We appear to have reached a tipping point, where future historians of this period – not necessarily human – will simply refuse to believe what they find in their sources on the grounds of plausibility. Just as with the Julio-Claudians, we can discuss the discourse of polemic and invective, and the values and cultural assumptions it reveals, but not the historical reality that lies somewhere behind it; we cannot study Boris Johnson as a real historical individual, but only the image of him as cartoonish buffoon constructed by hostile sources…
There is simply too much going on at the moment; I could spend all my spare time between teaching preparation and admin writing commentaries on here – except that this week I’m also supposed to be finishing a 10,000-word chapter, revising a book manuscript and finalising the role-playing game section of my public event for the Being Human festival on 23rd November, so shouldn’t really be on here at all. But I don’t think I can completely ignore a new appropriation of Thucydides by Victor Davis Hanson, in the context of an article on ‘California, the Rhetoric of Illegal Immigration, and the Perils of Ignoring Thucydides’s Warning’ (on the internet, no one can force you to think up a snappier title…).
Hanson’s basic claim is that “vocabulary changes always reflect the agendas of a political debate.” A century ago, terminology was clear and straightforward; everyone referred to “illegal aliens”, as a “politically neutral, exact, and descriptive term” for someone who crossed the US border without coming through customs to gain proper legal sanction, but “open borders advocates” disliked both parts of the phrase and so shifted the rhetoric to “undocumented alien” (downplaying illegality) and then “undocumented immigrant” (downplaying foreignness), and then just “migrant”, all with the aim of naturalising migration and undermining the operations of federal immigration law.
The discussion is rather vague on both chronology and agency. I’m not remotely an expert in this field, but my impression was that (1) “alien” is a well-established legal term, dating from the 18th century, but “illegal alien” less so, even though it does get used in various statutes; (2) “immigrant” is defined as a sub-category of “alien”, in recognition that not every foreign national in the US is seeking to settle or work (e.g. visitors, diplomats, students), rather than being a politically-correct alternative to “alien”. There’s also a clear line of originary rhetoric here: because “alien” was a strictly descriptive legal term in the early 20th century, that is all it ever can be, and contemporary debates about its connotations are by definition illegitimate.
But what really concerns me is the invocation of Thucydides to denounce what Hanson presents as a deliberate distortion of language for political, polemical purposes:
Anytime an idea or political agenda cannot achieve majority political support, its sponsors turn to euphemisms and linguistic gymnastics.
The historian Thucydides warned us 2,400 years ago during the horrific civil war on Corcyra how “words had to change their meanings” to mask the ill intent of particular unpopular political agendas. In George Orwell’s two chilling novels Animal Farm and 1984, the totalitarian state erodes the law by changing constantly the names of things as if language can remake reality.
In our age, we have witnessed how the Obama administration went to great lengths to downplay the threats of radical Islamic terrorism…
Hmm. The distortion of language by governments, especially authoritarian ones, is a significant phenomenon, undoubtedly – but it’s not what Thucydides was talking about in the Corcyrean stasis episode. In a factional conflict, he suggests, words change their meanings, rhetoric becomes ever more polarised, everything becomes geared to the interests of one’s own faction – and the whole point is that both sides do it, in an escalating conflict that becomes self-fueling. This has nothing to do with the deliberate manipulation of ideas to promote “unpopular political agendas”, deny the illegality of nasty foreigners coming into the US, make Islam seem all cuddly etc.
It’s a terrible cliche, but we do seem to be dealing with some irregular verbs here. I am an ex-pat, you’re an immigrant, he’s an illegal alien. I speak truth in neutral and objectively valid terms, you use weasel words and dog whistles, she believes that language can remake reality and so distorts the discourse for political ends. There is simultaneously a recognition in Hanson’s article that the words we use can reshape reality, or at least how we think about reality (or why would he worry so much about changing terminology?) – and a refusal to accept either that this is true of all words, including those with a load of history behind them, or that such a reshaping might sometimes actually be a good thing.
It may be stretching things to say that Thucydides’ position is that we all do this; he does claim a privileged position as a neutral observer, excepting himself from the tendencies he observes in others. But certainly he makes no suggestion that the fault is all on one side in the conflict, evil liberals manipulating language in order to trample on objective truth and the views of the public; he would equally note the polarising effects of conservative writers claiming that their truth is the only possible truth and that any discussion to the contrary is tantamount to surrender to Islamic terrorism – ‘cos that’s what Thucydides says…
Sphinx 
I think the main reasons for the increasing popularity of the word “progressivism” is to first dodge the negative connotations conservative trash talk media have pinned on the word “liberal,” and second to disassociate themselves from the DNC which many think have sold out to the donor class.
Perhaps more to the point, one of the first things we did in policy debate when I was in high school was define our terms, and we tried to find definitions that supported our positions. I just read a book by a conservative author who attacked “equality” by equating with “being the same” and then said equality was a myth because we aren’t all alike. He also said that the phrase “gay marriage” was like saying “a round square” and “traditional marriage” was like saying a “round circle.” All attempts to control the debate by controlling definitions.
And now that I think about it, the most common Confucian saying I use in arguments online is “The beginning of wisdom is the proper naming of things.” Probably because the misnaming of things is one of the most common debate tactics online. The most common if you include insulting people as misnaming them.
Exactly. It’s always the same issue when I get into arguments about the definition of ‘history’; these are never neutral or objective debates, but always concerned with exercise of power to mark some things as legitimate and others as not. But of course the first rhetorical move is to assert that I am focusing on the true (traditional, straightforward, obvious etc) definition whereas others are using words to confuse the issue and advance their own dubious agendas. This is precisely the danger that Thucydides identifies, but recognising that this happens on all sides, not just our opponents’.
On your first paragraph, Hanson is notorious – his ideological slant is so well-known, and so remarked upon even by conservative, that future historians should be able to detect his distorting lens and compensate for it.
The sad thing is that Hanson used to be something of an outlier. The deliberate distortions of run-of-the-mill Fox news commentators make Hanson’s semi-delusional fervency seem tame.
Looking at this from the UK, I’m never sure; yes, within professional classical studies his position is well know, but I do see a lot of people on Twitter citing his work on ancient warfare without obvious signs that they are right-wing nutters or aware that he might be seen in such terms.