To Be Rather than to Seem – ESSE QUAM VIDERI – People pretending to be something that they aren’t is not new. We are warned against them in ancient myth, in the Bible, and by great orators such as Cicero who spoke clearly against them in his Essay on Friendship 2000 years ago. People have not changed noticeably since anatomically correct humans first appeared 400,000 years ago. Only our technology changes. Biologically we still respond to stimuli as we have evolved to. This is another entry in What Your Father Should Have Taught You. In a world where so much is fake it is perhaps even more important that we cling to what is real in ourselves and our lives.
Welcome sojourners. It’s been a while but we will do better in the future. Welcome back to any who seek to live truly! I have been working behind the scenes so know that you are not forgotten or neglected. However, as a one-man operation I need to do all the business, research, marketing, tech, and … well, everything alone, while supporting my family. Some of you will wonder that this seems to have a more political bent than religious. However, I have always thought that God was doing something special in the formation of “the Great American Experiment” of freedom and people’s self-governance. Most of th world was against it. Europe, in particular, thought it was doomed to failure that the “masses” could not govern themselves. Jefferson and the others proved them wrong for 200 years. Now, however, I feel the battle for our society is not just a political battle but a moral battle where Divine Forces struggle. Chaos and immorality against order and freedom, good and evil, are today battling for the future of humanity. As Ronald Reagan once said, “If we lose freedom here there is nowhere for us to flee to.” For now my friends welcome back to: To Be Rather Than to Seem – ESSE QUAM VIDERE. (Published in its original form at SabersEdge.Online presented here slightly edited. – Rivan Elan.)
WHY SHOULD WE CARE WHAT SOME ROMAN WROTE?
I used to think that my dad (who told me stories of the horse drawn dairy wagon coming by and how he made friends with the driver and he would give him a piece of cheese from the large wheel of cheese he had to sell with the other dairy products,) had to be amazed from riding his horse into town as a boy when he wasn’t working to seeing men land on the moon. The world changes fast. That was why I discounted much of what he tried to tell me when I was young. I thought it was outdated. But I have since found out again and again that my life would have gone easier if I had listened in the first place.
He told me people are the same as they have always been and that is why history is valuable and why it seems to repeat itself. When situations arise that are similar to the past people respond in a similar way to how they have always responded. I was skeptical, after all so much in the world has changed. Only when I found out from science that we really were the same as the Romans and earlier man did I fully believe him and completely understand what he had always been trying to tell me. Proverbs and the events of history (not the dates but the events and stories of history,) have lessons for us because people are, and will continue to be, people.
Humans have not markedly changed biologically for at least 400,000 years and, unless your a communist who still believes in the 19th century idea that everything is determined by our education and society we know that our neurological reactions and responses are largely hard wired by our evolutionary biology. We can modify those reactions with training but our physiological (and therefore our mental response which is largely biochemical,) to danger, love, lust, greed, or what have you are the same as they were in the Romans, the Vikings, or the ancient Egyptians (this is the theme of Brett Weinstein’s book A Hunter Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century). The stimuli may change, our hard-wired reactions do not. Women still scream (a response to call for help from the more powerful and armed men or other wormen,) and men reach for weapons, draw themselves up for battle, or flee. Fight or flight. The response doesn’t change; only what we are running from. We evolved in a dangerous world and the struggle for survival is our natural state. Perhaps that is why every time we create a safe and stable civilization, we tear it apart. When the society is so successful we have no real enemies, we fight each other. We seem to see that today, don’t we?
So, when I considered what was going on in the world today, I remembered my father quoting Cicero who said in his Essay on Friendship (Laelius de Amicitia, Chapter 98,) that “Few are those who wish to be endowed with virtue rather than to seem so.” Virtute enim ipsa non tam multi praediti esse quam videri volunt, is the phrase in Cicero’s own Latin language and it has been handed down to us through the centuries in the phrase:
TO BE RATHER THAN TO SEEM –
ESSE QUAM VIDERI
WHY VIRTUE MATTERS
What got me started thinking of this was that when I told a 7-11 clerk that my drink was a refill he looked at me and said that I need to tell him when I come in if I am going to have a refill. I have been doing this for 40 years and reuse plastic cups until they break. He was the first to question me as to if I really brought my own cup. Apparently, there are people who will lie to save 30 cents on a drink. I guess that was one key advantage when we were a Christian nation. People believed that whatever they did God was watching. My father used to say, “You are not just lying to others you are lying to yourself and to your God. When you give less than your very best you are not just betraying your employer who contracted for you and your skills (all of your ability be it great or small,) but you are betraying yourself and God.”
