On May 8, 1980, forty-five years ago, the World Health Organization, a part of the United Nations, announced that officials had eradicated small pox from the world’s population. The last case occurred in Somalia in 1977, and the last case in the United States occurred in 1949. 

     This news delighted everyone, in that small pox had plagued humanity for centuries. Human ingenuity had defeated small pox, a triumph of science, of technology, and of a strategy. 

     Whenever WHO officials heard of a breakout of small pox, they would rush into the nearby villages and neighborhoods and vaccinate as much of the population as they could to prevent the epidemic from spreading too far. Done again and again, they circled and beat down the disease. 

     Small pox is caused by variola virus. It is contagious and will spread from person to person. A fever gives way to a rash, that turns into numerous poxes, skin eruptions that fill with fluid.

     An estimated three out of ten people died from the disease. If they lived, their skin, especially their face, was pockmarked. The most famous of those so afflicted was George Washington.

     Cotton Mather was a Puritan clergyman in colonial Boston at the North Church. Mather noticed that, beginning in 1630, a small pox epidemic would arrive about every twelve years. 

     Kenneth Silverman, Mather’s biographer, wrote, “The small pox epidemic that struck Boston in April of 1721 lasted a full twelve months and infected half the city’s population. By February 1722, 5,889 persons had suffered an infection, and of those 844 had died.”

     As the epidemic gathered momentum, Cotton decided he must fight back.

     From the Royal Society in London, Cotton learned about inoculation as a preventative treatment. In addition, an African slave named Onesimus, who lived in Cotton’s home in Boston, told the clergyman about his experience in Africa and what his people, the Guramantese, did.

     Onesimus explained,

     “People take Juice of Small-Pox; and cutty-skin, and putt in a Drop; then by and by a little sicky, sicky; then very few little things like Small-Pox; and no body die of it; and no body have Small-Pox any more.” Onesimus showed Cotton the scar on his arm.

     Cotton convinced a doctor in Boston, Zabdiel Boylston, to inoculate some three hundred people in Boston. Only one person, a lady with other health issues, died, and none of the three hundred came down with the disease. Dozens lived who may have died without inoculation.

     James Franklin, Benjamin Franklin’s older brother, owned a Boston newspaper, the “New England Courant.” Scathing and vicious, James attacked in print Cotton and Boylston, for trying an untested preventative technology, but James’s hateful words did not stop the two men. 

     Much of the credit for inoculation though is given to a British physician named Edward Jenner. Late in the 18th century, in Gloucestershire, England, Jenner noticed that milkmaids who suffered from cowpox lesions upon their hands were immune to small pox. 

     Cowpox was benign when contrasted to small pox, just a few lesions on the hands. 

     In 1796, Jenner conducted a daring experiment. He withdrew fluid from a cowpox lesion on the hand of a milkmaid named Sarah Nelmes, and injected that fluid into a cut on the arm of an eight-year-old boy named James Phipps, son of Jenner’s gardener. 

     Later, Jenner exposed the young Phipps to small pox, but the lad did not demonstrate small pox’s symptoms, proving that the lad now enjoyed immunity to small pox. 

     Jenner’s process received the name “vaccination,” taken from the Latin word for cow, vacca.

     While others screamed their opposition, science, co-joined with technology and a working strategy, subdued and then eradicated small pox, a triumph of human ingenuity.

     Modernity demanded vaccination. Because of it, the dreaded small pox disease evaporated.

James Harvey Robinson, a noted historian at Columbia University in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, wrote the following.   

      “We are incredibly heedless in the formation of our beliefs, but find ourselves filled with an illicit passion for them when anyone proposes to rob us of their companionship.”

     In recent days, I came across two articles, both written in the same year, 2017, that share the same title, “Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds.”

     Elizabeth Kolbert’s article appeared in the “New Yorker” magazine on February 19, 2017, and James Clear’s article appeared on his website, “James Clear.com,” on a day in 2017.

     Kolbert is a science journalist, who won the Pulitzer Prize in General Non-Fiction, in 2015. 

      In her article, she mentions six scientific studies conducted by university  psychologists at Stanford, Yale, Brown, Colorado University, and in Lyon, France, plus three books, “The Enigma of Reason,” The Knowledge Illusion,” and Denying to the Grave.”

