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I quote from Pericles' Funeral Oration enough times that it makes sense for me to make a thread. [~431 BCE] (Someday maybe I'll even work through multiple different translations and compare them to each other, but for now, I'll work with what I got) https://t.co/QPoCToCNzz https://t.co/33TOFRAYKu
in the preamble paragraph our boy Perry orates elegantly about the intrinsic challenge of oration, and also elegantly glies through by deferring to the ancestors. (I'll now stop saying "elegantly" because the whole speech is elegant, so...) https://t.co/tF4PT4szAb
He continues to speak about the ancestors, reminding everyone that they are part of a great tradition, and that what we do is the carrying-on of a great tradition. clever, effective, powerful, useful. Help people situate themselves in history https://t.co/CqWnyB4ybo
the whole speech I feel is a great representation of abundance mindset IMO here he's saying "we are all benevolent kings who make excellent decisions and take great care of each other w/o need for bullshit, because we're motherfuckin' ATHENS, baby! greatest city of all time" https://t.co/IfxpdTeGXP
our city is open to the world foreigners are welcome to come and learn whatever they like. let them learn! they will not be able to copy what makes us excellent because our excellence is intrinsic to our virtue as men ❤️💪🏾🔥 abundance mindset in almost every sentence https://t.co/VbHY82O7dy
we are men of taste, we are lovers of the beautiful our strength lies not in cheap intellectual talk but in the knowledge we gain from preparing for action we do good to our neighbors not out of realpolitik BS but in confidence of freedom and frank and fearless spirit 👑 https://t.co/PyBvJXlex9
here he talks about the valor of dying for athens even men who were not perfect, if they chose to sacrifice their lives for the honor of athens, we honor them rest of the speech is about the nobility of sacrifice "to a man of spirit... cowardice is more bitter than death" https://t.co/oOmZgR6I9A
finally he bestows status upon the grieving, while being tender to their pain "the good fortune of others will too often remind you of the gladness that once lightened your hearts" your sons have gained their utmost honor the rest of us will struggle to emulate their greatness https://t.co/kXzzVtEVCt
That's it, IMO possibly the greatest speech ever given, maybe matched by Lincoln's Gettysburg Address you might dismiss it as nation-building fluff, but I think this sort of leadership is a critical if you want to rouse people to do great things https://t.co/Fb31dJuxTs
@visakanv the purpose of the internet is to highlight moments of real aliveness like these and increase their salience such that all the *right* cultural seeds are in the drinking water, ready to burst 'what always could have been' into being.
@visakanv because the alternative to these periods of rewarding this aliveness is decline, moral weakness, loss of purpose:> With his successors it was different... they ended by committing even the conduct of state affairs to the whims of the multitude.https://t.co/fFbbByjVy4
That's it, IMO possibly the greatest speech ever given, maybe matched by Lincoln's Gettysburg Address you might dismiss it as nation-building fluff, but I think this sort of leadership is a critical if you want to rouse people to do great things https://t.co/Fb31dJuxTs