This is very sad, that people care so little for their own integrity that they would compromise it to gain an advantage worth less than a dollar. But that seems to be where we have fallen to. Such moral relativism is also not knew. It was really promulgated by Karl Marx and Friederich Engels in the 1800s when they began espousing communist ideals. Ideals which have contaminated not only society and politics but also our religious and educational institutions.
People today will find it inconceivable that workers used to be able to give a lad or lass ten dollars and ask them to go get them a coke and the child would go do it and bring them back their change. Even after this had faded in America it was still like that in Germany when I was stationed there in the 80s. It amazed many of my fellow soldiers who grew up in big cities (and had only joined the army to escape a bad situation.)
It is very sad, but I am not really too surprised. As we turn from traditional Christian values we turn toward darkness and chaos. As civilizations turn from their root values they begin to unravel. The sum total of these daily, seemingly small decisions, unravel the fabric of trust that every society needs to survive. The Left, spurred on by fanatics, is actively undermining this very key element to society. Most do it unknowingly but hard- core Communists do it precisely because they want civilization to fall. They believe that only after it falls, and they exterminate a quarter of the population (this is their estimate not mine,) that only then can a new and fair world appear. Somehow, in the midst of this mass murder a new virtuous human they call “the new Communist man” will appear. Communism is very vague on how the lying, murdering, schemers who don’t believe in any moral compass or virtue produce this altruistic individual but Communism is very shakey on all of the details. Even without communists and nihilists we would follow this path of decay. Every civilization does. They ever have trodden this path into a post-civilizational dark age again and again as as the pagan Seneca noted in Ancient Rome noted when the old virtues, (see my article on Pietas here: Pietas, Key to Good Government and Good Living – SabersEdge.Online ) faded and the virtue that made the civilization great became a thing of the past. Civilizations can only survive when parents, grand- parents, professors, and schools all teach the virtues that form the base of their society. When no one in the family has these virtues – in other words when children do not learn them from their parents or their grandparents the chain is broken (and we have now educated three generations in moral relatavism,) and the civilization collapses. That is because a child has no one in their life to point them back to “the old ways of belief and virtue.” This happened to Rome as they moved from a Republic to an Empire.
In such a world, ESSE QUAM VIDERI becomes not only a foreign concept but an anathema as corrupt people cling to appearances and increasingly lack all substance. And then they blame society for it, not realizing that they are a part of that society and society itself is only made up of the actors in that society and their ideals. In other words, we ourselves have become the problem. Only by doing the hard work of self-development can society return to the virtues of the past. There will still be wicked among us, however the survival of civilization requires that most of us live honestly or it will collapse around our ears. Not only did the Romans know this 2000 years ago but it was recognized nearly 4000 years ago as well and is repeated continuously through the Biblical narrative. It has been true for a very long time, and anyone who claims it isn’t, will be hard pressed to find evidence to support their claim. As they say, the wicked always eat themselves just as the Democrats seem to be doing today. It is sad, the Democratic Party used to stand for worker’s rights and the ACLU used to do good.
