No.173 - The Greeks Knew it - Nature Eventually Bites Back
Dear James,
The ancient Greeks knew a thing or two about life and politics. They had seen it all before. They called it Nemesis, the retribution of the gods. It is what Mr Trump is facing today as he lies in his hospital bed. Nature, in the form of covid-19, has bitten back. America has another layer of chaos to add to its current nightmare.
Nemesis follows hubris as sure as night follows day. One dictionary describes hubris as ‘the characteristic of excessive confidence or arrogance, which leads a person to believe that he or she may do no wrong. The overwhelming pride caused by hubris is often considered a flaw in character.” Nemesis was the goddess of retribution and vengeance. She caused the downfall of men who thought themselves above the common herd. The boasters, the exaggerators, the people who would have us believe that they know everything and can achieve everything. We have a modern word for such people. We call them populists.
Early yesterday morning, Donald Trump announced that he had tested positive for Coronavirus and that he was self-isolating for fourteen days. Just a week ago the same man had told the American public that they should not worry about the virus because ‘it affects virtually nobody’. His constant attempts to diminish the virus, his neglect of its consequences and his bullying mockery of those who took sensible precautions and put on masks, has resulted in this. But of course Trump knows no other way. Like all narcissists he is fundamentally weak and his only way forward is to paint rosy pictures of the future no matter what. To ‘go backwards’ would be disaster for him. Being all knowing, he is a modern day Mussolini or a Hitler unable to contemplate their own fallibility and therefore set on the path to self destruction. In the case of Mussolini this came on a lamppost in a square in Milan. For Hitler it was a bullet in the head in a Berlin bunker. They were both victims of the false histories that they had created. They died when nature bit back in the form of a coalition of humanity that abhorred their deeds. Humanity is a part of nature and it has its own natural values of which resentment of inequality is one. Ignore that and nature will have her revenge.
The last two hundred years has seen a rash of false histories fuelled by the hubris of fanatics. Fascism and Communism were based upon narratives of false truths about the human condition – Fascism, that mankind had to be lead by strong leaders in a fight against the craving demands of the weak – Communism, that the injustices inherent in the capitalist system could be corrected by ‘the dictatorship of the proletariat.’ Modern populism has no such narrative. Its only narrative is to trash the status quo.
But hubris has not just been the preserve of the extremes. For years the liberal centre has gloried in its ‘successes’ and in the process has left behind the 40-50% of populations that have not benefited. The median income of the US ‘working man’, as Michael Sandel points out in his excellent new book, ‘The Tyranny of Merit’, has remained at about $36,000 over the last forty years. In real terms it has declined. He goes on, ‘most of the nation’s (USA) gains since the late 1970s have gone to the top 10% while the bottom half received virtually none’. His conclusion is that the liberal elite must address this fundamental shift in inequality and it must do this by respecting and honouring the ‘working men and women’ in terms of both income and moral recognition. This is another case of ‘nature biting back’. It is in human nature to resent extreme inequality and it is in human nature to correct such inequality by whichever means comes to hand. At the moment that means is in the hands of populists. The Trumps, the Johnsons and the Bolsinaros of our world are presenting the neo-fascism of revolutionary Conservatism as the solution. They are wrong. Trump is on his back and Boris is floundering.
For the moment Mr Trump’s ranting and raging has been stilled. Now we, like the ancient Greeks, must be determined in the humble pursuit of truth. We have to engage personally with the just grievances of the ‘left behind’. They are not the ‘deplorables’ as Hilary Clinton called them in 2016 but because of the centre’s neglect and implicit hubris they have succumbed to the deplorable behaviours of the likes of Trump. We, of the so-called ‘liberal disposition’, are ultimately to blame for the present mess. The challenge is a new, inclusive politics based upon evidence. Push Boris’s agenda too far James, and nature will bite back.
You have been warned!
Kind regards,
BH – Your Concerned Constituent