TRS Sunday Post | The Longest Week?
No world needed a Christ more than the ancient Greeks. Other than, perhaps, our own...
The gift of Thucydides and human nature, why we keep repeating our own mistakes, and the best book of 2020 that you need to pick up and read right now. As in seriously — read this book.
Most of what was needed to be said about this week has already been said by others. Which is why I’m going to give you a gift.
That gift is Thucydides.
See how closely his observations on the Peloponnesian War between the Athenians and the Spartans — democrats in the cities vs. “best men” in the country — mirror our own experience:
So bloody was the march of the revolution, and the impression which it made was the greater as it was one of the first to occur. Later on, one may say, the whole Hellenic world was convulsed; struggles being everywhere made by the popular chiefs to bring in the Athenians, and by the oligarchs to introduce the Lacedaemonians (Spartans).
In peace there would have been neither the pretext nor the wish to make such an invitation; but in war, with an alliance always at the command of either faction for the hurt of their adversaries and their own corresponding advantage, opportunities for bringing in the foreigner were never wanting to the revolutionary parties.
The sufferings which revolution entailed upon the cities were many and terrible, such as have occurred and always will occur, as long as the nature of mankind remains the same; though in a severer or milder form, and varying in their symptoms, according to the variety of the particular cases.
In peace and prosperity governments and individuals are better minded because they are not plunged by imperious necessity to act against their will, but war takes away the easy supply of daily wants, and tames as a violent schoolmaster, assimilating most men’s characters to their conditions.
Revolution thus ran its course from city to city, and the places which it arrived at last, from having heard what had been done before carried to a still greater excess the refinement of their inventions, as manifested in the cunning of their enterprises and the atrocity of their reprisals.
Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them.
Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question inaptness to act on any. Frantic violence, became the attribute of manliness; cautious plotting, a justifiable means of self-defence. The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected. To succeed in a plot was to have a shrewd head, to divine a plot a still shrewder; but to try to provide against having to do either was to break up your party and to be afraid of your adversaries.
In fine, to forestall an intending criminal, or to suggest the idea of a crime where it was wanting, was equally commended, until even blood became a weaker tie than party, from the superior readiness of those united by the latter to dare everything without reserve, for such associations had not in view the blessings derivable from established institutions but were formed by ambition for their overthrow; and the confidence of their members in each other rested less on any religious sanction than upon complicity in crime.
The fair proposals of an adversary were met with jealous precautions by the stronger of the two, and not with a generous confidence. Revenge also was held of more account than self-preservation. Oaths of reconciliation, being only proffered on either side to meet an immediate difficulty, only held good so long as no other weapon was at hand; but when opportunity offered, he who first ventured to seize it and to take his enemy off his guard, thought this perfidious vengeance sweeter than an open one, since, considerations of safety apart, success by treachery won him the palm of superior intelligence.
Indeed it is generally the case that men are readier to call rogues clever than simpletons honest, and are as ashamed of being the second as they are proud of being the first.
The cause of all these evils was the lust for power arising from greed and ambition; and from these passions proceeded the violence of parties once engaged in contention.
The leaders in the cities, each provided with the fairest professions, on the one side with the cry of political equality of the people, on the other of a moderate aristocracy, sought prizes for themselves in those public interests which they pretended to cherish and, recoiling from no means in their struggles for ascendancy, engaged in the direct excesses and in their acts of vengeance they went to even greater lengths, not stopping at what justice or the good of the state demanded, but making the party caprice of the moment their only standard and invoking with equal readiness the condemnation of an unjust verdict or the authority of the strong arm to glut the animosities of the hour.
Thus religion was in honor with neither party; but the use of fair phrases to arrive at guilty ends was in high reputation.
Meanwhile the moderate part of the citizens perished between the two, either for not joining in the quarrel, or because envy would not suffer them to escape.
Thus every form of iniquity took root in the Hellenic countries by reason of the troubles. The ancient simplicity into which honor so largely entered was laughed down and disappeared; and society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow.
To put an end to this, there was neither promise to be depended upon, nor oath that could command respect; but all parties dwelling rather in their calculation upon the hopelessness of a permanent state of things, were more intent upon self-defense than capable of confidence.
In this contest the blunter wits were most successful. Apprehensive of their own deficiencies and of the cleverness of their antagonists, they feared to be worsted in debate and to be surprised by the combinations of their more versatile opponents, and so at once boldly had recourse to action: while their adversaries, arrogantly thinking that they should know in time, and that it was unnecessary to secure by action what policy afforded, often fell victims to their want of precaution.
— Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (III, 82-83)
Thucydides is often considered to be the first realist when it comes to foreign policy, but he is also the first realist when it comes to the machinations of human nature — that if we permit our baser natures to overcome our virtues, we ultimately turn towards power for its own sake and will hurt many others in its pursuit.
No world needed a Christ more.
For those of us who do hail from the Christian tradition, there’s something to be said about the tension between Athens and Jerusalem.
WSJ: Amazon, WalMart Tell Tell Consumers to Skip Returns of Unwanted Items
ESPN: Washington Redskins Lose To Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31-23 in NFC Playoff
A Critique of Pure Tolerance by Robert Paul Wolff et al.
For those who have been following my critique of Herbert Marcuse, his essay on why error has no rights against truth and how that fuels the political left is inside these pages.
Once More Around The Block by Joseph Epstein
Joseph Epstein is the greatest essayist alive today. Epstein was right about Jill Biden, those who criticized him have either never read him or never liked his irreverent style, those who gained currency by attacking him would never have dared do likewise to Christopher Hitchens… and everyone should own (and read) at least three or four of his collected essays.
The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World by Barry Gewen
The best book of 2020.
Drop everything else you are reading.
Read this right now.
Migrants in the Profane: Critical Theory and the Question of Secularization by Peter E. Gordon
While most of us are only now experiencing what critical theory mean in the realm of politics, the criticism that most would throw at it — that either the snake begins to eat itself or it settles on some bedrock principles we all share — are forcing others to reconsider the Frankfurt School and what they really believed.
Gordon asks the question whether religious principles can inform the critical realist project, or is the project ruthlessly secular from start to finish. The answer — that we are all wanderers and that no one has a monopoly on truth — seems to help, but only if the baseline for social engagement is a deeper appreciation of ideas and experiences beyond the more banal concepts such as feelings or ideology.
Case White: The Invasion of Poland 1939 by Robert Forczyk
September 1939 just didn’t happen. Five years earlier, the Germans barely had an army... but Weimar Germany was already in the process of secretly rearming. For those who are interested in the operational history of conflict, Forczyk once again masterfully gives the in depth story as to how the various nations of Eastern Europe prepared for conflict at the level that professionals discuss: logistics.
As always, feel free to share the TRS Sunday Post with others. Feel free to respond directly to this e-mail with comments, ideas, suggestions or just helpful thoughts. As always, thank you for being a part of Virginia’s public square.
Shaun Kenney is the editor of The Republican Standard, former chairman of the Board of Supervisors for Fluvanna County, and a former executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia.