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♪ (music) ♪
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Live from the University of Texas
at Austin
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The Liberal Arts Development
Studio,
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and the College of Liberal
Arts, present:
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Introduction to Human Dimensions of
Organizations.
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And now, here is your professor,
Doctor Art Markman.
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Hey, everybody, it is Monday, it's our
first Monday together,
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and we have folks in the studio again,
say "hello," everybody.
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Students off camera: Hello!
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Alright, hope you could hear that
at home.
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Yeah, so I'm excited to be here,
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and hope that the Longhorn loss on
Saturday didn't drag the weekend
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down for too many people.
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But, what we're going to do today is we're
gonna shift disciplines a little bit.
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So, if you think about where we were last
class,
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we were talking about sociology
and anthropology,
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we were talking about the kinds of
relationships that people engage in,
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we talked a little bit about the content
there, the four types of relationships,
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we talked about methodology,
how in the world would you study this,
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and then we talked about practice,
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that is, what is the influence of these
kinds of relationships
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on the way that people negotiate
with each other.
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So we went through that in the field of
a social science,
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and now we're gonna shift and
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we're going to move
to one of the humanities.
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In particular, we're going to talk about
history.
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And, in fact, history is going to make up
several of the next lectures.
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So today, we're going to talk about some
ancient history,
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going back to ancient Greece.
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Then next class, we're going to shift to
something more modern,
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go to the 1970's, where we're going to
talk a little bit about Nixon,
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and his ability to open up a relationship
with China,
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and then, the following week, actually
on the following Wednesday,
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we're going to have a special guest in
class. An actual, live historian,
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who's going to talk a little bit about
what it means
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to do research in history.
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And so, the focus today and on
Wednesday is going to be
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on the content and practice associated
with these episodes from history.
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And then, we'll have one special class
where we'll talk about methodology
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in history.
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So that's kind of where things are going
to be going.
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We're going to focus today a little bit
on the concept of power,
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and how that relates to negotiation.
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And we're going to start by thinking
about the concept of power
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by actually looking at a negotiation back
from Ancient Greece.
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So we're going to talk about what happens
when you can dictate the terms,
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because you are negotiating from a
position of extreme strength and power.
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We'll focus on the Melian Dialogue,
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which was written as part of the history
of the Peloponnesian War
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by, it was written by Thucydides.
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And then we'll actually ask the question:
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So, should the powerful folks always
win?
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Should they always get what they want?
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And what does that mean?
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And that'll actually touch on some of the
ethical issues associated
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with using your power.
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And along the way, I'm going to have to
show you a map.
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So, there's a cool map utility
we've got here,
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so you're going to get to see me
fumble with technology
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in yet a new way this class.
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So, to get started, I want you all to
think for a moment -- in fact,
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I'm going to give you ten or fifteen
seconds to write this down
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for yourself --
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I want you to ask yourself:
What is power?
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So take a moment, and just write
this down.
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If you hear about the concept of power,
what exactly does that mean?
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(pause)
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This, by the way, is not your quiz,
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that'll come later, this is just
something to write down.
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And after you've thought a little bit
about the concept of power,
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I want you to also think a little bit
about negotation.
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So remember, we talked about this idea of
negotiation being:
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we've got conflicting goals, we've got two
parties or sometimes more parties,
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but let's just think about two
different parties working together,
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they have conflicting goals,
they are negotiating in order
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to try to figure out who's going to get
what they want in the course
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of achieving those goals.
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So now I want you to think for a second,
having written down your
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definition of power,
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I want you to write down: what does power
allow you to do when you're negotiating?
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(pause)
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Take a couple of seconds to do that.
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(pause)
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You can even chat with each other about
this on the chat facility, if you want.
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But the reason I want you to do this
is because whenever we're teaching
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anything, one of the things that we're
trying to do is to have you
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actually make your own bets on things,
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that is, to really think about:
"Well, what do I know already?"
