Pathei Mathos: What I Relearned the Last 12 Months

What doesn’t kill me, makes me sadder.

by Victor Davis Hanson // PJMedia

Photo via PJMedia
Photo via PJMedia

Greek tragedy often ends with a succession of personal disasters that doom an Oedipus or Ajax — apparently part of a divinely inspired nemesis (retribution) to pay back personal hubris (overweening pride).

The latter flaw seems to grow and grow until fate strikes the arrogant at the most opportune but still unlikely moment: a Nixon sweeping to a landslide victory in 1972, only to self-destruct over the cover-up of a two-bit, needless burglary. It apparently at last brought out his long-held character shortcoming (hamartia), theretofore seemingly either not too serious or at least adroitly managed.

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