• Red_Sunshine_Over_Florida [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        2·
        1 month ago

        I imagine that’s how the planters themselves thought of it but, they thought it was a virtue. They envisioned themselves as new repubican aristocrats in the Roman model. They would live in leisurely repose while being able to pursue art, academic writing, and politics just as the Roman latifundia did in the past.

    • Red_Sunshine_Over_Florida [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      5·
      1 month ago

      I think it could be related to the liberal revolutionaries’ tendency to clothe themselves in the Republican garb of the Classical age in order to legitimize their movement. The French had a similar movement in art and architecture during the age of their revolution and into the Napoleonic era as well.

  • culpritus [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    30·
    1 month ago

    The Roman Empire was an ideal society to model ourselves after

    what about all the slavery and depravity tho?

    That is a feature, not a bug

    • huf [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      22·
      1 month ago

      also, roman republic tearing itself apart repeatedly because the elites simply refused to give any concessions to the poor.

      no, no lesson here.

      (not that the republic was good…)

      • SSJ2Marx@hexbear.netEnglish
        14·
        1 month ago

        Like a dozen times in Roman history, some Consul is hailed as the greatest leader of all time because he breaks up the big slave owning plantations and redistributes the land to the poor (that is, the poor citizenry, not the slaves or immigrants). None of them could figure out how to stop the big plantations from inevitably buying up and outcompeting the smallholders, though.

      • HarryLime [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        15·
        1 month ago

        So what’s the logic here? That they kept it up there to fuck with your head, as a semi-secret sign that they’re fascist? That’s anti-materialist thinking, little different than anti-Masonists seeing the eye pyramid on a dollar bill and imagining a vast conspiracy from it.

        Let’s say that there was a proposal to take the fasces down- what would the case be? That Mussolini’s use of the fasces imbues it with a transcendental evil that reaches back in time and taints it as a symbol before he even used it? From the perspective of the political class, the whole debate would likely be tiresome and not worth having.

        If the US is or becomes fascist, it’s going to have very little to do with some old ornaments in the House of Representatives, it’s going to be because of material conditions.

      • Saeculum [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        11·
        1 month ago

        Not really sure if the best response to fascists using a common and ancient symbol is to rip out our artistic and cultural heritage.

        There are buildings with Swastikas and Fasces all over Europe and the US that considerably pre-date the Nazis.

        It’s not like removing statues of slavers and criminals (which is based), since these older buildings and artworks aren’t and weren’t glorifying the horrendous crimes they later came to be associated with.

  • SSJ2Marx@hexbear.netEnglish
    11·
    1 month ago

    To be fair, I think the US’ use of fasces predates fascism by a couple hundred years. A bunch of the founders were ancient Rome statue avatar dorks.

    • HexBroke [any, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      3·
      1 month ago

      ancient Rome statue avatar dorks

      Reminds you of anyone?

      The Volkshalle (“People’s Hall”), also called Große Halle (“Great Hall”) or Ruhmeshalle (“Hall of Glory”), was a proposal for a monumental, domed building to be built in a reconstituted Berlin (renamed as Germania) in Nazi Germany. The project was conceived by Adolf Hitler and designed by his architect Albert Speer.