Not Read published 2023

Well thought out thoughts on classic Greek philosophy relative to modern Western society and the modern age. How this affects our current situation, individually and societal. Highlights the base that the west was built upon.

Hope he writes another. ( )

Robert Kaplan is renowned for his keen insight in covering foreign wars and the politics associated with them. Unusually for a journalist, he has had the ear of past American administrations. Such is his reputation and credibility. How strange then, that his latest book, The Tragic Mind, is entirely about ancient Greek versus Shakespearean plays and characters. It takes a while to even get used to the idea that journalist Robert Kaplan is using fictional characters to explain the harsh realities of the world. Wars are no longer sufficient then?

Right up front, Kaplan admits shame for supporting and encouraging the American invasion of Iraq. His thought at the time was that Saddam Hussein was so evil, the country could only benefit from his removal. That the USA clearly had no idea how to win the peace, had lost every war it entered since WWII, and was invading Iraq on a pack of obvious lies, did not weigh on his support or influence to plow ahead with a coup. He was gung-ho for war. Strange for a war correspondent.

He then watched in horror as hundreds of thousands of civilians were murdered, hundreds of thousands of soldiers were turned into neurotic hate machines, trillions of dollars were drained away to achieve nothing, and that Iraq 20 years later is far worse off than before America liberated it.

It has bothered him for two decades, and has resulted in this unusual book. The book is a purge, a catharsis, a way for others to understand and avoid making his big mistake. It focuses on tragedy, not the death of thousands, but the self-discovery by the hero of powerlessness, of fear in place of bold moves, of human failings clouding global accomplishments. This mindset is on view throughout the plays of the ancient Greeks and of course in Shakespeare.

Here is his definition: “Tragedy is not fatalism; nor is it related to the quietism of the Stoics. It is comprehension. By thinking tragically, one is made aware of all of one’s limitations, and thus can act with more effectiveness.” He finds this in all kinds of Shakespearean and Greek play characters, and describes them in action and in great detail. Their stories make up almost the whole book. King Lear resists self-awareness. The Macbeths can’t figure out what happened. Hamlet is entirely analysis of the impossible situation. Ignoring geopolitics is arrogant and naïve. The state comes before humanity… Tragedy of this kind is available and has been on display in drama for 2500 years now. It was the essence of pop culture until our time.

Along the way, Kaplan also cites numerous philosophers and experts on Shakespeare and the ancient Greeks. He finds affirmation here and there, and is only too willing to share. For example, a medieval Persian philosopher, Hamid al-Ghazali, said that one year of anarchy is worse than a hundred years of tyranny. Perfect fit.

Kaplan has become very conscious that societies need form and structure to flourish. The state has a monopoly on violence for good reason: it’s the only way to grow, he says. For Kaplan, anarchy is random, inconsistent, unpredictable, vicious and terrorizing. To remove a government and replace it with nothing is his nightmare. Everything, including society itself, stops. Anarchy is the human world demonstration of entropy in action.

Leaders are there to prevent it: “It is the burden of leadership that provides tragedy with many of its most searing and pivotal moments,” he says. This is the challenge leaders rise to, even if it ruins them, as so many did in both Greek and Shakespearean plays.

Kaplan discovers that the ancient Greeks and Shakespeare differed in one major way: the Greeks laid all the fault at the feet of the gods. It was the gods’ unchallengeable decisions that led to continual tragedies, whether it was Zeus taking eternal revenge on Prometheus by tying him to a rock and having a blood-red eagle gnaw at his liver for eternity, or sending whole armies to their doom.

In Shakespeare, the fault lies within the mind of the protagonist. A defect of personality and intellect causes not merely disasters, but horrific anguish within the family and the mind (and sometimes the nation). Two different approaches to the same themes, determined by the culture of the day: the gods of the Greeks, and the psychology of the English. But the result is the same: generalized misery, one way or another.

The Greeks, in deifying Nature, gave the god Dionysus both tyranny and life force as his departments, including all their lusts and pleasures. Playwrights counted on him to enable them in life, both positive and negative. A lot of the book is about Dionysus and his influence on their work.

One of the problems according to Kaplan is that current generations of Americans have no experience with war on their own territory, or tyranny, or anarchy. So they have no fear of any of it, and don’t care to be prepared to deal with it. In Kaplan’s terms they have not been trained to think tragically. This is also his personal issue, since he figured anything would be better than Saddam Hussein. Clearly not so.
Today’s pop culture is all about comic book and video game superheroes, not the soul-searching decisions of men facing existential crises. So, few people are prepared to think in those terms. Nor do they see any reason to. Entertainment today is eye-candy, not mind candy.

Kaplan says things that are arguable, too. He says “There can be no worse burden on a leader’s peace of mind” than knowing he screwed up, costing the lives of millions, including many of his own countrymen– for nothing. “It will occupy his final thoughts as he is dying.”

History does not support this. Usually they don’t care. That’s the Henry Kissinger story, the Donald Trump story, the Xi Jinping story, the Josef Stalin story, the Vladimir Putin story… It is endless. They just move on, and have no problem doing it again. In current culture, the highminded concepts and tales of Shakespeare and the ancient Greeks are for entertainment purposes only. From where I sit anyway.

Kaplan reinforces this himself, when he writes about Shakespeare’s Iago, the most purely evil character Kaplan has ever found there. The man has only drive – no fear, no remorse, no consideration, no contemplation and no compromise. Kaplan calls him Satan. Here’s something Iago has to say in this book: “Reputation is an idle and most false imposition, oft got without merit and lost without deserving. You have lost no reputation at all, unless you repute yourself a loser.” Has Trump written all over it.

I was uncomfortable throughout the book (not necessarily a bad thing) for two reasons. First, all the evidence Kaplan amasses for his observation and argument comes entirely from fiction and historical fiction. Some of the characters were actual kings and princes, of course, but none of the words he quotes ever came from their mouths. This is not the solid foundation for proving a point that Kaplan wants it to be. And would demand if any other journalist tried it.

Second, the anguish is clearly Kaplan’s personal trial, and it is evident throughout. He feels terrible about what he saw in Iraq and that he might have had a role in promulgating it. So the book is a long search for answers to a question he never asked himself before, but has been asking himself ever since. This is a book for a psychotherapist to read.

David Wineberg ( )