"Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty." - Plato The Greco-Roman tradition provided an educational algorithm that has never really been improved upon. In fact, every major movement of educational reform in the Western world began with a reassessment of the …
Tag: roman empire
Modern Problems, Ancient Solutions
The ancient Greeks and Romans had solutions for many of the problems that plague our country today. They recognized that human nature is a double-edged sword and that steps can be taken to mitigate the expression of its lesser qualities while magnifying its finer ones. They understood as well that liberty is not a given, …
We haven’t changed much
The remains of the past have long fascinated the thinking men and women of the present, for a very good reason. The period of cultural history known as the Renaissance, which began in Italy in roughly the 14th century and catalyzed fresh thoughts throughout the rest of Europe through the 17th century, largely took its …
Uncorrupted Reason
I came across a remarkable collection of works produced by Thomas Cole, the English-born American artist who is credited with founding the Hudson River School. Cole possessed an uncommon ability to capture broad strokes of history in his landscapes. Cole aimed to produce a "higher style of landscape" imbued with romanticism and naturalism unparalleled in …
The “Inner Go”
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman used an interesting quote yesterday from Lewis Mumford's book "The Condition of Man," about the development of civilization. Reflecting on the American nation in 1944, Mumford drew a chilling parallel to the decline of the mighty Roman Empire: Everyone aimed at security: no one accepted responsibility. What was plainly …
The Role of Empathy in the 21st Century
Whether or not you are religiously inclined, the statement purportedly spoken 2,000 years ago by a man whose worldview spawned a number of organized religions including Christianity - "Judge not that ye be not judged" - is worthy of deep consideration. Judgment, the arch-rival of empathy, is an insidious and pernicious human invention. The millennium-and-a-half …
Gregory Hake 