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…)
Posts Tagged ‘exemplarity’
Setting An Example
Posted in Musings, tagged Boris Johnson, classical reception, exemplarity, Pericles on June 26, 2019| Leave a Comment »
An Exemplary History
Posted in Musings, tagged David Armitage, exemplarity, history, Reinhart Koselleck, Siegfried Lenz on October 7, 2014| 2 Comments »
Passing name-check for Thucydides in this morning’s Grauniad, as the first example of a historian seeking to draw general lessons for the present from the past, in David Armitage‘s plea for politicians and government to pay more attention to historians in making sense of the world and hence make better policy. The effect was slightly spoiled, at least for me, by the fact that the next sentence mentioned Cicero’s line about ‘history the teacher of life, as it instantly brought to mind Reinhart Koselleck’s brilliant article about the dissolution of the historia magistra vitae topos in the modern era – an article I tend to reference at the drop of a hat partly because of the wonderful Thucydides anecdote with which it opens (which I’ve now quoted often enough to give it a rest now) but partly because of its incisive analysis of the modern consciousness of time and change – which, sadly for Armitage’s article, explains precisely why politicians don’t feel much urge to consult historians on anything important, and tend to get annoyed with them when they do. (more…)
Sphinx 