Hello. My name is Jesan Sorrells, and this is
the Leadership Lessons from the Great Books podcast, episode
number 126.
There are a few books that sit or
serve as the cornerstones of
Western philosophy and have
influenced approaches to life in everything from
government to the military. One of those books
is the Bible. The other books include the works of
Shakespeare. Marcus Aurelius is also down there, right
alongside Homer. However, there is
one other book that overshadows them all and stands as a
groundbreaking work focused on relating history to the reader as
a story of great men performing great deeds.
The author laid the groundwork for subsequent generations in the west to
understand human nature in crises such as plagues, massacres,
and, of course, the endless nature of man
inside of warfare. Today, we
will be pulling the leadership lessons for postmodern
leaders from a hoary old book, a hoary old
history, the history of the Peloponnesian
War by Thucydides.
Leaders, the lessons you learn and apply from, well,
Thucydides can create ripples in the lives of people you may never
even meet down and past the
4th generation.
And we pick up with the history of the
Peloponnesian War. We open with
a, the Penguin Books translation by Rex Warner
with introduction and notes by Mi Finley. We're not going to be reading from
the introduction or the notes today. Instead, we're going
to jump right in to the book, and we're going to pick
up with, well, Thucydides'
introduction. And I quote,
Thucydides the Athenian wrote the history of the war fought between Athens
and Sparta, beginning the account at the very outbreak of the war
in the belief that it was going to be a great war and more worth
writing about than any of those which had taken place in the past.
My belief was based on the fact that the two sides were at the very
height of their power and preparedness, and I saw too that the rest of the
Hellenic world was committed to one side or the other, even those who were not
immediately engaged or deliberating on the courses which they were to take later.
This was the greatest disturbance in the history of the Hellenes
affecting also a large part of the non Hellenic world, and
indeed, I might almost say the whole of mankind. For though I
have found it impossible because of its remoteness in time to acquire a
really precise knowledge of the distant past or even of the history preceding our own
period, yet after looking back into it as far as I can, all the
evidence leads me to conclude that these periods were not great periods either in
warfare or in anything else.
In the years, for example, the country now called Hellas had no settled population in
ancient times. Instead, there was a series of migrations as the various tribes,
being under the constant pressure of invaders who were stronger than they were, were always
prepared to abandon in their own territory. There was no
commerce and no safe communication either by land or sea. The use they
made of their land was limited to the production of necessities. They had no
surplus left for calf left over for capital and no regular system of
agriculture since they lacked the protection of fortifications. And at any
moment, an invader might appear and take their land away from them.
Thus, in the belief that the day to day necessities of life could be secured
just as well in one place as another, They showed no reluctance in moving from
their homes and therefore built no cities of any size or strength nor required
any important resources. Where the soil was most fertile,
there were the most frequent changes of population, as in what is now
called Thessaly and Boeotia, and most of the Peloponnese,
except Arcadia, and in others of the richest parts of Hellas.
For in these fertile districts, it was easier for individuals to secure greater powers
than their neighbors. This led to disunity, which often caused the collapse of these
states, which in any case are more likely, than others
to attract the attention of foreign invaders.
It is interesting to observe that Attica, which because of the poverty of her soil,
was remarkably free from political disunity, has always been inhabited by the same race
of people. Indeed, this is an important example of my theory that it was
because of migrations that there was an uneven development elsewhere.
For when people were driven out from other parts of Greece by war
or by disturbances, the most powerful of them took refuge in
Athens as being a stable society. Then they
became citizens and soon made the city even more populous than it had been before,
with the result that later Attica became too small for our inhabitants
and colonies were sent out to Ionia.
Another point which seems to be good evidence for the weakness of the early inhabitants
of the country is this. We have no record of any action taken by Hellas
as a whole before the Trojan War. Indeed, my view is that at this time,
the whole country was not even called Hellas. Before the time of Helen, the son
of Deucalion, the name did not exist at all, and different parts were known
by the names of different tribes, with the name Pelagasian predominating.
After Helen and his sons had grown powerful in Phytheadias and had
been invited as allies into other states, these states separately and
because of their connections with the family of Helen became to be called Hellenic.
