Revisiting classics a reminder of dialogue of civilizations

In both the Greek and Chinese traditions, the classics don't preserve abstract theories that are detached from reality, but accumulated wisdom about how human beings should govern states, cultivate character, maintain social order, confront suffering and lead meaningful lives.

Classic works have often emerged in moments of social transformation and civilizational uncertainty. Plato wrote The Republic in the aftermath of political upheaval and the execution of his mentor Socrates, asking how justice and civic order might still be possible. Likewise, The Analects of Confucius emerged in an age of political fragmentation and moral disorder; Confucius' journeys were themselves attempts to seek workable forms of ethical and political life.

It is perhaps for this reason that civilizations often return to their classical traditions during periods of historic transition and renewed cultural confidence. According to the Chinese philosopher and classicist Liu Xiaofeng, the rise of successive generations of scholars dedicated to the study of the ancient classics has often accompanied periods of heightened reflection on a civilization's cultural inheritance and historical identity.

From the organization of Greek texts under the Hellenistic kingdoms to the Roman inheritance of Greek civilization, from the recovery of lost Greek and Latin manuscripts by scholars during the Renaissance period to the rise of German classical philology alongside the formation of modern states, broader historical renewal has always been accompanied by the reinterpretation of foundational texts.

China experienced comparable moments as well: major dynastic high points, including the Han (206 BC-220), Tang (618-907), and Qing (1644-1911) periods, were often marked by large-scale efforts to preserve, collate and reinterpret the classical canon. Such returns to the classics are not merely nostalgic gestures. Rather, societies undergoing historical change often look back at ancient foundational texts in search of continuity, legitimacy, and moral orientation.

The United States is another example. As a comparatively young nation, the intellectual elite there used to look up to Greece and Rome as sources of cultural continuity. At the University of Chicago, Robert Maynard Hutchins established a core curriculum in Western civilization centered on Greek and Roman classics, requiring students to engage with the works of writers such as Homer, Plato, Aristotle and Virgil alongside later European thinkers. Beneath the project lay the conviction that a modern society still requires a shared relationship with the foundational questions and texts of civilization.

Such efforts also point toward a deeper intellectual possibility. Contemporary political discourse often remains confined to immediate policy concerns, ideological categories and strategic competition. By returning to classical texts, scholars attempt to raise the level of discussion — from short-term political arguments toward the deeper philosophical questions underlying political life: justice, education, morality, order and human nature. The emphasis on philology, close reading and historical interpretation reflects the belief that classical works should not merely be cited for modern-day agendas, but encountered as living sources of thought capable of reshaping how contemporary societies understand themselves.

This broader perspective may also offer an alternative to some very influential theories of inevitable civilizational conflict. Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations" theory assumes that human beings are defined primarily by large civilizational blocs grounded in religion, culture and historical memory. For Plato and Aristotle, however, human beings stand out for their universal capacity to reason and the cultivation of excellence rather than civilizational membership alone. Confucian thought, too, understands the self through ethical relationships, social obligations and the cultivation of ren, or benevolence, within a network of family and ritual life. In different ways, both traditions imply that harmony does not require the elimination of differences, and that meaningful dialogue across civilizations remains possible because human beings share capacities for moral cultivation, rational inquiry and ethical life.

Seen in this light, the renewed interest in classical traditions may help move discussions beyond the assumption that civilizations encounter one another primarily through competition, ideology or power politics. By returning to the foundational texts through which societies first articulated their understandings of justice, order, morality and human flourishing, scholars may reopen the possibility of a deeper intellectual reciprocity — one in which civilizations meet not as rivals, but as participants in a shared human conversation.