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The issue isn't to be right or to wrong.
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It's that we want to influence the way
that you're thinking about things
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and so the best way to do that is, for us
to pull that up from your memory
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so that it's a concept that active
and ready for you to play with.
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And then we can manipulate that
concept a little bit.
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So when I ask these kinds of questions,
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it's really just to get you thinking
about these kinds of concepts.
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So, if we think about the notion
of what is power,
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let's actually dive into this by asking:
"Well, what can you do with power?"
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So, power could be physical strength,
but it need not be physical strength,
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power can also be, can also involve,
having control over resources,
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because a lot of what power is all about
is the ability to control an outcome.
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So, if you think about life, anytime
you engage in an action,
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there is the influence of the
circumstance of what's going on,
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and then there's the influence over what
you bring to the table:
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your physical attributes, your mental
attributes, your resources.
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And so, think about it like this.
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To the degree that you can control
what's going to happen next,
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rather than the circumstances controlling
what's going to happen next,
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you have a degree of power.
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And, to the extent that the circumstance
is controlling what's going on,
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then the circumstance has the power,
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and you really don't.
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And so, the circumstance could be
the physical situation, right,
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if you're caught in a tidal wave,
then it's a physical circumstance
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that has overpowered you.
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But, you might also be
in a social environment,
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in which someone else has physical
strength, or resources, or something else.
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And that gives them the power.
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So, to the extent that the situation is
governing what's going on,
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you are relatively powerless.
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And, to the extent that you can actually
influence what's going to happen,
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you have some degree of power.
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And, the factors that create that power
depend on the nature of the circumstance.
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If you're playing defensive line for the
Longhorns,
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then it is physical strength that guides
power,
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and a little bit of mental understanding
of what's going on in the game.
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If you are negotiating with someone
over a business deal,
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then your physical strength may not
matter so much,
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but your economic strength
might matter.
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And, of course, as you read in the
Melian Dialogue,
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we had Athens who was a military
power,
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so they had a tremendous amount of
military strength that they were
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bringing to bear, that enabled them to
influence outcomes.
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And so, when you have a degree of power,
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one of the things that that enables you to
do in a negotiation
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is to begin to control that outcome.
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Now, in some negotiations,
one side has most or all of the power,
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in which case, they have an opportunity
to really dictate
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everything that's going to go on.
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In many negotiations, of course, each
party has some source of power,
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that they will bring to bear on
the negotiation.
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So, for example, if you think about
labor negotiations for a second.
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You have the employer,
who has a certain amount of power,
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because they get to decide how much
they'd like to pay people,
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what resources they're going to bring
to that employment situation.
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But if you have a labor negotiation,
let's say with a union,
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or some kind of collective bargaining,
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then the employees also have some
potential power,
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because they might choose not to come
to work, or to slow things down at work.
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And so, each side is exerting it's power
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in order to try to come to
some accommodation,
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because presumably the employer wants
to pay as little as possible,
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in order to get the work they want
out of people.
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While the employees would like
to make as much as they can.
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And, of course, that's a bit of an
over-simplification of
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the way that labor negotiations work,
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but you have a conflict of interest,
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and different sides have different
amounts of power.
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And, in fact, if you think about trying
to development a certain amount of power
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in a negotiation context
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-- one of the reasons that unions
developed in the first place --
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is because when people negotiated as
individuals against a big company
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it's often very difficult for the
individual to have any power at all,
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because if that person chooses not to
come to work,
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there might be plenty of other
people who are willing to come in.
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And it is that collection of individuals
that provides more power
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to the folks on the
employment side,
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and that gives them a little bit more
opportunity to try to control the outcome.
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So again, this concept of power is that:
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whatever the circumstance is, it is
the ability to have some amount of
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control over the situation,
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rather than having the situation and the
people in it having some degree
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of control over you.
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So that's really where we're
going with this.
