Hardly a week goes by without someone applauding Thomas Carlyle’s objection to democracy: ‘I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.’ In other words, infinitely wise politicians should tell the unenlightened mob what to think, not vice versa. Such feelings have been common ever since the Athenians invented direct democracy in 508 BC, which lasted
In the audience-free world of TV, where ‘acting’ and visuals have become of far greater importance than the actual words, it is no surprise that mumbling has become the fashion. Any ancient Greek actor engaging in such self-indulgent behaviour would quickly learn all about it. Tragedies and comedies were performed by masked actors, required both to
Donald Trump takes it as read that any criticism of his words or actions is an assault on the truth. The historian Tacitus, who had served Roman emperors in high office (including as consul), recognised the frame of mind and reflected on how one could maintain one’s honour working for such a monster. Tacitus saw
Many are still questioning the enthusiasm with which newspapers have implicated Archbishop Justin Welby, as a young man, in the abusive activities of a Christian camp leader for whom he was working. This line from the Daily Telegraph is typical: ‘Archbishop Welby is said to have gained much of his early grounding in Christian doctrine from
The governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, raises his growth forecasts and suddenly everyone believes the ‘expert’. So is it wrong to say that people ‘have had enough of experts’? Yes, totally wrong. Expertise exists: the question is, with what scope? Socrates dissected the problem. In debates in Athens’ democratic Assembly, he pointed out,
A Washington Post interview with ‘senior officials’ in the Trump White House reveals that ‘Trump… feels demoralised that the public’s perception of his presidency so far does not necessarily align with his own sense of accomplishment.’ Diddums! Nero could have taught him a trick or two. Unlike Nero, Trump will not kill his mother, murder
In his inaugural speech last week, the new President Trump said, among much else, the ‘American carnage’ of poverty, ignorance and criminal gangs ‘stops right here and stops right now’. Since nobody with the slightest intelligence would offer such hostages to fortune, there is no point in paying attention to what he says, any more
Ex-chancellor George Osborne is planning a book to be titled The Age of Unreason. He says that ‘it will be my attempt to understand why populist nationalism is on the rise in our western democracies’. An Athenian would have been most surprised by that title’s implications. If the ancient Greeks are famous for anything, it
We are told we live in a ‘post-truth’ world. This appears to mean that everyone believes everything they are told as long as enough people say it on enough different media. The Romans called it fama (‘fame’). This term covered news, slander, rumour, public opinion, reputation, notoriety, glory. When Virgil’s epic hero Aeneas, destined to
What is a ‘kudo’? According to the Taxpayers’ Alliance, it is a mark of honour, many of which should be given to the Commons’ British Infrastructure Group, for demanding the scrapping of Air Passenger Duty. The Alliance clearly thinks that ‘kudo’ is the singular of our ‘kudos’. It is not. Kudos is singular already: it
As self-important comics fantasise about unseating Donald Trump with their wit, they should remember the great Aristophanes. In 424 BC, he presented a comedy about the controversial politician Cleon. He was (apparently) the son of a tanner (ugh!), and was seen by contemporaries, including the historian Thucydides, as a ‘brutal’, ‘insolent’ but ‘very persuasive’ braggart
In the eyes of the bien-pensants, the election of Donald Trump and the vote on Brexit have brought democracy to an end, and a good thing too since the people are clearly incapable of appreciating what the bien-pensant has to offer. In this they are bang up to date with their rather mieux-pensants and certainly
‘America’s journey into the great unknown’, screamed a headline greeting Donald Trump’s election as next President of the United States. Most of us call it the future, which has a long and distinguished tradition of being unknown. In the ancient world there was quite an industry in attempting to foretell the future: oracles, auguries, dream
Frenzied outrage from Leavers and comical paeans of praise from Remainers greeted the High Court’s decision to instruct government that Parliament had to agree to the triggering of the clause that will initiate the UK’s exit from the European Union. In 406 BC, the Athenians demonstrated just how dangerous such hysterical reactions could be. The Athenians had
Doctors are being urged not to tell patients what is best for them but to lay out the options and tell them to get on with it. Hippocrates (5th century BC) would have had his doubts. A key duty of the ancient doctor was, he said, ‘to help, or at least not to harm’. In this
With the Labour party reduced to a cult in honour of the vain and incompetent Jeremy Corbyn, the Tory party is currently ruling the roost. Perhaps the Old Oligarch, a fifth-century BC Athenian hostile to democracy — we do not know his real name — can help out. The Old Oligarch’s fascinating pamphlet took the
In writing an article that argued both for and against the European Union, Boris Johnson was following a solidly classical precedent — that the finest exponents of the art of persuasion were those able to argue equally convincingly on both sides of any question. An anonymous document entitled Dissoi Logoi (‘Two-sided arguments’, c. 4th Century
‘If you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere,’ proclaimed Theresa May in a speech to the Conservative party conference. Oh dear! And her a vicar’s daughter too! ‘Cosmopolitan’ derives from the ancient Greek kosmos ‘world’ plus politês, ‘enfranchised member of a polis, citizen’. It was a word used by
Jeremy Corbyn has been re-elected leader of the Labour party not by MPs but by his teenage ‘fans’ in Momentum. So what does Corbyn need to do when he wins power? Follow the example of the emperor Augustus, that’s what. When Rome was a republic, its monuments and military banners proclaimed it as SPQR —
As the UK prepares for Brexit into the big wide world outside, it has been pointed out that the Foreign Office is sadly lacking in people with hard experience of that world, and even more lacking in people from that world. But if the Romans can do it, surely we can too. Whatever else the