1 The Peloponnesian War, the Spanish Requirement and the Clash of Civilizations: An Application of Plato's Theaetetus

This paper challenges the notion of “civilization ” as focal to, and originative of, the problem of suffering in the world, a legacy that continues to betray its heritage in the third millennium of the Common Era. The current global crisis of terrorism is, on both sides of this confrontation, being posed as a war of “civilizations. ” Both sides, the terrorists and the current American administration and its allies, argue for the righteous, divinely-ordained nature of their cause and the demonic nature of their infidel enemy. Both legitimate their violences by claims of superior “civilization ” and both cite the god as in their “civilizational ” court. These hyper-religious and essentialist terms have not been rallied in the political arena of the world for some centuries. In fact, they find their precedent in the “Spanish Requirement ” of 1513. This was named the “requirement ” because the Spanish conquistadors were “required ” by royal law to read it to their indigenous victims, before they set about their wholesale slaughter and enslavement: We ask…that you acknowledge the Church as the ruler and superior of the whole world….But if you do not do this, and maliciously make delay in it…we shall powerfully enter into your country, and shal