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And, by the way, as we get into the
Melian Dialogue,
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what I want you to be thinking about
is -- a lot of times we're going to
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use terms, and I'm going to seemingly
belabor the point here,
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where I'm going to, you know,
dig into what some of these terms mean --
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and part of the reason for doing that is
because a lot of times
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we throw words around without
necessarily really thinking deeply
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about what influence they have.
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The more that you understand where
these terms come from,
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and what they mean,
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the better able you're going to be
to manipulate those when
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you're in a situation in which
you have to influence what's happening.
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Alright lets dive into the Melian Dialogue
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So, the Melian Dialogue involves
the island of Melos,
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and the Melian Dialogue happened on the
island of Melos between
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Athens and the Melians.
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And this was an invent that was
laid out by Thucydides.
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And Thucydides was an ancient Greek
historian,
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so he was born about 460 BCE
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-- and remember the years as we get up
to the start of the common era
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will count downward until we get to zero,
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and then we'll move up to the common era
dates that,
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we're in 2019 now, as I'm taping this --
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So, he was born about 460,
and of course oddly enough
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people didn't really have good birth
certificates back then,
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so we just know he was born
in that vicinity.
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And he died sometime after 404.
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He was the son of a wealthy Athenian,
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and, of course, if you go back to ancient
Greece or ancient Rome,
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a lot of what we know about that era
tends to be stuff that comes from
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people who had some degree of wealth.
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Unfortunately, we don't learn a lot
about the people who are
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sort of the common folks,
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because they didn't necessarily have
access to the ability
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to write a history of things.
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A lot of what we learn about the daily
life of the more common folks
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during these eras comes from
archaeological digs,
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in which we're able to look at housing
and what people ate,
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and things like that.
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There isn't as much of a written record.
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So we tend to get records from wealthy
folks and people who
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played significant roles during
that period of history.
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So, what we have is Thucydides
who wrote a history of
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the Peloponnesian War.
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He was a general during the war, so
played a pretty prominent role,
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got that generalship in part because
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he was already part of the wealthy
class in Athens.
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And after the war was over, he wrote
a history of the war that
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provides a tremendous amount about
what we know now about
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the Peloponnesian War.
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And so, what in the world is the
Peloponnesian War?
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Well, it is a conflict between two
nation-states:
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Athens and Sparta.
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And they differed in a variety of ways,
and in particular,
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they differed sort of politically and
in their overall orientation
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towards thinking about life.
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So Sparta was a monarchy, so they
had a king.
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They were fairly conservative,
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meaning that they were
resistant to cultural change.
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They really wanted to keep things
relatively the same as they had been
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for many years.
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And so, they represented one pole of
society in the area around Greece.
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And then there was Athens.
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And Athens was a second nation-state.
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This was a democracy, so there was
actually more power given to the people.
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And, Athens was a much more innovative
society.
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They really were interested in innovation
in a variety of ways:
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innovation politically, innovation in
terms of invention and technology,
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and so it was a much more open
and free-flowing society.
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And, you know, often we see conflicts
that occur between groups that are
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relatively more open, and groups that are
relatively more traditional
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because that creates a significant
conflict of interest.
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And, at some point, when a conflict
of interest breaks down,
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and so you try to negotiate,
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whenever you have, you know,
a conflict between nation-states,
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one of the things that happens is you
often start by trying to negotiate,
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and when negotiations break down,
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you need some other mode of
resolving a conflict.
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And, of course, in the second-third and
the middle-third of this class,
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we're going to talk a lot about
different modes of conflict resolution.
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But one of them we're probably
not going to spend a ton of time on,
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is open warfare.
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And that's something that happens
between nations
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where you can't resolve the conflict,
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so what do you end up doing?
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You end up going to war and bringing
your military strength to bear on this.
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So the conflict between Sparta and Athens
boils over and turns into a war,
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the Peloponnesian War began in
431 BCE,
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and the first phase of the war
lasts for ten years.
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And I want you to think for a moment
about this.
