In the memory of Paul Short, also from a sharefarmer family, and once-upon-a-time on the Cranbrook bus each morning too, of his mum & dad Kath & Keith, and of our superhero footballer Vincent Copley

1. Law, Constitution and Militarised State

“This was the man who fought Hellenistic influence in Rome, and nayurally lost – though a name which becomes a rallying cry for centuries has not altogether lost. It is easy to caricature Cato, for he lends himself to it; and there are many traits in his character which repel us. His treatment of his slaves was inhuman; he gloried in his asceticism; he seemed to deny pleasure to others and therein to gain his own twisted pleasure. He may be called narrow, uncompromising, insensitive, vain, sanctimonious, ostentatiously priggish, if it were not for his humour, self-righteous, if he were not fighting for an ideal. He may have cast himself for a part, and overacted, but his sincerity remains. It is also easy to misinterpret his oposition to the fashionable cult of things Greek; there is something to be said on his side.

“He knew Greek all his public life, for Greek was necessary to any statesman who had dealings with the East. He knew well the works of Greek orators and historians; he took a Greek translation of a Carthaginian work as his model in his book in agriculture. He tells his son to look at Greek literature, but not to lay it to heart, for they are ‘a scoundrel and incorrigible race’.

“It is not intellect which Cato despises, [but the contemporary use of intellect to undermine character. His ideal is the citizen of high moral principle, based on tradition, realising himself in the commonwealth and in business, and so creating a triumphant government pre-eminent for enlightened policy and massive integrity].. his own definition of an orator was vir homus dicendi peritus, a man of high character who can make a good speech.

“The sophists of Socrates’ day had boasted their skill to make the worse appear the better cause, and the Greeks of the third and second centuries² were their heirs¹.

“The self-assertion of individual personality³, such as Scipio loved, was the reverse of Cato’s ideal – action, in the midst of a community, inspired by a moral motive: personal influenc and charm were dangerous, thought Cato, and went to the other extreme.

“The modern self-culture led to sel [fi-ndulgence] in the name of art and fashion. The springs of action as discovered by ‘the noblest Romans’ were dried up at their source; for Cato [as now not perversely for ALL ontology, child development AND MENTAL HEALTH scholars] all true knowledge issued in action, and action revealed the man. Introspective absorption in self and its culture [as MASSIVE tranches and swathes, now VASTLY junk-data-profligate largely European-origin ‘Greta Thunberg’ bourgeois blather and blah having had their ‘pin-point’ aetiological ‘beginning’ or origin in Eighteen-hundred year-old later ‘mid Atlantic’ ‘Introvert-extrovert’ popular psychology attest] meant the collapse of a common morality; and then would emerge the ‘leader’, casting his spell by the cleverness of word and promise over a characterless people.” ..

“The Roman constitution was an oligarchy & it was based on law & custom: the sons of the oligarchy were mltplyng their luxuries: the cult of the indvdl’s tastes and caprices in ndffrnc to all else was being interpreted as freedom: the laws & the unwritten codes were bcmng of less use.

“When Scipio was publicly charged with malversation of public funds in his campaigns, he invited the people to go with him there and then to the temples to render thanks for his victories; for it was the anniversary of the battle of Zama. He was triumphant – on personal influence and popular sentimentalism. No wonder Cato was afraid.

“Scipio was eventually found guilty, but none dared arrest him, and he died in semi-exile. Cato survived him; but, as he himself said, it is not easy to have to render an account of your life to an age other than the age in which you have lived.

“Cato could not win; the Roman city-state was passing away. The wealth of the world, and Asiatic notions of the use of wealth, were entering Rome.

“The ideal of Scipio Africanus and the ideal of Cato stood in open contrast. When Cato was an old man and Scipio already dead, an attempt at the reconciliation of the two ideals was made by Scipio Aemilianus, son of Aemilius Paulus and adopted into the family of his uncle, Scipio Africanus..”

2, The Therapeutic Sensibility

Godness only nose what the preceding five paragraphs bar one were about – let us simply c’est they represented some archaic shit albeit about legendary iconic Roman systematic colonising brutal quadrispheric hegemonists of Two-thouand years ago on the other side of the world well from where we Australians are at, so try this neckst bit OK ?

PERHAPS the letter which Pliny wrote to a friend about the death of the daughter of Fundanus will give a hint..

“I am very sad to write to you, for our friend Fundanus’ youngest daughter has died. [I never saw anything more jolly than this girl, more loveable or more deserving not only of long life but almost of immortality]..

