An ancient Greek Dramatist (526 B.C.- 456 B.C.) whose works like Agamemnon are drawn on for thinking about tragedy. The tragic ethos that is used by authors like Judith Butler, Michael Dillon, and others is used to discount the often accepted view that violence and atrocity can be pinned on particular people or particular human decisions. Instead, tragic events are evaluated as products of systems and global trends that exceed any one individual or group of individuals. This political position at least limits the finger pointing that is often counterproductive in determining why, for instance, people would be motivated to blow up buildings or why people would be desperate or angry enough to die for a particular cause. Using a tragic view of politics can make it possible to ask these more systemic questions that get lost in the shuffle of revenge and blame.

In The Fray Contributor