Arts & Ideas Tacitus, Byron's fanmail and Bluey
Apr 19, 2024
Classicist Mary Beard, historian Helen Carr, political sketch-writer Tom Peck, and writer Konnie Huq discuss the relevance of Tacitus, children's TV impact, and Lord Byron's fan mail. Topics include power, corruption, journalistic history, and diversity in media representation.
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How Autocracy Breaks Society
- Tacitus reveals how autocracy corrodes public and private life, making natural processes dysfunctional.
- His narratives show corruption infects language, institutions and everyday mortality under one-man rule.
Denunciation From Inside Power
- Tacitus often denounces rulers from within the system, showing insiders can produce the sharpest critiques.
- That paradox highlights how complicity and critique can coexist in historical sources.
Watch For Broken Normalcies
- Pay attention to signs of institutional decay, not just individual misconduct.
- Notice when normal processes (justice, mourning, death) stop working as signals of deeper political rot.