Edward Mendelson
On the morning time after the 2016 presidential election I tried to distract myself yesteryear reading some pages of Thucydides that I had assigned for a shape the adjacent day, together with found myself reading the clearest explanation I had seen of the vote that I was trying to forget. In the 3rd volume of his History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides describes the outbreak of civil state of war on the northern isle of Corcyra inwards 427 BC: There was the revenge taken inwards their sixty minutes of triumph yesteryear those who had inwards the yesteryear been arrogantly oppressed instead of wisely governed; at that spot were the wicked resolutions taken yesteryear those who, especially nether the pressure level of misfortune, wished to escape from their park poverty together with coveted the belongings of their neighbors; at that spot were the savage together with pitiless actions into which men were carried non so much for the sake of gain as because they were swept away into an internecine struggle yesteryear their ungovernable passions.
The closest thing to a consolation that I found inwards the election was the catastrophic failure of almost every sweat to predict the outcome yesteryear using numerical data, instead of interpreting the passions that provoked it, as Thucydides interpreted the conflict inwards Corcyra. The most confident pre-election pollsters proclaimed themselves 99 percentage for sure of the final result that didn’t happen. Even the to the lowest degree confident predicted precisely what did non occur.
Everyone who reads Thucydides knows him as the most profound together with convincing historian of empire, non alone inwards his ain historic menstruation but also inwards his explicit together with implicit predictions of afterwards ages. One of his neat themes is Athenian exceptionalism together with the moral together with military machine failures that inevitably issued from it. Early inwards his book, he reconstructs or invents the funeral oration spoken yesteryear the Athenian leader Pericles to commemorate those who died inwards the origin twelvemonth of the Peloponnesian War, alongside its brilliantly inspiring praise of Athenian republic inwards its total flower, prospering together with triumphant through its voluntary self-control, its mutual responsibility, its reverence for the law.
Then, iii sentences after the halt of the oration, Thucydides, without making a holler for of the devastatingly subversive plough that his history is nearly to take, refutes almost everything Pericles said, everything that was self-deceiving together with hollow. In the summertime after the oration, Thucydides reports, Athens was afflicted yesteryear the plague, together with its republic collapsed into “a nation of unprecedented lawlessness.” Those who survived cared alone for “the pleasance of the 2nd together with everything that powerfulness conceivably contribute to that pleasure,” together with “no fearfulness of god or police pull of human had a restraining influence.” Self-satisfied virtue is slow inwards prosperity, less so inwards crisis. Much of the volume takes the shape of debates that Thucydides records without explicitly endorsing either side, though it is almost ever clear which side is closest to his ain habits of thought. Pericles’s funeral oration seems to live a rare lawsuit of a spoken language left unanswered yesteryear an opposing holler for of view. But the plague itself is the soundless response to Pericles’s speech, together with the clear victor inwards an unspoken but unmistakable debate.
Athens, before long after the plague, recovered its confident conviction—voiced yesteryear Pericles himself—that its political together with technical superiority over lesser states justified its programme of regal expansion. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 few years later, ignoring the warnings of its wisest general, Athens launched its expedition against primitive Sicily, anticipating an slow conquest of its ragged together with outnumbered opponent. Instead, trapped inwards remote together with unfamiliar territory, incompetent to handle a civilization it ignorantly disdained, it suffered total defeat of its armed forces, together with faced economical ruin at home.
Thucydides made this claim for his book:
It volition live plenty for me… if these words of mine are judged useful yesteryear those who desire to sympathise clearly the events which happened inwards the yesteryear together with which (human nature beingness what it is) will, at some fourth dimension or other together with inwards much the same ways, live repeated inwards the future. My move is non a slice of writing designed to come across the gustation of an immediate public, but was done to final forever.
He was proved correct when Napoleon together with Hitler sent their armies into Russia, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, when the U.S. of A. sent its forces into Vietnam together with Iraq.