     Kolbert points out that the first books’ authors above, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, insist that human beings’ ability to reason evolved on the savannas of Africa, “to resolve the problems posed by living in collaborative groups.” 

     Mercer and Sperber write, “Reason is an adaptation to the hyper-social niche humans have evolved for themselves.” Human beings learned to reason, in order to cooperate, to kill food.

     The difficulty with this reasoning ability—intended to get along with others—is that it leads to “confirmation bias,” that “tendency to embrace information that supports certain beliefs and to reject information that contradicts them.” If an idea fits into our mind’s view, we accept it. 

     Steve Sloman, at Brown University, and Philip Fernbach, at Colorado University, identified a second fault with reasoning, the “illusion of explanatory depth.” 

     They write, “People believe that they know way more than they actually do. What allows us to persist in this belief is other people.” “We’ve been relying on one another’s expertise ever since we figured out how to hunt together, a development in our evolutionary history.”

     “Strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding. Our dependence on other’s minds reinforces the problem.” “Sociability is key to how the human mind functions.”  

     Sloman and Fernbach suggest that if people would “work through the implications of policy proposals, they would realize how clueless they are, and would then modify their views.”

     James Clear, the second author mentioned above, steers wide of scientific literature and psychological studies, and instead gives his readers thoughtful clarity and profound advice. 

     Clear asks the same question, “Why facts don’t change our minds?” Like Kolbert outlined above, Clear believes that sociability is key. He writes,

    “Truth and accuracy are not the only things that matter. Humans also seem to have a deep desire to belong. We want to fit in, to bond with others, and earn others’ approval.

     “We don’t always believe things because they are correct. Sometimes we believe things because they make us look good to the people we care about.

     “Facts don’t change our minds. Friendship does. Be kind first. Be right later.”

     How to kill off bad ideas? Clear says to refuse to repeat them. “Silence is death for an idea.”

     Clear quotes the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, who wrote, “Remember that to argue and win, is to break down the reality of the other person. It is painful to lose your reality, so be kind, even if you are right.” Clear points out that “kind” and “kin” originated from the same root word. 

     Clear suggests that thoughtful people should act as scouts, rather than soldiers. He writes,

     “Soldiers are on the intellectual attack, looking to defeat the people who differ from them. Victory is the operative emotion. Scouts are like intellectual explorers, slowly trying to map the terrain with others. Curiosity is their driving force.” 

     Elizabeth Kolbert and James Clear agreed that our minds will change within a kind and caring group context, inside a tribe or a community, and not by presenting facts, proof, or documents.

In Shakespeare’s play, “Henry IV, Part II,” Act 3, Scene 1, the King, dressed in a nightgown, delivers a monologue. In it, the king asks, “How many thousands of my poorest subjects are at this hour asleep?” Yet, “Nature’s soft nurse,” is not for him. He finishes with often-quoted words,

     “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” a reflection back to Damocles’s hanging sword.

     Thomas Paine hated the idea of a king, a monarch. In much of his work, “Common Sense,” Paine ridicules the idea that a king must rule over people. Paine writes,

     “There is something exceedingly ridiculous in the composition of Monarchy; it first excludes a man from the means of information, yet empowers him to act in cases where the highest judgment is required. The state of a king shuts him from the World.”

     Throughout “Common Sense,” Paine calls for independence from England, from Parliament, from King George III, saying, “Let us come to a final separation.”

     Thomas Paine felt thrilled when he saw “Common Sense,” first published on January 10, 1776. Six months later, on July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress that brought together representatives from the thirteen colonies approved Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence. 

     After the French Revolution, the autocratic general Napoleon claimed the title of king. On December 2, 1804, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor Napoleon I at Notre Dame de Paris.

     During the coronation, he received the crown from the hands of Pope Pius VII and crowned himself, a signal that he rejected the Pontiff’s authority. 

     Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saints, claimed for himself three titles, that of Prophet, Priest, and King, at Nauvoo, Illinois, on April 11, 1844, three months after he announced he was running for President in the November 1844 election. 

     Smith did not win that election, because he was assassinated on June 27, 1844.

     This past week, the nation read the chilling words, “Long live the king,” in reference to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s attempt to end the congestion pricing program in the State of New York, a state policy that has worked ok the past seven weeks to reduce city traffic.

