The Pot Calling the Kettle Black: A European Response to Trump and Putin Ideologues

The ideologues of the Russian regime and those of the Trumpist administration accuse Europe of having abandoned the ideals of democracy and Christianity. Russian propagandists even accuse it of “Satanism,” while one of the MAGA ideologues, Peter Thiel, speaks of the coming of the Antichrist. For Françoise Thom, these people fail to see the beam in their own eye. One need only reread the ancients, the Greek and Roman thinkers, to see that the Trumpo-Putinians stand in stark opposition to the very ideas and practices they claim to uphold—ideas that form the bedrock of European civilization. A masterful lesson.

“You prefer to know nothing because you already hate, as if you were fully aware that as soon as you begin to inquire you stop hating.“¹ 

“Our century, receiving the Republic as a magnificent painting already altered by time, has not only neglected to revive its color, it has not even thought of saving the drawing and the last contours.”²

An article posted on the State Department website, headlined The Need for Civilizational Allies in Europe, authored by Samuel Samson, Senior Advisor in the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, makes a point of explaining “why the Trump administration is sounding the alarm in Europe.” Samson begins by referring to the “unique bond” between the United States and Europe, “forged in a common culture, faith, family ties, mutual assistance in times of conflict and, above all, a shared Western civilizational heritage.” He reminds us that “our transatlantic partnership is based on a rich Western tradition of natural law, virtue ethics and national sovereignty. Its tradition flows from Athens and Rome, through medieval Christianity, to English common law and, ultimately, into America’s founding documents.” He acknowledges that “America remains indebted to Europe for this intellectual and cultural legacy.” 

From this promising preamble onward, things go wrong. It turns out that Europe has renounced this heritage. And we are treated to a rehash of J.D. Vance’s Munich speech. Europe is now engaged in “an aggressive campaign against Western civilization itself. Across Europe, governments have weaponized political institutions against their own citizens and against our shared heritage. Far from strengthening democratic principles, Europe has devolved into a hotbed of digital censorship, mass migration, restrictions on religious freedom, and numerous other assaults on democratic self-governance.” Samson does not fail to castigate the persecution of Europe’s far-right parties. “Americans are familiar with these tactics. Indeed, a similar strategy of censorship, demonization, and bureaucratic instrumentalization has been used against President Trump and his supporters. What this reveals is that the global liberal project is not enabling the flourishing of democracy.” He sounds like Alexander Dugin: “Europe has ceased to be itself; it has become a parody of freedom, rotting in postmodernism and leading to complete decomposition.” But let us go back to his American emulator: “Our concerns are not partisan but principled. The suppression of speech, facilitation of mass migration, targeting of religious expression, and undermining of electoral choice threatens the very foundation of the transatlantic partnership. A Europe that replaces its spiritual and cultural roots, that treats traditional values as dangerous relics, and that centralizes power in unaccountable institutions is a Europe less capable of standing firm against external threats and internal decay.” The argument seems to mirror Putin’s propaganda. Dugin states: “We Russians are the heirs of the Roman, Greek, and Byzantine traditions; we remain faithful to the spirit of ancient European Christianity, which has already lost all connection with this tradition. Russia can be a pivotal factor in the restoration of Europe, and we Russians are more European than Europeans themselves. We are Christians, heirs to Greek philosophy. The Russian president also claims to be the repository of the true European legacy.” Similarly, Americans seem to have taken the Kremlin’s lead in blackmail: “Tangible actions by European governments to guarantee protection for political and religious speech, secure borders, and fair elections would serve as welcome steps forward. The United States remains committed to a strong partnership with Europe and working together on shared foreign policy goals. However, this partnership must be founded upon our shared heritage rather than globalist conformity.” In short, the Euro-American partnership will only be possible if Europe becomes Putinized.

Trump and Putin supporters claim to be teaching Europeans a lesson by referring to the founding fathers of Western civilization in their indictment of Europe. Well, let us give the floor to those founding fathers and see, point by point, whether the Trump and Putin regimes are inspired by their teachings. We shall limit ourselves to the Greco-Latin heritage invoked by Dugin.