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You know, when you think about wars
in the modern era,
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many of the wars that we hear about
are really not that long, right?
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You know, World War One, the US
is involved in this for three years.
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World War Two, the United States
is involved, you know, for five years.
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And these are relatively short, and these
feel like long wars to us,
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and yet they really were
much shorter than something
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like the Peloponnesian war,
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in part, of course, because you don't
have airplanes
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that can get around the world in a day.
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And so, when someone's going to go to war,
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they're going to have to sail to
get there.
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And, so, I'll show you a map in a
few moments of the area,
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but in order to get from one place
to another,
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you're hopping on a boat.
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So everything takes a fair amount of time,
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and there's a lot of seige warfare,
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where you surround a place for a while,
try to starve people out.
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So, warfare takes place over a long
period of time.
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The Peloponnesian War no exception
to that.
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So, the first phase of the war about ten
years long.
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And it's really Athens is the one who's
leading here,
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they're the ones who are having the
primary success.
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And then, then there was 'half-time',
there was a seven-year truce
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where they tried to work things out
via negotiation,
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and so, and towards the end of
that seven-year truce is when
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we're going to pick up the story
with the conquest of Melos,
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which happened in 416 BCE.
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And you'll notice that this is really
towards the end of 'half-time',
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and then the war becomes
a kind of hot war again,
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an open war, starting in
let's see, it's 414.
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And it lasts another ten years,
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and the second phase of the war favors
Sparta.
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And this is going to become
important,
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so what I want you to
remember here is:
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first half of the war, Athens is largely
the one who's the victor,
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then there's the truce,
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then in the second phase we're going
to see that Sparta ends up
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having a better time of it
in the second half of the war.
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So, hold onto that,
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because that's going to become important
as we understand
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the implications of the Melian Dialogue.
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Alright, so before we go to the map here,
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I just want to tell you a little bit
about the siege of Melos.
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So, the Siege of Melos, 416 BCE,
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it's the tail-end of this
half-time period,
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what was called the Peace
of Nicias.
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Athens wants Melos.
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So, so just because Athens and
Sparta aren't directly in conflict
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doesn't mean that they're not
strategically trying to do things.
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So, you know, as we look
at the map --
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actually, why don't we go to the map
here, can we do this? Let's see --
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Hopefully this'll work. If we go to
our map -- there we go!
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We got Athens up here, so, this blue area
here is the Mediterranean Sea.
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So, if you think of your world map
for a second,
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the Mediterranean, you've got southern
Europe and northern Africa,
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you've got a fairly large body of water,
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hopefully you've had a chance to look
at that, maybe even visited
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some of these places.
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If we look at the map here, Athens is in
the southern part of Greece,
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which is just a little bit east of where
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-- so Greece, of course, a little bit
east of where Italy is today,
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where modern Italy is --
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Greece was one of the real world
centers at this point.
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We've got Athens, and then Melos is
actually way down here.
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So, if you've actually been to Athens
or been to this area of the world,
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you know there's a lot of islands
around there and,
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these days, kind of a a great place to
spend a vacation, but
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basically and Sparta, which is not
really on the map, is sort of up here,
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a little bit east of Athens.
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And so basically, Athens wants
to control the seas.
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And the way that Athens is going to
control the seas,
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is by having outposts on the
variety of islands
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that are associated with this area.
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And so, they want to really conquer
the area, or at least,
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have control over it.
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So, I'm drawing here.
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So they're going to go down to Melos
and really try to see what they can do.
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So what they did was, they packed up
a force of about three-thousand soldiers,
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a pretty significant number of people,
particularly when you realize
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that you're going to have to
bring them on boats from
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Athens all the way down to Melos.
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And their aim was to bring
a show of force.
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So they were showing their
military power.
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You know, Melos is a small place,
you can see it's kind of a
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tiny island, not going to have
three-thousand soldiers.
