The Geopolitical Blueprint

In his book The Peloponnesian War, Thucydides explains that the war started because Sparta saw Athens as a threat to its hegemony. In this talk Jiang Xueqin argues that the American scientist James Calhoun’s “rat utopia” experiments offer a better explanation. In the 1950s and 1960s James Calhoun conducted experiments in which colonies of rats were put into worlds of plenty and abundance. All these experiments ended in disaster. Rather than enjoying paradise, the rats violently fought amongst themselves, and their social order collapsed. Why did this happen? In a wealthy world, high-status rats could live longer, which meant younger rats had no opportunities to achieve status. Consumed by anxiety and anger, this younger generation became violent and destructive. Fifth-century Athens was a “rat utopia.” After Persia was defeated in 479 BCE, Athens established the Delian League, and it became a de facto empire. The upper nobility was happy with the status quo, but the lower nobility clamored for opportunities to achieve fame and fortune. Athens became expansionist and imperial to ease its internal contradictions, and this ultimately led to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War.

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What made Athenian democracy so strong and vibrant? Jiang Xueqin explains that theater taught Athenians how to be democratic citizens. The three major dramatists were Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Aeschylus' Oresteia offered a mythology of democracy, showing that democracy was a gift from Athena herself, and that by practicing it well Athenians could make the whole world more just, fair, and righteous. Sophocles' Oedipus Rex trilogy revealed the dangers and tragedy of a monarchy. In his "hubris," Oedipus of Thebes believed he could defy the Fates. His successor Creon thought he could defy the "unwritten, immutable, divine" laws of the universe, and condemned Antigone to death. Euripides' Bacchae was a critique of the Athenian democracy and empire, especially Pericles' Funeral Oration. Euripides believed that for a democracy to maintain its strength and vibrancy the citizenry had to confront the hard truths, especially the evils that they commit upon others.

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In 399 BCE the Athenian people condemned Socrates to drink hemlock. In this lecture to Chinese high school students, Jiang Xueqin examines the significance and legacy of the trial of Socrates. During his lifetime, Socrates enjoyed exposing Athens' leading intellectuals. He became so notorious that the satirist Aristophanes ridiculed him in a play. Socrates had many admirers though. A group of young aristocrats -- including Plato and Alcibiades -- became his devoted pupils.In 404 BCE the Thirty Tyrants (some of whom were Socrates' students) came into power, and the Athenian people revolted against their reign of terror and restored their democracy. In 399 BCE, the Athenian people charged Socrates with "impiety" and "corrupting the youth of Athens." Plato would spend the rest of his life promoting the memory of his beloved mentor as a martyr for the truth. In so doing, he would create the most powerful metaphor of Western thought -- the allegory of the cave. This allegory would have three major impacts:1.) It created the belief that Socrates was the world's greatest philosopher.2.) It helped Christians understand the life and death of Jesus.3.) It became the intellectual basis of Christianity.

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In this talk Jiang Xueqin examines how Philip II of Macedon turned his kingdom from a poor and weak nation into the military hegemony that would conquer Persia.

In his youth, Philip was a hostage at Thebes, where he studied the military innovations that made Thebes into the dominant military power in Greece at that time. He learned that with enough training and discipline, an army could achieve the mobility, co-ordination, and flexibility necessary to dominate others. He inspired loyalty among his men with his bravery, fair-mindedness, and oration. Slowly and methodically, with a mix of diplomacy and aggression, Philip II would unite classical Greece, and pave the way for his son Alexander the Great to conquer Persia.

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We celebrate Alexander the Great as one of the greatest conquerors of history. What motivated him? Was he truly a strategic genius? What is his ultimate legacy?
Professor Jiang Xueqin presents a revisionist understanding of Alexander the Great. He argues that Alexander was first and foremost motivated to prove he was better than his father. With his boundless ambition, he could not find peace until he had conquered the whole world.

