Politico: Why the White House Is Reading Greek History

The subject was America’s rivalry with China, cast through the lens of ancient Greece. The 77-year-old Allison is the author of a recent book based on the writings of Thucydides, the ancient historian famous for his epic chronicle of the Peloponnesian War between the Greek states of Athens and Sparta. Allison cites the Greek scholar’s summation of why the two powers fought: “What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.” He warns that the same dynamic could drive this century’s rising empire, China, and the United States into a war neither wants. Allison calls this the “Thucydides Trap,” and it’s a question haunting some very important people in the Trump administration, particularly as Chinese officials arrive Wednesday for “diplomatic and security dialogue” talks between Washington and Beijing designed, in large part, to avoid conflict between the world’s two strongest nations. [...]

But Trump might approve of the ancient Greek scholar’s sway over his senior strategists. Thucydides is considered a father of the “realist” school of international relations, which holds that nations act out of pragmatic self-interest with little regard for ideology, values or morality. “He was the founder of realpolitik,” Allison says. This view is distilled in the famous Melian Dialogue, a set of surrender talks that feature the cold-eyed conclusion that right and wrong means nothing in the face of raw strength. “In the real world, the strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must,” concludes an Athenian ambassador—a Trumpian statement two and a half millennia before The Donald’s time. [...]

A U.S. military conflict with China would be a global disaster. But while Allison believes it is entirely possible, he does not call it inevitable. His book identifies 16 historical case studies in which an established power like Sparta (or the United States) was confronted with a fast-rising rival like Athens (or China). Twelve of those cases led to war. Four were resolved peacefully. Allison hopes that readers—including officials in the Trump administration—can draw from the latter examples. “I am writing this history to help people not make mistakes,” he says.

read the article 

The School of Life: How to Narrate Your Life Story

The difference between despair and hope often boils down to different ways of telling stories from the same set of facts. Some of the art of living means learning how to tell the story of our lives back to ourselves.

ArchDaily: 13 Tragically Demolished Buildings that Depict Our Ever-Changing Attitudes Toward Architecture

Immortalized through photographs, drawings, and stories, buildings that have been demolished or completely renovated exist in the realm known as “lost architecture.” Either for economic or aesthetic reasons, the old gets torn down for the new, often to the disdain of community members and architects. But demolished buildings tell a story about the ever-changing politics of preservation—and often, they tell it far better than buildings that were actually preserved ever could. As the architectural landscape continues to change around us, it is important to recognize our past, even if its traces have been eliminated from the physical world.

read the article and see the photos 

The Conversation: Does hookup culture differ on Catholic campuses?

On the very Catholic campuses, fewer than 30 percent of students hooked up. As one student put it, their school was “not like going to a state school because we don’t have parties here.” Instead, these schools were more like evangelical colleges, with hardly any hooking up. Even though the schools did not require an abstinence pledge, the Catholicism, to use Mason’s term, “resonated” throughout the campus bound students together in a common opposition to hooking up.On mostly Catholic campuses, 55 percent of students hooked up, a number that is lower than the 70 percent of campuses in general but also higher than 30 percent of very Catholic schools. While the Catholic culture of these campuses was not strong enough to oppose hooking up, it was strong enough to transform it. The “friendly” Catholic culture changed hooking up from something with “no-strings-attached” to “a way into relationships.” A majority of students hooked up because relationships made hooking up seem ok. As one student said, “Hooking up is just a way to get there.” [...]

While one might expect somewhat Catholic campuses to have the highest rates of hooking up, this was not the case. Fewer than half of the students – 45 percent – hooked up. Not quite as low as the 30 percent on very Catholic campuses, but 10 percent lower than on mostly Catholic campuses. [...]

Overall, fewer students hooked up on Catholic campuses than on campuses in general. However, it wasn’t simply that a more Catholic culture meant less hooking up. It was just that a Catholic culture had an impact on the ways in which students thought about hooking up.

read the article 

Business Insider: Mesmerizing maps show the global flow of refugees over the last 15 years

Earth TimeLapse, an interactive platform created by Carnegie Mellon University and Robert Muggah, global security expert and research director at the Igarapé Institute, details over a 16-year span from 2000 to 2015 where migrants are leaving and arriving.

Data comes from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Each red dot represents 17 refugees arriving in a country, while yellow dots represent refugees leaving their home country behind.

see the maps