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And so, Athens is bringing a superior
military force,
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and the aim is to negotiate
with the Melians,
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and that's where we pick up the
Melian Dialogue.
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So that's kind of setting the stage
for where we are.
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Alright, so what's going to happen?
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Okay, the Melian Dialogue.
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The Athenians come, and they want
to present a case
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to the entire population of Melos,
that's their strategy.
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And the idea here is several-fold.
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The first, of course, is that, as I
mentioned, Athens is a democracy.
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And so, beacuse they're a democracy,
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because they believe that people
have the opportunity
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to control their destiny,
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they want to actually give a presentation
to all the people
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in the hope that the people will vote.
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Now, of course, there's two reasons
for them to want to do this.
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One: Is that it's philosophically
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related to what it is that they're
trying to accomplish.
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But also, honestly, if you're an
individual, and you see
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a whole bunch of boats out to sea
that you know are filled
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with soldiers, and you're
an individual.
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Are you really, as you look at this,
thinking to yourself:
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"Yeah, our best strategy is going to
be to stand up to you."
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As individuals, you're going to feel quite
a bit of fear, I think,
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in that moment.
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And so, I think that one of the other
reasons that the Athenians
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wanted to present the case to everyone,
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was basically to try and scare the
general population,
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with the hope that these individuals
would decide that
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they wanted to just give in to
whatever the Athenians wanted.
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Now, the Melians, they had a
different idea.
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What they wanted was this negotiation
to be done by a small number of leaders.
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So they wanted the leadership of Melos
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to sit down with the leadership of
the Athenian delegation,
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and for them to hash it out.
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And there are again two reasons for this.
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One: Because from a leadership standpoint,
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Melos is an independent group. They are
an independent island.
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They are not aligned either with Athens
or Sparta,
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and their government structure
involved a fairly small number
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of people who governed.
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And so, they wanted their
government structure,
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the people who had the political power
in Melos,
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to be the ones who actually engaged
in that negotiation.
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And they wanted to do that with
the people from Athens
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who were authorized to make a decision.
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And part of that, of course, is just that
they wanted a negotiation
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that fit with the way that they
governed their own island.
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But the other thing is,
the Melians were aware of the fact
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that the common person on the
island of Melos
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looking out over the sea, and seeing this
superior military force,
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they were aware of the influence
that that was going to have on everyone.
-
And so, they wanted to really have a
smaller number of people
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involved in this negotiation who would
be willing to create a force
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that might stand up to the Athenians.
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So, you know, if there's some
possibility that you're going to
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end up in a heated battle with
a superior force,
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it's going to be very hard to get
people to want to do that
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if everyone is involved
in that decision,
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because many of the people who
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are going to make that decision
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are not really going to be the ones
who have to go to war.
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And many of the ones who see themselves
as having to go to war
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against this superior force
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are the ones who might actually
not want to vote for that.
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And so, you know, there's a reason why
the Melians might actually want
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to bring just their leadership
to that situation.
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So, ultimately the Melians get
what they want on this.
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They actually have the opportunity
for a small number of Melians
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to negotiate with the Athenian
leadership.
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Now, when they get into this
negotiation,
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and, if you've read this,
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you're getting an overview of that way
that this negotiation went,
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what you mind is that Athens is
primarily focused on their power.
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After all, they've amassed three-thousand
soldiers on boats
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to come and sit off the coast
of Melos.
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And so they, on purpose, have brought
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a display of force that should be
overwhelming to the Melians,
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and their view is that should open
and close the negotiation.
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And so, they come in
and basically say:
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"Look, we want to take you over.
So come, let us take over
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the island of Melos, install our own
government here, and
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you can be now part of the nation-state
of Athens."
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And they really aren't particularly
interested in negotiating
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in any other way, because they know
that when push comes to shove,
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they can come and take over the island,
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if they want to, militarily,
and impose their own government.
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And so they'd rather just have the Melians
willingly invite them onto the island.