Peter Blume, The Eternal City 1934-1937What does it say about a state that functions not for the good of its citizens, but for the self-aggrandizement of its leaders? Is it even really a state at all? Despite its stake in maintaining order and its efforts to promote a jingoistic sense of nationalism, does such a government ultimately meet the tests of civic responsibility and un-coerced legitimacy that are necessary to earn the valid consent of the governed, and to establish a viable social contract? When dissent is stifled and patriotism is redefined to cover only the blindly sycophantic and ostentatiously unthinking flag-wavers, doesn't that system become most susceptible to the sort of cancerous apathy that withers critical social institutions, leaving a crippled body politic seized by fear and hesitation? I'm sure Blume's painting resonated more with those who first viewed it in the 1937 than for most of us looking back at it today. But the questions it suggests, sadly, still are relevant today, making one hope that the ruins of the Eternal City (both ancient and contemporary in the mid 1930s) don't foreshadow another collapse brought about by the self-serving hubris of more recent leaders.
2 comments:
Johnny, you are beginning to sound quite cynical...Mom
Mom,
I don't feel cynical, but I do think that you can't say everything will be alright unless you're willing to point out those things that threaten to make it not alright, and do what you can to insure they have as little effect as possible. I think that's the value in a painting like Blume's, which was necessary (if not particularly widely seen) when too many were willing to give the likes of Mussolini a pass.
Dr. John
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