The statesman

Thucydides first formulated the qualities that defined a true statesman in his eulogy of Pericles: “Pericles indeed, by his rank, ability, and known integrity, was enabled to exercise an independent control over the multitude—in short, to lead them instead of being led by them; for as he never sought power by improper means, he was never compelled to flatter them, but, on the contrary, enjoyed so high an estimation that he could afford to anger them by contradiction. Whenever he saw them unseasonably and insolently elated, he would with a word reduce them to alarm; on the other hand, if they fell victim to panic, he could at once restore them to confidence.”³ What cities need, says Plato, are leaders with “the ability to unite… the discernment of what men need and the constant will to achieve the common good.”⁴ Aristotle defines the virtue of the true ruler as follows: “He who, by his intelligence, has the faculty of foresight, is by nature a ruler and a master.”⁵ In the Gorgias, Plato suggests that a true statesman is one who has morally improved his fellow citizens during his tenure and leaves them better people when he departs. Have we seen Trump or Putin care about the common good? Weigh the consequences of their actions? Renounce the debasement and dumbing-down of their fellow citizens through propaganda? In your dreams!

In De Republica, Cicero draws inspiration from Thucydides’ portrait of Pericles when elaborating on his concept of the princeps optimus (ideal ruler): “He must never cease to learn and observe himself, inspire others to imitate him and, by the brilliance of his soul and his life, offer himself as a mirror to his fellow citizens”. Such a princeps, seen as an indispensable moderator, has the qualities of Thucydides’ Pericles: he “has the gift of foreseeing the storms his country is threatened with, the strength to fight against the torrent that drags rulers and peoples along, the power to stop it or moderate its course.” For Cicero, the prince reflects in the state the empire of reason in the individual⁶. The sovereign’s legitimacy rests on his virtue. The optimus princeps acts by the force of example: peoples can be pulled upward by wise rulers, just as tyrants or demagogues given over to evil passions drag them down. To rule over free men, the prince must be a free man in the Stoic sense of the term (see below), i.e. he must above all learn to control himself, to dominate his passions, to ignore offenses and to practice the virtue of moderation. 

This concept of the ideal ruler has been passed down from generation to generation in European culture, at least as long as classical studies were tought in schools. Needless to say, Putin and Trump hardly fit this picture. 

Cicero should be meditated on in Washington and Moscow. In De officiis, he warns against any policy aimed at pitting citizens against one other, demagogically favoring one category against another: “The politician who is exclusively devoted to one class of citizens and neglects all the others introduces into the state the most pernicious of plagues, I mean sedition and discord; only supporters of the people or followers of the high and mighty are left; but what has become of the party of the republic?” Cicero is well aware that the property right is the foundation of social order: “If everyone is ready to inflict violence on others and to deprive them of their property in order to profit from it, the result will necessarily be the dissolution of human society. […] Let those who govern the republic therefore beware of giving largesses to some at the expense of others.” He insists forcefully on the primacy of the public good: “The great citizen, he who is truly worthy of holding the first rank in the State, […] will devote himself unreservedly to the interests of the country; he will seek neither fortune nor the glitter of power; he will watch over all the members of society… Never will a slanderous accusation escape him, never will he stir up hatred or contempt for anyone.” 

The Greeks and Romans were convinced that only a man in control of his passions is worthy of governing free men. Plato based his political project on the analogy between the city and the soul. For him, the structure of the city reflects the tripartition of the soul, whose first element is reason, the second courage, the impulse of the heart, and the third desire, what Plato calls the “concuspicible.” This leads to the idea of a government of philosophers, who would establish the government of reason over the city, with philosophers dominating their passions through contemplation of “the immutable, the immortal and the truth.”⁷ The self-control that characterizes the wise man is a guarantee of order in both the individual and the city. 

If we apply the criteria defined by the Ancients to Putin and Trump, the conclusion is obvious. Both men are anti-models. They are the playthings of their baser instincts. Venal and corrupt, they came to power by flattering the vile passions of the mob, and hold on to power by the same means. They do not see themselves as accountable to their constituents, and they are sure of their ability to gaslight the crowd with their propaganda, so they act impulsively, secure in their impunity.

Democracy and tyranny

The Trumpist and Putinist ideologues who decry democracy would do well to reread Plato and Aristotle. We know that Plato was blunt in his criticism of democracy. The experience of demagogues in Greece was bitter. “How can the masses, unable to govern their own thoughts, firmly lead the city,”⁸ asks a character in Euripides. The incompetence of popular government was a recurring theme in the 4^th Century BC. Plato was of the opinion that we must expect the worst when people, “without knowing anything about politics, imagine themselves to possess this science in all its details more exactly than all others.”⁹ For him, “the only real evil is the loss of knowledge.”¹⁰ Aristophanes raged against the demagogues of his day: “To lead the people is not the work of an educated man of good morals, but requires an ignoramus, a rascal […] Vulgar voice, vile birth, rogue ways: you have everything it takes for government.”¹¹ Is this not a fantastic anticipation of Trump? In The Wasps (-422), he pinpoints what we now call conspiracy theories, an infallible symptom of demagogic drift. A judge laments the toxic atmosphere prevailing in Athens: “See how everything is tyranny and conspiracy for you, no matter how big or small the affair in question. I haven’t even heard the name tyranny once in fifty years! Now it’s more common than salted fish.”¹²

