The Clash of Civilizations Revisited

In January 2006, I wrote my first blog entry ever on the nature of what has been called the defining conflict of our time, and how I felt that the real conflict was not a clash between civilizations but rather a clash within each civilization. That is to say that within each country, region, or culture there was an on-going conflict between that society's militant, tribalistic, xenophobic, often religious, uncompromising element and that same society's tolerant, open-minded, internationally oriented, secularist, engagement-oriented element. I believe that the 15 or so months of events that have passed since I wrote that posting have borne this idea out.

When I wrote that posting, I also decided to use elements of the story of the Peloponnesian Wars with its arch-rivals Athens and Sparta to make my point. Interestingly, now with the opening of the movie "300" with its glorification of Spartan ways and it mockery of Athenian, I felt I should publish an updated version of that first posting. So here it is:


Excerpted from Pericles’ Funeral Oration, 4th Century BC (Peloponnesian Wars Book 2.34-46):

“We throw open our city to the world, and never by alien acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observing, although the eyes of an enemy may occasionally profit by our liberality…..while in education, where our rivals from their very cradles by a painful discipline seek after manliness, at Athens we live exactly as we please, and yet are just as ready to encounter every legitimate danger….instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all…indeed if I have dwelt at some length upon the character of our country, it has been to show that our stake in the struggle is not the same as theirs who have no such blessings to lose…"

In this 2,400-year-old speech honoring war dead, the leader of Athens is making a point of distinguishing his people, the Athenians, from their adversaries, the Spartans. The main message is that where the Spartans spend almost all of their peacetime preparing for war and honoring their Gods specifically in order to better be prepared for war, the Athenians spend their peacetime running their city as an inclusive, participatory place where the arts, sciences, and the general enjoyment of life are encouraged. The speech is of course given during wartime and the Athenian leader claims that Athenians do well when forced into war because they have so much to lose. The Spartans on the other hand, in his view, have nothing to fight for except the fight itself.

Unfortunately, in the end the Spartans prevail, establish tyrannical rule over Athens, and then it takes 30 years for the Athenians to bring enlightened rule back to their city. But from the perspective of modern times, the Athenians prevailed and the Spartans lost. This because the cultural and scientific importance of ancient Athens on the world today proved to be many times that of Sparta, which produced nobody of the stature of a Socrates, Plato, Solon, or Sophocles. Thus while Athens produced everything from scientists that could accurately predict the radius of a spherical earth to playwrights that defined drama for the next 2,000 years of western culture, Sparta did nothing more than create an image of militarism and regimented living. It is additionally interesting to note that the Spartans were much more religious than the Athenians and kept their martial society running mainly by exploiting slave labor to the greatest extent possible. Not to say that the Athenians were saints, just that for the ancient world, they were pretty progressive and especially so when compared with the Spartans who would take boys from their parents at the age of seven to start their 30-40 years of military service and whose mothers would bid their sons farewell when they went to war by saying that they wanted to see them return either in victory or being carried home dead on their shield.

So why is this important to us now? I would argue that this Athenian versus Spartan story can serve as an archetype for a conflict that exists in one form or another within every influential society of our current era. Note that I am saying that the conflict exists within each society and not between the societies. America's bigggest struggle is between America's Athenians and America's Spartans. Iran's biggest struggle is between Iran's Athenians and Iran's Spartans. The same could be said of China, Russia, Pakistan, and Egypt. Sadly, this same conflict could be coming to Europe soon.

Spartan militarism has been fully indulged several times and in several places in the last 100 years, and it has consistently failed albeit after causing untold damage. This current love affair with Spartan ways will fail too. I know which side I am on, and luckily in the long run, it is the winning side! So put THAT olive in your souvlaki and chew it!

Quote

We fight to great disadvantage when we fight with those who have nothing to lose.

[It., Con disavvantaggio grande si fa la guerra con chi non ha che perdere.] - Storia d'Italia

FRANCESO GUICCIARDINI
Italian historian and dramatist
(1483 - 1540)

Leave no child inside

The article on children and developments in Alternet made me realise how lucky I was, and how lucky my kids are. My sons are free to roam outside as much as they want to, go and play on the local village football field, build treehouses in a nearby forest, play by streams and on firelds behind the houses. As a child I did the same, albeit with the city of Stuttgart, as we had a large park nearby. Both them and I were lucky in that we had an ample supply of other children to play with.

But it will not remain so forever. Our village is becoming urbanised, the football field will soon become a housing and commercial development, and the new football field is inaccessible without transport and gated. The woods and fields they roam in will soon become the site of a new double lane bypass. And more and more people are reluctant to let their children play outside for fear of abduction and child molesters.

But surely the right point to start at, would be by educating the adults? How can we teach our children about nature, if most of us adults are ignorant? After all, most others changes have to be made by convincing the adults, who then convert their children. Just look at the multitude of "Nanny 922", "Brat Camp" and other programms designed to show adults how to make their children behave, eat well and become healthy adults. I might have played in nature, but I only truly learnt about plants once I had my own garden. Without the addition to my life of the garden I still might not know what a flowering larch looks like.

So maybe its the parents who should be shown what nature is, not the children. And maybe the way to go for cities is not only planning better housing developments, but also by encouraging Schrebergärten or garden colonies.

Castro's Triumph Over Illness Fails to Make Him Grateful to Uncle Sam

As Castro recovers from his recent illness and returns to health, it is amazing that even now he refuses to thank the US Government for keeping him in power for over 46 years. Without the protracted US embargo put on Cuba long ago and its ability to enhance Castro's control over every aspect of life on the island, well he'd have been put out to pasture long ago by his own people. If the US Government had said back in...oh any time in the 60s...that the US was open for business with Cuba...well that would have been the end of Castro and Cuban communism within months. On the other hand, it is true that if Castro and Cuban communism had been lost before the official start of the Vietnam War then a very necessary and important Communist threat just 90 miles from Florida would also have been lost along with all of the fear-mongering opportunities that came with it, and it may have been much harder to sell to the US voters the illusion of an imminent international communist threat to the US.

'You know which Cubans WILL be able to show their gratitude to Uncle Sam? The Miami Cubans that will be given the island as a present in about 5 years. And they will be thankful for the clever PR campaign that will create a new Cuban mythology that will paint THEM as the heroes of Cuba while painting those who had the strength and stamina to stay on in Cuba as being the weak, hapless dupes of Cuban communism who deserve to be kicked out of their houses by wealthy Floridians reclaiming their grandparents' villas and plantations.