Zibaldone

by Leopardi, Giacomo

  Each society is thus constrained (1) by the obedience it owes in every respect, in every last detail, and with the utmost mathematical precision to its leader or government; (2) by the highly precise [875] regulation, definition, and stipulation of all the duties and observances, moral, political, religious, civil, public, private, domestic, etc., that bind individuals to one another. Each society is, I repeat, so constrained, and restricted, and circumscribed that one could perhaps not imagine greater precision and restriction in this regard. The various societies are therefore so tightly bound together (I mean civilized societies in particular, but not only them) that Europe forms a single family, as much in fact as with regard to opinion, and to the conduct of the governments, nations, and individuals within the various nations. At the present time, then, Europe is something like a nation governed by an absolute Diet,1 or we might say subjected to a near perfect oligarchy, or we might say commanded by various governors, whose authority and power stem from and reside in the whole body made up of them, etc., which may be called a compound of different nations.

  What has followed and follows from all this? [876] (1) Society’s evident setting out in a direction completely and diametrically opposed to what was described above, that is, toward broadening and indeed dissolving in one respect, which is the most significant, to the same extent that in another respect it is tightening. This has always happened from the very beginning of society onward, in proportion to increasing tightness. Consider the ancient and very loose-knit societies, and you will see what love of country, that is, of that society, was to be found in every individual, what ardor in defending it, procuring its good, sacrificing oneself for others, etc. Work your way down step-by-step, and you will find that as civilization advances, societies become ever tighter and more closely bound together. What then? Observe our own times. Not only is there no longer love of the homeland; there is not even a homeland. Indeed, not even family. Man, as far as his goal is concerned, has returned to his original solitude. The individual on his own forms the whole of his society. Because interests and passions are in very serious conflict as a consequence of closeness and proximity, society’s usefulness in large part disappears. Only the harm remains, that is, this conflict in which the individual person and his [877] interests injure those of another, and in which, because it is not possible for a man entirely and forever to sacrifice himself for others (something that would now be required to preserve society), and because self-love naturally prevails, the latter turns into egoism, and hatred of others, the natural child of self-love, becomes, given its vast number of opportunities, more intense and more active. (2) The purpose of society, which is the common good, has been in large part lost and continues to be lost, and for the same reason that the means, the cooperation of individuals in pursuit of that purpose, have been lost.

  I propose that we now elaborate upon these reflections, and, proceeding to apply them to the facts and to the history of man, let us chiefly compare the ancients with the moderns, that is, a society that is not very tight and bound together or very large, that is, a society of just a few, with a very tight-knit and very large society, that is, a society of many.

  I have said that self-love is inseparable [878] from man, and so, too, the hatred of others that is inseparable from self-love, and that as a consequence originally and essentially excludes the tight-knit community and society of both men and other living beings. But just as self-love can assume very different guises, so that, as the sole motor of animal actions, though now it is egoism, once upon a time it was heroism, and all the virtues, no less than all the vices, stem from it; so too in ancient and not very tight-knit societies (as even happens still today with several of the savage populations that are discovered, or when they were discovered, as with some American peoples) self-love was reduced to love of that society in which the individual happened to be, which is as much as to say, love of the group and the homeland. This was very natural, because that society really did benefit the individual and tended formally toward its true and proper goal, so that the individual cherished it, and turning himself into it, turned love of himself into love of it. This is precisely what happens in parties, assemblies, associations, etc., especially when they are in their first [879] bloom, and still retain their original form. Then the individuals in such a group make common cause with it, and regard its advantages, glory, progress, interests, etc., as their own, and therefore in loving it they love themselves, and favor it as they would themselves. In the last analysis, this is the sole principle informing love of a group, country, or Religion, universal love or love of humanity, and any possible love in any animal.

