#stella posts

There was one today, where he was irritated at critique of Trump, and he said in Latin, freezing everybody out because they didn't really know Latin, "Oderint dum metuant," which means, as I know well since I took Latin with him, "Let them hate so long as they fear," which really struck a wrong nerve with me. I don't want people to fear the government, and I think dad is overreacting. Also, I think that hate is not something to desire in any case. If people hate me, I want to help them not hate me. Like, maybe I can cut your grass? bake you cookies? watch your kids? I get that it's not my responsibility to do anything to keep people from hating me, but I feel a government should take an attitude closer to that than an individual. A government is there to protect people, not to say, "Feel badly!" and give them the middle finger. I'm really disappointed in my dad and disconcerted by the use of the language of the Church, sacred, and the use of Roman history, which is violent and profane beyond words.

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There are other phrases dad taught me in Latin class ... "The stars incline us; they do not bind us" (Astra inclinant, sed non obligant) ... or, "Vincit qui se vincit" (He who conquers himself wins). There's one from random Latin reading, too, which caught my eye: "Ignae natura renovatur integra," which means, "Through fire, nature is reborn." It's one of those ones Dad wouldn't teach me because it was invented during the Middle Ages, and he likes to pretend that Latin didn't exist beyond the Early Church, and because it was invented for alchemy. Theologians frown on magic to the point they don't understand that alchemy actually wasn't magic and that the same ideas about the human person that are in its philosophy are in the rest of the surrounding cultures, including medicine and religion.

As a historian myself, touting my master's degree here, I need to say that this chaining off of theology from the rest of everything except for political action is extremely dangerous. It's much of the reason that we don't have enough writings from the past to gage what surgical, medicinal, psychological, sexual, political, literary, and aesthetic ideas trace from the past to the present. Hegemony helps no one except corrupt priests when they want to burn people alive, Catholic PR when it pretends that child abuse isn't serious enough to be tried publicly, or tyrants at home, school, and work.