Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Number 2 | Page 109
and social life in the US: exposure to different perspectives, and not just
policy positions, but also the emotional, human impact of policy decisions.
Theater brought the decisions taken by the Athenian voting elite—and
their consequences—to life before the eyes of the decision-makers. What
better way to govern than with a clear sense of the human consequences of
political decisions?
In today’s divided world, politics desperately need more humanization. A first
step might be to supplement the “might makes right” Melian Dialogue with
Euripides’s The Trojan Women in the introductory international relations
curriculum. Instead of encouraging future foreign policy leaders to dominate
at all costs, why not urge them to consider the human consequences of their
actions, and to empathize with the victims of previous “victories.” In the
US, theater specifically and the arts generally tend to inhabit a different
sphere from politics and foreign policy. The Athenians understood that the
empathic experience of having diverse perspectives, including those of the
victims of their actions, played out before them was essential to a healthy
democracy. We could learn a lesson from them, and integrate empathy, as
experienced through theater and the arts into policymaking. To get started,
we might put down our phones, get off social media, and go to the theater.
References
Bosworth, A. B. (����) The Humanitarian Aspect of the Melian Dialogue. The
Journal of Hellenic Studies ���: ��–��.
Fox News. (����) Protestors storm ‘Julius Caesar’ performance again. Fox
News.
(Accessed � July ����)
Marks, Peter. (����) Denied visas, Syrian refugees still get a platform. The
Washington Post, September ��.
Maxwell, Dominic. (����) Theatre: Queens of Syria, Young Vic, SE�. The
Times, July �.
Meineck, Peter. (����) Theotocracy. New York, NY: Routledge.
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