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The Greek Way is Better

Minerva, Roman goddess guardian of civilization, modeled after Athena, Greek goddess of intelligence, freedom, civilization and protector of Athens. By Elihu Vedder, American painter, 1836–1923. Mosaic, Thomas Jefferson Building, Library of Congress, 1897. Public Domain.

Prologue: Trump and the Pope

The US-Israeli war against Iran / Persia did more than rain bombs on Iran, Lebanon and throughout the Middle East. It brought to light the theocratic proclivities of Trump and his Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth. Ignoring the separation of church and state, Trump almost made himself a new Jesus. This infuriated Pope Leo XIV who said such behavior was unacceptable. Others said Trump committed a blasphemy. Hegseth warned the Pope to tone down his criticism of Trump and the American Biblical onslaught on the Persian enemy.

Maureen Dowd, opinion columnist for the New York Times, described Trum and the Pope in stark terms. She wrote: “President Trump has been rampaging around the globe like Grendel at dinner time, a rapacious, feral creature. Who could stand up to him? The soft-spoken, humble Leo, who strives to unify, squared off against the bombastic, solipsistic Trump, who strives to divide.”

Thomas Jefferson: Greek thought dispelled Gothic darkness in America

I found the crusading rhetoric of Trump and Hegseth very disturbing. The American Pope had it right.

Thomas Jefferson would be astonished at how far the American head of state has fallen.

David French, an opinion columnist for the New York Times, said that, “If you take an already grandiose man [Trump] (whose commercial brand is his own name) and fill him with a sense of divine purpose, you can uncage a tyrant.” True, “divine purpose” has been corrupting strong men forever. It has been defining monarchy, plutocracy, oligarchy and tyranny. During the dark ages and modern times, that is, a period at least 1,600 years long, ambitious rulers married religion to stay in power. In fact, monotheism was a product of that political ambition. European monarchs / emperors / dictators made Jesus their co-ruler. Moslem Califs (heads of state) thought they were the shadow of god on Earth. Thus, Trump is following successful precedents. The founders of the American republic, endless wars, World Wars I and II and the Cold War and nuclear weapons gave presidents so much power that, in fact, presidents have become uncrowned monarchs.

On October 31, 1823, Jefferson sent a letter to Adamantios Koraes, a Greek scholar he met in Paris. The 1820s was the time the Greeks were fighting their War of Independence against the Mongol Turks occupying their country. Koraes was assisting the revolutionary Greeks by spreading the ancient Greek ideas on freedom, patriotism, strategy, the rule of law, justice, moderation, democracy and science. He edited Greek works like the epic poems of Homer, the scientific medical writings of Hippocrates, the philosophical, political and ethical works of Plato, Aristotle and Plutarch and other relevant and timely writings of ancient Greek and modern thinkers. Jefferson had read some of those works by Koraes. In his letter to him, he was straightforward about the political and liberating benefits of studying ancient Greeks, their ideas and science. He said to Koraes:

“Your favor of July 10. [1823] is lately received. I recollect with pleasure the short opportunity of acquaintance with you… and the fine editions of the classical writers of Greece, which have been announced by you from time to time, have never permitted me to lose the recollection. until those of Aristotle’s Ethics, and the Strategikos [On Strategy] of Onesander, with which you have now favored me, and for which I pray you to accept my thanks, I had seen only your lives of Plutarch. these I had read, and profited much by your valuable Scholia [commentaries], and the aid of a few words from a modern Greek Dictionary, would, I believe, have enabled me to read your patriotic addresses to your countrymen.

“You have certainly begun at the right end towards preparing them for the great object they are now contending for, by improving their minds and qualifying them for self-government. for this they will owe you lasting honors. nothing is more likely to forward this object than a study of the fine models of science left by their ancestors; to whom we also are all indebted for the lights which originally led ourselves out of Gothic darkness.”

Return to Greek civilization

Like Jefferson, I would argue that to stop the new Gothic Darkness from spreading in America, we must return to the Greeks: learn from their 5,000 years of history, philosophy, science, political theory, democracy, the Olympics, beautiful architecture, gorgeous sculpture, the timeless Parthenon, the astronomical computer of genius of the second century BCE — known as the Antikythera Mechanism — and the theater of Dionysos.

Greeks were by no means perfect. Aeschylos, the outstanding Athenian poet who also fought against the Persians in early fifth century BCE, pleaded with Athenians never to fight civil wars. Goddess Athena cursed civil conflict (Eumenides 848-880). However, their antagonisms often precipitated civil wars.

The worst of those strifes / civil wars was the Peloponnesian War, 431-404 BCE. Superpower Sparta, watching the spectacular rise and expansion of Athenian power and culture after the defeat of the Persians, 480-432 BCE, became jealous and fearful. That fear became the 27 year Peloponnesian War. That conflict, the Athenian historian Thucydides tells us, became the most destructive war in Greek history (The Peloponnesian War 1.23).

Greece / Hellas was never the same again. The country remained divided. And despite the appearance and ecumenical beneficial consequences of Alexander the Great and his empire: the globalization of Hellenic language and science, Hellenism, full of virtues, science and ecumenical, fell victim to the Romans in 146 BCE. Then followed other calamities like the violent Christianization of Hellas in the fourth century and after, the Fourth Crusade in 1204 and the conquest of Hellas by the Mongol Turks in 1453.

Greek thought made our world

Despite those misfortunes, enough of Greek civilization survived – especially poetry, history, philosophy and science – that it triggered the Renaissance among the Arabs in the eighth century and among the Western Europeans in the fifteenth century. Those movements of inspiration and light that spread Greek knowledge made our world.

