Published August 16, 2024
The founding insight of tragic wisdom is that all are born to die. Herodotus tells a story that the Persian king Xerxes wept as he watched his magnificent army stride past him on its way to defeat and near destruction at Greek hands. The king couldn’t have known he would lose, but he knew that even the youngest, strongest, and most indomitable of his warriors would be dust in time. This is the poignant knowledge of what it means to be human that defines tragedy.
From the Greeks to modern times, the incontrovertible fact of human mortality marks the most sorrowful works of imagination.
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Algis Valiunas is a Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a contributing editor to The New Atlantis, a journal about the ethical, political, and social implications of modern science technology.