In The Statesman, Plato argues that if we consider the different regimes from the point of view of the ideal, democracy is the worst. But he also explains that if we look at the damage that can be done by all three regimes – one-man rule, oligarchy, and democracy – the latter is preferable. Indeed, the government of one, by far the best if the king is gifted with virtue and science, becomes the worst of all if the king lacks these qualities and becomes a tyrant. If the city cannot find a leader capable of knowing what is right, it might as well fall back on “the government of the multitude,” as such a government “is weak in everything and without much power either for good or for evil” because “authority [there] is crumbled among a large number of individuals.”¹³ Laws are therefore safeguards to limit the damage caused by a government of incompetents. A similar argument was later developed by the rhetorician Isocrates: “Democracies, even when poorly constituted, produce less misfortune than oligarchic governments, and well-organized democracies outweigh other constitutions¹⁴ for justice, attention to common interests and gentleness of government.”¹⁵

Greek thinkers agree on one point: education is the sine qua non for the stability of cities, education both of the sovereign and of the people. For Plato, “ignorance and folly [which] are a void in the state of the soul” are inseparable¹⁶. Aristotle is an outspoken advocate of a meritocratic democracy. In his eyes, the best way to establish a republic is to entrust power to the middle class, thus protecting the poor from the abuses of the rich and the rich from the despoiling passion of the poor. The more the middle class is numerous and capable of counterbalancing the extremes, the better a state is governed, since in this case “there is no need to fear that the rich will ever come to an agreement with the poor at the expense of the middle class.”¹⁷ This idea was widespread in Athens. Euripides has one of his characters say: “A State is divided into three groups: the rich, useless people who always want to possess more; those who have nothing, not even enough to live on, dangerous people, devoured by envy, who launch their darts against those who possess, deceived by the slanders of their leaders. What remains is the middle class, which is the salvation of the States.”¹⁸ But Trump and Putin are doing everything they can to wipe out the middle class and bring the extremes to power. 

The Ancients developed a profound reflection on tyranny, starting by establishing a strict difference between the king and the tyrant, proudlly ignored by Trump. “Monarchy is the government of consenting men and cities in accordance with the laws, while tyranny is the government of coerced men and in violation of the laws, according to the whim of the one who holds power,” said Socrates¹⁹. The Ancients listed the effects of tyranny: “Nothing is more dangerous to the state than a tyrant. First of all, with a tyrant, the laws are not the same for everyone. One man rules, seizing the law as if it were an instrument, and equality is over,” warns Euripides²⁰. Plato draws attention to the negative selection implemented by the tyrant, a man who, “powerless as he is to control himself, undertakes to govern others”²¹ by eliminating “those who have courage, greatness of soul, prudence, fortune.” The tyrant does the opposite of doctors, “who take out of the body what is bad and leave in what is good.”²² The tyrant brings also ruin: he “never ceases to stir up wars, so that the people need a leader and… so that citizens, impoverished by taxes, are forced to concentrate on their daily needs and conspire less against him.”²³ Putin understood this without reading Plato.

Aristotle is no less relevant today. He abhors tyranny because it possesses both the vices of democracy and those of oligarchy; on the one hand, it holds that the only end is wealth (for it is by money alone that the tyrant can both maintain his guard and continue his life of enjoyment) and that the people deserve no confidence, a sentiment which explains the measures taken against the lowly people; on the other hand, tyranny borrows from democracy the war against the elites and their annihilation, carried out either secretly or openly²⁴. For Aristotle, extreme tyranny is “the government in which one man exercises irresponsible power over all citizens indifferently … and has in view only his own interest and not that of his subjects. Such power is therefore sheer violence, for no free man can tolerate authority of this kind without protest.”²⁵ Thus “to want the reign of law is, it seems, to want the exclusive reign of God and reason; to want the reign of a man is at the same time to want that of a wild beast, for irrational appetite has indeed this bestial character, and passion distorts the mind of rulers…. Hence the law is a reason free of desire.”²⁶ For Aristotle, one of the symptoms of the corruption of a democracy and its evolution toward tyranny is the proliferation of decrees, a “state of affairs due to the action of demagogues”: “An organization in which everything is regulated by decrees is not even strictly speaking a democracy, since a decree can never be general in scope.”²⁷ The scores of executive orders that Trump has rained down since his return to power confirm Aristotle’s observation. Americans would do well to ponder these warnings from the philosopher: “Those who bring charges against magistrates claim that it is for the people to judge, and the people eagerly respond to this invitation, which leads to the ruin of all authority.”²⁸ And this one, concerning the way in which tyrannies perish “through the action of an internal cause, when those who share power are divided into rival factions […] There are two main causes that drive men to rise up against tyrants, hatred and contempt. The first of these causes, hatred, always attaches itself to tyrants, but it is the contempt of which they are the object that in many cases brings about their downfall.”²⁹

