Ancient Lessons for (Post)Moderns?

January/February 2005 Historically Speaking 29 Ancient Lessons for (Post)Moderns? Loren J. Samons ? Perhaps Thucydides continues to seem so smart and so relevant because he lived and wrote in a time before the invention of jargon. That, at least, was my first thought upon reading these essays. Two fundamental questions confront anyone interested inwhether classical historycan be used for contemporarythemes. First, does man have a nature? Second, were the classical Greek (and Roman) societies so aUen from our own as to make comparisons and analogies between the two hopelessly flawed? Ultimately, the first question subsumes the second. Because if man does have a nature—as I, like Thucydides, believe he does—then that nature will aUow us to draw useful lessons from other men's experiences, as long as we make an (admittedly imperfect) attempt to aUow for the pecuUar cultural and historical factors that operated on thatnature in different periods. Conversely, anyone who does not beUeve that man has a nature cannot beUeve that the study ofantiquitywill be relevant for us today: i.e., ifeverythingaboutus is culturaUy determined and shaped, ifnurture trumps nature at every turn, then only the study ofour own (and our immediately previous) environment and circumstances will be relevant and useful. ButifI am arguing that the study ofclassical antiquity can be "relevant and useful," preciselyin whatways is this study supposed to help us? Here, I think, our authors have let us down—or rather, they have not been as bold as I would like them to have been. For example, Euben's caU for "engagement" with the Greeks—an engagement thatcan "invigorate " our discourse or "deepen" questions and understanding—frankly leaves me cold. I expectvirtuaUyeverythingIread to sharpen my mind, so I cannot see how this claim puts ancient history in a privileged position. In anycase, howprecisely does one teU whether a discourse has been "invigorated" or not? And how deep does a question need to be before we can start to answer it? I suppose that questions can be infinitelydeep, and that discourse can be infinitely vigorous; thus, at what points do we satisfy ourselves that we have attained sufficientlydeepened questions and invigorated debate so that we can start searching for answers and drawing conclusions ? Euben, I believe, would say that I am missingthe point. That"poUticalknowledge" is (or should be) "constituted discursively," and that "answers" are not nearly so important as questions. But that doesn't offer much help to those who would ask, for example, whetheritis a good idea forthe United States to attempt to impose democratic governments on previously undemocratic states. Is our "knowledge" on this matter simplyto be the result ofthe current discourse on the subject ? The Athenians certainly made foreign policy based on a "discursive" process, but the actual results of these decisions make one wonder about the wisdom ofthis procedure. Personally, I would prefer to profit from, rather than imitate, the Athenians' mistakes. Lebow's attemptto make ethical concerns central to foreign policy seems to rely as much on the rejection as the admiration of Thucydides. (And I will just state for the record that I think he misconstrues Thucydides , who chronicles rather than endorses the advantage-seeking power poUtics pursued by the Athenians. Nor can I agree with much thathe says about Greekhistoryin general.) It is true that he adduces the AristoteUan concept of"community" to support his idea that nations must be joined in a society (which presupposes ethics) in order to develop their identities and thus define their interests. But, to my mind, this is a tenuous argument. It does not follow logicaUy that one must be a member of a society in order to define one's identity as opposing (or embracing) that society . Moreover, a state that has been expeUed from an international society continues to have interests and an identity, and mayormay notassociate these with a return to anybrotherhood ofnations. In short, I find his argument that foreign policy should be ethical because only then can a nation define and pursue itsinterests to beunconvincing. (Ihasten to add thatIverymuch beUeve that individuals as weU as nations have a responsibility to pursue ethical policies, but that is a beUefbased on moral values, and not on...