But it took a long time before the name ousted all other names. The
best evidence for this can be found in Homer, who, though he was born much
later than the time of the Trojan War, nowhere uses the name
Hellenic for the whole force. Instead, he keeps his name for the followers
of Achilles, who came from Phaethetus and were, in fact, the original
Hellenes. For the rest of his poem, he uses the words
Danaans, Argives, and Achaeans. He doesn't even use the term
foreigners, and this, in my opinion, is because in his time, the Hellenes
were not yet known by one name and so marked off as something separate from
the outside world. By Hellenic, I mean here,
both those who took the name of the city by city and as a result
of common language and those who later were all called by the common
name. In any case, these various Hellenic states,
weak in themselves and lacking in communications with one another, took no kind
of collective action before the time of the Trojan War, and they
could not have united even for the Trojan
expedition unless they had previously acquired
a greater knowledge of seafaring.
So let's take a look at the life of our
author Thucydides. Born
460 and died around 400 BC, Thucydides
was an Athenian historian and gentleman,
and general as well, not just a gentleman. His history of the
Peloponnesian War recounts the 5th century BC
war between Sparta and Athens that lasted until the
year 4 11 BC.
Thucydides has been dubbed the father of quote unquote scientific
history by those who accept his claims.
And, his claims include, having applied strict standards
of impartiality in evidence gathering and analysis of cause and
effect without reference to intervention by the gods.
He did mention Homer in that piece that I just read as outlined in the
introduction to his work. Thucydides says,
when he talks about himself on the rare occasions that he does in the history
of the Peloponnesian War, that he fought in the Peloponnesian War
itself. He contracted the plague and was exiled
by the subsequent democracy. He
may also have been involved, we're not quite sure, in quelling
the Samian revolt. A
disputed anecdote from the city's early days says
that when he was around 10 to 12 years old, he and his
father were supposed to have gone to the Agora of Athens where the young
Thucydides heard a lecture by the historian Herodotus.
According to some accounts, the young Thucydides wept with joy after
hearing the lecture, deciding that writing history would be his life's
calling. The same account also claims that after the
lecture Herodotus spoke with the youth and his father stating,
'Alauros, your son,
yearns for knowledge.
Olaroz, your son yearns for knowledge.
We know very little about the life of Thucydides, but we know
quite a bit about his pursuit of
knowledge through, of course, the history of the Peloponnesian War.
It has been studied in military schools, it's been studied in the
Pentagon, and it's been read as a classical piece of
literature for 1000 of
years. And so now, we're gonna go back to the book, back
to the Peloponnesian War, the debate at
Sparta and the declaration of war in 4:32. We're going to pick
up right there with the Corinthian speech
at Athens.
Spartans, what makes you somewhat reluctant to listen to us,
others, if we have ideas to put forward? Is it a great trust and
confidence which you have in your own constitution and in your own way of life?
This is a quality which certainly makes you moderate in your judgments. It is also
perhaps responsible for a kind of ignorance, which you show when you were dealing with
foreign affairs. Many times before now, we have told you
what we were likely to suffer from Athens. And on each occasion, instead of taking
to heart what we were telling you, you chose instead to
suspect our motives and to consider that we were speaking only about our own grievances.
The result has been that you did not call together this meeting of our allies
before the damage was done. You waited until now when we were actually suffering from
it. And of all these allies, we have perhaps the best right to speak
now since we have no serious complaints to make. We have to
complain of Athens for her insolent aggression and of Sparta for her
neglect of our advice. If there were
anything doubtful or obscure about this aggression on the whole of Hellas, our task
would have been to try to put the facts before you and show you something
you did not know. As it is, long speeches are unnecessary. You can
see for yourselves how Athens has deprived some states of their
freedom and is scheming to do the same thing for others, especially
among our own allies, and that she herself has for a long time been preparing
for the eventuality of war. Why otherwise would she have forcibly taken
over from us the control of Corcyra? Why is she besieging
Potidaea? Potidaea is the best possible base for any campaign in
Thrash, and Corcya might have been contributed
might have contributed a very large fleet to the Peloponnesian League.
