Rise and Fall, Outline Power Point

8/2/2019 Rise and Fall, Outline Power Point

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The Rise and Fall of

Athenian Civilization:A Cautionary Tale in the Era of

Globalization



I. What is a truly free people? What is a great society?

a. Why do we need to articulate a vision of the good life and the good society?

b. Isn’t this simply a pipedream, an unattainable goal? Won’t it simply lead tofrustration and social unrest? Won’t it lead people to undermine law andorder and ignore their leaders because they think they deserve better?

c. Adults need a vision of the good life as a guide for every decision they

make. Citizens need a collective vision of a great society to guide every

decision they make. Private life and public life are inseparable.

d. It is false to believe that “If you can dream it, you can become it.”

e.

But it is also true that “If you do not dream it, you will never become it.” f. You have to have a vision to make yourself and your society the best they

can be, to lead them toward a greater realization of the good life.



Athens: A society based on a vision of the good life, both individually and collectively

Personal virtues

i. Self-control in relation to eating, drinking, sex

ii. Generosity: middle class, moderation in standard of living so thateveryone can attain the same level of prosperity; give excess money

away in ways that improve quality of life for all

iii. Courage: overcome fear of death (old age, war), fear of pain, fear of

loss of reputation: courage to speak one’s mind, to admit one is

wrong, and to learn from othersiv. Anger: appropriate, not overreact or under-react; no revenge; accept

unjust suffering when necessary, avoid unnecessary suffering for

oneself and others

v. Friendships: continual cultivation of virtue, encourage each other,

engage in activities that promote everyone’s well-being, keep eachother informed about public affairs

vi. Sociability: good will toward fellow citizens one does not know

vii. Self-knowledge: know one’s strengths and weaknesses, avoid pride,

thinking one knows more than one knows



a. Justice: relationships with fellow-citizens one does not know

i. Distribute of social goods: wealth, power, status, education, unequalii. Rectify of wrongs: equals: punishing those who harm others unjustly

iii. Pleasure from profit: avoid greed and sloth; everyone does what they

are most skilled at, contribute talents to the common good

iv. Equity: good judgment about how to apply the laws, cases

b. Intellectual virtues

i. Natural curiosity: sciences

ii. Natural desire to understand the ultimate foundations of reality:

speculative reasoning

c. Our vision of the well-lived life: develop one’s natural capabilities d. Vision of a great society: establish institutions and a collective spirit that

motivates citizens to encourage each other to develop their capabilities



I. Athens was more evolved and unique

a. Persians: barbarians: one leader, demi-god, blind obedience

b. Trojans: barbarians: dedicated to wealth, pleasure, self-destructed

c. Spartans: barbarians: institutions organized around the goal of educating

people to value being honored in war, promoted empire-building, political

power as the ultimate value

d. Athens: focus on the cultivation of the free minds of citizens, the full

development of their souls



At the time of the Golden Age, Athens had developed a complex and comprehensive set

of institutions whose purpose was to nurture a truly free people

*Parthenon: Religion: spiritual humanism:

To be fully human is what the gods wantWe naturally desire to create something greater than ourselves, leave behind

a legacy that will sustain the great society, the rule of reason in human

affairs

Examples of creative endeavors that promote the rule of reason

Set of laws, institutions

Democracy by lottery: people take turns ruling and being ruled in turnTrial by jury: those who break laws are punished by a group of peers,

people regulate themselves, don’t need powerful authority figure

Written works: history, tragedy, epic poetry

Sculpture, paintings, music

A system of education from birth throughout life aimed at developing

human reason

A model for exercising the art of medicine that promotes the citizen’s abilit to keep themselves healthy by finding out what foods, drinks, and

exercise routines maintain inner harmony and long-term health

A model for exercising the art of rhetoric so that uneducated people can be

taught how to use their minds, be able to think clearly about private

and public affairs, can learn how to become good citizens



Living one’s life in ways that engage people in the use of reason, leavingbehind a legacy of stories of the good life

Roof of temple follows shape of hills: culture completes nature, not at oddswith nature, not denigrate nature

Athena: goddess of wisdom and war: only just wars (vs. Ares)Prefer diplomacy to war: rational resolution of conflicts honored bythe city more than facing danger in war

