Autor: Voegelin, Eric

Buch: The World of the Polis

Titel: The World of the Polis

Stichwort: Kriterium der Handlung: Rationalität der Macht

Kurzinhalt: Thucydides went one step further on the road of mundane rationalism, insofar as he used the rationality of power as the standard of action

Textausschnitt: 28/1 Herodotus had transformed traditions into history by using a commonsense means-end relation as the standard of selection,- and he had woven the selected actions into a pattern of history by arranging them as the genesis of the great war between Persians and Hellenes. Thucydides went one step further on the road of mundane rationalism, insofar as he used the rationality of power as the standard of action. The generally common-sensible, worldly-wise, urbane reflections of Herodotus were now replaced by a hard scrutiny of the traditions under the aspect of power politics. The advance from Herodotus to Thucydides, if an advance it can be called, reflects the hardening temper of Athenian democracy. Pragmatic rationality of action, disregarding the participation in right order, is a dangerous indulgence that may grow into an irrational force destructive of order. Ever since the Persian Wars, the danger of which the amiable work of Herodotus was a glaring symptom had grown rapidly and issued into the catastrophe of the Peloponnesian War with its suicidal effect for the whole of Hellas. The strict rationality of a struggle for power, without regard for the order of Hellenic society, had indeed become the standard of action in political practice. In conformity with the temper of his time, Thucydides wanted to interpret Greek history from its earliest times as a process that would lead up to the conflict of his own age. (107; Fs) (notabene)

29/1 In carrying out his plan Thucydides went as far back as his traditions would permit, in order to show that at no preceding time in Greek history had there been enough stability, wealth, and firmness of governmental organization to execute great power schemes, or to conduct a major war. Since Homer did not use the term Hellenes for designating Greeks collectively, Thucydides used this argument for the conclusion that Greek communities were rather small and weak, had little intercourse with each other, and certainly no occasion and ability for a collective action that would express itself in a common self-designation. And since this usage, or rather non-usage of the Hellenic name, was still to be found in Homer "who lived long after the Trojan war," the insignificant conditions must have continued well into historical times. The "ancient times" were weak because they were times of migration. Small communities, living in poverty with little equipment and few skills, were at any time ready to abandon their unfortified places under the pressure of superior numbers because they might live off the land at one place as well as at another. Since the soil was good, this policy of evasion was possible, but it also was a dire necessity because the fertility invited ever new invasions. Life at a low nomadic tribal level, without commerce, ships, or governmental organization around defensible places, was all that was possible under such conditions (1.2,-3). (107f; Fs)