[HN Gopher] Cicero used humor to charm audiences-and humiliate o...
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       Cicero used humor to charm audiences-and humiliate opponents
        
       Author : diodorus
       Score  : 40 points
       Date   : 2021-06-06 02:09 UTC (20 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
        
       | SiVal wrote:
       | This past weekend was to have been the annual vigil in the park
       | in Hong Kong where thousands come out every year on June 4 in
       | remembrance of what really happened in Tiananmen Square. This
       | year, the park was empty. Not just a few, but empty. Those in
       | power made statements in the Mainland "media", whose job is to
       | persuade people to support those in power, about how
       | misinformation needed to be eliminated and the terrorists and
       | criminal elements behind it stopped for the sake of all the good
       | people of China.
       | 
       | Of course in the end Cicero was silenced by those who were taking
       | power. You may have humor and charm, you may be well-behaved and
       | your claims may be correct, but if you are an impediment to the
       | agendas of those in power, they will silence you in whatever ways
       | they can unless others in society restrain them.
       | 
       | It is the lesson of history that Noam Chomsky shouted from the
       | rooftops: when you use your power to silence speech you don't
       | like, you are corrupt, regardless of how you try to disguise it,
       | and the more power you have to do it, the more corrupt, until
       | absolute power corrupts absolutely or society refuses to allow it
       | and restrains you.
        
         | MR4D wrote:
         | > the end Cicero was silenced by those who were taking power.
         | 
         | This is a spin on the fact that he was a participant in the
         | murder of Caesar. Cicero was trying to take back power that had
         | been lost to a very popular Leader by participating in the
         | murder of said leader.[0] The killers and conspirators involved
         | were all hunted down and killed.
         | 
         | [0] - for those not up on Roman institutions, Dictator had a
         | different role than we would ascribe today, albeit with many
         | similarities.
        
         | User23 wrote:
         | > Of course in the end Cicero was silenced by those who were
         | taking power.
         | 
         | The conflict between Cicero and Mark Antony is a splendid case
         | study of influence versus power and how that conflict ends when
         | power chooses to play its hand.
        
       | kthxb wrote:
       | I recommend Robert Harris' Cicero novels. They are not
       | historical, but very entertaining.
        
       | prox wrote:
       | Behind a paywall :/
        
       | cblconfederate wrote:
       | He should be cancelled
        
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       (page generated 2021-06-06 23:00 UTC)