On Foundings

Typically, I prefer not to think about the American Founding. I think it is too thoughtlessly esteemed and praised (and too closely related to history for my tastes). In her essay, "What is Authority?" in Between Past and Future, however, Hannah Arendt (ohh! pretty young picture!) argues that looking back at a founding moment is positive in the sense that it respects and affirms the present authority of tradition. Furthermore, other foundings can be understood as attempts to get back to the quintessential founding--the founding of Rome (the raises questions in my mind of the legitimacy of appealing to a tradition of foundings).

Arendt also, interestingly, talks about the Romans as showing their respect for their ancestors by most highly regarding the oldest among them because of their closeness to their ancestors. For them, it seems, time and eternity spilled seamlessly into one another--immortality, for instance, was not something out of the realm of possibility, but rather something expected.