Romans and Grecians – The Scholar's Stage

Dionysus Against the Daoists

29 September, 2024History, Narrative, Nature Red in Tooth and Claw, Religion, Romans and Grecians, The Middle Kingdom

IN WESTERN PHILOSOPHY AND AESTHETICS a contrast is sometimes made between the Dionysian and the Apollonian. Made famous by Nietzsche, this schema was first used to describe the thought and art of Ancient Greece. On the Apollonian end we have all that is rational, intentional, structured, abstract, or well ordered; on the Dionysian side we find all that is passionate, instinctual, chaotic, sensual or protean. The Apollonian strain of western culture is associated with daylight, law, mathematics, sculpture, discipline, and the city; the Dionysian strain is associated with nightfall, violence, poetry, music, drunkenness, and nature. The Apollonian element is stereotypically male; the Dionysian element is stereotypically female. The Apollonian ideal is realized by the solitary philosopher solemn in thought. The model Dionysian is an ecstatic madman frenzied in a crowd.

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Thoughts on “Post Liberalism” (I)

27 January, 2022Community, History, Political Theory, Romans and Grecians

The political project of the “post liberals” is not my own. Many of their critiques of contemporary American life and politics mirror what I have written; many of their suggestions for the future of the American right I easily endorse. θBut the grander their essays, the broader their harangues, the less convincing they become. I suspect our most important divide concerns our understanding of history.

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The Rise and Fall of Civilizations: A Reader Course

13 January, 2022Arabia, Bactria, Bharat, Books and Literature, Complex Systems, Culture, Diplomacy, Dogs of War, Europa Regina, History, Narrative, Near East, On Humanity, Political Theory, Romans and Grecians, Small and Simple Things, Southeast Asia, Steppe and Sown, The Middle Kingdom, Wealth

A Scholar’s Stage forum member reports that he and a friend recently finished reading John Darwin’s After Tamerlane. Enraptured by Darwin’s account of flourish and fall, they ask what else they might read to understand the rise and decline of peoples and powers over the course of human history.

In my mind there are four central parts to this tale:

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Beware the Alcibiades Point

14 December, 2016Complex Systems, History, Romans and Grecians

A supposed bust of Alcibiades. Image source. I spent the later part of my teenage years in the forbidding climes of southeastern Minnesota. In those days I’d often hear a joke that I sometimes still repeat: “In Minnesota we have four seasons: near-winter, winter, still-winter,… and road construction.” Minnesota’s northern reaches are pockmarked with lakes […]

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Men of Honor, Men of Interest

01 December, 2016Culture, History, Narrative, Romans and Grecians

This post was originally published as part of the Thucydides Roundtable project over at Zenpundit. I encourage you to read all of the posts in the roundtable. The most famous episode in Thucydides’ History is found in its fifth book. Known as the “Melian Dialogue,” it is one of the best known statements of what […]

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History is Written by the Losers

21 November, 2016History, Narrative, Romans and Grecians, The Middle Kingdom

This post was originally published as part of the Thucydides Roundtable project over at Zenpundit. I encourage you to read all of the posts in the roundtable.Meet Sima Qian. I hold him in high regard. You could say that this was a historian with balls. Sima Qian is sometimes called the “Herodotus of the East.” […]

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Everybody Wants a Thucydides Trap

30 October, 2016Dogs of War, Entangling Alliances, History, Narrative, Romans and Grecians, The Middle Kingdom

This post was originally published as part of the Thucydides Roundtable project over at Zenpundit. I encourage you to read all of the posts in the roundtable. All the world trembles at the dreaded “Thucydides trap.”Of late this phrase has been all the rage. It was first popularized by Graham Allison in 2012, and has only […]

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Why I Read Thucydides

17 October, 2016Books and Literature, Romans and Grecians

Note to readers: The following post was originally published at Zenpundit as part of the on-going Thucydides Roundtable. I encourage you to follow the comment thread there and read the other participant’s posts as they are published throughout the week.On a summer night, nearly three thousand years ago, three hundred men of Thebes, wet and mud soaked, snuck into the […]

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Wanted: A Stupid-Proof Strategy For America

30 October, 2015Bargaining and Balancing, Diplomacy, Entangling Alliances, Geopolitics, History, Romans and Grecians, Steppe and Sown, The Middle Kingdom

. “Hadrian’s wall at Greenhead Lough” by Velella,Image Source: Wikimedia In a recent War on the Rocks piece Iskander Rehman argues that the United States should not favor a foreign policy of retrenchment because United States policy makers are simply too daft and out of touch with the world to play the part of a modern day Castlereigh: […]

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A Few More Thoughts on the Terrors of Pre-Modern Battle

27 October, 2015Dogs of War, Europa Regina, History, Romans and Grecians

Image Source. Yesterday’s post, “Pre-Modern Battlefields Were Absolutely Terrifying,” has proven immensely popular. The sheer number of responses to it on social media, web forums, and other websites has been a bit overwhelming. My favorite of these was written by Lynn Rees, co-blogger over at Zenpundit. In a personal message to me he describes how […]

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Category Archives: Romans and Grecians

Dionysus Against the Daoists

Thoughts on “Post Liberalism” (I)

The Rise and Fall of Civilizations: A Reader Course

Beware the Alcibiades Point

Men of Honor, Men of Interest

History is Written by the Losers

Everybody Wants a Thucydides Trap

Why I Read Thucydides

Wanted: A Stupid-Proof Strategy For America

A Few More Thoughts on the Terrors of Pre-Modern Battle

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