At this time of year there are the annual jobs to be done, clean the sink, throw out rubbish and fill in the birthday dates on the new desk calendar. At least one of these jobs is now under way. There was a time when I used to rush around cleaning the house before Hogmany in the usual Scots style until one day I discovered why we did this. The cleaning of the house was an effort to kick out all the old demons and prevent new ones coming in. Quite how this worked I never discovered and as it was superstition I decided it was not a requirement, now I don't bother and just do what is actually necessary. Today I will begin to scribble in the dates, tomorrow I will remember the ones I forgot.
Another year of joy and happiness nears the end. I hope some of it went well for you. The cough has taken almost five months of my life this year, the weight has refused to diminish, the knees refused to improve and my brain is failing in the usual manner. Otherwise all is normal. Next year promises more political lies from Boris, the failure of his present ones, and Brexit, if it 'gets done.'
The Far Right are rising throughout the west, only the churches in some areas appear to be aware of this, in the US one magazine has come out against Trump, in Hungary some evangelicals are opposing the leaders policies as ungodly, and in the UK many churches are following passing fashion and keeping quiet. How sad. I will prepare for the new year, indeed I might even have a bath, but I see no reason to go mad about it. Hopefully it will be better than last year.
This is an interesting book, what with the election and all the hassle therein.
Plutarch, writing in the late 1st century, discusses the famous Greek leaders, Theseus, Solon, Pericles etc, giving us a rather illustrious picture of each. Considering Pericles was active in the 400's BC he has to read something into much of what primary sources, if any, he finds. It is bad enough now researching men from the past imagine how little written works Plutarch found, and how biased could those be?
What I got from the books was how similar to today politics in Greece happened to be. There was dictatorship, or leadership if you prefer, forms of democracy, and men always willing to fight their way to the top by fair means or foul, just like today. The only clear difference was that back then a leader had to lead the army in war if he was to be trusted, all had to be Generals of one sort or another, today they fight by stabbing in the back only. All these men had to lead from the front and once the 'democracy' such as it was, was installed they had to persuade their listeners that their way was correct.
It is at this point I found myself reading today into Athens.
The speaker who could, using his friends and many a dirty trick, convince the people that his propaganda was the correct propaganda would win the argument and the people would follow. So many time however the people followed the leader then changed their minds when things went wrong. When all was well they voted for him, the black stone against the white in the jar. If the war, or whatever enterprise they had been called to, failed the people quickly voted once again, often removing, fining or exiling the leader. Democracy is great, innit?
Some leaders of course deserved such treatment, Alkibiades a most obvious one. Boris Johnson claims Pericles as his hero, Alkibiades is nearer the mark. The people followed him when winning, brought him to trial when losing, praised him, feared him, and eventually when hiding among the Persians his Spartan enemy had him killed. The Athenian people would have killed him anyway by this time. Boris needs to be careful...
The people were followers at all times. They thought they had a democracy, one for the actual 'citizen' that is, not the majority in the state, yet they were led then as we are now. Today the press lies on behalf of the owner, the media follows who it will, the people obey the message, sometimes willingly, sometimes without knowing it. Goebels is alive and well today as he was in Greece thousands of years ago, the style never changes.
I liked this book. While not a quick read it was interesting, and while Plutarch had little evidence bar others writings the book gives an insight into ancient Athens thinking, leadership and the failure of democracy. Today whoever owns the media, TV, Radio, paper and social runs the world.
