糖心原创

When he鈥檚 not teaching law students or busy with his duties as director of the and deputy director of the Center for Innovation at UC Law SF, Paul Belonick pursues his other passion: studying ancient history. In this interview, he discusses his new book, 鈥�,鈥� published by Oxford University Press.

What inspired you to write this book?

I have a Ph.D. in Ancient History, and this book started out as my dissertation. My Ph.D. advisor and I were talking about how the Roman Republic is like a car: its 鈥済as鈥� is that its aristocrats wanted to out-compete each other for glory and honor, usually through military conquest, which is why it expanded into a massive republic.听听

But what keeps that competition from running off the road into civil war immediately?听Or, to lose the metaphor, how did a Roman Republic that centers competition manage to stay cohesive for centuries, and why did it then (rather suddenly) fail?听This book is an attempt to get at those questions.听听

What do you hope people take away from this book?
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Strongly-held values can stabilize a society.听They can also splinter it.听The standard Roman answer to why their Republic failed is 鈥渂ecause our morals failed.鈥澨�Historians of Rome don鈥檛 really believe that is true, but have struggled to come up with an answer that explains why the Republic fell apart and why the Romans were completely convinced it was due to bad morals.听

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This book shows how Roman 鈥渕orals鈥� were actually norms of behavior that helped their government run for a very long time. But for that very reason, those same norms were politically sensitive, and could create hot emotion.

Because the norms have such hot emotional and political valence, opposing disputants quickly turn each other into immoral enemies 鈥渄estroying鈥� the Republic.听 Once that happens, trust in the government鈥檚 legitimacy eventually collapsed, and the only way to 鈥渟olve鈥� things was violence. This explains both how the Republic destabilized without actually 鈥渓osing鈥� morals, and how the Romans could be convinced it was because of 鈥渓ost morals,鈥� all at the same time.听 The same norms or values stabilize the Republic at one point in time, and destabilize it at another. 听

Why is this book important now?

I鈥檓 not a 鈥淲e鈥檙e just like Rome and about to fall鈥� person鈥攐ur society and its institutions and government structures are very different from Rome鈥檚, and our Founders were quite deliberate about that.听But I do think it鈥檚 important to remember that norms are powerful and that they support and guide rules and institutions and procedures that we might otherwise take for granted.听We鈥檝e gotten a lot of that lesson in the political realm recently.听听

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Norms can be double-edged swords. They can help a society run, or they can be a flashpoint for social fraying if people with different interpretations of norms see the norms as sacred and see each other as desecrating enemies to be destroyed for the 鈥済ood鈥� of the nation.听听听

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Our institutions and structures have been put to real tests recently.听But (so far) they鈥檝e held, and largely because of the great work of judges and lawyers insisting on applying the law dispassionately even under great social and emotional pressure鈥攚hat I鈥檇 call the rule of law.听So I鈥檓 confident liberal democracy is resilient.听Not perfect, and certainly bruised, but currently resilient.听听听

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In some ways, the 鈥淩ome declined and so are we鈥� argument is a self-fulfilling prophecy: once you鈥檙e convinced your society is failing, you become tempted to make terrible, panicked decisions to stop the 鈥渇ailing鈥� that in fact only fray social relations and thereby accelerate real societal failure.听

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I always remember that we have the choice not to go back to Rome鈥檚 way. It takes commitment to even-handed application of law and rules and norms when we don鈥檛 feel like applying them evenly to rivals.听Those are choices, and hard ones. I bet we can make them though.听听 听听

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