The Senate of Rome : Then and Now

[guy]

The Senate of Republican Rome must have been a rowdy and sometimes violent place. (For proof, just ask the brothers Gracchi.)

 

Here's a clip from the HBO series Rome:

 

 

I don't think things have improved in the Italian Senate today:

 

In the first clip, if I understand things correctly, the right wing politician named La Russa has just yelled "vaffanculo" (similar to a more explicit version of "go screw yourself") to another conservative politician Fini in the Italian Senate in Rome, Italy. This was met with screams of "fascista." Meanwhile, the president of the Senate is pleading for La Russa to have "un attegiamento rispettoso" or "respectful attitude."

 

 

 

The second recent clip has the temporary President of the Senate offering amendments for vote.

 

 

She's saying, "Chi

Edited June 10, 2012 by guy

[caesar novus]

Some historian of the us congress talked about the ups and downs of conflict. Of course there were early periods where physical violence appeared. Some of the smoothest periods of mutual respect were during times when hard alcoholic drinking was common... adversaries would get smashed in the same bars in a kind of forced socialization. This was not that long ago... maybe the practice needs to be updated with a basket of extasy pills in their lobby.

 

Iirc the historian spoke of another factor reducing conflict that was dysfunctional... at some point national issues have to be energetically confronted, and in the us this comes with a final two party face off. But after the civil war the party of the left had strong elements of the right in the south, and the party of the right had a left wing in the north. While this mix allowed more fluid negotiations, it meant the voters for a party werent getting true advocates at a national level.

[Pompieus]

It's not really possible to give an ideological tag ("right" or "left") to American political parties, any more than there were such "parties" in the Roman Senate. (At least not until recently) Even in the 1930's the supposedly "progressive" Democratic Party included the far from leftist Southerners.

 

But there was plenty of outrageous behavior in the US congresses of the 1840's & 50's. Many of the members came to the house armed with pistols or Bowie Knives, and there is the famous incident of the "caning" of senator Sumner at his desk in the Senate.

[caesar novus]

Sounds like you are agreeing what i was trying to say in brief. Southern demos were broadly different to northern demos. They cannot share a prez candidate that represents both, so dysfunctional. They can negotiate well with other party in congress, but sometimes their own party can be a hidden enemy so geniality can be a symptom of party system failure.

 

At some point in a political system, conflicts have to face off. With no parties it will be in the congress type of place, likely heated. With a many party parliament, conflict can get settled with backroom coalition forming... it would be very interesting to create graphics showing how such coalition trial and failure brought hitler to power... it really worked as designed rather than being a fluke.

 

The evolved two party system in us can be a great conflict resolver when working correctly. Most conflict will be decentralized into the individual decision to pick a party, which may be a painful fit. With only two parties, they are incentivized toward the center to gain undecideds. Then the tendancy will be toward genial party faceoffs, aside from outlying individuals. In the last two admins, it has broken down due to quirks pushing one side away from center, then similar counterreaction. The two admins beforehand were centrists.

 

I heard the most interesting commentary about eu conflict resolution by the leader of libertas party named after roman goddess. He wanted top eu officials more accountable and democratic, then there would be a solid system that could choose between transfer payments or bankruptcy (he preferred latter) with a sense of representational legitimacy. I guess he is an eccentric irishman.

 

His model wowed me... the us federalist papers, which explained the reasoning to reluctant us states why to form a union and reassures tbat decentralization will be maintained whenever possible. The us supreme court has recently forgotten these, and merrily brings on a tyranny of the fashionable federal. Oh, a delightful sidelight is those papers are all signed by the roman republic founder publius, a persona chosen to top those of opposition papers signed by cato and brutas pen names.

[Pompieus]

You are exactly right about the American two-party system usually tending marginalize radicals and move toward centerism - until recently anyway (though I would argue it started with Reagan). This allowed civil relationships and compromise and avoided violence. This is why democracy has worked. The US is probably too big and diverse for ideological parties and a parliamentary system. We were lucky to have Lincoln and Roosevelt around in the two real crises we have had to face (God apparently does look out for fools, drunkards and the United States). Why the current situation has developed in the absence of any real crisis or serious political division among the people eludes me. What we have now is pointless drift - which is probably what the majority of people want.

 

Does the EU bureaucracy answer to the EU legislature via committee investigations etc like in the US? (at least as it theoretically should in the US)

[caesar novus]

First a diagnosis, then 2 possible solutions

 

You are exactly right about the American two-party system usually tending marginalize radicals and move toward centerism - until recently anyway (though I would argue it started with Reagan). This allowed civil relationships and compromise and avoided violence. This is why democracy has worked.