And it is you who are responsible for all this. It was you who, in
the first place, allowed the Athenians to fortify their city and build the long walls
after the Persian War. Since then and up to the present day, you have been
you have withheld freedom not only from those who have been enslaved by Athens but
even from your own allies. When one is deprived of one's
liberty, one is right in blaming not so much the man who puts the fetters
on as the one who had the power to prevent him but did not use
it, especially when such one rejoices in the glorious reputation
of having been the liberator of Hellas. Even
at this stage, it has not been easy to arrange this meeting, and even at
this meeting, there are no definite proposals. Why are we still considering whether regression has
taken place instead of how we can resist it? Men who are capable
of real action first make their plans and then go forward without hesitation
while their enemies still have not made up their minds. As for the
Athenians, we know their methods and how they gradually encroach upon their neighbors.
Now they are proceeding slowly because they think that your insensitiveness to the
situation enables them to go on their way unnoticed. You will
find that they will develop their full strength once they realize that you do see
what is happening and still are doing nothing
to prevent it. You Spartans are the
only people in Hellas who wait calmly on events relying for your defense not on
action, but on making people think you will act. You alone do nothing in
the early stages to prevent an enemy's expansion. You wait until your enemy has
doubled his strength. Certainly, you used to have the reputation of
being safe, and sure enough, now one wonders whether this reputation was deserved.
The Persians, as we know ourselves, came from the ends of the earth and got
as far as the Peloponnese before you were able to put a proper force into
the field to meet them. The Athenians, unlike the Persians, live close to you, yet
you still do not appear to notice them. Instead of going out to meet them,
you prefer to stand still and wait till you are attacked, thus hazarding everything by
fighting with opponents who have grown far stronger than they were originally.
In fact, you know that the chief reason for the failure of the Persian invasion
was the mistaken policy of the Persians themselves, and you know too that there have
been many occasions when, if we managed to stand up to Athenian aggression, it was
more because of the Athenians' mistakes than because of any help we got from you.
Indeed, we can think of instances already where those who have relied on you and
remained unprepared have been ruined by the confidence they placed in
you. We should not like any of you to think we
are speaking in an unfriendly spirit, We're only remonstrating with you as is
natural when one's friends are making mistakes. Real
accusations must be kept for one's enemies who have actually done one
harm. Then also we think we have as
much right as anyone else to point out faults in our neighbors, especially when we
consider the enormous difference between you and the Athenians. To our
minds, you are quite unaware of this difference. You have never yet tried to
imagine what sort of people these Athenians are against whom you will have to fight.
How much indeed, how completely different from you. An Athenian is
always an innovator, quick to form a resolution and quick at carrying it out.
You, on the other hand, are good at keeping things as they are. You never
originate an idea and your action tends to stop short of its
aim. Then again, Athenian daring will outrun
its own resources. They will take risks against their better judgment
and still, in the midst of danger, remain confident. But
your nature is always to do less than you could have done, to mistrust your
own judgment, however sound it may be, and to assume that dangers will last
forever. Think of this too. While you are hanging
back, they never hesitate. While you stay at home, they are always abroad for they
think that the farther they go, the more they will get while you think that
any movement may endanger what you have already. If they win a
victory, they follow it up at once, and if they suffer a defeat, they scarcely
fall back at all. As for their bodies, they regard them as expendable
for their city's sake as though they were not their own. But each man
cultivates his own intelligence, again, with a view to doing something
notable for his city. If they aim at something and do not
get it, they think they have been deprived of what belonged to them already.
Whereas if their enterprise is successful, they regard that success as nothing
compared to what they will do next. Suppose they fail
in some undertaking, they may good the loss immediately by setting their hopes in some
other direction. Of them alone, it may be said that they possess a thing almost
as soon as they have begun to desire it. So quickly with them does action
follow upon decision, and so they go on working away in
hardship and danger all the days of their lives, seldom enjoying their possessions
because they are always adding to them. Their view of a holiday is to do
what needs doing. They refer hardship and activity to peace
and quiet. In a word, they are by nature
incapable of either living a quiet life themselves
or of allowing anyone else to do
so.
