The American Minervan

Author: Dominique Johnson

  • Threat to the Humanities, the Right’s Identity and the Limits of American Civilization

    Threat to the Humanities, the Right’s Identity and the Limits of American Civilization

    MODERN CRITICISMS OF THE HUMANITIES THREATEN REPUBLICAN TRADITION Americans often have ideas of how our society should be structured without really understanding the roots of the ideas that our thinking brings out. Political slogans and speeches are often in memorialized moments using the terminology every American citizen kind of understands without having to think too…

  • Perfect Political Systems as a Trap in Republics

    Perfect Political Systems as a Trap in Republics

    I had recently edited and added points to a piece I think strongly explains my views in Where Authority Lies: Republicanism, Liberalism, and Progressive Morality: Here, it helps to not think of Democracy as a God, or perfect system. Be careful. “Perfect systems” belong to the autocrat, divine monarch, technocrat and utopian. Why do we want…

  • Frederick Douglass’s Travels to Italy and Egypt (1886-1887)

    Frederick Douglass’s Travels to Italy and Egypt (1886-1887)

    Reflections tying classical worlds to Black American history and Douglass’s rhetorical strategy in engaging with classical antiquity and critiquing aspects of Catholic ceremonial from a republican, Protestant perspective. In the waning days of September 1886, Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist and statesman set sail from New York aboard the steamer City of Rome, beginning an extended…

  • The Contributions of Black American Classicists against Racism

    The Contributions of Black American Classicists against Racism

    Beyond the well-known figures like Phillis Wheatley and Frederick Douglass mentioned in the Introduction to Five Early Figures, a generation of Black American classicists emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, often born into slavery or its immediate aftermath. These scholars mastered Greek and Latin to refute racial inferiority claims and assert our…

  • Useless Information – Part Time

    Useless Information – Part Time

  • Generation Execute – Lard

    Generation Execute – Lard

  • Classical Republicanism and Stoicism refutes Racial Hierarchies

    Classical Republicanism and Stoicism refutes Racial Hierarchies

    Classical Republicanism, as articulated in ancient Greek and Roman political philosophy emphasizes the pursuit of the common good for the CIVITAS through civic virtue, balanced governance, and participation in public life, without grounding these ideals in biological or racial hierarchies as understood in modern terms. Far from being inherently racist, its foundational texts reveal a…

  • The Fourteen Black Classicists from Michele Valerie Ronnick’s Exhibition

    The Fourteen Black Classicists from Michele Valerie Ronnick’s Exhibition

    Michele Valerie Ronnick’s traveling photographic exhibition originally focused on twelve BLACK CLASSICISTS debuted in 2003 and was later expanded to fourteen Black Classicists. Ronnick’s exhibition has undergone 50 iterations in 15 years and her project began in the 1990s. This mosaic history displays pioneering Black scholars of Greek and Latin from the late nineteenth and…

  • The Republican Party’s role in accelerating Factionalism in U.S. Politics

    The Republican Party’s role in accelerating Factionalism in U.S. Politics

    REPUBLICANISM AND THE U.S. “REPUBLICAN’ PARTY” The Republican Party, while named after this tradition, and founded in 1854 with roots in anti-slavery and republican ideals, has evolved into a broader and delineating coalition with priorities that sometimes diverge from CLASSICAL REPUBLICANISM. However, we cannot say, that this merely began with Trump or even Bush. Trump…

  • The Garden Philosopher: Epicurus of Samos on the existence of the Gods

    The Garden Philosopher: Epicurus of Samos on the existence of the Gods

    “The gods exist, but they are not what the hoi polloi suppose them to be. And the impious man (Gr. ἀσεβὴς, asebēs) is not he who denies the existence of the gods whom the multitude worship, but he is such who attaches to the gods the beliefs of the multitude.” EPICURUS OF SAMOS, EPISTLE TO MENOECEUS.…

  • Six Topics: Apoliticism, Russian-Ukraine War, Artificial Intelligence and Rebellious Writing Styles

    Six Topics: Apoliticism, Russian-Ukraine War, Artificial Intelligence and Rebellious Writing Styles

    SPOOKED THEOSOPHISTS AND SOCIETAL CONSEQUENCES OF INACTION I hope you do not think I have veered off topic discussing politics and religion. I have combed through some thoughts in an old article challenging the concept of Apoliticism and the history or understanding of Apoliticism in the Theosophical Movement; and two of the intersecting contexts surrounding…