I suppose the trigger was Clintons little scandal at end of term. This allowed a rightward movement of GOP because they could worry less about losing formerly undecided centrists. Then it ping-pongs thru history with the ignored/alienated centrists next looking left which allows a more leftest DEM to win. Hopefully these swings dampen down when parties start thinking about long term success. But someone made a good case that when party nominations abandoned calculated backroom tactics for transparent democracy (not that long ago), nominations naturally become more populist and extremist.

 

I am up to Thatcher and Reagan in a course http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=4812 Conservative Tradition, Taught By Professor Patrick N. Allitt, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, now Emory University. He seems to have no unbridled love for UK or USA conservatives (north British accent) yet said the genial Reagan softened the social side of his conservatism based on feedback of the whole country, unlike what's done today. For instance he stopped action on his pro family, anti-abortion agenda and even nominated a pro abortion supreme court person. Contrast that with divisive Bush court nominations (IIRC), or today's force feeding of the widely unloved Obam-care.

 

He says Reagan had to stand firm on economic issues, as did the more combative Thatcher, because the US and especially UK were widely recognized to be in a self-inflicted economic death spiral. But I note that like Greece or Spain protests today, citizens who originally got outsized entitlements and protections by political means (rather than thru merit) will also try to remedy it by the same political means with disproportionate noise. So I see that as more of an artificial theatrical conflict rather than a real voter-backed one... witness Wisconsin voters recently going against the shrill press-backed entitlement sector.

 

Another point by him is the US GOP has been a fragile combination of strange bedfellows - the libertarian conservatives and the cultural conservatives. When this coalition breaks down the party collapses for a number of years. That gets to my point where it can be a stretch for an individual to fit his square peg into a round party hole. But if the 2 parties evolve to demographics wisely, it can work great and reduce conflict.

 

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I have a theory that modern left and right are means to the same end; they just have way different tolerance for unintended or perverse consequences vs pace. One side wants fast progress regardless of the friendly fire casualties - they will attempt patch ups later, or at least the carnage is for a sacred cause. Another side wants to pace progress as cautiously as it takes to avoid letting imperfect humans vandalize what is good and unpredictably fragile in their rush towards utopia. It isn't true that conservatives purely cling to the past; they may have been aghast at Adam Smith's ideas of free markets at first, but warmed up to it once shown it generally broke down the bad rather than the useful aspects of feudalism or whatever.

 

Which takes me to my idea to consolidate these conflicting approaches. I can point to the Monte Carlo algorithm of optmizing things, which is provably excellant. I worked on a close rival approach and didn't learn the rather simple mathmatics of M.C. but I know the principles. First of all, we can throw out the extreme left and right position of drastic or no change. No change gets us no optimization. Drastic structured change is mathematically provable as grossly suboptimal for NP complete or NP hard problems, which doubtless characterizes life-goal types of problems.

 

What works the best (recognizably world-class... at least a while back) was a sort of evolutionary approach. In a computer simulation you change things stepwise, but not strictly toward the goal because that gets you stuck at suboptimal. You must inject some randomness (temporarily backtracking away from the "good") and you must control the stepsize (disruption) in a certain pattern so that bad side effects can negate the move. This is well studied and understood, and leads to something close to optimal in a finite (but not short) period of time. I'm rusty in this area and maybe am abusing terminology, but I think it is a metaphor that could lead left and right to work together better and be reassured their different priorities won't be extinguished. Use such numbers to control rate and direction of law change, and viola?

 

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Also I've been meaning to introduce a book/video on a similar synthesis of left and right instincts, but never got around to finishing it. A psychology guy wanted to write a book to explain to fellow intelligensia how the right may appear ghastly, but perhaps meant well. He studied traditional (conservative) India, fell in love with it, and came up with a universal spectrum of values that were mostly shared by right and left, but a few prioritized different or ignored. If the left and right can just realize each side is innocently blind to the most cherished issue of the other side, rather than knowingly despising those issues... at least both sides can start respecting each other rather than hating, and maybe try to not vandalize (if not satisfy) the overlooked issues.

 

http://www.booktv.org/Watch/13277/The+Righteous+Mind+Why+Good+People+Are+Divided+by+Politics+and+Religion.aspx

"The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion" by Jonathan Haidt

Edited June 16, 2012 by caesar novus