After the bloody reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero and Domitian, Romans reflected on what made tyranny possible. Tacitus castigates the passivity and cowardice of Roman elites: “In Rome, all rushed into servitude, consuls, senators, knights. The greater the splendor of rank, the more false and subservient they were.”³⁰ Today’s U.S. Senate comes to mind when we read: “As for the Senate, it cared little if the Roman name was disgraced all over of the empire. Fear of domestic evils preoccupied the minds, and a remedy was sought in adulation.”³¹ The acclamations of Emperor Otto by the people elicit this disillusioned comment from Tacitus: “And it was neither fear nor love: an emulation of servitude aroused, as in slave troops, turpitude in each of them; as for public honor, one no longer thought of it.”³² And this observation: “Many citizens exercised the malignity of their mind in writings that were all the more insolent for being anonymous.”³³ 

The Romans analyzed shrewdly the consequences of servitude. Pliny the Younger noted: “The servitude of earlier years had put a stop to all intellectual activity. On its return, freedom found us crude and ignorant… Our intelligence remained permanently weakened, broken and bruised.”³⁴ The decline of patriotism, noted by Tacitus, to the point where people rejoiced in Rome’s military setbacks: “Many malcontents, in hatred of a regime whose end they desired, rejoiced in their own perils.”³⁵ Pliny evokes the disintegration of the Roman army under tyranny: “Any initiative was suspect, the safest thing was to keep quiet; the leaders had no authority, the soldiers respected nothing, no one commanded, no one obeyed, everything was confused, disorganized, and even upside down.”³⁶ Historian Dion Cassius observes that tyranny impoverishes the state because under this regime “no one wants to appear to know anything, to possess any property, because these advantages, most of the time, attract the enmity of whoever has power, and everyone, regulating his conduct on the morals of the master, runs after any favor from which he hopes, if he obtains it from the prince, to draw without danger some profit. So most of them are zealous only for their own interests, and hate everyone else.”³⁷

Finally, the Romans meditated on how to preserve themselves intellectually and morally under tyrannical rule. In his treatise On the Tranquility of the Soul, Seneca teaches the thousand ways to resist despotism. The tone is almost that of Solzhenitsyn: “This is your role: if Fortune removes you from the highest offices of the state, remain standing and assist us with your voice; if your cry is stifled in your throat, remain standing and assist us with your silence. Nothing a good citizen does is wasted: his way of listening, his looks, his face, his gesture, his silent opposition, even his walk are useful. […] Whether virtue has a free career and enjoys its rights, or whether it has only a precarious access and inevitably curtails its veil; inactive, silent and besieged, or shining in broad daylight, in whatever state it is, it serves humanity.” Even in the small things we can make ourselves useful: “Thus, as political circumstances or our personal destiny allow, we must extend or narrow our sphere of action, but act in every instance without fear keeping us numb.” Refuse to give up, even if “there are moments when a sort of horror for humankind seizes us, on encountering so many successful crimes, on seeing how rare simplicity of heart is; innocence little known; good faith, if it does not profit, almost nowhere; the gains of debauchery no less odious than its profligacies; vanity, eager to cross its natural bounds to the point of wanting to shine through infamy. Thought is lost in this night; and from the collapse of virtues that it is neither permissible to hope for in others, nor useful to possess, there arises nothing but darkness.”

Corruption factors in political regimes

Socrates and Plato, instructed by the Athenian defeat after the Peloponnesian War, became aware of the dangers of the nihilistic approach to law that had led Athenians to believe they could do anything when they were at the height of their power. Plato shows how these dangerous doctrines can seduce young men misled by their excessive association with the sophists. According to Callicles in the Gorgias, man must follow his passions, for every moral law, every legal norm, is an unjust and unnatural limitation of human freedom: “Laws are made for the weak and by the many. To […] frighten the strongest, those who are capable of having the advantage over them, to prevent them from obtaining it, they say that it is shameful and unjust to aspire to more than one’s share and that this is what injustice consists in, in wanting to possess more than others […] But I see that nature itself proclaims that it is just that the best should have more than the worst and the most powerful than the weakest.”³⁸ Conversely, the teacher of rhetorics Thrasymachus proclaims that it is the strong who impose their law on the weak³⁹. For him, only the rights of the strongest exist: “Justice is nothing other than the interest of the strongest… It is the interest of the government in power.”⁴⁰ To obey justice is to go against one’s own interests: “Injustice is more profitable than justice.”⁴¹ Silicon Valley ideologists defend similar theses. Socrates refuted them, arguing that unjust men are divided by dissension and hatred; that consequently a society that adopts these doctrines is condemned to paralysis: “Those who are totally depraved and absolutely unjust are incapable of action” because “injustice gives rise to… the impotence of undertaking anything in common.”⁴² Plato forcefully asserts in his last work: “Without laws, men will necessarily behave like the most dangerous of wild beasts.”⁴³ We can already see this in Russia.

