To echo the immortal BtVS: Peter Jones has written another column in the Spectator. There are words on the page referencing Thucydides. This is never good. (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘Peter Jones’
The Rhetoric of Factionalism
Posted in Musings, tagged Corcyra, Martin McGuinness, Northern Ireland, Peter Jones, stasis, Thucydides on March 30, 2017| Leave a Comment »
Hesiod the Neoliberal
Posted in Musings, tagged Europe, Greece, Hesiod, neoliberalism, Peter Jones on June 27, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Of course there’s a fine line between observing possible resemblances between classical antiquity and the modern world, and deploying arguable readings of classical antiquity in support of a specifically modern political agenda; on reflection, it is perhaps remarkable that Peter Jones’ Ancient and Modern column in the Spectator does the former so much more often than the latter. Today, however, is not one of those days. “Why do Greeks want to keep the euro, or remain in the European Union?” he asks rhetorically at the beginning. “The combative, creative, competitive, mercantile classical Greeks throve on independence.” The evidence for this is Hesiod’s Works and Days, and its praise of the good form of Eris, strife, which drives men to compete with one another in the race for riches. This then slides more or less imperceptibly into the depiction of democratic Athens as likewise ruled by competition, this time between politicians for the favour of the people, which is seen as the root of their confidence and of the Glory that Was Greece, until that was demolished by the arrival of Macedon and Rome. “No Greek should fear leaving the euro, or the EU.” (more…)
Sphinx 