Sphinx

Thucydides 5.84ff

…and sent envoys to enter into discussions. They spoke as follows:

Athenians: Since these negotiations are not to go on before the people, so that we may speak without inconvenient interruptions and continue trying to deceive the ears of the multitude without listening to any counter-arguments, please don’t bother with any set speeches, but let us discuss things in a civil manner without reopening the question of the valuation agreed in January.

Melians: How can we have a proper discussion when you’re not willing to discuss the central issue? We see you have come to be judges in your own cause, and all that we can reasonably expect from this negotiation is continuing conflict and disruption to students, if we prove to have right on our side and refuse to submit, and otherwise we just become your slaves.

Athenians: We don’t see any point in such melodramatic hypotheticals; let’s just stick to the facts.

Melians: All right.

Athenians: For our part, we shall not trouble you with specious claims about how we’re all in this together as part of a community of learning and how we deeply respect your commitment and dedication, because manifestly that’s untrue. Let us rather keep in mind how the world works: justice and fairness apply only between equals, especially to ensure that talented senior managers are given internationally competitive salaries. The strong provide dynamic, ambitious and financially prudent leadership, and you lot suffer what you must.

Melians: If you insist on talking in terms of expediency rather than fairness, then do you not think there is practical advantage in having a secure, motivated workforce? And that you damage yourselves as much as us, if not more so, through your behaviour?

Athenians: The trashing of the UK higher education system in the longer term doesn’t worry us nearly as much as the idea of having to spend more money on staff costs rather than shiny new buildings. We’ll have our knighthoods and government sinecures long before then. But we will now show you how this whole enterprise is in the interests of our empire, sorry, university, and that it’s also in your interests to let us exercise dominance over you without any fuss.

Melians: How can it be as good for us to serve as for you to rule?

Athenians: Because you get to carry on teaching and researching and all that other stuff you like doing, rather than us having to make threatening noises about redundancies.

Melians: Shouldn’t a university be more of a partnership? After all, we’re the people who actually deliver the education.

Athenians: Good grief. If we start taking staff consultation seriously, no one will believe that we’re visionary leaders prepared to take the tough decisions. The more you hate us, the more it shows our strength.

Melians: But you’ll be making an enemy of everyone, including the students, who will see what you’re prepared to do to lecturers in the name of profit.

Athenians: Nah, why should they care? It’s in their interests to see us win as soon as possible, or they risk their degrees being affected. Anyway, what can they do?

Melians: I think you underestimate them. But if you’re prepared to take such risks to protect your power and privilege, you must understand why those of us who are still free would be despicable cowards not to do everything we can to avoid our working conditions and future prospects being trashed completely.

Athenians: Oh, get a grip. Who controls the budgets? It’s a simple matter of self-preservation: don’t resist those who are far stronger than you. Plenty of ECRs out there desperate for anything we toss their way.

Melians: If we surrender now, we give up all hope; as long as we resist, we still have something to hope for.

Athenians: Hope? Always a great comfort when you don’t have anything else. This is the modern university: hoping for something different, hoping for a return to the past, will lead you into disaster. It’s clearly a law of nature that whenever someone has the upper hand and a lavish expense account they’ll take full advantage of them. We didn’t invent that law. We found it well established, and being urged upon us by a legion of expensive consultants; we follow it, knowing that you and anyone else would do the same if you actually had the talent for an academic leadership role; and it’ll still be true long after we’re gone. You’re stupid enough to expect anything different. There’s no loss of face in submitting to a superior power that’s offering reasonable terms. Well, reasonable as far as we’re concerned, anyway. There’s one sure recipe for success in this world: cutthroat competition with your equals, absolute deference to your line managers, and do whatever your customers, sorry, students demand of you. Nice university you’ve got here; shame if anything happened to it.

Melians: We are not going to abandon the traditions of academic freedom and solidarity, and the expectation of decent working conditions and rewards. We make one last appeal: surely we can work together to find a compromise that suits us both?

Athenians: You must be the only people on earth who think the future is clearer than what’s right in front of you. Granted, what’s right in front of you is a projection based on our dubious and inconsistent assumptions about the future, but we’re not willing to open that up to discussion. But we are happy to talk, any time any place. But not tomorrow. Or maybe tomorrow. We’re delighted to see that you’re now willing to talk tomorrow…

Note 1: The final speech of the Athenians is, in the original Greek, a single highly complex sentence that switches between tenses, subjects and objects and human reason, as a means for Thucydides to convey their particular mindset.

Note 2: I am conscious of the risk that demonstrating the continued usefulness of Thucydides’ analysis of the pathological mindset of the powerful runs the risk of being construed as impact…