THE WAY OF THE LIE LEADS TO DESTRUCTION
As I have said before, I often noticed when I was an agent doing interviews and interrogations that people tended to assume the everyone is like them – that everyone naturally acted and believed as they do, and just as truly good people tend to not even see the darkness in others and are sometimes what people have referred to as “lawful stupid” so too dishonest people project their own malfeasance and spite onto others. Elsewhere I have talked about the People of the Lie and Alexander Solzhenitsyn told us that is the way of communism [See here: It’s Always Been About Lies and Control – SabersEdge – Cutting Through the Lies to Get to the Truth and It’s Always Been About Lies and Control, Pt. II – SabersEdge – Cutting Through the Lies to Get to the Truth ]
You see this a lot with Leftists and increasingly among the educated and Democrats – especially now that the Democratic Party and our educational institutions have embraced Neo-Marxist values and eschewed all true virtue. That is why the Left is terrified that when Republicans take power, they will warp the Justice Department and use Federal Agencies to attack them just as they do to attack their own political opponents. Despite the fact that we have actually seen what a Trump Presidency looks like and he did not do that. The very action would be antithetical to returning America to his vision of America in the 1980s; the last real vision of greatness and stability in our history.
Corruption cannot imagine honesty and virtue because they know that they simply pretend to have virtue and they assume that everyone else is simply pretending to. A common saying in counterintelligence was that “everyone is guilty we just need to find what they have done” and then turn that over to law enforcement and let them do their thing. Of course, that is not just cynical but comes from a knowledge that our legal system is so convoluted, immense, and tyrannically invades every aspect of our lives it is harder to obey than the Biblical laws of Leviticus.
Even if the wicked ones do come to believe that there are honest people, they dismiss them as stupid, naive, or lacking imagination. They believe no one is honest, everyone is a criminal who is just faking it, and no one is good. They believe deep in their hearts that if people are stupid enough to accept their lies then they deserve to be fleeced of all they have. Of course, a society cannot survive once even close to half of a population has that view and, I would say from the reactions of filming rape in the subway (among others,) that the large cities are infected with this corrupt view of society. That is why a change in administration isn’t enough to fix them and that is why we used to lock up the amoral cretins who believe and act in this way. Of course, nowadays the Justice Department is more interested in locking up patriots and people who think the government should abide by the Constitution. That, more than anything else, should prove that our government of, by, and for the people has been usurped and the usurpers now rule.
If these people actually revealed who they were deep down, we would be disgusted and repulsed so the saying of Cicero itself is an anathema to them.
In truth, the Bible says that. “No one is good in the eyes of God, not one.” For, “we have all sinned and fallen short of the Grace and Glory of God” yet, God be good, we are saved by faith and grace not by our works. However, repeatedly God’s judgment falls upon those who have given themselves wholly to a corrupt heart, “those who seek after blood” and covet the power or possessions of others. Like Satan himself these people must deceive to survive because we would be repulsed by their soul laid bare. While God can and will forgive he won’t do so until the wicked turn away from their dark path (the word repent simply means to turn and go another direction.) But the longer the wicked follow the path of corruption the harder it is to hear their conscience (an imbedded inner voice God has placed in each of us to guide our actions.) It is amazing how consistent virtues are throughout society: don’t steal, don’t commit adultery, respect your parents and those in legitimate authority, don’t lie, and protect your children and family. These are so imbedded in our psyche that they exist in all societies to a greater or lesser degree. They are hardwired in us [see also: We Are Men of Action, Lies Do Not Become Us – SabersEdge – Cutting Through the Lies to Get to the Truth ].
I know people think like this because this is the prevailing attitude of counterintelligence agents, and it used to be mine. Counterintelligence constantly deals with the seediest most ruthless parts of society and, because they are about gathering information (and these scumbags are good sources of what the underside is doing,) CI Agents have to deal with them. Unlike police who arrest them CI Agents want the information they have, and we cannot get that as readily if they fear arrest. We have to work with the scum of society. It is a compartmentalization that works but leaves them thinking that the world is a very very dark place. It is commonly said that CI Agents start out as the best and the brightest, but the job corrupts them. I know many who came to believe, myself, included, that their task was to stand between the light and the darkness to keep the chaos and darkness at bay so the people could live in their make- believe Disneyland and believe the fantasy that everything is alright. That illusion cannot stand anymore. The darkness has bled through the barrier. Many with these kinds of jobs people come to feel they can no longer be part of normal society; that they are tainted by the darkness they fought. Indeed, it can take years of processing, and PTSD counseling to come to grips with it. I had decided that there could not be a God when I was doing that work. A retired MI colonel in our church told my parents that it takes time for an agent to recover from what they have seen and done. However, he told my folks that I had been raised well and that he knew that if they just gave me time I would return to the values of my youth. (I didn’t learn of this conversation until a decade later.) It took years to reset my way of thinking and my path of return (remember repentance means to turn and go a new way,) to God was a rocky one. But I still know the dark underside of society and the world. That makes it easy for me to see it and I often wonder why others cannot see what I can see so clearly.
