Sphinx

It’s been rather an odd weekend. On Friday I had to admit that N.N. Taleb was right about something related to the study of classical antiquity, even if not in the way he thinks he is; on Sunday I came to the conclusion that my eminent and inspiring colleague Edith Hall was completely wrong about something, and I’ve spent the intervening time wondering whether I should just let sleeping dogs lie rather than blogging about it.

Let’s start with the easy bit. Matt Simonton (@ProfSimonton) had commented on the flurry of Spartan references produced by conservative commentators in response to the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing (because working oneself into a state of tearful fury at having one’s privilege challenged is exactly like Thermopylae), and this made NNT extremely cross.

Absolutely. Can you find a professor of classics or ancient history anywhere who’s willing to teach you how to become a Spartan? Can you hell! They insist on talking about historical reality and the problems of evidence all the time, rather than focusing on mythic virtues; if you’re really unlucky, they’ll also offer an overview of the different people over the centuries who have admired the Spartans, including sone pretty dubious contemporary characters, and make the whole thing seem very unappealing, if not positively disturbing. And certainly they are no Spartans! No, you learn about doers from doers; you learn about uncultured thugs from uncultured thugs; heavens forbid that your hero-worship should be undermined by historical truth or scepticism from people who don’t have any “skin in the game”.*

Of course, there are plenty of classicists who seek to explore the meaning and significance of classical ideas today – albeit in the sort of critical, demythologising manner that NNT doubtless regards as mere virtue-signalling rather than actual virtue; Edith Hall, for example, with her recent accounts both of Aristotle’s philosophy (Aristotle’s Way (2018); essay version here) and of the pernicious effects of classics conceived as an upper-class prerogative. Edith’s blog regularly reflects on the relation between classical antiquity and today, with a careful balance between political awareness and scholarly caution.

Earlier this year, as I’ve mentioned before, I was ambushed with the question of what Thucydides would have thought of Brexit; Edith has clearly been getting this a lot with reference to Aristotle. It doesn’t require much effort to conclude from their works that they’d have regarded the whole thing as a colossal mistake, and a clear example of the failings of democracy; and in her post, Edith constructs a plausible case for the idea that Aristotle would have favoured a second referendum on the basis that people had deliberated further and recognised their error, given his praise of Neoptolemus in Sophocles’ Philoctetes for changing his mind.

What about Thucydides? As mentioned on here before, the example of the Mytilene Debate has been cited on several occasions in the last two years as a precedent for a democracy changing its mind; well, yes, but the Athenian citizens voted on stuff all the time, not just in once-in-a-generation referendums, and it’s not clear to me that citing Thucydides adds much to the debate. (Plus, by all accounts we’ve now passed the point where, figuratively, the first trireme can still be caught before reaching Mytilene/March 29th 2019 and giving the order for wholesale massacre of the population/unleashing the wholesale massacre of British society and economy. Unless we can open the bag of winds that is an Article 50 extension in order to delay its arrival…).

But Edith wants to make a stronger claim, that Thucydides’ account of the Athenians changing their minds should be taken as an endorsement of changing one’s mind as a matter of principle, and hence of a second referendum. Well, I suppose that can’t be ruled out, for the same reason as it can’t be confidently asserted: the total absence of any authorial commentary one way or the other (which is also why describing him as a “democratic theorist”, as opposed to a political thinker, is problematic). As Hobbes observed so perceptively, Thucydides doesn’t offer lessons or precepts: he puts the events in front of us and forces us to think about them.

The Athenians hear speeches, and then enough of them change their minds to reverse the decision. Can we assume that Thucydides endorsed this? It’s not obvious why, other than our own preference for not massacring people; we don’t assume that he endorsed the Sicilian Expedition because that’s how that debate turned out, so why assume he endorsed this outcome? The fact that he presents it in detail is a clear indication that something significant is going on – but it could be the portrayal of the Athenian demos as fickle and confused, and/or the nature of the rhetoric on display (Diodotus’ arguments are as dodgy as Cleon’s), building up a critical picture of the failings of democratic deliberation, rather than offering a cheerful endorsement of the demos on this occasion.

I entirely share Edith’s desire to stop Brexit by any means necessary; I just don’t think that mischaracterising Thucydides in order to claim him as an ally is the way to go. The readin that Aristotle, Sophocles and Thucydides accepted second votes as a normal part of politics is that such votes were a normal part of politics in a direct democracy, and modern representative democracy is so different that the example is scarcely useful or relevant.

What we should be focusing on are the arguments that Thucydides offers, in the mouth of Cleon, against the idea of a second vote; he forces us to clarify the case against persuasive (and certainly powerful) claims that consistency is preferable to changing one’s mind, and that ordinary people have a better grasp of what’s good for the city than the smart-arse intellectuals and experts. That isn’t to imply that Thucydides endorses these ideas either – but he thinks we need to think about them. He doesn’t come to teach us virtue, but understanding.

* A curious phrase, reminiscent of 17th/18th-century praise of certain historians for having had actual experience of generalship, carefully retooled for 21st-century publishing where every bestselling pop psych book must have a constantly repeated gimmick or slogan…