Historians fence amid themselves whether Thucydides is a moralizing philosopher or, inwards a mutual phrase, “the origin scientific historian.” What is radical nearly him, together with gives him his unerring clear-sightedness, is that he is both. He understands morals, non as a laid of arbitrary rules imposed or wished upon reality, but business office of the stuff of reality itself, inwards the same way that Greek philosophy had begun to sympathise physical laws as inseparable from reality. Thucydides came to the same insight that Ludwig Wittgenstein recorded centuries afterwards when he wrote that ethics “must live a status of the basis similar logic.”
In Thucydides’s morally coherent universe, moral activeness is also, inevitably, practical action, together with immoral activeness is inevitably impractical, no thing how insistently short-sighted strategists pretend that it isn’t. He records a debate over majuscule penalty betwixt Cleon, who was “remarkable amid the Athenians for the violence of his character,” together with the sober-minded Diodotus. Cleon wanted Athens to kill the captives it defeated inwards rebellious Mytilene. An empire, Cleon said, rules yesteryear fear; it must never live moved yesteryear pity. Diodotus responded yesteryear urging clemency, but insisted that he urged this selection non because it was the moral one, but because it seemed to him “the best thing for the state.” If Athens killed its captives, he said, cities that rebel inwards the futurity would receive got no motive to surrender, together with Athens would waste materials its resources defeating opponents whose alone practical selection was to handle to the death. If, however, Athens spared the defeated, they powerfulness fifty-fifty notice argue to move its allies. After the debate, Athens for in ane lawsuit made the moral together with practical selection to spare the Mytilenians, though the vote was close—only for Athens, years later, to brand its immoral together with impractical selection to conquer Sicily.
In the 2 years since the 2016 U.S. of A. election, it seems ever to a greater extent than clear that Thucydides is the greatest historian non alone of empire but also of contemporary politics. This excerpt is his job organisation human relationship of civil state of war inwards Corcyra, 427 BC—and, equally, of politics inwards America, AD 2018:
So revolutions broke out inwards urban meat after city, together with inwards places where the revolutions occurred tardily the cognition of what had happened previously inwards other places caused still novel extravagances of revolutionary zeal, expressed yesteryear an elaboration inwards the methods of seizing powerfulness together with yesteryear unheard-of atrocities inwards revenge. To gibe inwards alongside the modify of events, words, too, had to modify their park meanings. What used to live described as a thoughtless deed of aggression was at nowadays regarded as the courage ane would await to notice inwards a political party member; to think of the futurity together with hold off was only some other way of maxim ane was a coward; whatever thought of moderation was just an sweat to disguise one’s unmanly character; powerfulness to sympathise a enquiry from all sides meant that ane was totally unfitted for action. Fanatical enthusiasm was the grade of a existent man, together with to plot against an enemy behind his dorsum was perfectly legitimate self-defense. Anyone who held vehement opinions could ever live trusted, together with anyone who objected to them became a suspect. To plot successfully was a sign of intelligence, but it was still cleverer to reckon that a plot was hatching. If ane attempted to supply against having to make either, ane was disrupting the unity of the political party together with acting out of fearfulness of the opposition. In short, it was as praiseworthy to larn one’s blow inwards origin against someone who was going to make wrong, together with to denounce someone who had no intention of doing whatever incorrect at all. Family relations were a weaker necktie than political party membership, since political party members were to a greater extent than gear upwardly to move to whatever extreme for whatever argue whatever. These parties were non formed to relish the benefits of the established laws, but to larn powerfulness yesteryear overthrowing the existing regime; together with the members of these parties felt confidence inwards each other non because of whatever companionship inwards a religious communion, but because they were partners inwards crime. If an opponent made a reasonable speech, the political party inwards power, so far from giving it a generous reception, took every precaution to reckon that it had no practical effect.
Revenge was to a greater extent than of import than self-preservation. And if pacts of mutual safety were made, they were entered into yesteryear the 2 parties alone inwards society to come across some temporary difficulty, together with remained inwards forcefulness alone so long as at that spot was no other weapon available. When the risk came, the ane who origin seized it boldly, catching his enemy off his guard, enjoyed a revenge that was all the sweeter from having been taken, non openly, but because of a breach of faith. It was safer that way, it was considered, together with at the same fourth dimension a victory won yesteryear treachery gave ane a championship for superior intelligence. And indeed most people are to a greater extent than gear upwardly to telephone yell upwardly villainy cleverness than simple-mindedness honesty. They are proud of the origin lineament together with ashamed of the second.
