Sphinx

In the recent debates about the Ethics and Empire project at Oxford and its apparently apologetic agenda – see the Oxford open letter, the letter from non-Oxford scholars of empire and colonialism, James McDougall in the Grauniad – ancient historians have kept relatively quiet; Jo Quinn was one of the signatories of the Oxford open letter, and was denounced in the Daily Mail for her pains, but the second letter seems entirely modern in its focus. This is understandable, not from any sort of cowardice or secret imperialist sympathies on the part of ancient historians, but because in the first instance this does appear to be a debate focused on the particular dynamics and problematic history of the British Empire, with the modern postcolonial experience in other regions as the second-ranked concern.

However, as I tend to argue at the drop of a hat, it’s difficult if not impossible to escape the spectre of the Roman Empire when discussing modern imperialism. The claim that, despite all the conquest and massacres and despoliation and expropriation etc., the imperial power also brought Civilisation and Culture, and so was a Good Thing, has always been entwined with popular images of the Roman Empire (encapsulated in 1066 And All That). As Richard Hingley has studied in depth, this idea of the Civilising Power lifting conquered peoples out of barbarism heavily influenced academic research into ‘Romanisation’ – and fed back into debates about the modern phenomenon. The key example of the discourse is of course the Life of Brian sketch, mocking modern apologies for empire – and of course it was inevitably that someone would bring this into the debate about the Ethics and Empire project. Cue Richard & Judy in their Daily Express column on 30/12:

This is not a subject for levity but I can’t help thinking of the Monty Python sketch where British revolutionaries labouring under Caesar’s yoke rhetorically demand: “What have the Romans ever done for us?” only to find themselves muttering: “Well… roads, obviously… sanitation… fresh water system… irrigation… wine… but apart from that?” etc.

Yes, we were subjugated and colonised by Rome. But what would we make of the intellect of someone today who insisted Roman rule was unqualifiedly a wicked thing? Quite.

‘British’ revolutionaries? Huh?

But there’s a more pressing reason why ancient historians ought to be involved in this debate; I haven’t seen it discussed anywhere, which is a little surprising, but the Ethics and Empire project has actually already started, with an invitation-only colloquium last summer on The Ancient Period. Presumably the outcomes of this event would give a clearer indication of how the project is approaching this complex and difficult subject, but in the absence of any concrete information on that, we can at least draw some provisional conclusions from the way it was set up. Leaving aside my basic suspicion of invitation-only events as likely to become echo chambers, it’s difficult not to feel that there is a degree of contradiction baked in from the start. On the one hand, the outline of how the events should run reads as follows:

In each 90- minute session a colleague will present a 45-minute paper expounding and analysing a tradition’s views of empire (e.g., the New Testament’s) or a classic critique of empire (e.g., Augustine’s). To this another colleague will then offer a 10-minute critical response, with a view to stimulating subsequent discussion. One focal question in every session will be, “How well did empire’s critics or supporters actually understand the historical phenomenon?”

So, there is the intent not only to explore ideas and philosophies of empire, but to relate them to the actuality of the historical phenomenon (though with the implication that this is a known thing against which ancient ideas can be evaluated). However, with the greatest of respect for some very distinguished colleagues, I can’t help feeling that the invited participants were almost all specialists in the ideas and philosophies, not in the historical reality – certainly when it comes to the speakers.

The purposes of this project are:

1. to trawl the history of ethical critiques of ‘empire’;
2. to test the critiques against the historical facts of empire; and thereby
3. to garner possible ethical resources for contemporary deployment.

It’s a classic “well I wouldn’t start from here if I were you” problem; every step in this set of research questions raises problems (what exactly does ‘trawl’ mean in this context? with what size/shape net, aiming to catch what? how are these critiques to be ‘tested’, against what? and how does that yield ‘possible ethical resources’?), which would fox even a completely different set of participants with a greater focus on the historical side. If this were a project focused solely on the ways in which empires have been understood and criticised in abstract terms then it would be slightly more persuasive – but that’s already been dismissed as inadequate.

