Writing Assignment

Introduction: Antiquity

Development of INR – Lecture Week 1

Antiquity • Why do we need to return to antiquity? • Do events and philosophies speak to our

own ideas and political practices? • What is the historical legacy of ideas from

antiquity that have come to us? • Do we find theories of politics or of “IR” in

antiquity? • Is it possible to really understand ancient

texts as their authors intended?

Brown, “Marx and Engels”Brown, “Marx and Engels”

Thucydides • Lived before Plato & Aristotle. • General during the Peloponnesian War

(431-404 BC). Result is Sparta victory. • History of the Peloponnesian War (written 7

years before the end of the war) • The polis is Thucydides’ main political unit; no

intimation of larger Pan-Hellenic union. • “In fine, I have written my work, not as an essay

which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession of all time.”

Thucydides Cont. • More than just a narrative history: there are

theoretical positions that can be teased out. Was Thucydides offering a “scientific” account of the causes of war between Sparta and Athens? (i.e. an objective analysis of events).

• Or was there a normative claim? Practical moral objectives; a tragic sensibility?

Thucydides Cont. • What was the cause of the war between Sparta

and Athens? Sea power vs. Land Power; cultural center vs. provincial estate; trade vs. self-sufficiency.

• Increasing division of Greece into two alliance systems: Delian League and Peloponnesian League.

• Thucydides: “The Growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta, made war inevitable.”

Thucydides Cont. • Prelude to War: naval rivalry between Corcyra

and Corinth. Corcyra allies itself with Athens and Corinth with Sparta.

• Deep-root of war: Fear => Security Dilemma. • Uncertainty of future intentions. • Perception of a lack of alternative to war. Better

to fight now than wait until losing becomes inevitable.

• Similar calculation in Germany 1914 and fear of Franco-British encirclement.

Thucydides Cont. • Two types of Fear: • 1) Mutual fear between two great powers

=> entails mutual respect. Potential for destabilization when there’s an imbalance of fear (i.e. when one power becomes increasingly powerful).

• 2) Fear of tyranny of one power over another (i.e. Mytilene revolt against Athens).

Thucydides Cont. • Fear is central for Thucydides. • The emergence of Empire is a

consequence of fear; think of the significance of fear today to compel American national security and foreign policy. Why are we so fearful?

Thucydides Cont. • Key moments: (importance in his text of

speeches, generally rewritten by him). • Pericles Funeral Oration: Eulogy of Athens. • Mytilene Debate: Athenian Response to

the revolt of Mytilene. • Corcyrean Revolution: Slaughter of anyone

opposed to democratic faction. • Melian Dialogues: You’re either with us or

against us.

Thucydides the Tragedian • What is a Tragedy? • Dionysus (God of win/win-making) gives Icarius wine

and tells him to introduce it to shepherds throughout Attica. The Shepherds get drunk and suspect that Icarius is up to no good and murder him. While dying he remembered that when he previously planted the grapes he caught a goat poaching them and in a fit a rage he had it killed. He then skinned it and improvised a dance to honor the goat.

• Hence tragedy = “goat song”. Tragos = he-goat; aeidein = “to sing”.

Cont. • Tragedy becomes a significant genre of

theatrical/choral performance in Ancient Greece. Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripedes.

• Example: Antigone • Tension between natural and state law;

Antigone caught between the two and only reconciliation is suicide.

• Creon is punished by the Gods.

Cont. • Tragic Trajectory: Hubris (Excessive self-

pride) - > Hamartia (error, tragic flaw) - > nemesis (wrath of the Gods).

• What does tragedy impart to the spectator? • Aristotle: catharsis, pity and fear leads to

cleansing or purification (medical sense); understand one’s limits => an ethical notion.

Aristotle on Politics • Artistole: man is a political animal, zoon

politikon, we have a natural impulse to live with others; friendship is a natural instinct in the human race; seems to extend beyond Greece.

• Nonetheless, natural difference between Greeks and non-Greeks. Greeks act in conformity with reason; barbarians lesser functions and therefore prone to being ruled – destitute of reason (Assumed).

Aristotle Cont. • The main problem Aristotle identifies is the manner in

which barbarians don’t distinguish between women and slaves: “But among barbarians no distinction is made between women and slaves, because there is no natural ruler among them: they are a community of slaves, male and female.”

• Which for him this means they don’t live according to reason, which implies that there is a natural hierarchy between men, women and slaves. The fact that barbarians don’t live according to reason implies then that are only fit to be ruled by Greeks.

• Can barbarians change? Can they learn Greek and behave like Greeks? No, intrinsic features of being other, non-Greek. Their telos is inferior.

Aristotle Cont. • Is the political equivalent to management of the

household? • “The conclusion is evident: that governments which

have a regard to the common interest are constituted in accordance with the strict principles of justice, and are therefor the true forms; but those which regard only the interest of the rulers are all defective and perverted forms, for they are despotic, whereas a state is a community of freemen” (70).

• What is the state for? The good life? (72-73). Happiness (eudemonia) (81).