Similarly, the notion of truth was revived after the sophists’ relativism. Sophists prided themselves on their ability to demonstrate one thing and its opposite. Plato criticized them for not caring that their art of persuasion was used for evil causes. The historian Thucydides denounced “the carelessness we generally show in seeking the truth, to which we prefer ready-made ideas;”⁴⁴ If man does not want to be carried away by forces beyond his control, he has a duty to be lucid, as Thucydides explains. Rational analysis of the facts is necessary “if we wish to see clearly into past events and into those which, in the future, by virtue of their human character, will present similarities or analogies.”⁴⁵ Russian and American post-truth enthusiasts would do well to read Plato, where they would find a profound critique of the sophists’ immoralism and relativism. “It is the idea of the good that communicates truth to knowable objects and to the mind the faculty of knowing,” says Plato⁴⁶. Therefore indifference to ethics leads to a lack of intelligence. Examples abound these days.

The Ancients were well aware of the threat posed to political order by the thirst for wealth. Plato believes that the love of money, the passion to acquire, is destructive to all society. “Honesty subjugates the bestial part of our nature to the human part, or to put it better, to the divine part; dishonesty enslaves the gentle part to the savage part.”⁴⁷ For Aristotle, “the greed of men is insatiable: […] and although the nature of greed is precisely to have no limits, most men live only to satisfy it. It is therefore better to go back to the origin of these disorders; instead of levelling out fortunes, we must take such measures so that men who are moderate by temperament do not want to get rich, and that the wicked cannot; and the real way is to insure that the latter, by their minority, are unable to be harmful, without treating them unjustly.”⁴⁸ Many Roman authors denounced the corrosive effect of Rome’s imperial expansion on the institutions of the Republic, showing how the plundering of conquered kingdoms led to the degradation of morality: “It was as if an epidemic of greed had invaded souls.”⁴⁹

The end of politics

Familiarity with the Ancients can inoculate us against the intoxicating hatred spouted by social media. In Thucydides’ funeral oration for the first dead of the Peloponnesian War, delivered by Pericles, the orator praises Athens by emphasizing a fundamental notion in ancient Greece: philia, friendship or mutual benevolence: “The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbor for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty. But all this ease in our private relations does not make us lawless.”⁵⁰ For the Pericles of Thucydides, as for the rhetorician Isocrates, the greatness of Athens is inseparable from its generosity in communicating its knowledge to other peoples: “Our city, as beloved of the gods as it was friendly to men, and enjoying such great possessions, instead of envying the knowledge of them to other peoples, admitted them all to share in them.”⁵¹

For Aristotle, too, living together is based on mutual attraction and benevolence, on a common pursuit of the good: “The various forms of sociability are the work of friendship, for the deliberate choice to live together is nothing other than friendship […] We must state as a principle that the political community exists with a view to the accomplishment of the good, and not only with a view to life in society.”⁵² It is this ethical foundation that distinguishes human society from animal colonies: “There is only one thing that is specific to men in comparison with other animals: the fact that they alone have the perception of good, evil, just and unjust…. Having such notions in common is what makes a family and a city.”⁵³

In De amicitia, a reflection on social bonds, Cicero extends Aristotle’s reflections on philia, while warning against the dangers of clan spirit: “For many will strive to commit evil, and few to prevent it.” Friendship brings the best or the worst, depending on the virtue of those who practice it. For virtue cannot achieve perfection on its own, but only in association with others⁵⁴. True friendship is not inspired by utilitarian considerations, nor is it motivated by the search for benefits to be derived from a friend. It is based on a deep affinity and “is nothing other than the perfect agreement of two souls on divine and human things, with mutual benevolence and affection.” “What can above all give an idea of the strength of friendship is that, in this immense society of the human race, formed by nature, friendship so restricts and tightens the circle of our feelings, and this affection which was given to us for the universality of men, it concentrates it in two friends, or in a very small number of friends.” It “can only exist between honest people […] those who show only good faith, integrity, justice, generosity, without any mixture of greed, shameful or violent passions, […] because they follow nature, the best rule for living well, as far as men can.” Friendship based on the common pursuit of the good is useful to the republic because it spreads “mutual benevolence, on the foundations of probity,” whereas the solidarity of clientelistic networks can play a subversive role and push people into the vicious circle of civil war, by inciting even honest people to become involved in criminal enterprises.