     The governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, felt outraged. She said,

     “The state of New York has not labored under a king in 250 years, and we’re not going to start now. The streets of this city were where battles were fought, and we stood up to a king, and we won then. You know New Yorkers. We do not back down, not now, not ever.”

     The governor is correct about the American Revolution’s battles in and around New York City. George Washington was close to defeat on numerous occasions there, but he would escape to fight another day, summoning reserves of strength to defeat the British and King George III. 

     Washington achieved that win in Virginia, his native state, with the French navy’s assistance.

     Thomas Paine asks a question, “Where is the King of America?” To answer, Paine suggests a formal ceremony, where an official would place a written Charter of laws atop a Bible, and “let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that in America the law is king.”

     A second quote by William Shakespeare. “Time’s glory is to calm contending kings, to unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light.” The Bard is saying that over time the world’s grasping kings will experience a humbling, that truth will appear, and it will banish falsehood.

     The paradox is that “life often presents a confused picture of events, and it is difficult to discern truth from falsehood.” It is to the historians that we look for clarity between the two.       

       Common sense tells us much. Shakespeare tells us much more.

On February 15, 1885, 140 years ago next week, Mark Twain’s best work of fiction, “Huckleberry Finn,” was first published in the United States.

     Critics berated the book. In Concord, Massachusetts, commissioners recommended that the town’s library ban the book. They described the novel as “racist, coarse, trashy, inelegant, irreligious, obsolete, inaccurate, and mindless.” Yes, it is all those things. It is all too-human.

     Huck and a runaway slave named Jim are together on a raft sailing down the Mississippi River. By keeping Jim hidden away from the authorities, Huck knows he is breaking the law.

     Yet, Huck likes Jim, who ran away because Jim’s owner, Miss Watson, intended to sell Jim to a slave trader for $800 and send him alone down the river to New Orleans.

     Jim was a grown man with wife and two children, Elizabeth and Johnny. 

     Huck was fourteen years old, without a comforting mother. His dad, Pap, was an abusive alcoholic who beat Huck, who said, “But by and by Pap got too handy with his hick’ry. stick, and I couldn’t stand it. I was all over welts.” 

     On occasion, on the raft, Huck awakens and hears Jim muttering sad words.

     Huck explained, “When I waked up, just at daybreak, Jim was setting there with his head down betwixt his knees, moaning and mourning to himself. I knowed what it was about. He was thinking about his wife and his children, away up yonder, and he was low and homesick.

     “I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white folks does for their’n. It don’t seem natural, but I reckon it’s so. 

     “He was often moaning and mourning that way, nights, when he judged I was asleep, and saying, ‘Po’ little ‘Lizabeth! ‘po’ little Johnny! it’s mighty hard; I spec’ I ain’t ever gwyne to see you no mo’, no mo’!”

     In pre-Civil War years, slaves had no rights. They were property, expected to work for free, without wages. Daily the men and women suffered enormous injustices, physical and emotional abuses, and yet they tried to adjust. They married, they had children, and most survived. 

     Slaves had Sunday’s off and Christmas Day. I suspect that given the unrelenting work expected, there were only fleeting tender thoughts between husband and wife on Valentine’s Day.

     Indeed, “it’s mighty hard,” when written laws kept the labor force in chains, turned into slaves who were worked to death, to an early grave, and subject to the whims of a rich white man.

     Abraham Lincoln’s birthday approaches. He was born February 12, 1809, 2016 years ago. It was Lincoln, who, in the midst of a bloody civil war, set the slaves free, by Proclamation.

     On February 12, 1909, the date of Lincoln’s 100th birthday, a group of African-American leaders, headed by W. E. B. DuBois, and certain white progressives joined together to form the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Its mission: 

   “To promote equality of rights and eradicate caste or race prejudice among citizens of the U.S.” 

     Late in 2024, officials at “New York Times Book Review” voted Percival Everett’s new book, “James,” one of the five best fictions books last year. Everett, an English professor in California, dared to re-write “Huckleberry Finn” to focus upon Jim, rather than upon Huckleberry.

     In one sobering scene, Everett places Jim, or James, in a cabin where he teaches six black children, including his own Elizabeth and Johnny, how to talk when among white people. 

