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cherish and recoiling from no means in their struggles for ascendancy engaged in the direct excesses and in their acts of vengeance they went to even greater lengths not stopping at what justice or the good of the state demanded but making the party caprice of the moment their only standard and invoking with equal readiness the condemnation of an unjust verdict or the authority of the strong arm to glut the animosities of the hour thus religion was in honor with neither party but the use of fair phrases to arrive at guilty ends was in high reputation meanwhile the moderate part of the citizens perished between the two either for not joining in the quarrel or because envy would not suffer them to escape thus every form of iniquity took root in the hellenic countries by reason of the troubles the ancient simplicity into which honor so largely entered was laughed down and disappeared and society became divided into camps in which no man trusted his fellow to put an end to this there was neither promise to be depended upon nor oath that could command respect but all parties dwelling rather in their calculation upon the hopelessness of a permanent state of things were more intent upon self defence than capable of confidence in this contest the blunter wits were most successful apprehensive of their own deficiencies and of the cleverness of their antagonists they feared to be worsted in debate and to be surprised by the combinations of their more versatile opponents and so at once boldly had recourse to action while their adversaries arrogantly thinking that they should know in time and that it was unnecessary to secure by action what policy afforded often fell victims to their want of precaution thucydides history of the peloponnesian war iii 82 83 posted in uncategorized comments off on thucydides on american politics on the bacchae and discourse in america posted on november 4 2018 by shaun kenney about 10 years ago virginia s bloggerati held the world in the palm of our hand our perspectives were not just consulted they were feared such was the power that columnists and editorial boards held over the minds of virginians that elected officials feared this new set of variables yours truly happened to be one of those voices to some degree though we have scattered a bit that same handful of perspectives still holds sway norm leahy writes for the washington post as a columnist brian schoeneman still manages to rack a few column pieces even if he is in self imposed exile rick sincere has taken over the score from the lee brothers and kenney the younger still pokes around as a writer just invariably not on politics sure the the bull elephant continues to define itself against bearing drift our friends at blue virginia seem to have figured out the keys to success early with a democratic party that understood why it was important to subsidize a narrative for all the griping that republicans do about the liberal media and the pay to play leftosphere republican digital media seems to have endured as a volunteer only endurance marathon until certain pay to play actors accuse others of in fact being pay to play witness the pettiness of virginia politics today s environment sees publications like the republican standard the virginia mercury and richmond 2 day rising above the amateur op ed writers in a time before facebook the lowly blog was the only means of really disseminating information beyond the legacy media if i seem terribly down on the legacy media vs digital media it isn t because of the medium itself after all most of us in the digital arena would crawl across broken glass to be picked up by the washington post or the richmond times dispatch if even for peanuts rather one sees today some of the best investigative reporting ever done vice politico the new york times and the wall street journal and some of the best opinion writing in places such as national review the weekly standard and quillette and no one is reading it we are all lying to ourselves and we love it it is difficult to write in such a time as to stand athwart history yelling stop while there is a cacophony of noise catering to our every whim telling us to keep going and leveraging our feelings against us marketing does this we buy coke vs pepsi because we are attracted to red over blue we buy ritz crackers because it is perfectly spherical and attractive to the eye we react viscerally to advertising and buy the products not because we like or even want the product but because the reaction itself felt true ergo the argument must be true are we all really this stupid yes we are or more importantly we have entire industries set up to convince us that we aren t as stupid as we constantly feel for instance we have a social media apparatus designed for hook ups feeding us 85 of our social media and 67 of our news consumption what 45 responding that they get some of their news from a dating site turned pro guys worse than that we have entire cottage industries set up to tell stupid people that they are in fact educated souls most college diplomas are crap even if they are in the humanities how many people can truly say they are better for the exchange 50 000 in debt for an undergraduate education can buy you the great books series several times over and you d be 45 000 better off this is where i still hold out tremendous hope for the humanities in the sense they might actually teach us to read consider think and slow the hell down a bit but they don t people have been taught that verification of one s ideas and thoughts comes with attention the more attention the more valid the feelings and ergo the more valid one s ideas after all isn t that how we built this entire blogosphere thing in virginia what disappoints me most perhaps is the revelation that most people really don t want to learn a damn thing i have barn cats they follow me because they expect to be fed on a rare occasion most people don t want to be helped in the end they just want to be fed thus otherwise good people will justify absolutely horrible things in the name of principles and so forth tolerate the worst abuses tear apart another person s character or seek to absolutely obliterate an opponent in the political arena because she who believes most wins is it worth it is it really worth one s soul i have been thinking a great deal on this line in the matthew 19 it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven for those who have seen the compromises power forces others to take when was the last time you saw a wealthy man who was a morally decent one i m not even talking about daddy warbucks here even moderately successful people in fact most americans are this person indeed most working class americans enjoy luxuries unavailable even to roman emperors we are well fed housed entertained beyond our wildest dreams informed and wonderfully distracted but does any of this mean we are really good people at the end of the day sure we pay taxes go through the motions attend church flip that guy in the median our 3 86 we got back in change after we purchased our big kahuna burger and maybe even itemized our charitable contributions but is that it maybe we put our heads on our pillows claiming to be a part of a cause volunteering for the pto doing our jobs really well maybe we even perform extracurricular stuff like local or state politics you know righteous anger against those people coming to take our rights