The essential contribution of European civilization: universalism

The idea was in the air as early as the 5^th Century BC. The sophist Antiphon asserted the unity of humankind: “By nature we are alike in every way, both barbarians and Greeks.”⁵⁵ Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoicism, recommended “considering all men as compatriots and fellow citizens…living under a common law.”⁵⁶ This perception is based on metaphysics. For the Stoics, a benevolent Providence is constantly at work in the cosmos, where everything is linked because the world is ordered by reason⁵⁷. Stoicism inserts man into a nature impregnated by an organizing Logos that man shares with it, gaining access to the universal. Reason, the capacity to learn, and the aptitude for goodness are given to all men by virtue of the fact that they are reasonable beings. Natural law and moral law are expressions of the same reason. Instead of a law peculiar to each nation, the Stoics conceived of a cosmic and natural law, based on the affinity of men and gods, who share the same reason. By virtue of this natural right, everyone must be treated with benevolence. The emperor Marcus Aurelius called for “a juridical state founded on equal rights, giving everyone an equal right to speak, and a kingship that would above all respect the freedom of its subjects.”⁵⁸ For the Stoics, the principal virtues are prudence, justice, courage and temperance. In their view, passions “do not weaken reason, but are born of a weakened reason.”⁵⁹ This concept of passion has left a lasting imprint on Western culture. Cicero, for whom passion is “an unreasonable and unnatural movement of the soul,” echoes the Stoïc interpretation.⁶⁰

Stoicism was the philosophy of the Roman Empire in the 1^st and 2^nd Centuries AD. Augustus was inspired by it (Corneille perceived this Stoic influence when he makes him say in Cinna: “I am master of myself as of the universe”). Marcus Aurelius’ Thoughts are imbued with it: “Your only joy, your only rest: to move on after an action accomplished in the service of the community to another action accomplished in the service of the community, accompanied by the memory of God.”⁶¹ “My city and my homeland, as Antoninus, is Rome; as a man, the universe. Consequently, things useful to these two cities are for me the only goods.”⁶²

This was also the philosophy of dissidents from the empire, such as Seneca. The wise man not only has the resource of internal emigration, in spirit he can find refuge in the vast world: “When we have given the wise man a republic worthy of him, that is, the universe, he does not remain isolated from public life, even if he is withdrawn from it.”⁶³ In On the Tranquility of the Mind, Seneca writes: “It is therefore one of the great aims of Stoicism not to imprison us within the confines of a single city, but to bring us into contact with the whole world; and if we adopt the universe as our homeland, it is only in order to open up a wider field for virtue.” Paradoxically, the retreat into the inner life, the quest for an autarky of the soul, sharpens the consoling awareness of the universal.

The “honest man” ideal

The rhetorician Isocrates seeks to rehabilitate eloquence, suspect since Plato’s criticism, by demonstrating that it is in no way incompatible with the pursuit of truth and goodness in politics: “People who engage in politics… must choose the most useful and best actions and the truest and most just speeches, and, what is more, are bound to show themselves polite and full of humanity, both in word and deed; for those who neglect these things become troublesome and burdensome to their fellow citizens.”⁶⁴ The model outlined by Isocrates of the orator polished by a humanist education was taken up by Cicero and left a lasting imprint on European culture. Cicero saw eloquence as “an instrument of civic peace,” with oratorical effects designed to promote “the advent of reason.”⁶⁵ Sensing the dangers for the Roman republic of the growing demobilization of citizens due to their distaste for involvement in public affairs, Cicero sets out in De Republica to justify this involvement. Citizens must participate in the life of the state, Cicero insists: “Let us not listen to those effeminate men who sound the retreat,” on the pretext that “public affairs are invaded by unworthy men, in whose society it would be shameful to be mixed, with whom it would be sad and dangerous to fight, especially when popular passions are at stake; it is therefore folly to wish to govern men, since one cannot tame the blind and terrible rages of the multitude; and it is a degradation to descend into the arena with adversaries who have come out of the mire, whose only weapons are insults, and the whole arsenal of outrages that a wise man must not endure.” In the face of this defeatism, Cicero wants to rehabilitate “the art of politics, which makes us useful to our country.” 