Corrupt people, like Neo-Marxists, cannot imagine someone who operates according to principle or virtue because they have none. They may put a great deal of effort into pretending that they do have virtue and that they are good people but it is a lie. If they do encounter people who are genuinely good then they tell themselves that honest people are simply honest because their stupid or naive. If they believe their lies, they think, then the fools deserve to have everything taken from them. I guess it makes it easier to excuse your own faults that way. Unfortunately, far too many of these people have been allowed to assume power in our government and bureaucracy and to teach our children. Great or small corruption reveals itself foremost in their actions and results. As Jesus said, “you will know them by their fruits.” “A good tree does not produce bad fruit and a bad tree cannot produce good fruits.” In this parable we are the trees he is talking about.
Because I have been trained in interrogation and statement analysis I analyze what politicians say and the corrupt reveal themselves in their own lies. But someone who is not trained has more trouble seeing it. That is how the People of the Lie try to survive and live among us, their victims.
More common, most people are not so extreme or as lost as communist operatives. As Uri Bezmenov said there are those who actually believe the rhetoric. Communism not only allows for this they depend on them as cannon fodder. They call them useful idiots. Juri said these idealists must be killed immediately after the Communist revolution because they actually believe the lies. They therefore respond poorly when they realize that the revolution has been betrayed and it was all about power. But they still are lazy and seek to claim virtue or goodness that they haven’t earned. Great or small they still often reveal themselves by their own words.
DOING WHAT IS RIGHT – BEING GENUINE
The unchurched don’t understand sin. They imagine it is disobeying the somewhat arcane laws in the Old Testament, but it is not. Saint Paul made it clear. “He who knows what is right to do and does not do it – for him it is sin.” That is a tall order. It is not just avoiding wrong actions but in actually doing the good that is at our hand, that is our task. We must actually be virtuous and not just pretend to be. The more we act virtuous the more it will become a part of who we are, but it is a tall order and takes a lot of work, that is why so many just fake it. It is easier and they are lazy. But you, my friends, know what is right and how high the stakes truly are!
When I was working for Immigration and we got a new center director who said, “I know you all try to claim hours on your time sheets that you don’t work – but that ends now.” I thought, “Great, we have a liar and a cheater for a leader who assumes everyone else is a liar and a cheater. We are in trouble.” Indeed we were. This superficial fool destroyed the morale of a center with nearly 1000 good and conscientious workers…(OK, not all of them were good and conscientious but I think most of them were.) Of course, as problems arose and there were falling production numbers and rising absenteeism, he viewed it as the workers fault and not his own leadership…at least in his mind. He also did things like continuously challenge people who were hospitalized or disabled to constantly produce medical statements – even for long term and permanent ailments – to justify their doctor appointments or missing work. What kind of person sees someone in a walker after a car accident and assumes they are faking? How this man rose to leadership is a crime in itself and I seriously began to question the government that would put such a man in charge. He never once stopped to consider that these were essentially the same people that were putting in 60-hour work weeks to remove the massive backlog of immigration cases for the two years before he arrived. For some reason, people didn’t put out the same effort for this guy. Go figure.
We are talking about this because this entire train of thought started because I refill cups as my humble effort to recycle, reduce, and reuse resources that I have personal responsibility for. It may not seem like much but between my son and I we can keep 730 cups a year out of the landfill – and I have been doing this for over 40 years. My earliest still serviceable cups are from Micheal Keaten’s “Batman” movie and the “Catwoman” movie which were collectable when the movies came out. If I forget a cup and have to buy a new one then I reuse it as long as it can be rinsed out and reused – most stores have a sink handy for doing so. These are things that are in my grasp that I myself can effect and I decided to do so because I believe we all must try to live sustainably. As a Christian, but also as a good citizen, it is my responsibility to conserve and not waste resources unnecessarily. 730 cups a year in the landfill is unnecessary and it is something I can do that is in my power to change in 40 years that can amount to over 22,900 cups and I have five kids – each carried their own cup into the convenience store when we stopped for drinks on trips. My dad emphasized that we need to act out our beliefs and not just mouth the words to sound good. Be good, don’t just pretend to be good. Sure, none of us are without fault, but we must do the best we can. The world is big but if everyone does what they can it will make a difference not only in their own life but as an example to others.
