Classes and Papers -- MC 272

It has been a while since I last blogged, and it mostly has to do with class. So, I thought I would take this time to talk about what I've been learning here in Rome.

MC 272 -- Political Theory and Issues
Professor -- Tobin Craig
Place of Study -- Rome!!

The name "Political Theory and Issues" is incredibly dull and hardly begins to describe my first class here at Rome. If I were to name it, I would call it the "Study of Livy's History on Rome and How Liberty Has Evolved Over Time and How Rome Got a Republic Right and Americans Lack Virtue" class.

It's important to understand that this is a PTCD (Political Theory and Constitutional Democracy) class. A lot of our conversation boils down to how the state of the union or Rome is at any given time in its history. Rome was founded in 753 B.C. by a guy named Romulus who was found with his twin brother Remus suckling on a she-wolf when they were infants. Romulus eventually got the better of Remus (and debatably killed him) and founded the city of Rome as king. After that moment, Rome began balancing on the edge of existence as factions (i.e. rich vs. poor) rotted the inside of Rome and war pounded away on its outside. Somehow it was usually able to accomplish things that are often described as an "accident" because they were always so astonishing. Truly a fascinating regime to read about as it moves to a republic and beyond.

As a part of the class, it seems necessary for us to compare Rome to the United States. Now, this is where PTCD comes into direct conflict with my other major, CCP (Comparative Cultures and Politics). In our class, we are encouraged to reflect on such things as virtue in Rome versus virtue in the United States. In Rome, it was common that one's first attachment was to their city, Rome. Mothers bore children for Rome. Armies fought for Rome. There was none of this silly protesting based on individual rights nonsense that just ruins the state morale. There was none of this ridiculous modern liberty that protected people's physical, mental, and moral "rights". Haha, rights, what even were those?

My professor is a raging conservative. He is the guy that complains about colleagues for riding their bike to class because they want to "save the environment." He describes them as "repulsive." He instead has the noble character to ride his bike for exercise and aims to not look pretentious like his fellow professors.

He is also the guy that comes to Italy, sees the amount of police to remind its citizens of the law, hears stories of pickpocketing, and then says that the regime must be in shambles and doesn't know what it's doing. I'm guessing he is ignoring the multiple factors why Italy is in its current "second-world" situation, and that maybe the regime is doing its best to recover, but there are reasons beyond their power (like the EU), that force austerity measures in order for a slow recovery. Perhaps these austerity measures are exactly why Italy's citizens pickpocket dumb tourists.

Basically, I'm convinced he does not like me. Most times I speak in class he "teases" me, yes, his word. It began when I asked the class not to put Rome in a "box" and make comparisons to the United States like "Rome had the Colosseum, the United States has television, they are the same thing" (sorry Caryn). He then used that for three classes as a joke to make sure he wasn't putting Rome into a "box."

Next, was that I said that the average Roman people (the plebs) could not relate with the aristocracy. I was using Adam Smith's theory on moral sentiments, that any action too extreme for a person is un-relatable, and seen as abhorrent and wrong. The aristocracy in Rome was seen, in my opinion, as having too extreme of opinions for the people to understand, thus they could not relate. My professor, when I said this, laughed for a solid 30 seconds about how I was providing the "high minded" argument and that I was a true "aristocrat." I think he thought I meant that the plebs were so vile that they lacked virtue, and thus could not relate to the virtuous aristocracy. What I meant, was that the two groups (the people and the aristocracy) simply couldn't relate with each other because they were so extreme. Later, I had him meet my parents so he knew that I came from a humble upbringing full of conservative family values (love you mom and dad!). I don't think it helped.

Finally, this came to a peak last class. We were in a debate on what is politics. After a lot of discussion from others in class, Craig had come to the point where we had defined politics as a mix of force and persuasion to follow law in order to benefit the individual. Everyone's input was welcomed and accepted. Not pleased with the direction, I raised my hand to argue the following: Politics is the deliberation of those matters that interest the state and the nation (meaning the institutions and the people). This thus means that everything that the people engage in is political in some sense, that there is overlap between what people watch on tv, whether someone gets married, whether someone is religious, etc. and the political realm. Thus, everything is political.

He did not like this and did an argument that led to our previous conclusion, but didn't disprove my contribution. His negative reaction, at this point, didn't shock me, but he continued to make jokes about my point throughout class saying things like: "I like to think that what my wife and I do isn't deliberated by the government," among others. He even summarized our argument of politics as ending with: "and then I teased Brandon for his idea that there is no private realm." >_>

This all sucks because I love the material we are learning about, and I want to learn about it in a CCP context and a PTCD context. I think a consensus has formed with the class that we aren't really learning much in this class beyond the history of Rome. What is cool is that we are having tours of museums and other historical sites in order to get a better understanding for what Romans were like. It's too bad that we can't better historicize this in class.

/rant