  So self-love turned into love of the homeland. And hatred of other individuals? It certainly didn’t disappear, since it is always and forever inseparable from self-love, and hence from living beings; instead it turned into hatred of other societies or nations.1 Which was only natural and logical if each individual regarded a particular society or country as another self. Hence the desire to outdo those societies, envy of their possessions, a passion to make one’s own homeland the master of the other nations, also greed for their goods and belongings, and finally open hatred and envy: all things that when they are found in the individual’s relations with other individuals render him by nature [880] incompatible with society.

  Wherever there has been true love of the homeland, there has been hatred of the foreigner: wherever the foreigner is not hated as a foreigner, the homeland is not loved. We see it today, too, in nations where a residue of ancient patriotism still remains.

  But this hatred occurred especially in free nations. A nation that is enslaved within does not have true love of the homeland, or, if it does, it is only of a weak and inoperative kind, because the individual does not form part of the nation except in a material sense. The opposite occurs in free nations, where each person, thinking of himself as combined and all but merged with the homeland, felt a personal hatred for foreigners both as a group and individually.

  These observations explain the great difference that is evident between the ancient manner of regarding foreigners and of behaving toward other nations, and the modern manner. The foreigner had no rights to the good opinion, love, or favor of the ancients. And I refer here to the ancients in the more cultured and civilized nations, and, in these, to the greatest, most highly educated, and even the most enlightened and philosophical men. Indeed, the philosophy of those times (which hit the mark far more than is the case now) taught and inculcated individual and national hatred of the foreigner as being of paramount importance for preserving [881] the state, the independence, and the greatness of the homeland. The foreigner was not regarded as being of one’s own kind. The sphere of one’s fellows, the sphere of duties, justice, honesty, virtue, honor, glory itself, and ambition, of laws, etc., was completely confined within the bounds of one’s own homeland, which often did not extend beyond a city. The law of nations did not exist, or only to a very limited extent and in relation to a range of necessary relations, where, if it had not existed, the damage inflicted would have been common to all.

  Consider what the scriptures say about the way in which the Jewish nation, which was so just, indeed scrupulous, at home, and in relation to its own, behaved toward foreigners. There was no law governing its dealings with the latter, for the precepts of the Ten Commandments were binding in relation to the Jews alone. In that nation, as in all others, valor and glory lay in deceiving, conquering, oppressing, killing, exterminating, and plundering foreigners. Indeed, such acts were also justified by the law, since the conquest of Canaan was carried out, as is well known, under Divine instruction, as were a hundred other, often seemingly unjust, wars with foreigners. And even today, the Jews maintain the opinion, rationally and consistently, that it is not a sin to deceive, or in any way harm, the outsider, whom (particularly the Christian) they call Goy (), [882] or Gentile, a term that to them “sounds the same as barbarian to the Greeks” (see Zanolini, who says it should be understo
od that in the plural, however, today they refer to Christians as goyim),1 regarding as a sin only the harm done to fellow countrymen.

  And these observations should serve to explain something that may astonish us in the Cyropaedia, where Xenophon certainly intends to present a model of a good king, rather than an accurate history of Cyrus. And nonetheless this good king, once the Assyrian empire has been conquered, becomes a model and exemplar of the most subtle, cold, and dismal tyranny. But it should be noted that this is in relation to the Assyrians, whereas Xenophon always depicts him as eminently humane and generous in relation to his own Persians. But he believes that it is as fitting for a good king to oppress foreigners, and to ensure their subjection in every way possible, as it is for him to preserve a just liberty among his own people. A distinction and comment without which one might almost mistake Xenophon for Machiavelli, and greatly misinterpret his true intentions and his notion of a good Prince. In which regard I would observe that the rule and method of Cyrus (or Xenophon) of preferring the Persians absolutely over his new subjects, and declaring the former to be [883] the dominant nation in every respect, and the latter to be subject and dependent, was not the one adopted by Alexander, who, even at the cost of antagonizing the Macedonians, appears to have sought to establish complete equality among his subjects irrespective of their nation, and almost to have gone so far as to prefer the conquered, whose dress and customs he adopted.1 His aim was certainly to keep them on his side by means of love rather than by means of fear and force, and he regarded them not as slaves (following the custom of those times) but as subjects. And as for the Romans, see in this regard the end of Chapter 6 of Montesquieu, Grandeur, etc.2 Aside from the fact that, granting citizenship as they did to all kinds of conquered foreigners, the Romans made them as equal as they possibly could to the citizens and compatriots. But this did them no good, as is well known, and as I have said in another thought p. 457.

