Teach comp course - Power over People-- Classical and Modern Political Theory

This course contrasts two conflicting views that have long shaped political theory and practiceidealism and realism. The debate between them starts with the origins of philosophy in ancient India and Greece through the 20th centurys most extreme examples of idealism and realismGandhi and Hitler. You also examine Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Marx, and Freud. These exceptional thinkers sculpted, piece by piece, Western political thought from its inception in 5th-century (B.C.) Athens. In so doing, they asked: * What is the correct relationship of the individual to society? * What is the connection between individual freedom and social and political authority? * Are human beings fundamentally equal or unequal? Course Lecture Titles 1. The Hindu Vision of Life 2. Thucydides and The Peloponnesian War 3. Law and Rule in Sophocles' Antigone 4. Socrates and the Socratic Quest 5. PlatoIdealism and Power, Part I 6. PlatoIdealism and Power, Part II 7. Aristotle's Critique of Plato's Republic 8. Machiavelli's Theory of Power Politics 9. Rousseau's Theory of Human Nature and Society 10. Marx's Critique of Capitalism and the Solution of Communism 11. Freud's Theory of Human Nature and Civilization 12. Thoreau's Theory of Civil Disobedience 13. Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor 14. The Idea of Anarchism and the Example of Emma Goldman 15. Hitler's Use of Power 16. Gandhi's Use of Power