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Plato and Aristotle are considered the two most influential philosophers of Western antiquity. But there are three central paradoxes surrounding the life and work of Aristotle. He is considered a brilliant thinker, but we do not have any of his original writings. Over two hundred works are attributed to him, and the range of his works is extra-ordinary and super-human – he’s written about metaphysics, rhetoric, theater, politics, ethics, physics, and biology. Finally, while he studied under Plato for twenty years, his empirical approach to epistemology contradicts Plato’s rationalist approach. How can we explain these paradoxes?

Professor Jiang Xueqin explains that to understand Aristotle’s work and beliefs it’s important to understand his background and associations. His life parallels that of Philip II of Macedon. Aristotle and Philip were born about the same time, and because Aristotle’s father was personal physician to the King of Macedon, the two grew up together. In their youths, Philip was sent to study military innovation at Thebes, and Aristotle was sent to study at Plato’s Academy, where he would spend the next twenty years. Legend has it that Aristotle became the tutor to Philip’s son Alexander the Great, and Philip rewarded Aristotle lavishly for his service.Philip’s military conquests were driven in part by the Pan-Hellenic Project, which aimed to unite the Greek diaspora scattered across the Aegean and Mediterranean. Because Greeks identified with their own city-state, Philip needed to create a “Greek culture,” a common identity that shared the best knowledge of the Greek world. Rather than an original thinker, Aristotle was a “systemizer,” who supervised his students in the collection and distillation of the entirety of Greek knowledge into textbooks for popular education and dissemination. Aristotle’s work would forever change human history. By systemizing Greek knowledge, Aristotle would help humans “see and be” in a new way. By simplifying and popularizing Greek knowledge, he would make it accessible, and it would spread as far as Alexander the Great’s conquests. And the interaction of Greek knowledge with foreign cultural eco-systems would birth new philosophies and religions, including Christianity.
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In 216 BCE, Hannibal Barca of Carthage defeated Rome at the Battle of Cannae. After three devastating defeats to Hannibal,

Rome had lost twenty percent of its adult male population, and one-third of its Senate. The Roman Republic chose to continue fighting, and eventually it triumphed in the Second Punic War.

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Professor Jiang Xueqin examines the life and times of Julius Caesar. What motivated him? What made him so successful? Why was he assassinated? In 100 BCE, Julius Caesar was born into the "Imperial Republic" of Rome, a contradiction that led to inequality, corruption, and division. He came to believe he was a man of destiny who would restore the unity, stability, and prosperity of the Roman Republic. To do so, he became a myth-maker, and cast himself as the hero of the epic journey that he was spinning for the enraptured Roman audience. His enemies considered him a libertine and a demagogue, and were determined to destroy him.After winning the civil war against Pompey and the Optimates, Julius Caesar enacted a series of legislative reforms that were necessary but which challenged the traditional Roman worldview. In response, some of Julius Caesar's closest friends and associates assassinated him.

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In 44 BCE, an eighteen-year old Octavian arrived in Rome without an army and without political alliances, and seventeen years later he became Rome’s first emperor. How did he do it?

Professor Jiang Xueqin explores and explains the birth of the Roman Empire. Julius Caesar saw himself as a man of destiny who would save the Roman Republic, a myth that was met with much skepticism in Rome. After he was assassinated, the Roman people felt regret and guilt for having doubted Caesar, and supported his adopted son Octavian’s quest for vengeance. In the ensuing civil war, as his opponents self-destructed, Octavius slowly and inevitably climbed the pinnacle of power.

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Professor Jiang Xueqin explains why Vergil's "The Aeneid" is such brilliant propaganda.In 27 BCE, the Roman Senate declared Octavian "Augustus," making him effectively the first emperor. But Augustus Caesar still had three problems.First, he needed to establish his legitimacy and authority. To do so, he promoted the myth that his Julii family were descendants of Aeneas, and thus Rome's very first family.Second, he needed to establish a new Roman cultural identity that emphasized "piety" over "liberty." He promoted Aeneas as the epitome of piety. Third, he was worried about the corrupting influence of Greek culture. Although the Romans had conquered Greece militarily, it seemed that the Greeks had conquered Rome culturally.To solve all three challenges, Augustus Caesar sponsored the writing of "The Aeneid." Vergil's epic imitated and appropriated the Homeric epics to engineer a new Roman soul.

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