  Returning to the theme under discussion, Plato in the Republic, bk. 5 (look it up), says: “the Greeks will certainly not destroy Greeks, reduce them to slavery, ravage the countryside, or burn their houses: but in return they will do all this to the Barbarians.”3 And Isocrates’s Orations, while full of pity for the troubles of Greece, are merciless toward the barbarians, or Persians, and are forever urging the nation, and Philip, to exterminate them. Particularly noteworthy in this regard are his two Orations Πανηγυρικὸς [Panegyric], and πρὸς Φίλιππον [To Philip], where he deliberately instills hatred for Barbarians at the same time and for the same reasons as love of the Greeks, and as a consequence of that love. See, in particular, the passage in the panegyric that begins “Εὐμολπίδαι δὲ καὶ Κήρυκες” [“Eumolpidai and Kerykes”], and ends “τῶν αὐτῶν ἔργων ἐκείνοις ἐπιθυμῶμεν” [“that we may conceive a passion for similar deeds”], where he speaks of Homer and the Trojans, pp. 175–76, in Battie’s edition, Cambridge 1729, well beyond the midpoint of the Oration, but still long before the end.4 And this opposition between mercy and justice toward one’s own, and pride and injustice toward foreigners, is an invariable [884] characteristic of all the ancient Greeks and Romans, especially of the most loyal citizens and absolutely of the greatest and most famous—particularly writers, even the most merciful, humane, and civilized among them.

  A passage from Themistius in the Oration discovered by Mai, namely, πρὸς τοὺς αἰτιασαμένους ἐπὶ τῷ δέξασθαι τὴν ἀρχὴν, or “In eos a quibus ob praefecturam susceptam fuerat vituperatus” [“In reply to those who found fault with him for accepting public office”], ch. 25, is famous in this regard.1 Here it is: “Καὶ τοῦτον ἄν τις ἐν δίκῃ προσείποι τὸν φιλάνθρωπον ἀληθῶς. Τῶν δὲ ἄλλων Κῦρον μὲν φιλοπέρσην καλοῖ, ἀλλ' οὐ φιλάνθρωπον. ᾿Αλέξανδρον δὲ φιλομακεδόνα, ἀλλ' οὐ φιλάνθρωπον· ᾿Αγησίλαον δὲ φιλέλληνα, καὶ τὸν Σεβαστὸν φιλορώμαιον, ἄλλον δὲ ἄλλου γένους ἢ ἔθνους ἐραστὴν οὗ καὶ βασιλεὺς ἐνομίσθη.” (regium dominatum exercuit. Maius) “Φιλάνθρωπος δὲ ἁπλῶς καὶ βασιλεὺς ἁπλῶς, ὁ τοῦτο ζητῶν μόνον εἰ ἄνθρωπος ὁ χρήζων ἐπιεικείας·” (qui clementia indiget. Maius) “καὶ μὴ εἰ Σκύθης ἢ Μασαγέτης, ἢ τὰ καὶ τὰ προηδίκησε” [“And him {Theodosius} one might address with justice as one who truly loves all mankind. As for other rulers, you might call Cyrus a lover of Persians but not a lover of mankind, Alexander a lover of Macedonians but not of mankind, Agesilaus a lover of Greeks, Augustus of Romans, and any other individual the lover of whatever race or tribe whose king he happened to be. But a lover of mankind without qualification, and king without qualification, is he who asks only this question: whether it is a man who craves fair treatment, and not whether it is a Scythian or a Massagete, or whether he had done the first wrong in some way or other”]. (Milan, Regiis Typis, 1816, discovered and translated by Angelo Mai, p. 66. See the whole of that chapter, and a part of the rest, which is relevant to everything in this regard, but chiefly the passage referred to, and sheds a great deal of light, and altogether appropriately, on my argument. See also Themistius’s oration 10 in the Hardouin ed., p. 132b–c and oration 1, [885] p. 6b, quoted here in the margin by Mai, as containing passages parallel to the one given.) So, too, in his praise of Theodosius the Great.1 And indeed philanthropy, or universal love, love of humanity, was never characteristic either of man or of great men. No mention was made of it until—in part because of Christianity, in part because of the natural tendency of the times, when love of the homeland had completely disappeared and the dream of universal love (which is the theory of not doing good to anyone) had replaced it—man loved no one but himself, and hated foreign nations less, only to hate neighbors and comrades far more, in comparison with whom the foreigner, because he is less opposed to his interests, must naturally be less hateful (as he is today), and because he is less concerned with outdoing, envying, etc., those who are distant than those who are near at hand.