“She was not yet thirteen years old, and she had all the sense of an old woman, the dignity of a mother, the shy innocence of maidenhood with the sweetness of a young girl. How she used to cling to her father’s embrace, and throw her arms round the necks of his friends in her affectionate and shy way. She loved her nurses, teachers and tutors, each in return for what they had done for her. Her reading, how eager and intelligent it was, her play how restrained and circumspect! And think of the self control, the patience, the courage with which she bore her last illness. She did all that her doctors told her to do; she tried to cheer up her sister and father, and by strength of will she kept her weak body going as its strength slipped away. Her will lasted to the very end, unbroken by her illness or by fear of [the death which was to give us all the more urgent cause to miss her and mourn her]. Her death was indeed a bitter sorrow; it’s blow was made even worse by the monent of its coming.. [Fundanus] is a learned and reflective man, the sort of man who has given all his life to serious study and pursuits; now he rejects with loathing all the counsel he has so often heard and given, and, [driving out of his mind every other ideal, he is utterly given up to thoughts of family affection]. You will understand him, indeed you will admire him if you reflect what he has lost. [He has lost a daughter who no less mirrored his character than his features and expression; with a remarkable resemblance she bodied forth her father’s very self..] An interval of time will do much to make him more ready to accept your comfort. A wound which is still raw shrinks from the doctor’s touch, then it endures it and then actually wants it: in the same way grief when fresh rejects and shuns attempts at consolation; soon it desires them and finally acquiesces in them if they are gently made.”

3. Anne McBurney, 11yrs, Died 1961

It turns out inveterate romantic scribbler and Homo-erectile cockwomble Pliny’s wife – not he’s missus, him – er, Possession is nine points of the law when it comes to you chicks – was Calpurnia – her of the world-famous pale cheek (students can search this – aw what-the,. i will be back in a tick.. mother-of-Jaisus⁴) wrote “believe me there is nothing I should like better than to have you with me.. to get you well again, believe that there is nothing I want more than that you should be well.. If you do what is best for your health you are obeying implicitly my wishes.. Your first business is to get well; of your countless kindnesses to me, this will give me the most pleasure. (Nov. 3rd, 50 B.C.)”

Anne lived in a likely1860 English or Scottish, Cornish or Welsh stone cottage in the limestone country of eastern central Yorke Peninsula – not ‘Yorke’s’ for Christ’s Sake you 20th century neoclassical Socratic Youth-culture Advertising-industry people, please – so you wanna read world-changing cultural neurolinguistics essays then expect a bit of psychic bruising OK? – in a grainlands neighborhood called Cranbrook nobody except old people has heard of nowadays and was picked up for school Monday to Friday in a Kombi driven by Mr Trembath who also lved in a 90-odd years old stone cottage (that got burned out a couple of years later) in the town.

She sat on the north side of of 5-6-7 classroom of the government primary school in the town.

Anne got mingka when she was in Grade 5 and like my dad’s mother Hannah Brennan at Macclesfield 45 years earlier died of TB (tuberculosis, a respiratory system disease⁵).

Hers was the first death i cared about. I had no opportunity to mourn her except to myself. That was my community’s attitude towards death. Two years before I had fallen unconscious on a balcony off the back verandah after being ‘left to my own devices’ all night essentially on account of gross parental neglect. You learn fast. Fast enough if you’re lucky, Chucky.

John Blundell

Your ‘veteran’ Miracle-goals guy from 1988

Thinking Stuff-through, L,L & E, Quantum-physics, Thematics, Futures

^{1 Nhh-hn}

² Serious head-kicking Economics professors (transitive verb formatting there) homonymic powerfully ANTI CLASSICAL/ animist/ monist word-game, YOUNG PEOPLE: Purse-anality. …next you might examine the psycho-cultural roots & origins of cognate or similar-SOUNDING terms Parsimony, Pusillanimity and many alia. On Sounds [speech is all and your formal or official Display & Announcement 9performative voice STRICTLY ONLY half of your social self] – (i) take up watching Sesame Street again (ii) channel the antithetical Dr Timothy Leary 4ROM your memory bank (= Tune out from the Other’s read-only memeory nonsense,sloganising or recitations, Switch off all the 2 bit actors, and Drop in to your lived experience households, neighborhoods and local communities

³ the writer knows it’s not best practice to guffaw and slap his sides in a super-heavyweight academic paper that’s set to break a shitload of proverbial hearts and likely impel hundreds of thousands into retirement or immediate withdrawal from public life but check out the objectifying-of-time-intervals implicit in “oh of course, third, second” – Ideas are things monism yet again feeding straight in to the psychoverse of vast culturally and economically energy and water profligate idiot intelligence with no concept either of global environs under a broken sky or futures except absurd projections on junk past historical/ “hysteric” recorded observations

⁴ In the scene, Calpurnia’s pale cheek is mentioned alongside a description of Cicero’s eyes. The line appears as part of a longer passage that includes: 

• “But, look you Cassius, The angry spot doth glow on Caesar’s brow” 
• “And all the rest look like a chidden train” 
• “Calpurnia’s cheek is pale, and Cicero, Looks with such ferret and such fiery eyes” 

⁵ A total of 1.25m people died from tuberculosis in 2023 incl. 161,000 with Human Immunodeficiency Viruses – two species of Lentivirus that infect humans