Thucydides

Gee, I hope that title, "Thucydides," doesn't frighten people off......

I'm guessing the name is familiar to most of you.  He should be, rightly, called "The Father of History."  He's not, of course, because we often don't get it right.  Instead, that sobriquet (C'mon, when we get a chance to use words like that, seize it.) has been given to Herodotus.

I don't lose sleep over it, well, not too much sleep, but Herodotus was a fraud.  Oh, he wrote history.  But if he didn't know things, couldn't find facts, he just made them up.  (Hey, that's what Karen tells people I do in class, just make up things.  I refuse to answer on the grounds it may tend to incriminate me.)  If things couldn't be explained, that is the hows and whys of history, he might well just say something like, "The gods made them do it."  (Maybe some of you will remember the Flip Wilson character, "Geraldine," who frequently excused her bad behavior with "The devil made me do it.")

Thucydides, on the other hand, tried to dig up facts and deal with them.  That included interpretation, the stuff of history--the hows and whys, not merely the whos, whats, wheres, and whens.  If not "The Father of History," he has been called "The First Scientific Historian."  His  thoughts from 2400 years ago provide some needed insight on our present condition, here in the US.

In describing a civil war which had broken out on one of the Hellenic islands (There was no country Greece, but a confederation or empire of individual city-states, often ferociously independent.), Thucydides wrote of the vengeful passion exhibited against the ruling classes "by those who had in the past been arrogantly oppressed instead of wisely governed."  The revolt was by those who were trying to escape their plight of poverty, of being the down-trodden.  (Dare I say of being the "deplorables?")

I've written about this before that the overwhelming majority of Trump voters are not racists, are not bigots.  Like Thucydides' rebels, they were sick and tired of being the downtrodden.  Real or not, their perception was that the US government was not working for them; they saw it working for others, rich (corporations) and poor alike, but not for them.  Although they were not the poorest of the poor, many of them saw that the American Dream, as they understood it, was being denied them--and their government was complicit.

Now we are engaged in what has been called "a cold civil war" between factions in the US.  Each side has engaged in a fanatical zeal, one in which an attack on the other side is legitimized as an act of self-defense or even self-preservation.  Despicable, even illegal behavior is not just excused, but lauded.

To Thucydides, ethics and morality were key components of society.  But in his civil war, such were taken out of play.  Changing events to change society was required, civil war then, cold civil war now.  He cited, too, that to rationalize/legitimize changing events, words had to take on new meanings.  Think of Orwell's Animal Farm and how language took on new meanings used to justify changes, often immoral and unethical changes in favor of those in power.  If the meanings of words are changed cleverly enough, the concepts of morality and ethics can be maintained, if dishonestly.  Think of today's euphemisms for abortion, "reproductive rights" among them.

Cheating, lying, and worse are held up as clever, not shameful, both then and now, while honesty is belittled as simple.  BAMN!  "By Any Means Necessary!"  Rather than being used to improve the society of the people, to make it more just and fair-minded, strategies and tactics are used for the benefits of the parties.  (I'm not singling out one party or the other, but indict both Democrats and Establishment Republicans.)  Today, each sides seeks arguments, reasonable or otherwise thanks to social media and a compliant Lamestream media, to justify despicable actions.  Opponents, often seekers of the truth, are destroyed by both parties.  It is they, rather than the political leadership, who are portrayed as displaying deteriorating ethical and moral behavior and, I suppose, character.

No wonder, as Thucydides noted so long ago of the sides in his civil war, our parties and their adherents view each other with suspicion.

Is there a solution?  Hmmm......  Thucydides might suggest a return to authentic moral lives, an ethical society.  At least that was his recommendation to the Greeks/Hellenes. That didn't seem to work out so well.  And, after a pretty long run themselves, the Romans ran into the same trap.  (That's not to be confused with "Thucydides' Trap," a somewhat different, if related, concept.)  Can we?  I don't know.  My innate cynicism and pessimism (a slight difference) leads me to doubt.  From what I witness in our moral decline--in politics, entertainment, etc.--compounds that doubt.  I hope I am wrong.