In our time, when wars begin
because of seemingly transient reasons, at least to
our postmodern mind, We fail as common
folk and even as leaders to understand a concept called
causaus belli. In the
run up to the Peloponnesian War, the causaus belli,
was as follows according to Thucydides, and I
quote, both the Athenians and the Polyponnesians already had grounds of
complaint against each other. The grievance of Corinth was that the Athenians
were besieging her own colony of Potidaea with Corinthians
and other Peloponnesians in the place. Athens, on the other hand, had her
own grievances against the Peloponnesians. They had supported the revolt of a
city, which was an alliance with her and which paid her tribute, and they had
openly joined the Potitanians in fighting against
her, close quote. Causes
Belle I even applies now with the Ukraine war with
Russia and the Israeli Palestinian,
Israeli versus Arab, Israeli versus Lebanon, and Iran
war going on right now in the Middle East.
The reasons men have for war are many, but they can usually divide it into
2 categories, stated reasons and hidden
reasons. Stated reasons are laid out in public
speeches, proclamations, and even Thucydian history,
and they are usually, later on
or even before the war, codified into the
laws of a country. Stated reasons,
give generals cover for sending folks
out to the front rank.
Unstated reasons are usually buried in memos.
They are privately stated in small speeches in drawing rooms
or in chambers or in quiet hallways inside of
august buildings, and they are later written about
later reported on, particularly in our era where
everyone must know everything about everyone in
unauthorized memoirs published long after the
dead are buried and rotting in their graves.
Human nature motivates the start of many interpersonal
conflicts. And, of course, because war is just
interpersonal conflict at scale, human nature motivates the starts
of wars between nations, and the things that operate in
individuals' hearts and lives also operate in nation
states' behaviors as causes, beli, for
war, greed, envy, jealousy, and
vanity. These are still the fuel in the
engine of human nature, and reading the history of the Peloponnesian
War from Thucydides, you get all of that.
Now, written 400 years before the birth of Christ, there
is no Christian overtone to the history of the Peloponnesian War. There's
no Christian overtone to Thucydides'
description of the passions of men.
We would get that later from Paul and James and
Hebrews, but it still applies.
Why do you have wars and fightings among you?
Well, the answer lies deep
in the heart of human nature.
Back to the book, back to the history of the
Peloponnesian War. We're going to, we're gonna pick
up with, with probably the most famous
funeral oration in the history
of the Western world. And we're going to read
probably, if not all of it, at least most of it.
Pericles was the
commander of the city of of the forces of the
city of Athens, and he was called,
he was required to deliver a funeral
orient oration. This is something that happened
in the classical Greek world,
and in the classical world period, in the west.
And, it is the most famous funeral oration probably in
western history. We'll talk a little bit more about it after we read
it. So you're gonna wanna settle in for
this. Pericles' funeral oration.
In the same winter, the Athenians, following their annual
custom, gave a public funeral for those who had been the first to die in
the war. These funerals are held in the following way. 2 days before
the ceremony, the bones of the fallen are brought and put in a tent which
has been erected, and people make whatever offerings they wish to their own dead. Then
there is a funeral procession in which coffins of cypress wood are carried on
wagons. There is one coffin for each tribe, which
contains the bones of the members of that tribe.
One empty beer is decorated and carried in the procession. This is for the
missing whose bodies could not be recovered.
Everyone who wishes to, both citizens and foreigners, can join the procession,
and the women who are related to the dead are there to make their laments
at the tomb. The bones are laid at the public burial place, which is
the most beautiful quarter outside the city walls. Here, the Athenians always bury
those who have fallen in war. The only exceptions is those who died
at Marathon who, because of their achievement,
because their achievement was considered absolutely outstanding, were buried on the
battlefield itself.
When the bones have been laid in the earth, a man chosen by the city
for his intellectual gifts and for his general reputation makes an appropriate speech in
praise of the dead, and after the speech, all depart. This is the
procedure at the at these burials and all through the war. When the time
came to do so, the Athenians followed this ancient custom.
Now at the burial of those who were the first to fall in the war,
Pericles, the son of Xanathippus, was chosen to make the
speech. When the moment arrived, he came forward from the tomb.
And standing on a high platform so that he might be heard by as many
people as possible in the crowd, he spoke as
follows. Quote,
many of those who have spoken here in the past have praised the institution of
this speech at the close of our ceremony. It seemed to them a mark of
honor to our soldiers who have fallen in war that a speech should be made
over them. I do not agree. These men have shown themselves valiant in
action, and it would be enough, I think, for their glories to be proclaimed in
action as you have just seen it done at this funeral organized by the state.
