I am Euripides of Salamis, and I approve this message.

"The dogmatisms of each age wear out.  Statements of absolute truth grow thin, show gaps, are discarded.  The heterodoxy of one generation is the orthodoxy of the next.  The ultimate critique of pure reason is that its results do not endure.  Euripides' assaults upon the superstructure of religion were forgotten; what men remembered and came to know him for was the pitying understanding of their own suffering in a strange world of pain, 
and the courage to tear down old wrongs and never give up seeking for new things that should be good.  And generation after generation since have placed him securely with those very few great artists

'Who feel the giant agony of the world,

And more, like slaves to poor humanity, 

Labor for mortal good...'"

- "The Greek Way", Edith Hamilton, page 214

Note:  Inclusion of a particular photograph does not necessarily indicate political endorsement by the author.  Not necessarily anyway.  

The Importance of Remembering

Continuing on in Edith Hamilton's "The Greek Way", there's a paragraph on page 213 that, I feel, sums up Ms. Hamilton's purpose in writing the book.  It is my opinion that she was writing to remind mankind of the greatness that they are capable of attaining, to remind them of the obstacles they are capable of overcoming.  She was writing just before World War I broke out.  She could see the storm clouds gathering.  She wrote...

"As defeat grew ever nearer, Athens grew terrified, fierce, cruel... One thing alone to help her he (Euripides) had been fitted to do:  he could so write as to show the hideousness of cruelty and man's fierce passions, and the piteousness of suffering, weak, and wicked human beings, and move men thereby to compassion which they were learning to forget...."

Ms. Hamilton was fitted with the same command.  And I think that it is important today, as we see those storm clouds gathering again, to be reminded through history and literature of what human beings are capable of, to think instead of panic, and to stand firm on the side of independence and independent thought, to value knowledge over willful ignorance, and to always choose compassion.  

History IS Important Dammit

"In a recent survey, new college graduates listed history as the academic subject whose lessons they found of least use in their daily affairs.  In part, this reflects the show-me pragmatism os today's rising generation.  Yet as America embarks on the 1990's, people of all ages feel a disconnection with history.  Many have difficulty placing their own thoughts and actions, even their own lives, in any larger story.  As commonly remembered, history is all about Presidents and wars, depressions and scandals, patternless deeds done by people with power far beyond what the typical reader can ever hope to wield.  If history seems of little personal relevance today, then what we do today seems of equal irrelevance to our own lives (and the lives of others) tomorrow.  Without a sense of trajectory, the future becomes almost random.  So why not live for today?  What's to lose?.....

....This book presents the "history of the future" by narrating a recurring dynamic of generational behavior that seems to determine how and when we participate as individuals in social change - or social upheaval.  We say, in effect, that this dynamic repeats itself.  This is reason enough to make history important:  For if the future replays the past, so too must the past anticipate the future."

- William Strauss and Neil Howe, "Generations:  The History of America's Future, 1584 to 2069" (1991)