Around 160 A.D., Marcus Aurelius, the last of the so-called “good emperors,” wrote: “We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.”
Many of Aurelius’ writings, including this one, informed Christianity and made their way into the Christian orthodoxy. Nearly 2,000 years later, our founding fathers captured that sentiment with the motto “E Pluribus Unum.” I’m old enough to have been taught that e pluribus unum (out of many, one) was a foundational principle of our republic.
Unfortunately, during the “red scare” era of the 1950s, that unity was sacrificed to the motto “In God We Trust.” (I say unfortunately, because, if we require big government to say it for us, we don’t trust in God.)
History rhymes. Over the past decades our republic has been rhyming with the last decades of the Roman Republic. The Romans abandoned unity and fought over which politician was a true patriot and would give them the entitlements of citizenship. A mob stormed the Roman “capitol,” civil war erupted and within 100 years the republic collapsed. Rhyming with ancient Rome is unsettling. This month we remember Washington and Lincoln, two great stalwarts of unity. Perhaps we can try rhyming with more recent history, for instance, “ask what you can do for your country.” E pluribus unum!
Robert FerrellDurango