War for the sake of national security only, not empire-building

If victorious, no desire for revengeRule of Law: the way the gods want us to live

Rule and be ruled in turn: no one has absolute power, no one makesthemselves into a god

Use reason to determine best laws, how to enforce them

Dialogue: need to debate issues, understand different perspectives beforemaking final decisions*Parthenon: walk slowly upward, integrate nature and culture*Beauty, proportionality: natural response, columns, link appreciation of mathematics,

patterns in math to concrete embodied existence



*Tragedy

Religious festivals: everyone came

Contest: citizens vote, majority determines winner

All members of community, even slavesLearn to think critically

Women portrayed as intelligent

Slaves portrayed as capable of empathy, deserve respect

Middle-class citizens as able to rule themselves sometimes and as making

mistakes other timesMiddle-class citizens get manipulated by corrupt rulers

Families who inherit more power and privilege abuse their privileged:

Athenians learn to identify corruption in rulers, to avoid believing rhetoric that

appeals to irrational emotions to get people to vote and act irrationally

Members of the most privileged families learn how to use and abuse power, recognize

that abuses only lead to more abuses, unnecessary suffering; irrational behaviordoes not pay

The education of a people for freedom: how to develop and maintain their collective

ability to rule themselves



Patterns of human experiences that require rational choice in the face of the temptationto act irrationally

Youth: coming-of-age: transition from blind obedience to learning how to think foroneself

Middle-age: resisting the temptation to abuse one’s authority, to think the end justifiesthe means, to use and abuse others to maintain one’s own power

Old age: resisting the temptation to become bitter due to the many, many ways everyone

suffers unjustlyHaving good intentions but doing the wrong thingMust be educated: good intentions are not good enough

Must seek wisdom throughout life; continual dialoguePurgation of pity and fear: recognize human vulnerability, flush out self-pity

and fear so one can live a full life, take responsibility for one’s self and one’s city

Taverna: discuss the tragedy after the performance: learn what the characters didnot learn; prevent making same mistakes



*Olympics

Need to train young people for possible war

Instead of blind obedience, Olympics

International cooperation, interactionObjective rules, collective judgments, apply rules

Sound mind in sound body: preventative medicine

*Hephaestus: craftsmanship: human capacity for creating beautiful artifacts

*Agora: marketplace

International trade

Dialogue with people from all over the world

Public square: debate current affairs: open, no censorship

*Poseidon: god of the sea

*Zeus: sound body, perfection of soul, thunderbolts

*Islands: scientific investigation; speculative reasoning, different schools

*Aspasia: women’s medicine, sophisticated health care, foreign women *Dialogue: ultimate value, the way reason/mind is educated, exercised

*Corinth:

Natural beauty, rugged terrain, leads to city-state, navy

Temple to Apollo: sailors, prostitutes, wealthy businessmen



*Delphi: same principles as Athens*Culture and nature

Apollo and Python: matriarchy and patriarchy; tribal loyalties vs. ruleof law, reason is detached and objective, do not favor one’s ownInternational culture: Crete: MinoansApollo and Dionysius: Reason and Passion, 9 months, 3 monthsSuppliants

Purification: bathsKnow thyself

Nothing in excess“Answer” is a riddle: interpreted according to the desires of the

interpreter; reflects one’s own soul, not the priests’ Take responsibility for one’s own actions, interpretations

“If you go to war, a great empire will be destroyed.” Thought is an inner dialogue of the soul with itself: decision

*Theater: purgation of irrational emotions*Olympic stadium: sound mind in sound body*International law: written on stone

*Hygeia: health: mind, body



Corruption of Athens*Melos: might makes right: Sparta vs. Athens*Parthenon: paid for by spoils of war and excess taxation of allies

Treat enemies unjustly, will take revenge if they can Treat friends unjustly, will rebel if possible

Athenians exercise absolute authority over others, hypocrites

Do not distinguish between just and unjust wars

Some Athenians have the souls of Spartans, value conquest and gloryfrom fighting in war more than cultivation of the soul

Public policy made by Assembly: foreigners paid large sums to teachrhetoric, how to persuade people to do whatever you want;ambitious citizens learned the skills, took over power

