the case that someone who pursues truth and embraces reason will never submit to someone merely because that person has power. Virtue to Adams was not an abstract concept but a system of self denial. Isn't this Stoic?
The study and practice of law I am sure does not dissolve the obligation of morality or religion. The statement is complex and potentially self contradictory. So are Cicero's. Yet, sometimes I think that Cicero understood humanity better than those who spend so much time attacking Cicero's value as a thinker.
Mr. Adams felt that those who take a role in controversial issues themselves become controversial. This brings up a number of questions concerning Cicero and the Catilinarian Conspiracy and the history surrounding the Philippics.
Adams felt that American independence was a constructive and voluntary choice of self government. It was more than simply a repudiation of British tyranny. To Mr. Adams history was and is a messy activity which makes nailing down truth as hard as nailing jelly to a tree.
Mr. Adams asserted that his part in our independence was more important than the Declaration of Independence. That document he claimed was the culmination of ideas hammered out in debate and argument in the meetings of the Continental Congress. In those debates Mr. Adams played more than a major part as supportered by a comment of T. Jefferson.
Ellis makes the point that Franklin brought out the Franklin in Mr. Adams- that is, Franklin's homespun style caused Mr. Adams to drop his usual manner and imitate Franklin. Maybe but it is also possible that Mr. Adams was practicing Ciceronian prosopopoeia. Much as Cicero took on the character of Clodius or Appius Claudius Caecus for humorous purposes. Mr. Adams may have been doing the same with Mr. Franklin.
Adams was concerned about the degree of adulation given to Mr. Washington. He had this to say-
it is to offend against eternal justice to give to one as the people do the merits of so many.
Adams once reflected that the greatest men have the greatest faults.
This he said of Hancock- if he had vanity and caprice so had I. I could not but think of the old saw repeated about Cicero's conceit. This too needs to be re-examined.
Adams insisted that very talented people often possess some very serious flaws. It is the founding group together, fighting, arguing that brought about the USA. Perfection was never possible because the participants were not perfect. Mr. Adams understood this and that is why he saw a need for complexity in government.
Mr. Adams' view of history means that to grasp history one must look to the inherent characteristics of human behavior which were allowed to flourish here so long and unfettered by British rule.
Divine providence did not make us a chosen people.
The fundamental elemental urge of humans is to strive for distinction- that is part of the human fabric- this produces a fluctuating elusive aristocracy which will do good as long as those who run government realize that government must channel this energy to do good for society as awhile. To figure that government's job is to eliminate social distinctions runs counter to the reality of human nature. Cicero's discussion in De Oratore of emotions and the part these plain in decision making come to mind here.
The shear size of the USA meant that unless these human urges are controlled and directed this lust for distinction would cause severe damage to any effort to bring benefit to the population at large.
Comprehensive theories of politics were invariably too neat and rational to capture the maddening messiness of the real world. Interesting because Cicero is often faulted for not being consistent. I have always found this interesting on two levels. Perhaps Cicero saw that human mental make up is messy and also weird to think that Cicero over a 40 year period was never to change his views.
Ideal neat political theories were too divorced from knowledge of history to arrive at something functional and lasting.
The above several quotes caused me to wonder what aspects of De Officiis or any of his philosophical works are contradictory and what benefit does Cicero gain from this?
History is a book of paradoxes. What a loaded assessment.
The above wit and wisdom of Mr. Adams and the reflections it caused me concerning Cicero:
Ellis' assails Mr. Adams lack of stoic pose in a number of places. He seems determined to disconnect him from Cicero. Yet, when standing beside Abigail's death bed he was the only one who maintained composure. This is stoicism. Whence?
Ellis records that Adams mused on punctuation while reading Cicero's De Senectute that he was roaming through the Milky Way. Ellis suggests that Adams was drifting away from the value of Cicero. Clearly Ellis has not read De Senectute (often called Cato the Elder) in Latin for Adams more likely than not was reading something like this:
To me (says Cato the Elder to his friends) the ripeness of old age is so pleasant that the closer I approach death I seem to see land and at some time soon into a harbor from a long voyage to have come.
Or this:
But the end of living is best when with mind and faculties in tact the same nature which put life together sets a human free.
The pattern of words Cicero chooses reveals the sense that life and body are tightly messed with one another. An interesting comment on Cicero's part on the mystery of life.
A clear and neat reading of Cicero's De Senectute would have produced a more just and accurate rendering of Mr. Adams' comment.
Ellis has great sensitivity for Mr. Adams but misses an important dimension of his intellectual background. Mr. Adams had read Cicero in one or multiple forms for 70 years straight. Something drew Mr. Adams to Cicero.
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