At a time when Caesar is rising to power, Cicero wonders what attitude to adopt toward the tyrant, “one of the most difficult problems in politics” and “one that particularly affects an honest man” (April 3, 49). “Should one remain in one’s homeland when it is under the yoke of a tyrant? Should the destruction of tyranny be pursued by any means, even if the city risks everything in such an undertaking?… Should he who does not approve of destroying tyranny by war nevertheless enlist with the right party?” Can the choice of neutrality be justified from a moral point of view? “Is it of a good citizen,” he writes, “to stand aloof from his enslaved fatherland and not move?”⁶⁶ And then there is the temptation to rely on time to resolve the dilemma. After all, tyrants have a propensity for self-destruction: “In my eyes, it is impossible for this character to maintain himself without spontaneously collapsing, even if we were to remain inert.”⁶⁷

Cicero wrote De officiis in October 44, shortly before his assassination by Antony’s henchmen. In this ultimate treatise, which had an immense impact on European civilization, Cicero develops his thoughts on the causes of civil wars and Rome’s slide into tyranny, and on the principles that should serve as the foundation for the restored republic he still hoped for. Even more than in De republica, he sees in the passivity of citizens the mindset that breeds despotism, and thus a great danger to the salvation of the republic: “One can be unjust in two ways: either by doing harm to others oneself, or by letting others do what one can prevent.” Those who stand idly by in the face of injustice are also responsible for the drift of the city: “Men often neglect to defend their fellow men in peril; it is a duty that many causes make them betray. Sometimes they fear to attract enemies, to take too much trouble, to venture their money; sometimes negligence, laziness, inertia, or even the preoccupations of their minds and their labors, hold them back, and force them to abandon those whose protectors they should be.” 

How can the Republic be saved? By uniting “good men,” answers Cicero. First and foremost, they must abide by honestum, defined as follows: “honestum in actions derives from four sources, one of which is knowledge of the truth, the other the preservation of human society, the third greatness of soul, and the fourth moderation.”

Cicero returns to the idea of the primacy of the public good: “There is one principle that must be common to us all, and that is that public utility and private utility are one and the same thing. Let every man score for himself, and human society is destroyed. If nature requires man to do good to his fellow man, whoever he may be, for the sole reason that he is man, it follows that there is nothing useful in particular that is not also useful in general […] The natural law forbids us to harm others.” This honestum applies to all humankind: “There are others who agree that the rights of citizens must be respected, but who recognize none in foreigners; these destroy this other general association which includes the whole humankind and whose ruin destroys all that is called goodness, humanity, justice, liberality.” This is the ideal of the “honest man” that reigned in Europe until the 18^th Century. 

Christianity

Putinists and Trumpists alike claim that Europeans have betrayed Christianity, and that only they are true Christians. “Trump was sent by God to govern this country,” proclaims Jackson Lahmeyer, founder of the Pastors4Trump (Pastors for Trump) group. “God saved me so that I could make America great again,” Trump adds with his usual modesty. In the USA and Russia we are witnessing a nationalization of Christianity, even though it is written in the Bible: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” The so-called Russian Orthodox forget the preaching of John Chrysostom (349-407), bishop of Constantinople: “The faithful do not belong to any city on earth but to the heavenly Jerusalem. As the apostle said, our mother is the free Jerusalem above.”⁶⁸ The partisan Christianity of MAGA or the Russian Orthodox Church, displayed like a soccer fan’s jersey, is in reality a rallying signal for the pack, an invitation to hate those who are not part of the group. 

Bolshevism had turned Russia into a Manichean and idolatrous state. According to Thomas Aquinas, “the heresy of the Manicheans was in its kind a more serious sin than that of other idolaters; because they derogated more from divine honor, by supposing two contrary gods…” (Summa Theologica, II, 2, 94) Putinism brought Manicheism to a paroxysm. Every day, Russian propagandists accuse Europeans of being “Satanists,” and the war against Ukraine is presented as “holy war” against “absolute evil,” the West. The idea of “atomic orthodoxy” has been popularized in Russia since 2007. Nuclear weapons are presented as a deterrent against Western “satanocracy”. Atomic Orthodoxy claims to create the conditions necessary for the “advent of the Holy Spirit” on Russian territory, including “defense against demons” and the possessed. Since 2021, the Russian Orthodox Church has been invited to bless “soldiers and their weapons.” Added to this is the sin of pride: Russian leaders are mercilessly bugging us with “Holy Russia.” Can you imagine someone boasting about “Holy France?”

