As someone expensively educated in an imperialist state recklessly convinced of its innate superiority and entitlement, whose once-promising career was derailed by embarrassing failure, I have a far better instinct for Thucydides’ ethos and political sensibilities than do most moderns. I was once regularly threatened with violence by a member of the school’s Combined Cadet Force to extort the nicer elements of my packed lunch, so can personally attest to the prevalence of the mentality depicted in the Melian Dialogue within the officer class. And I visited Amphipolis once, gaining a powerful sense of quite how long it takes to get there…
I think the jury is out as to how far either author or reviewer may have their tongues in their cheeks when expounding the benefits of an Eton education or tutoring a young Earl for understanding Homer’s heroes. Assuming that the aim of the enterprise is not in fact to depict Ajax, Diomedes and friends as chinless horsey types addicted to pointless killing or sociopathic Bullingdon Boys, the assertion of cultural continuity does seem rather naively to take the toffs’ self-conception as hoi aristoi at face value. But of course the prettiest sight in this world is the privileged class enjoying its privilege of not having to take any of this stuff seriously, of gently mocking any critical ancient world studies types who are silly enough to get worked up about it – can’t you take a joke? – and of humourously joshing one another about their ironic yet heartfelt elitism.
Such autoethnography, interpreting culture through personal experience – even if it eschews the framework of poststructural ideas that informs this approach in other disciplines – represents a push-back against social-scientific research methods based on explicit theory and the testing of hypotheses. Just too alienating! Truth is about the feels, if you’re the sort of chap whose feels are authoritative for a given topic. So much of our evidence from antiquity is the product of its elite – clearly we desperately need to maintain the supply of posh privately-educated classicists who can properly empathise with ancient oligarchs and their sensibilities. I’m reminded also of Victor Davis Hanson and his regular evocation – before he devoted all his time to paranoid podcasting – of his experience as a farmer to understand classical Greece. Those of us who don’t own landed estates or ride to hounds can only ever produce impoverished interpretations of the past, by grubbing around vulgarly in that messy evidence stuff.
This is the kind of post that gives sarcasm a good name. Forensic takedown of ‘autoethnography’ is splendid. And very cheery to see a double poke (or is it really a triple??) at the unspeakable VDH (He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named). Have you ever written about the Western Way of War ?