The Separation between State and Religion

In time we will realize that Democracy is the entitlement of individuals to every right that was in its times alloted to kings. The right to speak and decide, to be treated with decency, to serve and be served by people in a State of “love” that is, to serve with one’s work for the development of ‘life’. To belong to the Kingdom of Human Beings without racial, national, social or academic separations. To love and be loved. To die at the service of the whole and be honored in one’s death, for one’s life and work was legitimately valued. To be graceful and grateful. To have the pride and the humility of being One with the Universe, One with every realm of Existence, One with every living and deceased soul. To treat with dignity and be treated with dignity for One is dignified together with All others and Life itself. To walk the path of compassion, not in the sorrow of guilt but in the pride of being. To take responsability for one’s mistakes and sufferings and stand up again and again like a hero and a heroine and face the struggle that is put at one’s feet and in one’s hands. Millions of people, millions and millions of people might take many generations to realize the consciousness of our humaneness but there is no other dignified path for the human being.

The “work” as I conceive it is psychological and political. Psychology is the connection between the different dimensions within one’s self and Politics is the actualization of that consciousness in our practical lives. Religion is the ceremony that binds the connectedness between the individual and the Universe. The separation between religion, politics and science, the arts and sports is, in the sphere of the social, the reflection of the schizophrenia within the individual and the masses. The dialogue between individuality and the "human" belongs to consciousness. The tendency to develop cults resides in the shortcomings we’are finding in life as it is structured today. “Life” has become the private property of a few priviledged who cannot profit from it because as soon as it is appropriated it stops to be “life” or “life-giving”.

We are all the victims of our own invention and each one is called upon to find solutions. The only problem is believing our selves incapable of finding them. We are now free to use all Systems of knowledge objectively, sharing them without imposing our will on each other. To become objective about our lives means to understand that the institutions that govern its experience are critically important. That we are one with the governments, one with the religious activities that mark its pace, that the arena’s in which we move our bodies and the laboratories in which we explore our possibilities are ALL part and parcel of our own personal responsibility. That WE ARE ONE WITH EACH OTHER AND EVERYTHING AROUND US and acknowledge for ourselves a bond of love in conscious responsibility. That we human beings know ourselves part of each other and are willing and able to act on our behalf for the benefit of each and every individual. That we no longer allow governments, industries, universities or any other institution to run along unchecked by the objective principles of humaneness. That we do not allow gurus to abuse their power or governors to steal the taxes and use them to their personal advantage in detriment of the whole. That we do not allow abuse from anyone anywhere because life is too beautiful to do so and that we are willing to stop the rampant crime with the necessary compassion Conscious knowledge is every individual's right. Conscious action is every individual's duty.

Thursday, 29 August 2013

Auctoritas


Auctoritas


Ancient Rome

This article is part of the series:
Politics and government of
Ancient Rome
Periods
Roman Kingdom
753 BC – 509 BC
Roman Constitution
Ordinary Magistrates
Extraordinary Magistrates
Titles and Honours
Emperor
Precedent and Law
Roman Law
senatus consultum
(senatus
consultum
ultimum)
Auctoritas is a Latin word and is the origin of English "authority." While historically its use in English was restricted to discussions of the political
history of Rome, the beginning of phenomenological philosophy in the twentieth century expanded the use of the word.
In ancient Rome, Auctoritas referred to the general level of prestige a person had in Roman society, and, as a consequence, his clout, influence, and ability to rally support around his will. Auctoritas was not merely political, however; it had a numinous content and symbolized the mysterious "power of command" of heroic Roman figures.

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[edit]Etymology and origin

According to French linguist Emile Benveniste, auctor (which also gives us English "author") is derived from Latin augeō ("to augment"). The auctor is "is qui auget", the one who augments the act or the juridical situation of another.[1]
Auctor in the sense of "author", comes from auctor as founder or, one might say, "planter-cultivator". Similarly, auctoritas refers to rightfulownership, based on one's having "produced" or homesteaded the article of property in question - more in the sense of "sponsored" or "acquired" than "manufactured". This auctoritas would, for example, persist through an usucapio of ill-gotten or abandoned property.

[edit]Political meaning in Ancient Rome


Representation of a sitting of the Roman Senate: Ciceroattacks Catilina, from a 19th century fresco
Politically, auctoritas was connected to the Roman Senate's authority (auctoritas patrum), not to be confused with potestas or imperium(power) , which were held by the magistrates or the people. In this context, Auctoritas could be defined as the juridical power to authorize some other act.
The 19th-century classicist Theodor Mommsen describes the "force" of auctoritas as "more than advice and less than command, an advice which one may not safely ignore." Cicero says of power and authority, "Cum potestas in populo auctoritas in senatu sit." ("While power resides in the people, authority rests with the Senate.")
(A popular modern definition of such "authority" in the English language is, "the ability to make people do what you want, just by being who you are.")
In the private domain, those under tutelage (guardianship), such as women and minors, were similarly obliged to seek the sanction of theirtutors ("protectors") for certain actions. Thus, auctoritas characterizes the auctor: The pater familias authorizes - that is, validates and legitimates - his son's wedding in prostate. In this way, auctoritas might function as a kind of "passive counsel", much as, for example, a scholarly authority.

[edit]Auctoritas principis

After the fall of the Republic, during the days of the Roman Empire, the Emperor had the title of princeps ("first citizen" of Rome) and held the auctoritas principis — the supreme moral authority — in conjunction with the imperium and potestas — the military, judiciary and administrative powers.

[edit]Middle Ages

The notion of auctoritas was often invoked by the papacy during the Middle Ages, in order to secure the temporal power of the Pope.Innocent III most famously invoked auctoritas in order to depose kings and emperors and to try to establish a papal theocracy.

[edit]Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt considers auctoritas a reference to founding acts as the source of political authority in Ancient Rome. She takes foundation to include (as augeō suggests), the continuous conservation and increase of principles handed down from "the beginning" (see also pietas). According to Arendt, this source of authority was rediscovered in the course of the 18th-century American Revolution (see "United States of America" under Founding Fathers), as an alternative to an intervening Western tradition of absolutism, claiming absolute authority, as from God (see Divine Right of Kings), and later from Nature, Reason, History, and even, as in the French Revolution,Revolution itself (see La Terreur). Arendt views a crisis of authority as common to both the American and French Revolutions, and the response to that crisis a key factor in the relative success of the former and failure of the latter.[citation needed]
Arendt further considers the sense of auctor and auctoritas in various Latin idioms, and the fact that auctor was used in contradistinction to - and (at least by Pliny) held in higher esteem than - artifices, the artisans to whom it might fall to "merely" build up or implement the author-founder's vision and design.[citation needed]

[edit]Giorgio Agamben

See also: Giorgio Agamben#State of Exception (2005)
Philosopher Giorgio Agamben suggests a relationship between the Roman auctoritas, Max Weber's "charismatic power", andCarl Schmitt's theoretical/ideological basis for the Nazi Führertum doctrine. Agamben compares auctoritas to the Führer (who embodies nomos empsuchon or "living law") in their relationship to the observance of gramma (written law).

[edit]See also

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[edit]Notes

  1. ^ J. B. Greenough disputes this etymology of auctor - but not the sense of foundation and augmentation - in "Latin Etymologies", Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 4, 1893.

[edit]References

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