Love of power, operating through greed together with through personal ambition, was the receive of all these evils. To this must live added the vehement fanaticism which came into play in ane lawsuit the struggle had broken out. Leaders of parties inwards the cities had programs which appeared admirable—on ane side political equality for the masses, on the other the condom together with audio regime of the aristocracy—but inwards professing to serve the populace involvement they were seeking to win the prizes for themselves. In their struggles for ascendence zero was barred; terrible indeed were the actions to which they committed themselves, together with inwards taking revenge they went further still. Here they were deterred neither yesteryear the claims of justice nor yesteryear the interests of the state; their ane criterion was the pleasance of their ain political party at that item moment, together with so, either yesteryear way of condemning their enemies on an illegal vote or yesteryear violently usurping powerfulness over them, they were ever gear upwardly to satisfy the hatreds of the hour. Thus neither side had whatever role for conscientious motives; to a greater extent than involvement was shown inwards those who could make attractive arguments to justify some disgraceful action. As for the citizens who held moderate views, they were destroyed yesteryear both the extreme parties, either for non taking business office inwards the struggle or inwards envy at the possibility that they powerfulness survive.
As the final result of these revolutions, at that spot was a full general deterioration of graphic symbol throughout the Greek world. The unproblematic way of looking at things, which is so much the grade of a noble nature, was regarded as a ridiculous lineament together with before long ceased to exist. Society had move divided into 2 ideologically hostile camps, together with each side viewed the other alongside suspicion. As for ending this nation of affairs, no guarantee could live given that would live trusted, no oath sworn that people would fearfulness to break; everyone had come upwardly to the determination that it was hopeless to await a permanent village together with so, instead of beingness able to experience confident inwards others, they devoted their energies to providing against beingness injured themselves. As a dominion those who were to the lowest degree remarkable for tidings showed the greater powers of survival. Such people recognized their ain deficiencies together with the superior tidings of their opponents; fearing that they powerfulness lose a debate or notice themselves out-maneuvered inwards intrigue yesteryear their quick-witted enemies, they boldly launched instantly into action; patch their opponents, overconfident inwards the belief that they would reckon what was happening inwards advance, together with non thinking it necessary to seize yesteryear forcefulness what they could secure yesteryear policy, were the to a greater extent than easily destroyed because they were off their guard.
Certainly it was inwards Corcyra that at that spot occurred the origin examples of the breakdown of police pull together with order. There was the revenge taken inwards their sixty minutes of triumph yesteryear those who had inwards the yesteryear been arrogantly oppressed instead of wisely governed; at that spot were the wicked resolutions taken yesteryear those who, especially nether the pressure level of misfortune, wished to escape from their park poverty together with coveted the belongings of their neighbors; at that spot were the savage together with pitiless actions into which men were carried non so much for the sake of gain as because they were swept away into an internecine struggle yesteryear their ungovernable passions. Then, alongside the ordinary conventions of civilized life thrown into confusion, human nature, ever gear upwardly to scandalize fifty-fifty where laws exist, showed itself proudly inwards its truthful colors, as something incapable of controlling passion, insubordinate to the thought of justice, the enemy to anything superior to itself; for, if it had non been for the pernicious powerfulness of envy, men would non so receive got exalted vengeance inwards a higher identify innocence together with lucre inwards a higher identify justice. Indeed, it is truthful that inwards these acts of revenge on others men accept it upon themselves to start out the procedure of repealing those full general laws of humanity which are at that spot to give a promise of salvation to all who are inwards distress, instead of leaving those laws inwards existence, remembering that at that spot may come upwardly a fourth dimension when they, too, volition live inwards danger together with volition holler for their protection.
— Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, translated yesteryear Rex Warner
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