As social media and sound bites become ever more pervasive I began to wonder how to combat the mind numbing, attention span shortening, and time wasting distractions that are abundantly available. I grew tired of pundits telling me how to think and feel. I don’t want presidential debates where the most substantive back and forth revolves around the strength of the candidates golf game. In short I want more substance and less fluff.
I began to wonder about classical literature. Was it mere chance that some stories have lasted for centuries or millennia? Are there lessons to be learned from ancient literature? Do the stories told 2,500 years ago still have relevance today? Against that backdrop I decided to read some works that have been around since antiquity. The first selection I made was Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus.
Two weeks ago I could not have told you who Aeschylus was. Now I know he has been labeled as the father of tragedy based on his writings. He has been credited with writing at least 70 plays, but only a handful of them survive today. I wonder if these surviving plays are his seminal works. Why did they survive while others did not? Perhaps it was just random chance or perhaps there was something that set these plays apart. Prometheus Bound would be my first exposure to Aeschylus.
It is a fairly short read. There is a free version on the Project Gutenberg website. Since this is an ancient text the version you read might have a different translation than the version I read.
Prometheus Bound shows the danger of acting against a tyrant. Against Zeus’s wishes Prometheus gave man fire. Even though Prometheus had helped Zeus in the past to secure his throne Zeus had Prometheus punished. For a good deed Prometheus suffered unjustly. Overall I think there is a lesson to be learned from this play. It took longer to read than a work of fiction written today but I feel like there is value in reading it.
William Wilberforce has been called an agitator for his commitment to ending the slave trade. One of his well known speeches on the subject was given on May 12, 1789.
Cardinal Richelieu has been hailed as a great statesman and as a subversive authoritarian. Depending on who you talk to he was a man needed to strengthen the monarchy in France, or he was a tyrant seeking personal power. Next week I will have a book review that may shed more light on Cardinal Richelieu.
When Lenin was working on his major writing projects he would often pace across the room formulating the ideas that he would write down by saying them out loud. Once he had the idea for what he wanted to write he would often repeat the idea to Nadezhda Krupskaya, who would provide feedback. Once this process was complete he would then write the ideas down.
Here is an AI rendering of what that might have looked like when he was drafting What is to be Done.
This month this community will focus on political subversion. What is subversion? When is it justified? What is the interplay between subversion and agitation? These are some of the topics to be discussed this month.
“You get used to the despot’s shortcomings, when they are not great vices, and the change of an autocratic ruler leads to involuntary fear.”
Sergei Trubetskoi
