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The Engines of the Broken World: Discourses on Tacitus and Lucan
"The disappearance of power in the outlines of state and society and its apparent replacement with token symbolic structures, iconic leadership and a necessary vocabulary to render the whole theatre of governance seem real, that is, ideology, marked the devolutionary unravelling we have examined from Sulla to the Three Emperors.
In the same manner this classical deconstruction of state power can be recognised once it has been granted that the contemporary stage is not what it pretends. Once the modern political discourse is set aside on the acknowledgement of modern capitalism as psychosis rather than system based on logic, and once the self-explanatory (ideological) version of today's crisis is set aside, it becomes possible to identify in the modern narrative a disturbing relevance and indeed similarity to the classical contortions of the primal state crises of ancient Rome."
In the same manner this classical deconstruction of state power can be recognised once it has been granted that the contemporary stage is not what it pretends. Once the modern political discourse is set aside on the acknowledgement of modern capitalism as psychosis rather than system based on logic, and once the self-explanatory (ideological) version of today's crisis is set aside, it becomes possible to identify in the modern narrative a disturbing relevance and indeed similarity to the classical contortions of the primal state crises of ancient Rome."
95 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 6, 2012
12 people want to read
About the author
Ian Dallas
16 books39 followersThe modern writer submits his literary work to the critics. My desire is to submit my work to those fellow travellers who seek for maps to make sense of their life’s journey. Ronald Laing, the psychiatrist, once said to me, ‘The only reason I go on psycho-analysing my patients, is in the hope that just one of them in his narration will reveal to me something that will help to make sense of my own life.’
I look back on my works as being, as it were, way-marks on a journey, one which when taken had seemed not only without destination, but in itself nothing but a troubled and turbulent wandering. All I took with me through what seemed the disorder of my life was a satchel with two connected compartments. One was the formal education and culture as a child of my time. The other hidden pocket contained another version of events, both historical and familial, which gave glimmerings of significance that seemed to indicate that in all the dreadful business of living and the great wasted tracts of enjoyment, that there was meaning to be found and that illumination would one day emblazon both the road and the landscape.
I look back on my works as being, as it were, way-marks on a journey, one which when taken had seemed not only without destination, but in itself nothing but a troubled and turbulent wandering. All I took with me through what seemed the disorder of my life was a satchel with two connected compartments. One was the formal education and culture as a child of my time. The other hidden pocket contained another version of events, both historical and familial, which gave glimmerings of significance that seemed to indicate that in all the dreadful business of living and the great wasted tracts of enjoyment, that there was meaning to be found and that illumination would one day emblazon both the road and the landscape.
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