Thus, the Putin-Trump regime systematically acts contrary to the recommendations of the sages of Antiquity who shaped the European conscience. It brings to power bloodthirsty brutes or uncouth cads, sycophants, incompetent and corrupt. It ignores ethics and concern for the common good. It thrives on lies and treachery. It destroys the middle class, an obstacle to dictatorship. It sows hatred and strife, atomizing citizens. It sullies souls with its vulgarity, lies and constant malevolence. It is true that most Europeans have only the vaguest idea of the philosophies that have matured their institutions and shaped their consciences, but the influence of this legacy can still be felt in our humanist tradition, our attachment to freedom and truth, to scientific objectivity and universalism. Europeans therefore have no lessons to take from regimes at war with morality, intelligence and everything that makes us human.

1. Tertullian, To the Nations
2. Saint Augustine, The City of God, vol. 1, Seuil 1994, p. 103
3. Thucydides, The Pelopponese War, II, 65
4. Laws, IX, 875c
5. Politics, 1, 2
6. V. Lucien Jerphagnon, Les armes et les mots, Robert Laffont, 2012, p. 425
7. Republic, IX, 585c
8. Euripides, The Suppliants, 417-420
9. Quoted in: Jacqueline de Romilly, La loi dans la pensée grecque, Les Belles Lettres , 2002, p.193-4
10. Protagoras,345b
11. Aristophanes, The Cavaliers, 180-2, 191-4, 217-9
12. Aristophanes, The Wasps, 490-2
13. Politics, 303a
14. Understand “mode of political organization”.
15. Isocrates, Areopagitica, 70
16. Plato, Republic, IX, 585b
17.  Politics, IV, 12
18. The Suppliants, 238-245
19. Xenophon, Memorabilia, IV, 6.12
20. The Suppliants, 429-432
21. Republic, IX, 579b
22. Republic, VIII, 567c
23. Republic, VIII, 567a
24. Politics, V, 10
25. Politics, IV, 10
26. Politics, III, 16
27. Politics, IV, 4
28. Politics, IV, 4
29. Politics, V, 10
30. Tacitus, Annals, I, 7
31. Tacitus, Annals, IV, 74
32. Tacitus, Histories, I, 90
33. Tacitus, Annals, V, 4
34. Pliny, Letters, Book VIII, 14
35. Tacitus, Annals, III, 44
36. Pliny, Letters, Book VIII, 14
37. Dion Cassius, Book LII, 37
38. Gorgias, 483b-e
39. V. Jacqueline de Romilly, Les grands sophistes dans l’Athènes de Périclès, Editions de Fallois, 1988, p. 166
40. Plato, Republic, I, 338c, 339a
41. Republic, I, 344a
42. Republic, I, 351e, 352c
43. Laws, IX, 874c
44. Thucydides, La Guerre du Pélopponèse, t. 1, Les Belles Lettres 2009, p. 33
45. Thucydides, La Guerre du Pélopponèse, t. 1, Les Belles Lettres 2009, p. 35
46. Republic, VI, 508,e
47. Republic, IX, 589d
48. Politics, II, 7
49. Sallustus, War of Jugurtha,XXXII,3
50. Thucydides, The Pelopponese War, II, 37
51. Isocrates, Panegyric, 29
52. Politics, III, 9
53. Nicomachean Ethics, IX, 1253 a 10-19
54. Leovant-Cirefice Véronique. “The influence of Atticus on the De Amicitia. In: Vita Latina, N°180, 2009. pp. 90-97
55. Quoted in: Geneviève Rodis-Lewis, Epicure et son école, Gallimard, 1975, p. 361
56. Quoted in: Robert Muller, Les Stoïciens, Vrin, p. 251
57. V. André Bridoux, Le stoïcisme et son influence, Vrin 1966, p. 140
58. Thoughts, I, 14
59. Paul Veyne, Une insolite curiosité, Robert Laffont, 2020, p. 534-9
60. Jean Baptiste Gourinat, Le stoïcisme, PUF, 2017, p. 53
61. Pierre Hadot, Introduction aux “Pensées” de Marc Aurèle, Le Livre de Poche, 2005, p. 223
62. Thoughts, VI, 64
63. Letters to Lucilius, VII, 68, 2
64. Antidosis
65. Lucien Jerphagnon, Les armes et les mots, Robert Laffont, 2012, p. 98
66. V. Paul Jal, “La guerre civile à Rome (de Sylla à Vespasien), facteur de vie morale?”, Bulletin de l’Association Guillaume Budé, Année 1962 , LH-21 p. 405
67. Cicero, Correspondance, t. VI, Les Belles Lettres, 2002, p. 72-3
68. Quoted in :Hornus Jean-Michel. “Etude sur la pensée politique de Tertullien”, Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses, n°1,1958. p. 37