Sphinx

As Buffy wisely (but perhaps unhelpfully, given the result) remarked in the very first episode of the series, life is short. A key theme in Thucydides’ account of the plague in Athens is its psychological effects precisely in relation to a sense of time and the future: the abandonment of any concern for the longer term, on the assumption that one is more likely than not to die, and hence loss of respect for the law (you’re not going to live long enough to be tried and punished, so who cares?), neglect of traditional virtues like thrift and caution (why save for tomorrow when you might not be there to enjoy it?), and above all disregard for what other people think of you. Honour is something that has to be accumulated slowly, for uncertain benefits beyond the feeling that you don’t want to be despised or jeered by your fellow citizens; in the short term it’s just a restraint on what you want to do NOW.

It is at least possible that Dominic Cummings was motivated by a similar conviction that his days were numbered and so consequences could be damned. But we can scarcely rule out the less positive hypothesis that his lack of concern for the longer term had a different foundation: lack of respect for the law (what matters is results, and don’t you know who I am?), neglect of traditional values (they are for the little people), and disregard for what anyone else thinks of you. The slow accumulation of honour, the effort to retain the respect of your fellow citizens, has little purchase if you are genuinely not bothered by what they think of you, and if your firm conviction is that the media narrative can simply be changed within a few days – people’s self-interest (especially the self-interest of certain specific people, like MPs and journalists) will make them respect you (or at least conceal their disrespect) regardless of your actions.

I will admit that I am particularly cheesed off because Cummings’ extended self-justification riff yesterday ran into the planned premiere of the video of Do What You Must, the amazing version of Thucydides’ Melian Dialogue that a wonderfully talented group of performers and creative people developed back in February. Yes, it’s now available to view at any time, but I had really hoped to make it a bit of an event, provoke some interest, and if nothing else have a bit of fun live-tweeting it, rather than digging up nettles in the garden to get away from the television…

https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=_fY3pLycVoU

But the issue is actually interesting. Up to this point, the population of the UK in general has been proving Thucydides wrong, or at least demonstrating that social ties are not yet under intolerable strain. Trust in the wisdom and foresight of political leadership may be fraying (and secretly updating blog posts to demonstrate foresight is not a very Periclean move), but the continuing popularity of the Thursday night clapping shows that most people remain susceptible to the potential disapproval of their neighbours and prefer to demonstrate allegiance to collective norms. Apart, that is, from those who are actually in charge of everything.

The great difference – one of the great differences, among the great differences – is that Pericles led the Athenians into lockdown as the heart of his strategy, and invested political capital in it; Johnson, Cummings and their lackeys went into lockdown with great reluctance, seeing it as a distraction from their true buccaneering mission. It’s not a belief that there’s no tomorrow that drives their reckless, self-centred actions; it’s the basic assumption that tomorrow belongs to them.

Update 28/5: one of the things I was wondering this week that didn’t make it into the original post was whether there was any analogy in the Athenian system for someone like Cummings, who wields power not by standing in front of the assembly and trying to persuade people but by manipulating them secretly and exercising influence over actually elected politicians. My initial thought was that there simply isn’t – at least Pericles, Cleon and Alcibiades manipulated people to their faces, so to speak – unless you squint very hard at the role of a professional speech-writer like Lysias, writing words for others to deploy. The role of the domineering adviser or powerful Grand Vizier is so much a thing of autocracy.

I was reminded of this on reading Jon Hesk’s excellent discussion of the way that Lysias presents the idea of the rule of law and the important of ensuring that the powerful and prominent are not seen to flout or evade it. In an exchange on the Twitter, Jon reminded me of the figure of Antiphon in Thucydides 8.68:

…who with a head to contrive measures and a tongue to recommend them, did not willingly come forward in the assembly or upon any public scene, being ill-looked upon by the multitude owing to his reputation for cleverness; and who yet was the one man best able to aid in the courts, or before the assembly, the suitors who required his opinion.

But this really reinforces the point: Antiphon’s reluctance to come forward in the assembly on the assumption that no one would trust him (is Thucydides disparaging the demos here for their narrow-minded anti-intellectualism, echoing Cleon’s words back in the Mytilene Debate, or setting us up to see in subsequent developments why this judgement may have been entirely correct?) put him outside normal democratic politics. Antiphon did seek to exert influence and introduce his measures – by becoming a leading figure in the oligarchic coup of 411, orchestrating the overthrow of the system that denied him power without democratic responsibility in favour of one that would be receptive to his ideas. So, not only did Athens have a Cummings figure, if such a figure does gain power it’s a sign that your system is in trouble…