The Greeks who made the greatest impact in the Renaissance include the poets (Homer, Hesiod, Aeschylos, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes), astronomers / cosmologists (Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Pythagoras, Meton, Aristarchos of Samos, Hipparchos, Ptolemaios), scientists (Democritos, Hippocrates, Aristotle, Euclid, Archimedes, Poseidonios, Galen), historians (Herodotos, Thucydides), philosophers (Thales, Herakleitos, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Hypatia).

Americans in 2026 need not reinvent the wheel. Their universities, or the best of them, teach Greek and the history of science. They have plenty of scholars who know the virtues of Greek civilization: freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of political independence, the rule of law, justice, the ideals of the good and the beautiful, moderation and wisdom.

The Greeks achieved unprecedented results in science and technology because they observed nature and society carefully for long time. Their astronomical computer (Antikythera Mechanism) was 2,000 years ahead of its time; Democritos invented the Atomic Theory; Hippocrates shaped scientific medicine; Aristotle invented zoology; Aristarchos of Samos invented the Heliocentric Theory of the Cosmos; Archimedes was a mathematical and engineering genius. Modern science is Archimedean.

Aristotle’s political observations came after the tragedy of the Peloponnesian war. So, he was not a follower of a particular political idea or constitution (monarchy, oligarchy / plutocracy, democracy, tyranny). He saw benefits from all of these ideologies if the rulers cared more for the public good than their own. He said the citizen should be willing and capable to rule and be ruled. No political corruption.

Getting closer to the Greeks

Translating the ideals of Greek politics, philosophy, science, justice and the idea of the good and the beautiful for America demands another American Revolution. One to outlaw money for elections and the lobbying of politicians. Lobbying of government bureaucrats should be forbidden.

The US Environmental Protection Agency is of the outmost importance because of its great mission of protecting human and environmental health. It must return to that great goal: the protection of the health of Americans and the health of the natural world. The president should not appoint the EPA administrator. The EPA administrator ought to be a respected scientist or a well-educated citizen of high ethical standards elected for 8 years. Funding for the EPA should come directly from the Federal Reserve. The Agency must have its own laboratories. No lobbyists should be allowed to visit EPA. Such a new and independent EPA ought to have an agenda of cleaning up America of plastics, pesticides, forever chemicals and other toxins from the land, waters (seas, oceans, rivers, lakes) and drinking water and food.

Another important priority ought to be in preventing the rise of plutocracy. Start by steep taxes on billionaires. Taxing the enormous wealth of billionaires would diminish the colossal gap between rich and poor. In fact, America (and the rest of the countries of the world) should regulate personal and corporate wealth. No person should be allowed to become a billionaire. Above a certain legal limit of earnings and wealth, the rest of the money should be taxed for the public good.

Land redistribution is also a cure for preventing the political and economic control of the state by plutocrats: no farm or private land holding larger than 160 acres. Transforming of industrialized farming to small family farming without gigantic machines, synthetic fertilizers, biotechnology and pesticides. All food ought to be wholesome and certified organic. Agricultural schools must educate young people and potential farmers to the principles of agroecological science and the practices of sustainable family agriculture. No animal farms and the phasing out of fossil fuels.

These reforms guarantee the survival of America, wholesome food, healthier people and nature, including the control of the giant in the room, climate chaos. And through America’s global influence, the survival of the planet is assured. Finally, in the spirit and revival of Greek civilization, nation states should convince nuclear-weapons states (US, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, North Korea, France, Britain and Israel) to abolish nuclear weapons.

None of these badly needed reforms are likely while wars are wrecking Ukraine, the Middle East and Africa. American politics must also abandon theocratic delusions of wiping out Iran for the Biblical myths of Israel. The US, Russia, the European Union and China can guarantee the security of Israel and other countries in the Middle East. That way, Israel will agree to abandon its nuclear bombs and perpetual warfare supported by American weapons and money.

The same thing should happen with Greece. The European Union should abandon NATO, replacing it with its own defense force designed to protect the independence and national security of its members. That way, the Turkish danger becomes manageable.

It is very difficult to explain why the ancient Greeks were the lighthouse of the world — for millennia. Their competition caused strife and civil wars. Yet their virtues of polytheism, heroism, freedom, respect of nature, experimentation with a variety of political institutions and constitutions enabled them to appreciate inquiring into the workings of the Cosmos and society for the solution of problems and satisfaction of their passion for the good and the beautiful. Aristotle and Archimedes painted the first pictures ever of science as applied wisdom for satisfying curiosity and making human lives easier and more tolerable in the vast and largely unknown Cosmos. “Science,” said the British scholar John Burnet, “is thinking about the world in the Greek way. That is why science has never existed except among people who have come under the influence of Greece” (Early Greek Philosophy, 3rd ed., 1930).

But in addition to science, the Greeks experimented with ways of living together in the polis. Athens practiced direct democracy for about 150 years. Despite the violent Christian conversion of the Greeks and despite a series of barbarian incursions and occupations of Hellas, the Greeks have almost a mythical continuity. The Minoans are relatives to the Myceneans and the Greeks of the Middle ages and those of modern times (Science, August 2, 2017).

Greek achievements made the Renaissance and, through the Renaissance, shaped America. It’s about time to repeat and renew our contacts with our original Greek intellectual ancestors.

Evaggelos Vallianatos, Ph.D., is a historian and ecological-political theorist. He studied zoology and history, Greek and European, at the University of Illinois and Wisconsin. He did postdoctoral studies in the history of science at Harvard. He worked on Capitol Hill and the US Environmental Protection Agency; taught at several universities, and authored hundreds of articles and several books, including Poison Spring (2014), The Antikythera Mechanism (2021), Freedom (2025) and Earth on Fire: Brewing Plagues and Climate Chaos in Our Backyards (World Scientific, 2026).

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