By PAULO MARTINS*
A near-death experience is scary. Changes lives. Libraries are full of stories of people who miraculously survived near-fatal encounters
Kirk Freudenburg received his undergraduate degree from Valparaiso University and his master's degree in Classics at Washington University in St. Louis. He earned his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin, where he wrote his doctoral thesis under the guidance of Denis Feeney.
Before arriving at Yale, he taught at the University of Kent, Ohio University, where he held the position of Associate Dean of the Humanities, and at the University of Illinois, where he was head of the Department of Classics. His research has focused on the social life of Roman letters, especially the unique cultural encodings that structure and inform Roman ideas about poetry, and the practical deployment of these ideas in specific poetic forms, especially in satire.
His main publications include: The Walking Muse: Horace on the Theory of Satire (Princeton, 1993), Satires of Rome: Threatening Poses from Lucilius to Juvenal (Cambridge, 2001), The Cambridge Companion to Roman Satire (Cambridge, 2005), Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Horace's Satires and Epistles (Oxford University Press, 2009), The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Nero (Cambridge, 2017), co-edited with Shadi Bartsch and Cedric Littlewood, The second book of Horace's Sermones (Cambridge, 2021) and Virgil's Cinematic Art: Vision as Narrative in the Aeneid (Oxford University Press, 2022).
In addition to these academic activities, professor Kirk Freudenburg does not neglect everyday life and often makes public interventions, presenting articles on websites and newspapers whose main characteristic is sarcasm, caustic, cutting irony. The defense of democracy, wherever it may be, is a cornerstone of his text. The following article, published on July 15th on the website Common dreams and translated by me, it provides a scathing assessment of the ill-fated attack on Donald Trump.
In the ear: predicting Donald Trump's response to a near-death experience
I write in a hurry. At a political rally on Saturday afternoon, Donald Trump was shot in the ear by a would-be assassin. So far, all I know is that, other than a hole in his ear, Donald Trump is fine and his attacker is dead. I also know that the rally took place in Pennsylvania and that the shooter was 20 years old. That's all I know about the incident, because that's all I chose to know.
Let me explain. On Saturday night, after seeing the headlines, I went to bed determined not to hear any more, thinking it was all simply too depressing, marking yet another low point for the state of affairs in our democracy. Listening to experts as they commented on the subject would have left me on the edge of an abyss and in even greater despair. I thought my life was too short to devote more time to a fool who now pretends to be a martyr.
On Sunday morning, as always, I went for a run, still only knowing the “almost nothing” I mentioned. And as I ran, it occurred to me that not only was my near-total ignorance emotionally healthy, it also gave me a certain advantage over most Americans. This allowed me to anticipate how Donald Trump would react to the incident. I could speculate about this reaction without any prior knowledge, whether coming from himself or pontificated by anyone else.
The gap in my knowledge meant I could try to predict Donald Trump's response, given what I think about him, to see if I really know him. What will he do with it? I thought to myself. More importantly: how will he use this to his advantage? – Of course, it’s obvious! – For the good of our world? – I laughed to myself.
A near-death experience is scary. Changes lives. Libraries are full of stories of people who have miraculously survived near-fatal encounters: plane crashes, overdoses, wars, the list is endless.
In these stories that survivors tell, such encounters shake them deeply, teaching them things about the world and about themselves. As if they were reborn and given a second chance, they reflect on their values, become more understanding and kind. Saint Paul was struck down by a celestial light on his way to Damascus, he became blind and an experience that shook his interior and transformed him from someone who killed Christians into someone who loved them and embraced their cause.
This is why until today (Monday), I have chosen to remain ignorant about Donald Trump's reaction. I persisted in not reading the headlines (although I heard a few minutes ago that the shooter was an affiliated Republican). I want to see what I know about the man. His near encounter with death is the stuff from which new lives are made and new values are acquired, and yet I can't for the life of me believe that he will use the experience of self-reflection or transformation into a kinder, more understanding person.
Still learning about the matter, here is my prediction. What will he do with it? I can predict with a high level of confidence that he will exploit this to the fullest as an exceptional political opportunity, rather than as a time to reconsider something he has already thought about. If he reflects internally, he will see nothing but the selfish, infantilized being that has always been there. As a result, he will not resort to his Bible, but to his comic books. He will demand to be worshiped as a superhero, a man of steel who deflects bullets aimed at his ear.
Remember, this is a man-child who, as president of the United States, wanted to go out on a balcony. Walter Reed Hospital wearing a t-shirt Superman. He had to be convinced otherwise. Of the tens of millions of Americans infected by Covid-19, I only know one over the age of seven who wanted to pretend to be a superhero because of it.
Donald Trump will do many terrible things with this opportunity, reinforcing his certainties of hate and lies. But the worst part of all this will be this: flattering his evangelical base, Donald Trump will claim that the Democratic demons wanted him to die, but that Jesus kept him alive as his only hope and savior.
By breaking the first commandment, his worshipers will praise him for it, and as he bathes in his glory, his advisors will spring into action to help him adjust his Bible, The Revised Version of Donald Trump, to let him not hold her in an embarrassing way. So I predicted.
* Paulo Martins Professor of Classical Letters and director of the Faculty of Philosophy, Letters and Human Sciences at USP. Author, among other books, of The representation and its limits (edusp).
Originally published on Journal of USP.
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