Our belief in the courage and manliness of so many should not be hazarded on
the goodness or badness of one man's speech. Then it is not easy to speak
with a proper sense of balance when a man's listeners find it difficult to believe
in the truth of what one is saying. The man who knows the facts and
loves the dead may well think that an oration tells less than what he knows
and what he would like to hear. Others who do not know so much
may feel envy for the dead and think the orator overpraises them when he
speaks of exploits that are beyond their own capacities.
Praise of other people is tolerable only up to a certain point, The point where
one still believes that one could do oneself some of the things one is hearing
about. Once you get beyond this point, you will find people becoming jealous and
incredulous. However, the fact is that this institution was set up and
approved by our forefathers, and it is my duty to follow the
tradition and do my best to meet the wishes and the expectations
of every one of you.
I shall begin by speaking about ancestors since it is only right and proper on
such an occasion to pay them the honor of recalling what they did. In this
land of ours, there have always been the same people living for generation to generation
up till now, and they, by their courage and their virtues, are have
handed it on to us a free country. They
certainly deserve our praise, even more so do our fathers deserve it. For to
the inheritance they have received, they added all the empire we have now, and it
was not without blood and toil that they handed it down to us of the
present generation. And we ourselves, assembled here today, who are mostly in
the prime of life, have, in most directions, added to the power of our empire
and have organized our state in such a way that it is perfectly well able
to look after itself both in peace and in war.
I have no wish to make a long speech on subjects familiar to you all,
so I shall say nothing about the warlike deeds by which we acquired our power,
or the battles in which we or our fathers gallantly resisted our
enemies, Greek or foreign. What I want to do, in the first
place, to discuss the spirit of which we faced our trials and
also our constitution and the way of life, which has made us great.
After that, I shall speak in praise of the dead, believing that this kind of
speech is not inappropriate to the present occasion, and that this whole
assembly of citizens and foreigners may listen to it with
advantage. Let me say that our system of
government does not copy the institutions of our neighbors. It is more the case of
our being a model to others than of our imitating anyone
else. Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the
hands, not of a minority, but of the whole people. When
it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the
law. When it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of
public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular
class, but the actual ability which the man possesses.
No one, so long as he has in has it in him to be of
service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty. And just
as our political life is free and open, so is our day to day life
and our relations with each other. We do not get into a state with our
door neighbor if he enjoys himself in his own way, nor do we give him
the kind of black looks which, though they do no real harm, still do hurt
people's feelings. We are free and tolerant in our private lives,
but in public affairs, we keep to the law. This is
because it commands our deep respect.
We give our obedience to those whom we put in positions of authority, and we
obey the laws themselves, especially those which are for the protection of the oppressed
and those unwritten laws which are which is an acknowledged shame to
break. And here is another point. When our
work is over, we are in position to enjoy all kinds of recreation for our
spirits. There are various kinds of contests and sacrifices regularly
throughout the year in our own homes. We find beauty and good taste, which delight
us every day, which drive away our cares, then the greatness of our city brings
in in it about all the good things from all over
the world that flow into us. So that, to us, it seems just as
natural to enjoy foreign goods as our own local products.
Then there is a great difference between us and our opponents and our attitude towards
military security. Here are some examples. Our city is
open to the world, and we have no periodical deportations in order to prevent people
observing or finding out secrets which might be of military advantage to the enemy.
This is because we rely not on secret weapons, but on our own real courage
and loyalty. There is a difference too in our educational systems.
The Spartans, from their earliest boyhood, are submitted to the most
laborious training and courage. We pass our lives without all these restrictions
and yet are just as ready to face the same dangers as they are. Here
is a proof of this. When the Spartans invade our land, they do not come
by themselves or bring their allies with them, whereas we, when we launch an attack
abroad, do the job by ourselves. And though fighting on foreign
soil, do not often fail to defeat opponents who are fighting for their own hearths
and homes. As a matter of fact, none of our enemies has ever yet been
confronted with our total strength because we have to divide our attention between our
navy and the many missions on which our troops are sent on land. Yet if
our enemies engage a detachment of our forces and defeat it, they give
themselves credit for having thrown back our entire army. Or if they
lose, they claim that they were beaten by us in full strength.
