Rubio’s speech: You can’t be grateful for what you can’t name

Published 6:00 am Sunday, October 25, 2026

Earlier this month, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio gave a magnificent sunset speech in Athens, Greece, with the ancient ruins of the Acropolis in the background.

Rubio described the debt the United States – and Western civilization as a whole – owes to the ideas and example of the ancient Greeks.

According to Rubio, the freedom and prosperity that we enjoy today, unprecedented in human history, are an inheritance, not an accident. Generations from a multitude of cultural backgrounds have built upon that inheritance to bring us a civilization we increasingly take for granted.

From my perspective as an educator, this inheritance must be taught on purpose, and that is the work not only of great speeches but of schools.

The ancient Greek city states were, Rubio reminded us, the cradle of democracy and of the philosophical traditions that paved the way for Christianity’s triumphant emergence.

And it was, in part, the Greek spirit of exploration that informed the expansion of democracy, the scientific revolution, and the rule of law.

Email newsletter signup

“Here, in Athens, we found the first full realization of all the essential traits that would come to define the West,” Rubio explained. “Fierce individuality and relentless ambition; daring exploration and invention; a yearning for discovery, for adventure, risk and glory. An insatiable curiosity about the world … a hunger to know the mysteries of nature and grasp the secrets of the cosmos.”

Of course, our civilizational inheritance involves influences beyond Greece. Rubio also acknowledged the influence of ancient Rome, especially the Roman tradition of republican government and civil law and noted the role of Christianity in shaping the unique culture of the West.

Historian Wilfred McClay, commenting on Rubio’s speech for the Wall Street Journal, referenced the three great pillars of Western civilization as Greece, Rome, and Jerusalem, representing the moral and theological traditions of Judaism and Christianity.

It was Jerusalem, McClay argued, that affirmed the dignity of every person, the root of human rights and a premise of republican self-government.

This inheritance, sketched by Rubio and colored in more fully by McClay, is increasingly taken for granted by young Americans and Europeans, who enjoy freedom, opportunity, and prosperity without knowing their sources. You can’t be grateful for, or even appropriately critical of, things you cannot name. Gratitude and critique come from the same knowledge of the world around you.

And this is a problem for schools.

The best strategy for schools to effectively pass down knowledge of this political, economic, and cultural inheritance is to return to classical sources and techniques of education. Schools should engage students with the Great Books, the works that made the modern world, and invite them into the great conversation, going on since the time of the ancient Greeks, about what it means to live a flourishing life. Explicitly make your goal the formation of students’ character.

None of this means blind acceptance of the world as it is, or a refusal to reform it. To the contrary, empowering students with a deep knowledge of the past, and how it shapes the contemporary world, not only fosters appreciation on the part of students, but also effectively equips them to critique both past and present.

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., is the quintessential example here. King remade America precisely by recalling its foundational ideals and aspirations. In “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” King cited Socrates, Augustine and Aquinas, the Hebrew prophets, and the Declaration of Independence. He provided a model of Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem calling America back to its highest ideals.

Another useful tool for educators is the Phoenix Declaration, a vision of a renewed American educational system released in 2025 and signed by an array of public leaders, individuals (including Wildred McClay), and institutions.

I was honored to serve on the drafting committee of the Phoenix Declaration and believe it provides a compelling roadmap for schools to both preserve the kind of civilizational inheritance described by Secretary Rubio and equip students with the knowledge and skills to continue calling our civilization back to its highest ideals when we fail.

Any school can readily adopt some of the Phoenix Declaration’s key recommendations, including asking students to read primary sources, teaching American founding documents alongside examples of how we’ve failed to live up to their ideals, and helping students trace modern liberties back to their historical and philosophical origins.

I encourage you to read Rubio’s speech in full. You don’t have to agree with some of his statements about the current administration’s policies to appreciate his overarching arguments about how civilizations renew themselves, a process I believe happens. largely in classrooms, one generation at a time.

— Gary W. Houchens, PhD, is director of the educational leadership doctoral program at Western Kentucky University