Carthago Delenda Est - by Paul Logan
Do you know who Cato the Elder is? No? Well OK quick history lesson:
Rome used to have an enemy south of them on the mediterranean: Carthage.
It was a pretty decent place, and they didn’t trifle with any Roman hoo-ha though - so much so that they got into multiple wars with their northern neighbor. Three, in fact. We call these “The Punic Wars”. The third one ended with Rome going total overkill; they razed the city and sold any and all survivors into slavery.
Cato was a veteran of the Second Punic War, and died just after the outset of the third in 149 BC. Carthage was razed just 3 years later in 146 BC. Cato had an interesting catchphrase that we still talk about today:
Carthago Delenda Est
I.e. “Carthage must be destroyed.” He said this as a closing line to each and every one of his speeches in the senate, regardless of topic. A speech by Cato about sewer ordinances still ended with the catchphrase.
It was so noted that another statesman. (Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Corculum) took up the complement and ended every speech with it: “Carthage must be saved.”
So we know who won that argument.
I can’t get over the fact that this is just an ancient meme and Cato was the ancient roman equivalent of u/shittymorph except instead of hell in a cell and the undertaker you just get an appeal to genocide.
So why am I brining this up? Because I need a catchphrase, obviously. What overriding principle is insane enough to mandate an IRL email signature? What am I about? Well, this blog is about “Radical Genuity and Antiparasitism” - but how do I turn that into a one liner?
Things that define themselves in the negative (like certain political parties) don’t tend to have actual strong unifying identity apart from being against a common enemy. In fact their identity becomes so tied to the thing they oppose that they’d be lost without the wall to push against. This seems… not good for longterm stability.
“Carthage must be destroyed” is a perfect example of focus on the negative. What happens once Carthage is destroyed? Cato never had to answer that question. He just started shit right up until his deathbed and other people finished it (Scipio Aemilianus, who commanded the razing force, specifically).
I’m starting to rethink the phrase “Antiparasitism” because it defines itself negatively. It doesn’t have any goals after getting rid of parasites. “Sentient Essentialism” or something similar would be better. Here’s my read on the zeitgeist and what it wants:
Restructure society to make emotional life and its wellbeing valued above all else.
Redistribute resources to reflect this change in values.
Dismantle corporatism (this is a side effect of #1).
End wealth hoarding (this is a side effect of #2).
Ultimately I don’t care if the world is threatened by societal macro-parasites or a giant meteoroid, our mission is to center and perpetuate sentient and feeling life above all else. So, workshopping a bit, let’s not define ourselves by what we want to end, but what we want to start:
Make humans and their wellbeing valued above all else.
That seems pretty good- but there’s squabbling that can happen around “wellbeing”- overfishing a sea to extinction might be beneficial for the current starving population but devastating to the generation after. In the same spirit that led us away from defining ourselves in the negative, we must define our goals in perpetuity, and emphasize that those alive right now don’t get precedent over those to come.
[Trying to calculate the utilitarian moral weight of future generations is a topic I’m super fascinated by and will likely write a post on in the future, if you have anything that’s up that alley please send it my way or leave a comment!]
With that in mind, trying again:
Value the next generation’s wellbeing over all else.
Seems clinical, and rather scratchy. How would Harvey Milk do it?
How about:
“I’m here for the people, especially the ones that aren’t born yet!”
Sounds kinda pro-life-y but maybe you could pick up some confusion votes that way 😛. What about Cato?
“Any threat to human wellbeing must be destroyed.”
OK, a little brutal but acceptable. What about his counterpart Cornelius?
“Human wellbeing must be saved.”
Unsurprisingly not as impactful. That brings us back to the blog, what’s our catchphrase?
“Human rights are the only rights.” - sounds too anti-PETA.
“Wellbeing is the only virtue.”
“Above all else, we must center and perpetuate emotional life”
“Humanity over profit”
“Feeling over profit”
I don’t think I’m actually going to arrive on something today. I’ll come back to the post and update it as I think. For now I need to go take a covid nap. Furthermore, subscribe to this blog.
Eh? Ehhhhhhhhhh? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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