“One may choose to have selective faith in the domestic political leadership, adopting the stance that Hans Morgenthau, one of the founders of modern international relations theory, condemned as ‘our conformist subservience to those in power,’ the regular stance of most intellectuals throughout history. But it is important to recognize that profession of noble intent is predictable, and therefore carries no information, even in the technical sense of the term. Those who are seriously interested in understanding the world will adopt the same standards whether they are evaluating their own political and intellectual elites or those of official enemies. One might fairly ask how much would survive this elementary exercise of rationality and honesty.”
-Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival
I apologize for the severe lack of updates recently. I have suffered a near-constant deluge of obligations and deadlines that have placed writing posts somewhat further down my to-do list than I would like. As these obligations clear up, I hope to finish up a few posts I have waiting in the wings!
What follows is one piece of a longer series of posts which I have named the Democracy Series. Throughout these posts I would like to explore how Democracy as a political form is viewed currently and how often the modern paradigm alters the way we view classical or ancient democracy. In this piece I investigate Karl Popper’s claims that the great historian Thucydides’ personal oligarchic and anti-democratic leanings obscured his depiction of the Peloponnesian War and Athenian democracy. In the backdrop of this, readers should keep in mind that, at the time of Thucydides’ writing, Athens had already fallen to Sparta and the empire of rents with which She had dominated the Greek islands had long since crumbled.
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When reading Thucydides we must never forget that his heart was not with Athens, his native city. Although he apparently did not belong to the extreme wing of the Athenian oligarchic club who conspired throughout the war with the enemy, he was certainly a member of the oligarchic party, and a friend neither of the Athenian people, the demos, who had exiled him, nor of its imperialist policy.[1]
-Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies
The above quotation serves to illustrate Karl Popper’s main arguments, which claim Thucydides was an unabashed supporter of the oligarchic party, an enemy of Athens, as well as critical of Athens’ status as an imperial power. However, I shall advance the thesis that Thucydides’ conception of Athens’ imperialistic democracy is much more complex, specifically when viewed through Pericles Funeral Oration. To show this, I shall first juxtapose Thucydides’ eulogy of Antiphon with that of Pericles. From there I shall highlight key passages of Pericles’ Funeral Oration to demonstrate how Thucydides himself weighs in on Athenian imperialism. By the end of this essay I hope to have shown that Popper’s criticisms of Thucydides are simplistic and do not fully take his complex view of Athens and her ideals into account.
Before beginning it is important to highlight the method by which Thucydides approaches The Peloponnesian War, as it will help illuminate later on why textual evidence from his writings can be used to call Popper’s claims into question. Attempting to distinguish himself from earlier historians who relied more on fantastic anecdotes (like Herodotus) and poems than strict adherence to concrete facts, Thucydides says of the speeches that “it was in all cases difficult to carry them word for word in one’s memory, so my habit has been to make the speakers say what was in my opinion demanded of them by the various occasions, of course adhering as closely as possible to the general sense of what they really said.”[2] This approach is slightly problematic, since in the same sentence Thucydides admits he constructed some speeches based on what the orator was likely to have said but also that they adhere to what was actually said.[3] Nowhere does he elaborate on which speeches he heard himself and which speeches he reconstructed. Given this method, it can be difficult to distinguish what elements of The Peloponnesian War might indicate Thucydides’ own leanings versus those which are impartial recordings of events. However, through analyzing Thucydides’ eulogies and his account of Pericles’ Funeral Oration a distinct voice emerges that appears to celebrate Athens’ greatness rather than criticize her tactics. The first of these elements is Thucydides’ eulogies for Antiphon and Pericles. Read more…