ESSE QUAM VIDERI
My sons still recycle (our belief and actions are passed onto our children who have spent a lifetime watching what we do, even if they don’t listen to what we say.) They may not have their back hall full of bins for two different kinds of glass and plastic, tin, and aluminum and a compost bucket to recycle, reduce, and reuse kitchen waste by composting it in the garden.
Around the 1960s, when Marxist philosophy started to seriously take hold in general society, the atheists began to act like no one can be a hero if they have faults. This too, is a lie. Christians and our society which was based upon Christian values, knew that no one was perfect. Heroism was defined as people who rose above their own faults to do great things and make a difference in the world. You couldn’t “cancel” people because everyone knew that they also had thoughts. Atheistic Communists follow the examples of Alinsky and Marx in pointing at the faults of others to keep people from looking at how badly messed up their own life is. When the radical communist atheists decided that you cannot be a hero unless your perfect the world scoffed. But now that they have controlled the education of up to three generations their corrupt way of thinking has infected our entire society.
When I was in college I was on the Leadership Team of Ecology Now at the university. I organized demonstrations, boycotts, and campaigns to hold leadership accountable, save parks and play areas for children, and promote recycling at the university and in the community.
This way of living comes very much from my father. He never marched in a demonstration in his life but he quietly lived according to his values and tried to act according to his beliefs. My father, growing up on a family farm, greatly respected the Earth and nature as being a gift from God and His world that we were charged to keep in His stead. Together we took recyclables every month to the distribution center. He passed that on to me. When I became a pastor I realized that when it says “man was given dominion over the earth” the Hebrew word is clear an would better be equated to “man was made steward of God’s Earth” in the same way a steward of a castle in the middle ages was responsible for the castle and ran it in the lord’s absence but he knew that at some point the lord would return and demand an account. I try to remain conscious of being able to give an account of my actions, I am not a saint. I am human and I have faults. But I am conscious of my actions and in-action and try to keep in mind that sin, is failing to do the right that we know that we should do. I don’t care if you are a Christian or not. Such a belief is a better way to live.
Environmentalists use to know that the little things made a difference. Now, too often they want to force people to buy electric cars, wind turbines, or other doo-dads that make the very corporations that pollluted this world even richer.
When I was in the Army I was not as careful until, as an agent, I was driving down the New Jersey Turnpike toward NYC and saw the outlines of a trio of 3 mountains in the distance. Only as I got closer, I could see the bulldozers crawling up the sides. These were not natural mountains; they were mountains of garbage from New York City. Mountains of Garbage! How much smaller would those be if everyone in New York reused their cups, carried their own bags to the store, or some other small deed that they could do. I realize this goes against our conditioning. We are conditioned to a “throw away” society and most of the people who claim to be “environmentalists” throw away tons of garbage in their life without a moment’s thought. They want to be SEEN as Green and as good people but are unwilling to even do something as simple as reusing their cups, they want to get the benefit of the title with as little effort as possible. They pretend and give a false facade.
For committed communists it is all a lie anyway, remember: “All that exists deserves to perish.” Those who live a lie will hate what Cicero and the Bible have to say about being genuine and living out your beliefs. In fact, in Hebrew belief and action are so interrelated that it would be inconceivable for someone to say they believed something but didn’t act on it because ACTION defined what our beliefs really are.
Obviously, some of us do try to be real and to live out our beliefs. Recycling cups are one way I do it, maintaining a website to counter the empty narrative is another. Others do other things. I would be interested in knowing what you do to live out your beliefs. Please comment below. Remember, I never sell anyone’s information.
