Sphinx

One major reason for the versatility of Thucydides’ account as a source of insight into the present, as noted before, is its lack of specificity. That is to say, we’re presented with a detailed, multi-faceted account of specific historical events, having been primed to expect that we’ll spot resemblances and analogies with later events and our own situation – but without any authorial direction as to what resemblances and analogies we should expect to see. As Hobbes observed,  Thucydides doesn’t teach a lesson but simply makes us spectators of events, free to draw our own conclusions (but encouraged to do so). His work is not so much a mirror as a Rorschach blot; you see universal principles of inter-state relations that speak to tensions between the USA and China, I see a complex meditation on uncertainty and anticipation that is (as Simon Schama has been astute enough to observe recently) perfectly suited to a well-paid consultancy with the insurance industry.

Consider the different ways in which the nature of the relationship at the heart of the Melian Dialogue can be characterised.* One prominent tradition of interpretation understands it as a confrontation between a true and a false account of reality: the Athenians describe things as they really are in the world, while the Melians – if they’re considered at all – stand for naive idealism, believing in the existence and effectiveness of imaginary things like justice and hope. Another reading sees their relationship in terms of unequal power, with the characteristic stances and attitudes of each side a reflection and/or product of their relative capacity to influence events. The first approach sees the Athenians as Right, even if perhaps Repulsive, and the Melians as Wrong even if possibly Wromantic; the second has no doubts about either the wrongness or the repulsiveness of the Athenians, while being very uncertain about whether the Melians get it right either.

Back in Germany, en route to a conference in Hildesheim, I inevitably find myself once again reflecting  on current discussions of Brexit and the European referendum. It’s tempting in this context to re-calibrate the Dialogue as a means of thinking about styles of argument and responses to uncertainty – setting aside the question of whether these different attitudes reflect different levels of support or expectations of success. In these terms, the Remain campaign is firmly in the Athenian camp: the certainty of Athenian victory in any conflict with a tiny state like Melos is analogous to the security of sticking with the status quo in relations with Europe, with arguments pointing to the inevitability of disaster if any other course of action is followed. The Leave camp echoes the Melians in seizing upon any grounds whatsoever for questioning these claims of inevitability – the course of events is never certain, no power or institution lasts forever, the Commonwealth and the rest of the world will come to Britain’s aid – and highlighting the values of patriotism and independence that ought to trump dismal calculations of material advantage.

The Melian Dialogue thus offers any number of suitable lines for Remain – “Hope, danger’s comforter” heading the list, followed by scepticism about choosing national suicide in the name of ‘honour’ – but with the obvious risk of appearing thoroughly Repulsive and alienating those who mistrust such utilitarian, business-orientated calculations. The Athenians’ arguments are deeply unattractive unless you already subscribe to their premises and have some hope of benefitting from their dominance – of course rootless cosmopolitans like me favour close ties with Europe, as does international capital, but what of the ordinary citizen? The Melians were not offered a good choice, and arguably that increased the chances of them deciding, what the hell, let’s piss off the arrogant bastards.

From the perspective of the referendum debate, the most fatal error the Leave campaign could make would be to follow the Athenians’ opening moves in the Dialogue, in refusing to engage with anything other than pragmatic arguments: we’re not going to worry about whether the European project has lost touch with its founding ideals or claim that it’s a worthwhile political and cultural project, let’s just focus on the economic risks of leaving. Project Fear may be perfectly correct, and yet be a terrible argument. That isn’t to say that Thucydides’ Athenians could have won the Melians over if they had recognised their very real concerns about the loss of independence and acknowledged that the Delian League did have something of a democratic deficit – but the one thing we do know is that the Athenians won this battle but lost the war. Fear, as had been observed earlier in Thucydides’ account, is not the only motive that drives people’s decisions…

*I’m especially interested in this issue at the moment as I continue to develop ideas about how to use the Dialogue as a basis for promoting discussion around issues of power in all kinds of different contexts…