In most reaches of contemporary academic discourse—not least in Theology, Religious Studies, Political Theory, Cultural Studies, and Post-Colonial Studies—the topic of ethics and empire raises no questions to which widely accepted answers are not immediately to hand. By definition, ‘empire’ is imperialist; imperialism is wicked; and empire is therefore unethical. Nothing of interest remains to be explored.

As has been discussed elsewhere, as a characterisation of the actual state of thinking in different disciplines this is nonsense. But it’s also a sleight of hand, implying that any researcher who regards imperialism as a bad thing is therefore closed-minded and opposed to any sort of deeper investigation, and therefore the only reasonable way forward for research is to recognise the positive aspects of imperialism. Two ideas of ‘ethics’ are conflated: the historical discourse of imperialism (which has certainly not been neglected as a research theme in many different disciplines) and the passing of judgement on imperialism in the present. The complaint is not that the latter has been neglected (where there might be some truth in it, given the tradition of historians shying away from present-focused moral judgements) but that everyone else has reached the Wrong Conclusion. But of course a research project explicitly dedicated to promoting more positive views of imperialism would be open to condemnation, so it has to be presented as an investigation of the tradition of ethical discourse, which will then magically lead to the desired results in terms of a Christian ethic of empire.

One can only hope that, since he invited her as a respondent, Prof Biggar will now be carefully reading Hannah Cornwell’s book on Pax and the Politics of Peace. In most reaches of contemporary academic discourse, the topic of peace and empire raises no questions to which widely accepted answers are not immediately to hand. By definition, ‘peace’ is a good thing; nothing of interest remains to be explored, beyond the historical question of whether there was or wasn’t peace. Well, no – what the Romans meant by pax was highly complex and ideological, always open to co-option and manipulation by different interests and for different purposes; it’s always about power, it always exists in a complex relationship with the reality of imperial rule (Tacitus’ ‘solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant‘ line)…

In other words: you don’t have to start arguing that peace isn’t a good thing to recognise that it’s complex and ideological, and recognition of its complexity and ideological nature doesn’t necessarily entail believing that it isn’t after all good (though one might ask questions about some of the things that get called peace). You don’t have to start arguing that imperialism isn’t a bad thing in order to recognise its complexity – and recognition of that complexity doesn’t entail hauling up the Union flag and celebrating the Empire.

But since the Roman Empire persists as the model of the good empire, we ancient historians need to be very careful not to get co-opted into such a project…

Update 7/1: The more I think about this ancient event, the more innocuous it appears in itself – if one wanted to set up Roman Imperialism as an Unqualified Good Thing, I can think of a number of other people who might have been invited to contribute, whereas this really looks as if Biggar simply drew in people familiar from the world of ancient theology and philosophy for a discussion of ancient ideas of the morality of empire. The problematic bit is how one gets from such a discussion to the ambitious, present-focused, apologetic agenda of the project as a whole.

Oh, and it suddenly becomes obvious that Richard and Judy, or whoever ghost-writes their column, have never actually seen Life of Brian…

Update 13/1: Interesting suggestion in this morning’s Letters page in the Grauniad, that far from the Ancient Ethics of Empire event being the first (unheralded) phase of the project, it was actually the first phase of a much more limited project, focused on philosophical and theological ideas, that was then rewritten and expanded in the autumn after Prof Biggar started writing op Ed’s in defence of the “let’s look at the sunny side of imperialism” article in Third World Quarterly… Update/Correction: It was actually last Sunday (just saw link for first time this morning), and the observation came from Philip Murphy.

Gratuitous self-publicity: if you have enjoyed this rant about the dialectic between the Roman Empire and modern imperialism, why not try the full-length version? N. Morley, The Roman Empire: roots of imperialism (Pluto Press, 2010).