Leftists read Marx, not Cicero: TO BE RATHER THAN TO SEEM – ESSE QUAM VIDERI
People all over are turning out to demonstrate for issues they don’t understand and haven’t thought through. They want to be seen as “good” but they are unwilling to actually DO anything in their own daily life to make a difference. They want others to do what’s right and others to pay the consequences. They will show up for a day or two to demonstrate but they won’t actually change the way they live.
This happens all over. Not only in ancient Rome or in demonstrations in the streets or on TV. It happens everywhere. Even where you work.
When I was in Immigration a woman in a meeting was haranguing us about the environment and how the center needed to provide recycling bins for the workers. She said this while drinking out of her plastic cup, while holding a baby using disposable diapers and holding a bottle that used disposable plastic liners.
“Why don’t people just put a box under their desk and toss in their pop cans during the week and then they can take them home on Friday and recycle them with their home recyclables.” I asked.
“No one is going to do that!” She said. (What she really meant is that she wouldn’t do that and therefore didn’t believe anyone else would either.)
“I do,” I said.
“Yeah, sure you do.” The smart ass hypocrite yipped.
“He does,” one of my coworkers said.
“Yeah,” another one spoke up. “I see him leave every Friday with his bag of recyclables.”
Environmentalists used to help teach people a better way to live. My father lived the army slogan of “Lead by example.” When I was younger “Recycle, Reduce, and Reuse” was recommended as a way of life – each person doing what they could to make a difference. It may not feel like changing the world but in many ways it makes a bigger difference than we imagine. It is hard to change habits of a lifetime. But if we fail, we just need to decide to try again and do better in the future.
But too many people don’t want to take responsibility today. They want the government to take responsibility for them and force people to comply. Somehow, they believe that taking money from corporations or investing in “Green Energy” trusting the people who ruined the environment to now save it is an actual solution. That is a solution that Americans never would have stood for (or fallen for,) even a few generations ago. Back when Americans knew that the responsibility for their government, the environment, energy use, and family were their own and not something to be left to others.
Jordan Peterson says that people today (especially Leftists,) want to claim virtue that they didn’t earn.
TO BE RATHER THAN TO SEEM – ESSE QUAM VIDERI
“Few are those who wish to be endowed with virtue rather than to seem so.” Virtute enim ipsa non tam multi praediti esse quam videri volunt.
This is a problem with humanity from Rome down until today. In truth from the Garden of Eden to today. As I told my District Superintendent once when he thought we have moved beyond John Wesley “I don’t think we’ve learned anything since Moses gave the Ten Commandments. Looking at the news today we are still doing the same things.”
As one parliamentarian said in a speech in the Italian Parliament “They hired our parents to destroy the world and now they want to hire us to save it. But here is the clincher – at a profit.”
Perhaps if we all took the time to read Cicero, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and the writings of Paul or about the life of Christ, or listen to these things through an audiobook, we would not be so easily taken in. Perhaps that is why discussions around some of the firesides in the Civil War in the 1800s showed more awareness of political realities than discussions today around the dinner table. They were not distracted by sports – that was an intentional distraction manufactured for us by the Fabian society citing the “Bread and Circuses” in Rome (the idea that if you give the plebs bread and games you can do anything you want in government and they won’t care. The Fabians had a classical education too, and they decided to use it against us to destroy what we have built.
Those who were educated in the past read the classics and they had a better understanding of logic, history, and people. They may not all have read Cicero but reading classical works prepared them for dealing with people better than our Public Education does, but Cicero and Marcus Aurelius were favorites of many of our founding fathers.
If you get nothing else from this article, I hope you get that the little things we do can add up and make a difference and we will never know how they affect the actions of others by our example. In my opinion we will all live better lives if we strive to be what we want to appear to be. Psychologically and Sociologically this is called Praxis. As Nietzsche said, if someone tries to be something for a long period of time, in the end it will be difficult for him to be anything else.
TO BE RATHER THAN TO SEEM – ESSE QUAM VIDERI
“Few are those who wish to be endowed with virtue rather than to seem so.” Virtute enim ipsa non tam multi praediti esse quam videri volunt.