There are certain advantages, I think, to our way of meeting danger voluntarily
with an easy mind instead of with laborious training, with natural rather than
with state induced courage. We do not have to spend our time practicing to meet
sufferings which are still in the future. And when they are actually upon us, we
show ourselves just as brave as those who are always in strict training.
This is one point which I think our city deserves to be admired.
There are also others. Our love of what is beautiful does
not lead to extravagance. Our love of things of the mind does not make us
soft. We regard wealth as something to be properly used rather than as something
to boast about. As for poverty, no one need be ashamed to admit
it. The real shame is in not taking any practical measures to escape
from it. Here, each individual is interested not only in his own
affairs, but in the affairs of the state as well. Even those who are mostly
occupied with their own business are extremely well informed on general politics. This
is a peculiarity of ours. We do not say that a man who takes no
interest in politics is a man who minds his own business. We say that he
has no business here at all. We, Athenians, and our own
persons take our decisions on policy or submit them to proper discussions, for
we do not think that there is an incompatibility between words and deeds.
The worst thing is to rush into action before the consequences have been properly debated,
and this is another point where we differ from other people. We are capable at
the same time of taking risks and estimating them beforehand. Others are
brave out of ignorance, and when they stop to think, they begin to fear.
But the man who can most truly be accounted brave is he who best
knows the meaning of what is sweet in life and of
what is terrible and then goes out undeterred to meet
what is to come.
Before we begin our analysis of Pericles' funeral
oration, which is the classic example of political oratory
ranking along highly alongside other political oratory
in the long and sordid history of the west,
We need to deliver another oration.
President Lincoln delivered the 272 word Gettysburg address on
November 19, 18 63 on the battlefield near
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Channeling Pericles,
he said this, 4 score 7 years ago, our
fathers brought forth of this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation or any
nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.
We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to
dedicate a portion of that field as the final resting place for those who here
gave their lives that a nation might live.
It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in
a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow
this ground. The brave men living in dead who struggled here
have consecrated far above our poor power to add or detract.
The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can
never forget what they did here. It is for us,
the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they
who fought here have thus so far so nobly
advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the
great task remaining before us, That from these honored dead, we take
increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the
last full measure of devotion. That we here highly
resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. That
this nation under god shall have a new birth of freedom, and that
government of the people, by the people,
for the people shall not perish
from the earth.
The Gettysburg Address is the American
example of funeral oration, short and to the
point. We didn't even get through a third of Pericles'
funeral oration, created for a different time of
potentially longer attention spans.
Richard Ned Lebo, an American political scientist, characterized
Thucydides as, quote, the last of the tragedians,
stating that, and I quote, Thucydides drew heavily on epic poetry and tragedy
to construct his history, which not surprisingly is also constructed as a
narrative. Pericles' funeral oration stands
as an example of such epic poetry.
There is a monumental challenge, as Lincoln and
Pericles would have recognized, to speaking over the
dead. How do you actually define
what people have done when they have given the last full measure that they can
give in this world, which is their lives? How do you
define such a sacrifice? How do you place it in the pantheon
of sacrifice on offer? How do you
inspire those who are living, and how do you get them to think
differently about those who are dead?
The challenge of speaking over the dead and managing not to make it maudlin
and overly sentimental or crass and overly
hard was equally matched by Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln and Pericles both stand as examples of long
form funeral oration, and there have been none better,
in the time since.
Maybe that's because we've lost the ability,
whether it be Christian or pagan, we've lost the ability
to place the appropriate context of our lives within a
much larger hierarchical order.
And as leaders, we have a responsibility to realize
not that our egos are fragile, Pericles
would have acknowledged that, but we have the responsibility to
acknowledge that our lives, while seemingly precious and
overall meaningful to us in the long pantheon
in HIF history, might indeed
be meaningless unless
we can serve to give them meaning
by actually sacrificing for the things that
matter. This is our current
struggle with meaning in the west, and we've covered that on this
podcast before. We are currently in a meaning crisis.
