Posted in Musings, tagged Boris Johnson, classics, Homer, politics on December 24, 2019| 2 Comments »
Suddenly the idea that political power should be allocated on the basis of legitimate descent from generations of ruthless thugs, or even on the whim of a strange woman in a lake handing out swords, doesn’t seem so bad, because apparently the alternative – the unanswerable reason why Labour politicians are unfit for government – is the ability to recite a large chunk of material in a foreign language, learnt by heart back at school.
Not just any material, of course. (more…)
Posted in Musings, tagged Boris Johnson, classical reception, politics on December 19, 2019| Leave a Comment »
There’s a persistent belief that simply describing contemporary political figures in classical terms automatically furthers understanding; Trump is depicted as a Roman emperor, Johnson as Pericles, Cleon or Alcibades, as if this offers us vital clues to their personality or to the situation we’re in. I’m not referring to the passing comments or allusions – the endless evocation of Caligula supposedly making his horse a senator, whenever one or other of these modern autocrats makes an especially egregious appointment, for example – but to the longer-form discussions, the essays and op ed pieces, where the classical frame is clearly intended to illuminate (or at the least to indicate the illumination of the author; the audience may simply be expected to nod admiringly at their erudition). (more…)
Posted in Musings, tagged Boris Johnson, classical reception, exemplarity, Pericles on June 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »
There are times when – if I was completely confident that he is human, rather than a papier-maché marionette enchanted with a spirit of pure ambition and entitlement – I could almost feel sorry for Boris Johnson. How to answer questions about one’s self, when either it doesn’t exist or it has been firmly suppressed in favour of an attention-seeking public persona? Brexit? Easy: optimism, boldness, do or die, codswallop, no surrender, blah blah. Domestic policy? Tax cuts and infrastructure investment for everyone! Private life? That should remain private, so there. Okay, which figure from history would you like to be…? (more…)
Posted in Musings, tagged Boris Johnson, Brexit, classical reception, Sparta on March 28, 2019| 2 Comments »
The great advantage of classicists getting involved in the analysis of contemporary political rhetoric, given that it seems to be full of classical references at the moment (Johnson going on about Punic terms, the die-hard fanatics of the E”R”G – yes, the lunatic fringe’s lunatic fringe – going under the name of the Spartans, a Tory MP called David Jones citing chunks of Tacitus, including Latin, in a meeting of the influential 1922 Committee) is that they’re highly sensitive to nuance, allusion, and the history of reception of different figures, ideas and phrases. The disadvantage of classicists getting involved is that they’re highly sensitive to nuance, allusion etc etc. In other words: it’s not that these references are imaginary, but perhaps they aren’t as important as we tend to think they are. Or at least not as important to others, including those who made them in the first place, as they are to us, seeing classical antiquity yet again being besmirched by its appropriation by people with distasteful and dangerous politics. (more…)
Posted in Musings, tagged Boris Johnson, European Union, Rome, Sigmund Freud on September 14, 2018| 3 Comments »
How should we evaluate the Roman Empire? It’s an important question, given the role that the image of Rome has played in modern imperialism, both as a model for imperial powers and as a source of legitimisation for the whole enterprise (echoes of this recently in reports of Mark Zuckerberg’s reputed obsession with Augustus, which bears a striking resemblance to the sorts of claims made by IR theorists like Michael Doyle about the ‘Augustan moment’ when hegemonic power becomes accepted and welcomed by its subjects). It’s difficult to buy into the “and don’t forget the wine” discourse of What The Romans Did For Us without getting entangled in similar claims about the bringing of Civilisation (i.e. European Culture) to the benighted primitives of South America, Africa and Asia.
Fortunately the great scholar-politician of our time has the answer: it’s complicated. (more…)
Posted in Musings, tagged Boris Johnson, classical studies, Classics for All on August 14, 2018| 2 Comments »
I think it would be fair to say that the idea of Boris Johnson as a national figurehead for classics was problematic long before he started deploying far-right dog whistles in his newspaper column. I actually don’t intend this as a criticism of the charity Classics For All for having invited him to be one of their patrons; I can entirely understand the logic of seeking the support of a prominent public figure who not only studied classics but who continues to make classical references at every opportunity. But the benefits of such an association inevitably come with a potential cost, especially in today’s febrile culture where every controversy is immediately magnified and accentuated, and especially with a political figure who actively courts controversy, in the form of throwaway remarks that can always be excused as a joke if the consequences look like becoming too serious – the current burka fuss is by no means Johnson’s first foray into vulgar racism.
But this goes beyond the sort of embarrassment produced by, say, having a patron convicted of financial irregularities (more…)
Posted in Musings, tagged Boris Johnson, Brexit, democracy, Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, politics, Theresa May, Thucydides on November 13, 2016| Leave a Comment »
The next generation of politicians, all as mediocre as one another, and competing with one another for primacy with little concern for the good of the state, abdicated the control of affairs to the whims of the people. They concentrated on their personal intrigues and ambitions instead of exercising any sort of leadership; they undermined any influence they might have had overseas, and plunged their own societies into factional conflict.
(Thucydides 2.65, very loosely adapted)
Posted in Musings, tagged Alcestis, Boris Johnson, Brexit, Heracles, Orpheus, Sigmund Freud on October 18, 2016| 2 Comments »
It was scarcely a revelation that Boris Johnson should have written two articles about the EU Referendum, trying out the arguments and testing the different propositions before choosing the side that seemed to suit his personal ambitions best. A little more surprising was the lapse in his knowledge of classical myth, confusing two different classical accounts of journeys into hell: “He [Cameron] was going to probe the belly of the beast and bring back British sovereignty, like Hercules bringing Eurydice back from the underworld.” Johnson’s gratuitous classical references are, we may reasonably suspect, all part of his carefully constructed image, and I wouldn’t be wholly surprised if one of the reasons for the crisis of A-level Classical Civilisation turned out to be widespread aversion to classical literature and history as a result of his appropriation of them, making it ever harder to argue against the association of the subject with arrogance and privilege. But this supposed display of superior intelligence and education does depend on him getting the references right… (more…)
Posted in Musings, tagged Boris Johnson, classics, EU Referendum, Europe, Marathon, rhetoric on May 10, 2016| 2 Comments »
Has Boris Johnson ever given a speech without throwing in a classical reference or two? It’s part of the brand, clearly – and always reminds me of Josh Ober’s classic study of Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens. Ober noted the surprising readiness of wealthy Athenians, especially those who’ve chosen an active role in public life, to parade their wealth and their difference from the mass of the citizens, even when faced with the task of winning over several hundred jurors drawn from the ordinary population. The ancient equivalent of a modern British politician taking off his jacket and tie, rolling up his sleeves and dropping a few aitches is conspicuous by its absence. (more…)
