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The ancient wisdom of Athens and Jerusalem can help us survive these cruel and challenging times.

2023-11-23T08:03:25-05:00

This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions.David Brooks

My name is David Brooks. I am a columnist for The New York Times. And I write about politics, I write about culture, I write about social science, and from time to time, I write about world events. Since October 7th, I’ve been thinking a lot about the spreading brutalism of our world.Archived Recording 1

Israel has seen attacks overnight by both rockets and gunmen. Dozens of rockets were fired —David Brooks

We woke up on that day and saw horrific footage of massacres and violence. And since then, we’ve seen horrific footage of bombings in Gaza, scenes of horror.Archived Recording 2

Israel responded with airstrikes on Gaza cities, flattening Hamas offices and residential buildings.David Brooks

Because the Middle East is so contentious, a lot of the brutalism is right here in our own country. And that’s the vicious debates we’re having. That’s the tearing down of the posters of the kidnapped. That’s people screaming at each other. And so the thing I’ve been wondering about is, how do we live in this brutal environment without being brutalized ourselves? How do we live in a way where we remain open-hearted and we don’t get calloused over by our own hatreds?

We’re not the first group of people to live through brutalistic times. So I wanted to learn from the wise people in the past, how do you stay humane in times that are inhumane? And so I went back to two intellectual and moral traditions. And those two traditions are symbolized by two cities, Athens and Jerusalem. And they’re different, these two traditions, but they each have resources upon which we can draw.

And so for example, the Greeks lived with constant warfare between their city-states. And they developed what you might call a tragic sensibility. And I think this sensibility taught them a couple of things. First, it taught them a sense of humility, that our accomplishments are tenuous. We can’t really control our destinies, and we just have to face that. Humility is not thinking lowly of yourself. It’s seeing yourself accurately.

Second, suspect rage. If you go back to “The Iliad,” the great work by Homer, the word “rage” is in the very first sentence. And we see characters, like Agamemnon and Achilles, who are being stupid because they’re filled with rage. And if you look around the world today at the protests and the rallies, you see so much rage. The Greeks would say to those people who are filled with self righteous anger, sure, it feels delicious to be filled with rage, but you’re blinding yourself to reality. You’re simplifying the world. You’re desensitizing yourself to the horror that is all around you.

Another tradition that I think can teach us a very important set of lessons is centered around the city of Jerusalem and the three Abrahamic faiths. And these faiths emphasize what you might call recognition. And that’s the idea that every human being, from birth, needs to be seen and recognized and respected. And so one of the great things you can gift to another person is the gift of seeing them, the gift of paying attention. And so the Abrahamic traditions teach us to lead with love, even in hard times.

And so in dangerous times, your instinct is not to want to cast a just and loving attention on others because it seems soft. It seems like you’re leaving yourself vulnerable. And indeed, you are. It’s dangerous to be gentle and open-hearted in hard times, but it’s also dangerous to shut off your heart.

The Greek tradition is big on prudence and how to be skeptical. The Jerusalem tradition, on the other hand, is very big on empathy, very big on compassion. It orients you not to the most powerful people in society, but the people who are hurting the most. Can you hold these two mentalities in one single brain? Well, Max Weber, the philosopher, asked this very question in a famous essay called “Politics as a Vocation.” He said, can you be warm-hearted, and also rational and cautious?

I tried to think, how does this play out in my own life? And a couple of days ago, I was doomed scrolling through social media. And I was looking at all these images from the Middle East. And I was getting disturbed, disturbed, disturbed. And then I flicked down my social media feed, and I see an old video of James Baldwin being interviewed.Archived Recording (James Baldwin)

The world is held together, really, it is held together, by the love and the passion of very few people. Otherwise, of course, you can despair. Walk down the street of any city, any afternoon, and look around you. What you got to remember is, what you’re looking at is also you. Everyone you’re looking at is also you. You could be that person. You could be that monster. You could be that cop. And you had to decide on yourself not to be.David Brooks

And so amid that social media doom scroll of inhumanity, suddenly Baldwin was giving us an example of great humanity. And the phrase that leapt to my mind, as I heard him, was “defiant humanism.” It’s easy to be a humanist in good times, but to be a humanist in bitter times and bitter circumstances, that is truly a heroic act.

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