  From all the above observations and facts there follows another observation and another very well known fact that is characteristic of antiquity; or rather, there follows the explanation of this fact. For, since the individual loved his own homeland, and therefore hated foreigners, it followed that wars were always national, and were all the more bitter the more individuals on both sides were inflamed by their cause, that is, love of the homeland. The wars fought by free peoples, or against a free people, [886] were thus especially bitter, for the same reason that, as I have said, a free people loves its homeland more, and hates the foreigner more. So that both the foreign nation and army and the foreign individual were the private enemy of the individual who fought for his free people and for his homeland. And this is one of the principal and most obvious reasons that the peoples who love their country most, among them peoples that are free, have always been the strongest and most formidable to the outside world, the most warlike, the most intrepid, the most suited to conquest, and in effect, so to speak, the most conquering.

  A further consequence was bound to follow from the fact that wars were national, and it did occur among the ancients, and occurs in all the savage nations and, proportionately, in those which preserve a greater, and more primitive, national spirit, like the Spanish. That is to say, wars had to be fought to the death, and without mercy (since one and all were hostile to each other), without discrimination, etc. And the outcome of victory had to be the complete capture not only of the government but of the entire nation (as may chiefly be seen in Asia at the time of the Assyrian monarchs, in their wars with the Jews, etc., and at the time of Titus Vespasian),1 [887] or certainly stripping it of its own customs, laws, and governors, its temples, tombs, possessions, monies, property, wives, chi
ldren, etc., and reducing it if not to slavery, as was the custom in very ancient times, stripping the conquered of their country as well, then certainly to servitude, regarding it as a dependent and subjugated nation that shared in none of the advantages of the dominant nation, and did not belong to it, except as a subject, and had nothing else in common with it, either in rights or etc., as if it comprised another race of men. Logically and coherently: since, in short, the whole nation had been and was the enemy of the victor, the whole of it was treated as conquered and subdued, and it was in its entirety the prey of its triumphant foe. Hence the desperation of these wars, the stubbornness of utterly futile displays of resistance, the mutual slaughter of entire populations, anything rather than open the gates to the enemy, because in fact the defeated fell into the hands and under the absolute authority of a mortal enemy, as the defeated was to the victor. Hence also whole nations in combat, and everyone capable of bearing arms a soldier, always: that is, both in time of war and (if not in practice then certainly in potential and availability) in time of peace. Because nations, especially if they were neighbors, were always in a state of war, nursing a mutual hatred and endeavoring to outdo one another in [888] whatever way possible, as a necessary consequence of genuine love of the homeland. (But see, if you will, in this regard, the Essai sur l’indifférence en matière de religion, ch. 10, where he deals with this very theme, albeit in an opposite way to mine, for nine pages of the Bigoni translation, namely, from p. 161 to p. 169, that is from the sentence that begins “Yet this is not all. When social relations,” etc., up to the one that begins “Incedo per ignes.”1 He also thinks that this latter practice2 fits with the sheer size of contemporary armies, which he attributes to the nationalistic character of the wars of recent years. I would note, however, that this practice originally derived solely from the ambition and despotism of Louis XIV.)