The Warnings of History

It is a hubris of humanity in every generation, that they believe their contemporary situation and struggles unique in the history of civilization. We may look fondly to the past in an instance of nostalgia; we may even urge others to learn from history; but when we are confronted with personal conflict we find situational specifics that bilaterally make us shamefully distinctive in defeat and proudly exceptional in victory. History is a friend when we want an obsequious conversationalist, but too often she is a stranger when we are in need of an exhortative teacher. We accept her when she makes us think we are better than the past; we reject her when she makes us realize we are the same as we have ever been.

So it is that, despite the urgings of the past, we as a species indulge our passions for utopia. “Let us try what has never been tried,” say we, but we only say again thereafter, “Let us fix our depravity with laws and punishment.”

“Let us resolve injury with justice,” we preach; but we only homilize again thereafter, “Let justice be relative to political ends.” “Let us ever strive for fairness and equality,” but, “Let me determine what is fair and equal.”

We think of Class Warfare as a Marxian approach to politics. But Marx was more an exploiter than an innovator of theory. The envy of one class toward another is as old as human nature itself–the exploitation of envy for political gain is younger only by a moment.

If we dare to apply the principles of history to the specifics of modernity, perhaps we may find our own conditions couched within the situations of time. Even in Ancient Greece, we can see the contests between those who have and those who have less.

As in Colonial America, wealth in Attica was first determined by land–not money. But as generations multiply population they also divide patrimony. Inheritances become smaller and neighbors become closer through successive propagation. The Attic planter was proud in his self-sufficiency, but soon realized he could not ignore the growing influence and wealth of a merchant class who profited by retailing the industry of the farmer or manufacturer.

But while the plantation can be self-sufficient, the market cannot. Merchants naturally consolidate to form cities, while the industrialist seeks space to improve his craft.  And it was through commercantile interaction and consolidation that a demand for convenience was amplified, and later satisfied. The convenience and variety of the city became the concupiscence of the country, especially among the passive. Civilization welcomed an influx of productive talent, and the property of the rusticated partnered with the currency of the urbane.

The poor likewise consolidated toward the cities, not because of civic opportunity or private risk, but because of social advantage and public reward. Seeing this, Athens’s rich migrated toward the suburbs–close enough to amenities, but distant enough from annoyances.

As Athens grew, democracy became urbanized. It flourished among the laborer and the peasant; it faded among the aristocrat and the nouveaux riche. Urban representation, by virtue of population alone, became grossly disproportionate to the suburban and rural delegations.

Regulation of commerce increased reciprocally to corporate stature, but the successful businessman was smarter than the public servant and these regulations only gave him an additional advantage over pretending or potential competition. Workers saw unfair advantages and organized into a society of subscribers to a common fund–first amongst respective trades in union, and later within the polis toward communion. They looked with disdain upon those who flaunted luxury, and the luxurious became fearful that no amount of wealth could repel angry passion.

But not all the wealthy were despised. There were others among the rich who so charmed and perturbed the poor that they were held in great esteem. Often they were the parvenus who had gained status through successful and subtle manipulation of others. Their elegance was not in the ornaments of their house, but in the ornaments of their speech. They decried opulence and extravagance through opulent and extravagant demagoguery, and easily molded the mobs to their own desires. They began to demand a more equal sharing of profit, the absolution of debts, and the redistribution of property, and the people loved them for it. They even adopted the color red as a symbol “expressive and significant of the scourge, the stripes and lines of blood which streaked the naked backs of the poor and lowly” of their day.[1]

Athens was spared a bloody revolution, but not all of Greece was so fortunate. Thucydides tells us of the Corcyraean Revolution, where they

“engaged in butchering those of their fellow-citizens whom they regarded as their enemies; and although the crime imputed [against them] was that of attempting to put down democracy, some were slain also for private hatred, others by their debtors because of monies owed to them…So bloody was the march of the revolution, and the impression it made was the greater as it was one of the first to occur. Later on, one may say, the whole Hellenic world was convulsed…The sufferings which revolution entailed upon the cities were many and terrible, such as have occurred and always will occur, as long as the nature of mankind remains the same.”[2]

Though Athens did not see the immediate chaos of Corcyra and Samos, they were not totally secure from social revolution, though theirs was borne in increments. Economic classes compromised: the inferior gained a little equality here and there, and the superior reclaimed a little favor; both avoided widespread bloodshed. Over time, however, they saw the same conflict between the greater in wealth and the greater in numbers.

Throughout Greece, the poor sought allies wherever they could, and

“opportunities for bringing in the foreigner were never wanting to the revolutionary parties…Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation [became regarded as] specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question [was the same as] the inaptness to act on any. Frantic violence became an attribute of virtue…The advocate of extreme measures was always trustworthy; his opponent a man to be suspected.”[3]

Skepticism and atheism increased as the manipulators of the poor convinced them the gods were mere machines of the powerful to instill fear. As the soul was dying as a spirit, it was being reborn as collective intellect. Truth became relative; black and white became infinite shades of gray. “Verily we know nothing,” Democritus says with ironic episteme. “Truth is buried deep…objects of sense are supposed to be real and it is customary to regard them as such, but in truth they are not.”[4] It is no surprise that morals grew lax, and ethics became determined by law—not law determined by ethics.  “Every form of iniquity took root in the Hellenic countries,” Thucydides informs us, “The ancient simplicity into which honor so largely entered was laughed down and disappeared; society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow…there was neither promise to be depended upon, nor oath that could command respect.”

Despite these ancient warnings that ultimately plunged the Greeks into civil and Peloponnesian Wars,  and saw the subjugation of democratic Athens by an oligarchic Sparta, we will undoubtedly proceed to entertain the notion that legislating and regulating personal prosperity somehow foments peace—that sacrificing protected liberty for forced equality will somehow pacify man’s nature to preserve and enhance his existence.

Only after unlimited warfare did the artists recognize the absurdity of such a venture. Aristophanes satirizes a communist in a comic play:

Praxagora: I want all to have a share of everything, and all property to be in common; there will no longer be either rich or poor; no longer shall we see one man harvesting vast tracts of land, while another has not ground enough to be buried in…I shall begin by making land, money, everything that is private property, common to all…Women shall belong to all men in common.

Blepyrus: But who will do the work?

Praxagora: Slaves.[5]

It is not because we do not learn from history that causes us to repeat it; it is that we mistake technological progress for political progress, and we mistake the difference in our methods for a difference in our motives.

History will repeat itself, as even Virgil recognized.

There shall be another prophet Tiphys;
And likewise will another Argo
sail with other heroes as her cargo
to other wars across the other seas,
and send to Troy once more the great Achilles.[6]