Trial by jury: ambitious and wealthy lawyers paid teachers of rhetoric,

learned how to manipulate jurors

Citizens expected to be manipulated, not educated; expected to voteon the basis of emotion, tribalism, not reason or justice

Citizens no longer really believed in the rule of law, being governedprivately and publicly by a detached and objective assessmentof what is best and most just for everyone, for a stable future



*Those with more wealth and power used it to consolidate what they already had;

shrinking middle class, power struggles between the privileges families

*Teachers of rhetoric and students now believed that people are by natureirrational,want as much power as they can get, used to justify themselves, morality is

relative, no truth, justice, virtue, beauty by nature

*Natural love of beauty perverted:

Math teachers detached themselves from public affairs, disconnect education in

math from seeking to create order in one’s soul and society

Natural love of order in music perverted: more emotional music became morepopular, those who loved order obsessed about harmonies in music rather

than using music as a way to form a strong character

*Tradition of tragedy perverted

People preferred comedy to tragedy

People preferred to be entertained not educatedPeople did not learn lessons: assume irrational emotions are natural,

the poets magnify them for the sake of pleasure and entertainment



*Olympics perverted

Military conquest valued in spite of Olympic tradition

Overspecialization: athletes have extremely regimented lives, not

overall wellness, audiences fat and out of shape, observers

Medicine: pander to irrational desires, fear of pain, fear of deathCreate medicines and remedies so that people can overeat,

drink too much, not exercise and still not get sick

Keep people alive whose bodies are trying to die

Keep people from experiencing natural pain

Rich spend money on “medicines” rather than on publicaffairs,

public life and the quality of public life

*Hephaestus: craftsmanship perverted

Instead of making beautiful artifacts, skills put to use making

military hardware, swords and shields

*Agora: international trade

Led to moral relativism: everyone has different beliefs, gods,

therefore there is not truth, we can’t know or see We should pursue what we can see, measure: power, wealth, status

Conversations in public square reinforced and reflected corruption of

spirit, loss of original ideal

*Poseidon: watches as Greeks defend themselves against Persians, just war,

then watches as Greeks destroy each other and themselves in unjust wars



*Zeus: Athenians seek blind obedience to a literal understanding of the

stories of the gods and goddesses, intolerant of interpretations that

focus on the moral lesson rather than a literal truth*Athenians condemn those who seek a rational foundation for reality:

“atheists,” philosophers live on islands to prevent persecution

*Aspasia: women go to Aegina to run from male abuse, rape, prostitution

*Dialogue: more extreme positions, people not learning from each other,each is seeking his own power: the souls of the citizens no longer driven by the

desire for wisdom, instead driven by the desire for glory in war, excess wealth,

personal power, or “freedom” interpreted as the license to do whatever one

pleases, lack of self-control, rejection of restraint either by choice or by law*The society is losing its soul, its original vision



*Corinth: when a vision is lost, another replaces it: Christians were sincere, exercised

the virtues the Athenians had originally promoted; any cultural tradition will be replaced

when the people no longer exercise the virtues it is based on, when citizens claim to beblindly obedient and really use their religion to pursue power, wealth, or status

*Delphi: priests recognized the corruption of Athens, preserved the tradition

*Socrates: Delphi: “Socrates is wisest” Socrates questioned authorities, those with

privilege, exposed corruption*Citizens accused Socrates of atheism and of corrupting the youth

*Citizens condemned Socrates to death by hemlock

*Taverna: I started a school to educate the next generation: don’t make the mistakes we

made; I wrote my dialogues to remind people of what a great vision and a greatsociety we had and how quickly we lost it

*Sunset: What legacy have I left behind? Will my readers understand the message?



*Will human beings in the future understand, value, and pursue the ideal of thecultivation of the human soul in all the virtues: personal, social, political, and

intellectual? Or will they pursue glory in war, wealth, license to do whatever they want,

or personal power, leading to the destruction of their societies and eventually of

themselves or the next generation?

*Like the priests at Delphi, I leave you with this puzzle, this riddle: What will you do

with your life? What is the good life? What makes life worth living? What sort of life

leads most likely to a better life for our children and grandchildren? What sort of legacy

do you want to leave behind?

Rise and Fall, Outline Power Point

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