Blood Guilt and Ballot Boxes: The Oresteia in America | A Lecture by Spencer Klavan
Release Date: 02/10/2026
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info_outlineIn his first lecture at Ralston College, Spencer Klavan offers a reading of Aeschylus’ Oresteia that seeks to make sense of the American political landscape. The Furies exemplify the impersonal arithmetic of blood and counter-blood, while the younger gods introduce personal claims, partiality, and the integrity of the individual. When these powers collide with a single human being, we enter into a tragic cycle that demands a payment which only deepens the debt. Resolution is brought about by Athena and the city that bears her name. Deliberative justice creates a forum in which opposing claims can be weighed without the need for more bloodshed. Vengeance and wrath are transmuted into law that enable the city to live with its past, rather than being ruled by it. Klavan reminds us that scapegoating increases when deliberation is foregone, leaving us prone to ritual violence.
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Authors and Works Mentioned in this Episode:
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Plato’s Euthyphro
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Homer’s Iliad
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Aeschylus’ Oresteia
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The Code of Hammurabi
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Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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Herodotus
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Aristotle’s Poetics
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The Book of Exodus
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Shakespeare’s Hamlet
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Abraham Lincoln
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Ken Burns’ The Civil War
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Palace of Knossos
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The Acropolis and Parthenon of Athens
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The Theatre of Dionysus
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Barbara Fields
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Eddie Izzard
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Neil Gaiman’s the Sandman