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Western Culture versus Ancient Greek Freedom and Equality

led by, Kendall Ryan Sharp, PhD

Join us during our Spring Liberal Arts Discussion Series

A collaboration with

The University of Chicago Graham School
hosting presentations and discussions of original research

There is a fundamental tension within the so-called “Western tradition” about what to do with the ancient Greek ideas of freedom and equality. To Americans, these ideas are too familiar for us to realize how rarely they have been held as values in the West. Until 1776 in North America, Western Europe had practically no use for them. Freedom and equality did arise among the city-states of northern Italy between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, but the governments of Western Europe stomped them out. Freedom and equality sat on bookshelves and in classrooms until the American Founders dusted them off and based on them both the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Far from being essentially Western ideas, until the end of the Second World War, most Western governments viewed freedom and equality as existential threats. Come for a discussion that may rearrange your conceptual scheme about these very familiar ideas!

Kendall Sharp is the Cyril O. Houle Chair of the Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults at The University of Chicago Graham School of Continuing Studies. He earned his doctorate from the Committee on Social Thought at The University of Chicago, and then was Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Western Ontario before returning to Chicago. A native of Arkansas, he has also taught at DePaul University and the University of Illinois at Chicago.