American Thinker

by Christopher Chantrill

    Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

    On October 7, 2026, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stood in front of what’s left of the Parthenon in Athens -- after the Brits helped themselves to the Elgin Marbles -- and gave a speech as the sun set, as it has done every day since the dawn of time, on the Acropolis.

    The State Department labeled his speech as “Secretary Rubio’s Remarks from the Acropolis,” but I experienced the speech as one of the most important given by a U.S. politician, or anyone, in our lifetimes.

    Marco told the story of America, from its origins in classical Greece up to the present, and then he delivered a challenge for the future.

    Too often these days, we build downwards. We design our standards to ensure no one will lose; we preoccupy ourselves more with the comfort of the worst than the potential of the best. We hold the most exceptional things among us hostage to the average, the ordinary, the mediocre.

    He’s talking about you, dear liberal friends, and he is politely telling you that you are outta here. Because:

    The men who made the Parthenon, they built upwards. They held that the highest and most noble aspiration in life was to surpass all others, to strive to be the best in all things.

    What’s it all about, Alfie  I’m glad you asked. We are talking here about the notion of “thumos.” Rubio:

    The thumos, as the ancient Greeks called it -- the fire of passion, strength, courage, pride -- is the heart of great civilization. And without it  Without it, nations lose their will to fight, the will to strive, the will to survive.

    Never mind. Let’s ask Grok to “discuss Nietzsche’s will to power with Greek thumos.” You should read the whole thing. But here is the summary at the end.

•     Thumos wants to be seen as worthy and is injured by contempt.
•     Will to power wants to become more and is injured by stagnation.
•     Plato’s project is to yoke spirit to reason for the sake of justice.
•     Nietzsche’s project is to free spiritedness from the moral interpretation that calls it evil, without returning to mere brutality.

    Secretary Rubio! I’m with you and Fritzi and self-overcoming! Liberals  You can take your stagnation and put it where the Sun don’t shine.

    Now what would you think is the best way to stagnate in the “average, the ordinary, the mediocre”  Exactly: government bureaucracy and the tyranny of experts. As Martin Gurri wrote at the NY Post last week:

    The United States holds elections for president and Congress, but it’s actually run by a vast army of bureaucrats and regulators who the politicians need to fulfill their ambitions.

    Now, let’s see. What would be the biggest threat, right now, to the bureaucrats and experts of the laptop class, the “monster at the center of a dark and unwholesome labyrinth”

    You got it: Artificial Intelligence.

    No wonder Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a veritable Medusa lurking in the dark labyrinth of Congress, is pushing out endless X-posts on the horrors of AI and the need to surrender it to the experts.

    This new age of masculine thumos celebrating Greek life is all very well, but whatabout helpless victims like Jane Doe of the Cornell 7  It turns out that the Greeks had a feminine version. I asked Grok about it. It said Thumos comes in two versions, hard and soft:

    A soft thumos (pliant, yielding, tender) supports feminine-coded traits: gentleness, affection, nurturance, protective care within the household (oikos), moderation (sōphrosynē), shame/modesty, and malleability to influence.

    Think George Eliot’s Dinah Morris in Adam Bede.

    I think that Jane Doe got herself on the wrong side of the shame/modesty binary, and that’s why she wants to blame the frat boys for her Scarlet Letter.

    Experts agree that it was sexist of Secretary Rubio not to balance his hard Nietzschean description of thumos with something softer and more feminine. He could, no doubt, have nuked the lefty victimhood narrative not just into orbit, but “to the Moon, Alice.” I suggest that Sec. Rubio give his next speech around the corner from the Parthenon at the Erechtheion, which features six sculpted marble maidens -- covered in decent drapery -- on its columns.

    Do you notice something  Our liberal friends, over the decades, have shown us that they want to invert the Greek concept of thumos. They want to feminize men and girlboss women, bless their hearts.

    I’m with Marco. Let’s reestablish the masculine thumos of “passion, fire, strength, courage, pride.” And let’s help our women friends with the feminine thumos of “gentleness, affection, nurturance, protective care.”

    Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill blogs at The Commoner Manifesto and runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.