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Nov. 7th, 2003 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaznettiFirst: Happy Birthday, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lenadances.
Second: My brain is moving like molasses this morning. I need to be perky and on the ball in precisely 55 minutes [eta: I wrote that at 11:05], because it's parents weekend here. I have tried caffeine and sugar, and they aren't helping.
The problem is Thucydides. My love for Thucydides is pure, don't get me wrong. But we've got fifty minutes to discuss the Melian Dialogue, the Mytilenian debate and the civil war in Corcyra. I can see already that the poor Plataeans are going to be forgotten once more.
All I want to do is sit there and read Thucydides aloud, because he defies analysis:
1.22: "In this history I have made use of set speeches some of which were delivered just before and others during the war. I have found it difficult to remember the precise words used in the speeches which I listened to myself and my various informants have experienced the same difficulty; so my method has been, while keeping as closely as possible to the general sense of the words that were actually used to make the speakers say what, in my opinion, was called for by each situation."
But later we learn that in wartime, "To fit with the change of events, words too had to change their usual meanings. What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying that one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action. Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man, and to plot against an enemy behind his back was perfectly legitimate self-defence... Then, with the ordinary conventions of civilized life thrown into confusion, human nature, always ready to offend even where laws exist, showed itself proudly in its true colors, as something incapable of controlling passion, insubordinate to the idea of justice, the enemy to anything superior to itself..."
And see, I was going to work this into some kind of argument, but instead I'll leave it here. "Go read Thucydides" is my thought for the day.
lenadances.Second: My brain is moving like molasses this morning. I need to be perky and on the ball in precisely 55 minutes [eta: I wrote that at 11:05], because it's parents weekend here. I have tried caffeine and sugar, and they aren't helping.
The problem is Thucydides. My love for Thucydides is pure, don't get me wrong. But we've got fifty minutes to discuss the Melian Dialogue, the Mytilenian debate and the civil war in Corcyra. I can see already that the poor Plataeans are going to be forgotten once more.
All I want to do is sit there and read Thucydides aloud, because he defies analysis:
1.22: "In this history I have made use of set speeches some of which were delivered just before and others during the war. I have found it difficult to remember the precise words used in the speeches which I listened to myself and my various informants have experienced the same difficulty; so my method has been, while keeping as closely as possible to the general sense of the words that were actually used to make the speakers say what, in my opinion, was called for by each situation."
But later we learn that in wartime, "To fit with the change of events, words too had to change their usual meanings. What used to be described as a thoughtless act of aggression was now regarded as the courage one would expect to find in a party member; to think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying that one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just an attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action. Fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man, and to plot against an enemy behind his back was perfectly legitimate self-defence... Then, with the ordinary conventions of civilized life thrown into confusion, human nature, always ready to offend even where laws exist, showed itself proudly in its true colors, as something incapable of controlling passion, insubordinate to the idea of justice, the enemy to anything superior to itself..."
And see, I was going to work this into some kind of argument, but instead I'll leave it here. "Go read Thucydides" is my thought for the day.
