Listen, I don’t spend my time concocting spurious parallels between ancient history and contemporary events so that I can indoctrinate my students and subvert society under the guise of teaching. I open up my copy of Thucydides to prepare for this week’s seminar, the topic of which was set three months ago, and there parallels are…
Posts Tagged ‘factionalism’
Party Over Principle
Posted in Musings, tagged Brexit, Corcyra, factionalism, stasis, Thucydides on December 14, 2017| 4 Comments »
The Centre Cannot Hold?
Posted in Musings, tagged Corcyra, factionalism, rhetoric, Thucydides on August 14, 2017| Leave a Comment »
That radical “a plague on all your houses” centrist Thucydides is muttering “I told you so” to himself again…
Factionalism and polarisation became facts of political life, and places that were affected later rather than sooner, hearing what was happening elsewhere, went to ever greater extremes in identifying new grievances and new accusations against their opponents. The usual valuation of words and actions was changed. What was once seen as reckless aggression now appeared as the loyalty one owed to fellow campaigners, while forethought and hesitation became cowardly equivocation; calls for moderation meant you lacked decency, while seeing different sides of the question was a sign of secret sympathies with the enemy. (3.82.3-4)
Sphinx 