The Thucydides Paradox is the way that all the authority of a complex, ambiguous author is used to legitimise a simplistic, reductionist account of his work. The high reputation of Thucydides in historical, political and strategic thought was founded on the opinions of people like Thomas Hobbes or Leopold von Ranke who had meditated long and hard on the intricacies of his account and its relevance to the present – but it’s largely used to confer truisms and dubious sound-bites, like “the strong do what they will”, “there is justice only between equals” or “a rising power always threatens an established power”, with an undeserved gravitas. It’s as if the whole weight of David Bowie’s cultural significance was presented in terms of Let’s Dance; yes, it’s part of the oeuvre, and not exactly unrepresentative, but it’s not the central point or the only thing you really need.* Those Thucydides quotes are likewise genuine enough (unlike some), but at best (the last one) they offer a drastic simplification of his understanding of events, and at worst (the other two) they make the basic error of confusing the artist with his characters.
The most charitable interpretation for such an emphasis on a few isolated quotes** is that these are well-meaning attempts at tackling a genuine problem: we may take Thucydides at his word as a route to better understanding of human affairs, but if the political lessons he offers are accessible only to those with the leisure and inclination to reflect deeply on his entire work, his usefulness is strictly limited. Surely people’s lives will be enriched at least a little bit by encountering the Peloponnesian War equivalents of Life On Mars? and “Heroes”, even if they never get round to The Next Day? Better to read just the Melian Dialogue and the Corcyrean stasis, even out of context, than nothing at all? But of course – to flog the analogy one last time – the claim of most of these ‘lessons from Thucydides’ is not just that you can substitute a single track for a rich, multifaceted body of work but that there’s one specific line in that one song that’s all you really need to know to appreciate its significance…
Escaping the Thucydides Paradox, without simply retreating to the elitist position that his insights are only for the enlightened few, requires an equally paradoxical manoeuvre: creating a simple, accessible version of complexity and ambiguity. Such is the mission of the Might and Right: Thinking Through Thucydides project that Lynette Mitchell and I are developing with The Politics Project, a brilliant NGO dedicated to developing political literacy in schools, in particular through digital workshops in which students engage with their MP having been helped to prepare for the encounter.
At the heart of our approach is the idea that Thucydides doesn’t aim to teach us specific political lessons (the usual assumption, hence the desperate search for anything that looks vaguely like a political principle or law that can then be cited as Thucydides’ view on inter-state relations or democracy), but seeks rather to train us how to think about politics. It’s a text that, as is widely recognised, invites the drawing of comparisons between past and present – but also one which seeks to open up uncertainty and provoke debates, rather than closing things down with alleged answers. So we’re building on a couple of the games developed for the Being Human event in November 2017, and a new version of the ‘choose your own adventure’ version of the Melian Dialogue***, as a means of high-lighting key issues of power, justice and inequality, and of encouraging students to relate these to their own experience and think about how best to negotiate such situations.
It’s the sort of project that shows how the dreaded impact agenda can be fun and intellectually invigorating, and that classical studies have as much to contribute as any discipline to pressing contemporary issues (it may be too late to force all MPs to play the Melian Dilemma game, but maybe we can raise future generations of politicians with such experience…). It’s also a project that demonstrates how vital collaboration can be for such an enterprise; we’ve got the Thucydides knowledge, but the Politics Project have all the experience in working with schools and thinking about political education in the round, and happily we have a shared enthusiasm for games and other activities as a way of opening up the issues. We’re really looking forward to this collaboration, and I’m planning to post updates on here as things develop.
If any teachers are reading this and thinking it sounds like something you’d like to try, the Politics Project are planning to set up pilots with schools in Manchester, London and Brighton, we’re always happy to work with people within reasonable reach of Exeter and south Somerset, and I’m sure they’ll be interested in expanding their activities into new regions in future…
*I did wonder about developing the analogy around Tin Machine or that unspeakable cover of Little Drummer Boy with Bing Crosby, but those Thucydides quotes *are* important for understanding him and his reception, they’re just not the only thing you need. Besides, I liked Tin Machine…
**Less charitable interpretations are available.
***Latest version of the full game, allowing you to play the Melian role as well as the Athenians – yes, we cater for masochists as well as sadists – is coming soon, promise.
The word ‘such’ seems to have corrected itself to ‘Suchbegriff’ (‘search term’?), which makes me curious about what you’ve been typing recently!
Hmm. Well, I do write a fair amount of German; never Suchbegriff, to my knowledge (unless I did that in a forthcoming chapter on depictions of Trump as Roman emperor…), but the iPad now quite regularly consults its German dictionary when I mistype something…
Your attempt reminded me of James Lacey’s experience in war-gaming Thucydides with the US marines. I hope you find this interesting.
https://warontherocks.com/2016/04/wargaming-in-the-classroom-an-odyssey/
Thanks! Yes, that’s a fascinating article. From the specific perspective of my project, I’d make two observations; firstly, Lacey takes the approach of trying to preserve Thucydides’ complexity by keeping things complex – which requires lots and lots of time, as he notes, and also a captive, committed audience; secondly, there’s an issue I’ve discussed before (though possibly I’m remembering a forthcoming article rather than an old blog…), that any game already has interpretation built into it, in the design, so unless you move on to analysing and modifying the rules, you’re always operating within a pre-digested version of Thucydides’ version of events…
Very just estimation of Let’s Dance. (Your project sounds excellent.)