According to Suetonius[i], on his final day Caesar Augustus put the following question to a group of friends: “Have I played my part in the farce of life creditably enough?” Suetonius assumes the question to be rhetorical, after all Augustus was the leader of the world. It is assumed that the friends would have had no doubt that his life had been of the highest creditability for Rome, as would most Romans, as would most western historians when contemplating the role of the Roman Empire on the history of western civilisation – as far as emperors go, Augustus was one of the better ones. But, what if we step back and consider his life from the point of view of humanity? Was Augustus a creditable figure, contributing positively to the development of humanity as a whole? To answer this we would have to measure what he gave to humanity against what he took away or frustrated in humanity: and what we can be sure of is that he, and all the emperors of Rome, were always operating in the interests of Rome itself, if not totally in the interests of the Caesars and their cronies and their fervent desire to accumulate as much wealth and glory as possible. In fact, there are undoubtedly millions of individuals unrecorded by history who have played a more creditable part in the authentic well-being and development of humanity than any Caesar.

It is interesting that Augustus was honest enough to describe life as a farce, and in that regard at least he displayed an insightful honesty. Life for Augustus, and for most Romans, was absurd. Their economy, their religions, their bellicose political reasons for being, were all anti-natural and nihilistic. And the saddest thing that in the two thousand years since Augustus’ death, none of the farcicality of life has improved. History itself is a farce.

The farcicality is perhaps manifested more clearly than ever by the second coming of Donald Trump to the United States presidency. Trump of course is no Augustus, but he has the same imperialist intentions. He is self-interested and is operating under the self-interest laundering mask of the empire, which is the United States of America. He is also more inclined to the ‘frantic and reckless behaviour’ that Caligula was famous for[ii] rather than Augustus, but on his deathbed he will need to be judged as we all should judge Augustus, by his creditability to the empire on the superficial level, versus his creditability to humanity on the more authentic, meaningful level.

Existence and existences can only be meaningful in the temporal, ephemeral or short-term sense if it lies within the flowing multiformity of intentionality, moving towards intentional horizons. But this temporal meaningfulness is subject to the greater problem of continuation and preservation which is the ultimate intention of Meaning in the universe. Without a fully meaningful resolution of intentions of Meaning existence is rendered ultimately meaningless again. This is the ultimate great resolve, and responsibility, that we have in our existential partnership with the universe.

We are here for the universe.

This idea implies that we have duties toward the universe – but what could such duties be?

To respect the universe we must respect the possibilities of the eternal. We deduce the importance of these elements by considering the essential nature of Being. For Being to be authentic it must always be, and this eternal being is the eternal negation of non-Being.

Physics tells us, however, that the universe is destined to perish, and that a dark force pushing it onward to an infinite expansion will eventually push all reality into such distant positional states that everything will freeze, the stars will go out, and all life will perish. Being will return to a state of non-Being again. Yet, before this thesis was elaborated, the universe was headed toward an imminent collapse: the Big Crunch. So, we should never take the negative ultimatum as sacrosanct, we still have very much to learn about the physical complexity of everything and the expansion of that knowledge is one of the basic and authentic meanings we have for being here.

Learning implies expansion. And it is our human duty to be expansive, but in a way that opens up existence via our knowledge of that existence and through the creative contributions we can make to existence. To be expansionist at the individual and human levels of existence is a meaningful thing as long as that expansionism is not frantic and reckless and takes into consideration the ecological well-being of the world that allows human existence to be possible in the first place.

In the same sense that cognizant and creative expansion is desirable, small-mindedness and lack of creativity is undesirable: and there is a moral imperative embedded in this idea.

Neither Augustus nor Trump had or have had authentic meaningful intentions in their lives and this has to reflect on their creditability; on the way they must be judged by the future, which is where all final judgement will be made.           

[i] Suetonius, “The Twelve Caesars”, Augustus, #99

[ii] Ibid, Gaius (Caligula), #56