away destroy what it means to be an american and deny other people their basic rights there are far too many people who base their goodness on what they do we don t need better brands we need better souls we don t need more identity we need stronger minds one thinks of the parable of the rich man and all the compromises one must make to become wealthy considered even honored by others things we would never normally excuse others will wantonly excuse in the pursuit of power people we would willingly embrace we would tear apart once objectified as an diabolical other we manufacture hatred because we have no charity ourselves politics in america just seems to bring this fatal personal flaw in people to the fore in ways i d never imagined even five years ago much less 10 or 20 years ago when i got started again they don t want to be helped only fed i have thought a great deal about keeping a diary the same way victor klemperer did during the rise of fascism in germany and the concurrent arrival of the communists in east germany both claimed to be utopias neither had conscience and we seem absolutely bound and determined to create american versions of each who wins this fight certainly not the people yet there is a presentation of inevitability in the contest participate in politics they say lest you be governed by evil men the counterpoint better to be insane with the mob than sane alone for myself i see this wave of creative destruction in our institutions and society proglumated by people with rotten souls and malformed minds both sides chasing appetites knowing what the rich man knows that it is far easier to steal than it is to build can there be a politics when rational discourse is reduced to pathos on the left and ethos on the right that narrow field for logic and discourse logos seems to be growing more and more narrow by the day one gets the sense that people don t even really believe what they say they believe anymore provided it either carries their tribe to victory or denies it to those whom they profess to dislike to keep such factions in line roman emperors used to resort to colors such as blues and greens and then force them towards civic projects the key point here that an emperor was required to keep faction down i am reminded of a recent biography on secretary of defense james mattis that one can still find in bookstores the title of this book was rather quaint no greater friend no worse enemy i m sure a good number of folks in both parties got a chest thumping hurrah out of such a title without even considering where it was from or whom it references the line is sulla s epitaph the man who overthrew rome s corrupt leadership and restored some sense of constitutional law before pompey and caesar engaged in their death struggle to rule a dangerous sentiment indeed one imagines who wins and loses fostering such thoughts but i assure you it will not be the common man rather it will be some apparatchik or group thereof who see this as a game they can win ignorant of how to govern and willfully blind to the consequences of stupid schopenhauer used to argue that intellect is invisible to the man who has none the same could be true for individuals in power the same is definitely true for a mob yet when even the best and brightest set down their pens for fear of retribution when some of the best journalism in recent memory is drowned out by a series of fake news either state sponsored or privately fostered when honest opinions and legitimate thought are muzzled and pay to play hackers and the rage of feelings is the norm euripides wrote in his tragedy the bacchae how the young women of thebes whipped into an ecstatic frenzy by dionysus ends up killing pentheus with his own mother helping to rip him apart using their bare hands the ecstasy wears off and the maenads see what they have done pentheus own mother agave still in an ecstatic state presents her son s head to the king believing it to be the head of a mountain lion as the ecstatic frenzy wears off agave sees what she has done and is exiled for it dionysus himself leads a barbarian horde to wipe out the city of thebes in vengeance now we might lie to ourselves and suggest that our petty principles really are about the future deep down we know they aren t euripides is a warning about what happens when we whip ourselves into a frenzy and put principles over values one might say pathos over ethos will we learn five years ago i was more hopeful today it is harder to cut through the noise to even have the discussion one sees more bacchanalia than discourse i m afraid posted in essays comments off on on the bacchae and discourse in america in the end the world will break your heart posted on october 14 2018 by shaun kenney i don t think there s any point in being irish if you don t know that the world is going to break your heart eventually i guess that we thought he had a little more time daniel patrick moynihan 1963 mise éire i am lonelier than the hag of beara great is my glory i who bore the brave cúchulainn great is my shame my own children who sold their mother great is my pain my bitter foes who terrorize me without end great is my sorrow the hope i placed in my people died mise éire i am lonelier than the hag of beara padraic pearse mise eire 1912 the hidden conceit of every writer is that we always hope that there will be one essay just one completely coherent thought that will actually crystallize opinion and change the way people view the world ideally for the better needless to say the world seems to have become much more coarse since the early naughties when the internet was brave and new i have been writing in virginia for about 15 years now the world was a better place for ideas back then as social media such as it was consisted of books ideas art culture and so forth then came twitter the mythological school of athens we thought digital media would provide us after the straightjacket our legacy media outlets continued to cram us into simply dissolved into the coliseum in some sense social media has been a net positive though one does lament the demise of newsprint to some degree the legacy media did bring it upon themselves too sclerotic to improvise too angry at digital media for stealing advertising revenue they believed was sacrosanct too livid at digital media for stealing their work only to turn it into commentary yet in many ways the newcomers simply imitated the sins of the past with our attempts to institutionalize and our narrow editorialization of the news bloggers that eponymous term for all things print media despises simply imitated the standard they recognized as print media declined and digital media interposed journalists of the old school yielded to rank reporters of the new imitators of a legacy but pale ones at that meanwhile the opinion class merrily chirped away for myself i find it much more difficult to justify writing on current affairs it s boring for a start moreover the only way we seem to have any impact is if we are absolutely savaging our opposition be it internal or external moreover it s what our reporters expect from us if it bleeds it leads isn t a term that we invented after all the sad truth is that opinion leaders really aren t leading a damn thing anymore to quote one such leader of the french revolution there are my people i must find out where they are going so i can lead them such is our pathetic excuse for political l...
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