I think we're about to turn the corner of it. I hope we're about to
turn the corner of it. And Pericles' funeral
oration and Abraham Lincoln's oration
at Gettysburg give us examples of what others may
say about us or examples of what others may not say
about us if we don't get our act together
before there's no more time left
to even remotely think about getting it
together.
So what are we to take from the history
of the Peloponnesian war? And by the way, this is a robust
history. It doesn't just include information about
or the repetition of, Pericles' funeral oration, but it
walks through the entire Peloponnesian War. The operations
in Sicily and Greece, the end of Platea, the
Brasilius in Thrace. Brasilius captures Amphipolis.
What else? Let's see. Negotiations between Athens and Argos, the
debate at Syracuse, what happened when the Athenians
arrived in Sicily, the debate at Camarina. I mean, this
is a this is a comprehensive,
history, and I would encourage you to go out and pick it up if
you are a person who wants to understand how warfare in the west
works. By the way, you will see a lot of,
parallels to World War 2, World War 1,
the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Iraq War, the
2nd Gulf War, and the current wars that are going on as I
mentioned before in the Ukraine, in the Donbas,
and Israel. You will see parallels
because war is the father of us all.
On this podcast, we try to get to solutions to problems this
year, and the problem that we're trying to solve for by
reading the history of the Peloponnesian War is not one of war.
We can't actually solve that problem. Wars will outlive leadership
as long as human nature is such as it is.
The problem we're looking to solve by reading the history of the Peloponnesian War, at
least the problem that leaders should be seeking to solve by reading the history of
the Peloponnesian War by by trudging through Pericles'
funeral oration such as it were. The lesson that they are trying to
pull from the text is this.
History, philosophy, and theology used to matter more as tools
for explaining the vagaries of our human nature under fire than
psychology ever did. Matter of fact, I would
argue that for all of the insights that psychologists have generated
over the course of the last 100 years, they still don't beat the
insights you can get about human nature from history.
We like to say that we're smarter because we can actually
go inside of people's motivations, but I'm not quite sure that's
true. In our current bureaucratic era in the bureaucratic era
in the west, where we are ruled over by scientific managerial apparatchiks,
we have successfully separated people who think about
warfare, even if they have metals
on their breast, from the people who actually
do the fighting. Think about it.
How many philosophers do you know who go to war or who are even in
blue collar roles such as carpentry or plumbing or electricity?
And how many carpenters or electricians or plumbers do you know
who read deep philosophy? I would be willing
to bet that it goes more one way than the
other. And this is a real problem because the
managerial class who leads the action oriented doers or at least gives them
orders becomes puffed up by its own ego and its hubris and
arrogance, which can allow it to leave its ivory tower
of scientific managerialism descend deep into the
trenches, and get its hands dirty.
This is why we like leaders who come from the
dirt, which is something that the ivory tower managerial
class cannot wrap their own
hubris around.
So how do we heal these challenges? How do
we heal these rifts between people or should we even
bother? Or will there always be rifts between the elites and
the people who do the work? Folks wiser than me
would, of course, say, yes. There will always be these rifts, and you
can't get rid of them, Haysan, but I live in vainglorious
hope. I believe that the way to heal this divide,
at least the way for leaders to think about and maybe act on healing this
divide, is not by leveraging mass communication or mass media.
The way to heal this divide is not through the, dispute
the the the the the dissension or the dissemination, that's
the word I'm looking for, of mass academic training or even
mass conscription into a military that is as bureaucratically
bad as the nation states it seeks to
protect. I believe that the way to heal
the divide between the ego driven, scientific,
managerial, apparatchic and the doer on the
ground with their hands. The way to heal this divide is
for families to abandon cities, move back to the
land, and for fathers and mothers alike
alongside their children or their children alongside them,
start learning how to work with their hands again. Start getting back into
the dirt. Teach the children
this. Teach them well. Teach them how
to raise the chickens and the ducks and the horses. Teach them how to
hammer the nails and saw the wood. The leaders
that will come from those places will be able to
deliver funeral oratory that will be
stirring and uplifting and won't sound
hollow or pointless because it will actually have
hard experience embedded underneath
it.
And well,
that's it for me.
