Reading Thucydides in Beirut…

This week in Beirut, my students and I are reading the History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides–and discussing the challenges and rhetoric of war, politics, and democracy. One passage in particular jumped out at me last night, while I was re-reading the text to prepare for today’s class…

Here each individual is interested not only in his own affairs, but in the affairs of the state as well: even those who are mostly occupied with their own business are extremely well-informed on general politics–this is a peculiarity of ours: we do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all.

— Pericles’ Funeral Oration in Thuycdides’ History of the Peloponnesian War