The Gaza war has turned my thoughts in an unexpected direction. When the savagery broke out on October 7th, I thought I was prepared for it. After all over the years I have studied many episodes of intense brutality, ancient and modern. This one, however, was in a class by itself. I knew of nothing quite like it. I groped for analogies, knowing that analogies bring with them some consolation. They seem to whisper in the ear: “We’ve seen this before and lived through it. Surely, we can get through this one, too.” But this conflict seems unparalleled in its ability to strip away every shed human decency and expose in all its horror our fallen nature.
All this has set me thinking about analogies. . They are historians’ stock in trade and put bread and butter on the table for classicists, as I well know. But now I have become more wary of the undeniable appeal and power of this way of thinking. It invites brutality and in the same breath seems to whisper in the ear, “Wehave seen all this in the past and lived to tellabout ut. This too will pass.” But will it? Not for those killed in war.
Nicholas Kristoff in the New York Times of November 2, 2023 has reminded us of the dangers of analogies and the toll they may be taking in Gaza right now. / But, wait: What is an analogy? It’s not the same as a parallel between something known from history and a
contemporary situation. Parallel lines can go on forever, constantly reflecting one another, perhaps, but never quite coming to grips with one another.. Analogies are different. Conventional wisdom has it that they were at first a mathematical construct, later expropriated by Plato for philosophical purposes. But their origin is perhaps less elegant. Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War (5.7) is an early use of the term, describing among Athenian troops who drew an unfavorable comparison between their commander the politician Cleon, and the skilled Spartan commander Brasidas: “ For the soldiers being angry with their stay there, and recounting with themselves what a command his would be, and with what ignorance and cowardice against what skill and boldness of the other, “ Here analogy does means not a recognition of similarity, but calculation based on a contrast.
Again, in book eight (ch. 83) Thucydides uses the term to depict disgruntled troops who calculate their grievances, looking back to the past to assess their present : “they mistrusted Tissaphernes before, now they much more accused him. [2] For it fell out that when at the coming of the Athenians with their fleet before Miletus they refused to give them battle, Tissaphernes became thereby a great deal slacker in his payment; [3] and besides that he was hated by them before this “ (8.833, tr. Hobbes). The wording in the next chapter echoes the earlier description of troops thinking of past grievances: “Whilst these were upon this consideration, there happened also a certain tumult about Astyochus. “
In these setting analogical thinking seems to be the adding up of pros and cons – mostly cons – and deciding on that basis how to act. It doesn’t reach back to remote history to justify responding to one atrocity with another. It does the numbers and decides on that basis. Maybe a similar calculation of benefits and losses, short term and long term, is the best one can hope for in Gaza right now.
All this has set me thinking about analogies. . They are historians’ stock in trade and put bread and butter on the table for classicists, as I well know. But now I have become more wary of the undeniable appeal and power of this way of thinking. It invites brutality and in the same breath seems to whisper in the ear, “Wehave seen all this in the past and lived to tellabout ut. This too will pass.” But will it? Not for those killed in war.
Nicholas Kristoff in the New York Times of November 2, 2023 has reminded us of the dangers of analogies and the toll they may be taking in Gaza right now. / But, wait: What is an analogy? It’s not the same as a parallel between something known from history and a
contemporary situation. Parallel lines can go on forever, constantly reflecting one another, perhaps, but never quite coming to grips with one another.. Analogies are different. Conventional wisdom has it that they were at first a mathematical construct, later expropriated by Plato for philosophical purposes. But their origin is perhaps less elegant. Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War (5.7) is an early use of the term, describing among Athenian troops who drew an unfavorable comparison between their commander the politician Cleon, and the skilled Spartan commander Brasidas: “ For the soldiers being angry with their stay there, and recounting with themselves what a command his would be, and with what ignorance and cowardice against what skill and boldness of the other, “ Here analogy does means not a recognition of similarity, but calculation based on a contrast.
Again, in book eight (ch. 83) Thucydides uses the term to depict disgruntled troops who calculate their grievances, looking back to the past to assess their present : “they mistrusted Tissaphernes before, now they much more accused him. [2] For it fell out that when at the coming of the Athenians with their fleet before Miletus they refused to give them battle, Tissaphernes became thereby a great deal slacker in his payment; [3] and besides that he was hated by them before this “ (8.833, tr. Hobbes). The wording in the next chapter echoes the earlier description of troops thinking of past grievances: “Whilst these were upon this consideration, there happened also a certain tumult about Astyochus. “
In these setting analogical thinking seems to be the adding up of pros and cons – mostly cons – and deciding on that basis how to act. It doesn’t reach back to remote history to justify responding to one atrocity with another. It does the numbers and decides on that basis. Maybe a similar calculation of benefits and losses, short term and long term, is the best one can hope for in Gaza right now.