Ruling Class Fears, was Re: zionism

[Michael McIntyre]

The Melian dialogue is both more and less stark than this.  The men are massacred, the women and children enslaved, after the Melians refuse to capitulate.  In the dialogue itself, perhaps the most chilling phrase is the Athenians' response to the Melians' offer of neutral friendship: "Your enmity injures us less than your friendship."  The famous phrase, "The strong do what they can; the weak suffer what they must," is STILL trotted out by neorealists and neoliberals alike as the cornerstone of the "science" of international relations.  They don't bother to ask themselves what the bloody Melian dialogue is doing in the History in the first place.  Melos is never mentioned before or after this chapter, but in the very next chapter, Athens makes plans to attack Syracuse.  It's not science; it's hubris.  Chutzpah probably has consequences no prettier.

Michael McIntyre


>>> jkschw at hotmail.com 07/14/01 17:46 PM >>>

Right. Thucydides has Pericles say--I paraphrase closely here: What we have 
is, to speak frankly, and empire; to acquire it was unjust; to abandon it, 
unsafe. This naturally leads directly to the Athenian's explanation of why 
they were going to massacre the men of Melos, and enslaves the women and the 
children: The strong do what theycan, and the weak suffer what they must.

-jks