The Founding Fathers were intense admirers of the great Roman philosopher and statesman Cicero, and one of Cicero’s propositions was that it is impossible for an individual or society to be virtuous without gratitude. That is unfortunately a truth that too many modern Americans, especially young people of my generation, have forgotten.
It is true that America is waking up — Donald Trump and the Republicans carried the 2024 election, and, in Trump’s case, it wasn’t even close. Even demographics that are usually heavily Democrat such as young people, black Americans, and Hispanics swung toward Trump. That said, American society has a lot of moral and political examination, reform, and renewal to do, and, like our own Founding Fathers, we could not do better than learn from one of the greatest philosophers of history: Marcus Tullius Cicero.
Cicero was born in January of 106 BC, but though he was separated from the Founders by religion, nationality, time, and many other things, the great natural law-inspired principles he espoused — among them the natural equality of man, the value of freedom, and the excellence of republicanism — resonated as much with 18th century Americans as with Cicero’s admirers in pre-Christian Rome.
‘Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.’ —Marcus Tullius Cicero pic.twitter.com/zRMIi6pgty
— Catherine Salgado (@CatSalgado32) January 5, 2025
“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others,” wrote Cicero. In our society now, we see many illustrations of what happens when his maxim is not applied. Ever since the Boomers were young, since the sexual revolution, Americans have glorified selfishness and treated self-esteem as the greatest of virtues. Gratitude has been abandoned in favor of unmitigated arrogance and self-indulgence. Young people for multiple generations have been encouraged to indulge in sexual licentiousness, and so America suffers from divorced couples, broken families, out-of-wedlock births, sexual perverts, etc. Kids are encouraged to believe their actions are fabulous and praiseworthy no matter the quality of their work, and so employers can’t find good, steady employees. Teenagers who march in support of Hamas or transgenders or baby killers (abortionists) or who vilify everyone who has made their lives prosperous and free believe they are brave, virtuous heroes even though they support evil and are cowards or abusers or jack*sses in their personal lives.
There is no gratitude here, no humility (for gratitude and humility go hand-in-hand). How many of us regularly count our blessings? How many of us are grateful for living in the greatest nation in the world? For with all its faults and failings and periods of authoritarianism, it is still much better to live here in the U.S. than in genocidal Nigeria or tyrannical China or jihadi Iran.
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The pro-Hamas activists are the more extreme examples of this mentality of ingratitude, of the hatred of this country and all the people who have funded and facilitated their lifestyle. Incredibly corrupt politicians like Kamala Harris and Joe Biden are praised by media as good because they express what wokies consider the “correct opinions.” Yet the view that words are in themselves virtuous, that goodness is a mere show or sham, that gratitude and an awareness of others are unnecessary, has invaded even the right. Elon Musk is raved about as an unparalleled champion of free speech even as he makes deals with the censorship-obsessed CCP and as his X platform continually censors Americans. I can hardly attend a church liturgy anymore that isn’t rendered complete chaos by a mob of children racing about screaming at top volume and smashing things while their young parents watch in placid disinterest.
If Putin or Robert E. Lee or some other war criminal is called bad by an equally wicked Western leftist, there will always be a horde of conservatives immediately praising the criticized criminal as the most noble of heroes, completely regardless of that person’s actual deeds. That is no way to have a society; to be free, we must be rational. We must also be grateful. Even many conservatives know next to nothing about the lives and achievements of great heroes in American history. We have been given great gifts of freedom and equality in America, and it not enough that we say we value these goods; we must work to safeguard and expand them or our vaunted gratitude is empty.
As I noted above, the Founding Fathers were great admirers of Cicero. From Washington to Hamilton to Adams, the Founders saw themselves as the New Rome, in the tradition of the Roman Republic (hence we are a republic rather than a democracy), only better in being Judeo-Christian and eschewing aristocracy altogether, among other points. They would advise us to listen well to Cicero’s advice on gratitude and apply it to our lives. John Adams declared, “as all the ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher united in the same character [than Cicero], his authority should have great weight.” Thomas Jefferson dubbed Cicero “the father of eloquence and philosophy.” And Adams’ son John Quincy Adams imbibed his father’s enthusiasm, stating that “to live without having a Cicero and a Tacitus at hand seems to me as if it was a privation of one of my limbs.” Meanwhile, Alexander Hamilton adopted the pen name “Tully,” in tribute to Marcus Tullius Cicero.
No one thinker in history has ever been right on every single point, especially a pagan. Yet there are those thinkers whose genius and originality make their writings and statements eminently worthy of respect and, in some cases, emulation. Each Jew or Christian, especially each American, could agree with Cicero that indeed a society or individual without any gratitude is setting itself, or himself, up for catastrophic failure. Pride goeth before a fall (Proverbs 16:18), and ingratitude goeth before destruction.