     “Don’t make eye contact,” a boy said. “Never speak first,” a girl said. “Never address any subject directly when talking to another slave,” a tactic called, “Signifying.” Lizzie, or Elizabeth, said, “We must let the whites be the ones who name trouble.” 

     In 2024, I listened to the audio version of “James.” I found Percival Everett’s book nearly as entertaining as Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn.” Certain scenes, like the above, stand out. 

     My favorite of Huck Finn’s quotes, “Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and a body ain’t got no business doing wrong when he ain’t ignorant and knows better.” Tell ‘em, Huckleberry.

What did it mean to be an emperor in ancient Rome? 

     That is the question that Mary Beard sought to answer in her 2023 book, “Emperor of Rome.” She wrote, “Everyone then, including emperors, was trying to construe their idea of what an emperor should be in a nation that could not and would not accept kingship.”

     Centuries before in Rome, a series of kings had ruled, but in 509 B.C.E., certain noblemen threw out their last king of Rome, Tarquin the Proud, and established a new government, with two consuls who served for one-year terms, plus a Senate, and popular assemblies. 

     For five centuries, Rome existed as a Republic. Mary Beard called it “a sort-of democracy.”

     The Republic began to transition itself into an autocracy once Julius Caesar, a military leader, crossed the Rubicon River on January 10, 49 B.C.E., and launched a civil war against Pompey. 

     At that time, the Senate named Julius Caesar “dictator,” and after he defeated Pompey, he “used his victory in the civil war to take sole control of Rome’s government.” The Republic was destined to expire soon. In 44 B.C.E., the Senate named him “dictator forever.”

     Some were shocked at Caesar’s clutch of power. Cicero—a statesmen, orator, and writer—pointed out “the danger of absolute autocracy.” The people, he wrote, “were surrendering their Republican liberties in the hope of enjoying the wise rule of one man.”

     “At all costs,” he told the people, “they should fight against political servitude, for it was a form of slavery.” “Liberty could not exist unless the people held supreme power in government.”

     Some Senators who feared Caesar’s one-man rule—Brutus, Cassius, and Casca—assassinated Julius Caesar on March 15, 44 B.C.E., the year Caesar was named “dictator forever.”

     Another civil war followed. It was Julius Caesar’s great nephew, Octavian, who won that civil war against Marc Antony, in 29 B.C.E., and thereafter Octavian claimed the title of emperor and the name Caesar Augustus. Elections were held for a while, but results were foreordained.

     Julius Caesar’s assassins had failed to solidify Rome’s Republic and prevent an autocracy.  

     In Mary Beard’s book, she examines twenty-nine of ancient Rome’s emperors beginning with Julius Caesar and ending with Alexander Severus, who ruled from 222 until 235 C.E.

     On her book’s second page, she states her theme, “The Roman world was, in our terms, a cruel place of premature death. Murder was the ultimate way of resolving disputes, political and otherwise. The corridors of power were always bloodstained.” 

     After the first chapter, “One-Man Rule: The Basics,” Mary begins her second chapter, “Who’s Next? The Art of Succession,” with chilling words, 

     “Succession planning was the single, most glaring weak spot of the Augustan system. Who should follow Augustus? How should any successor to the Roman throne be chosen, by whom, on what principles, and from what group of candidates?

     “After Augustus’s death, over the next two hundred years or so, and over the next two dozen emperors, the transition of power was almost always debated, fraught and sometimes killed for.”

     Mary explains that in 54 C.E. emperor Claudius’s fourth wife, Agrippina, served her husband a dish of poisoned mushrooms, clearing the way for her son, Nero, to claim the title of emperor.

     And Nero was a vicious tyrant. It was said “he fiddled while Rome burned.”

     In a later chapter entitled, “I Think I Am Becoming a God,” Mary Beard discusses how the emperors transformed themselves into gods, persons they believed worthy of worship.

     Our month of July originates from Julius Caesar and August from Caesar Augustus. January though is taken from the two-faced god Janus, whose left face looks into the past, pleasing historians, and its second face looks right, into a future, thrilling science fiction readers.

     You and I have started a new year, 2025. Study the past to determine next steps, what ideas and actions work and those that do not. “The years teach us things that the days never knew.”