The Media, Gersnet and the Peloponnesian wars

[bmck 117]

I was reading Andy's responses in the 'feel ashamed about your support' thread, and it reminded me of Pericles in the Peloponnesian wars. I thought a bit more about it and there are a number of interesting parralels. So I thought I'd reconstruct that war for us gersnetters, with the dominant opinions getting to play leading roles. I'm not sure how many people know their classical military history, and about the Peloponnesian wars (the Athenian empire versus Sparta and her allies) but I've tried to pad it out enough to be a something worth reading even if you haven't heard anything about it. Anyway, here goes:

 

Andy’s approach to the media is like Pericles’ stance towards the Spartans in the Peloponnesian wars. Pericles persuaded the Rangers supp... sorry, Athenian people that there was no point in fighting the celtic-minded-Spartans. Although the Spartans had control of the media, sorry, land, with their vast, incomparable hoplite army, they could do no lasting damage to Athenian power because Athens was self sustaining. When the Spartans marched into the countryside in Attica, all the Athenians had to do was to retreat behind their walled city, with walled links to the harbour, and count on their incontestable domination of the seas to provide all they needed. The Spartans could huff and puff, and destroy the countryside all they liked, but in doing so they could win no lasting tactical advantage, and could not ultimately touch Athenian power. As evidence he pointed to the last all out battle with the Spartans – the Spartans won the battle, but ended with lots of dead Spartiates and no significant gain, as no-one in the ancient world could take a walled city. Likewise, Andy_Steel as Pericles, realises that all this huffing and puffing from salaried-dullards in the media might be aggravating, it doesn’t do any tangible harm. If you maintain a sense of self-sufficiency without provoking them further, they are going to realise eventually that all their vitriol and big words don’t make a blind bit of difference, and that life will go on irrespective of their petty little crusade. I think Andy represents the best version of this most moderate course – take it on the chin, because in the end it just doesn’t matter. I think he also represents the majority of Rangers supporters, even if they haven’t thought about it.

 

However, things didn’t turn out well for Pericles even though the principle ancient writers thought he was right. Eventually he was ousted by radical conservatives, played in our Gersnet reconstruction by maineflyer, and Norris Cole, and the Vanguard Bear sort. While the Spartans didn’t win any tactical advantage, they did win in other ways as they ravaged the Attic countryside. The Athenians had to look on as their honour was disparaged by mocking Spartans, and as it progressed on for years, Pericles found it harder and harder to suppress the radically conservative Athenians who were not willing to cower behind the walls and suffer dishonour. The backbone of Athens, and the life of the polis, was the hoplite landowners, who loved their land, and hated seeing it ravaged. They reasoned that the Athenian democracy was the greatest of the polis and it was unseemly for them to hide behind their walls. They pointed to Pericles’ policy and said it wasn’t working, as year on year, the Spartans came back and ravaged the countryside. The conservative element played this up and eventually the dominant opinion in Athens changed, no longer willing to stay Pericles’ course, and they went on the attack. They actually done well at first and gained a few significant victories, but their reactionary temperament, and fury, made them ill suited to preserving power. The confidence won by their victories kept them going on the attack in ill-considered regions (like Egypt) and they overstepped their bounds. I think any all out attack on the media from these more radically conservative elements, if their statements and their wording are anything to go by, will go on this way because, although their anger is justified, anger is rarely an astute place to wage war from. They eventually pissed off too many people, and all support for Athens crumbled and they lost the war.

 

So who’s right? Well, both are clearly partly right. Pericles was mostly correct in his assessment that the Spartans could not win the war if they pursued his course, and that Athenian power was untouched by their harsh words and farm-burning, just as Andy is right that Rangers wont be better or worse off for petty media attacks because ultimately we are self-sufficient. But Andy will find it harder and harder to encourage fellow Rangers fans to pursue this moderate course, not because he isn’t correct in his understanding, but because it’s hard to endure dishonour. The longer the media keeps provoking, the more likely they are to draw out the ultra-conservative element, and in doing so win the war. That said, the ultra-conservative element, when they went on the attack, looked like they could seriously win the war, and Athens regained a sense of its identity. If they hadn’t overstretched, they may very well have won the war. Likewise, if Rangers on mass started attacking the media, we would soon see its vulnerabilities (ie: its need to make money) and would probably see a change in attitude. This would be no tactical advantage, but it would be good for morale and identity, which, the conservatives know is important. So what’s the answer?

 

The final characters to be introduced are the Frankie/Bluedell contingent. They don’t get to be contemporaries of the Peloponnesian wars like Andy and Norris, but get to play Yale neoconservative scholar Donald Kagan. He agreed most fundamentally with Pericles, but his one criticism was that a purely defensive policy never works. Although he was intellectually right that just ignoring the Spartans attacks would mean they would lose nothing, he had no plan to actually win the war. With Athenian power at sea, he could’ve launched raids all over the Spartan territory, and made them think twice about ravaging the Attic countryside. But because he was interested in peace, and maintaining Athenian high-ground, and not giving the Spartans what they wanted, he essentially invited them on to keep making more and more attacks. If he had chosen, as a wise and moderate sort of first-among-equals to have an offensive policy that was fair, thought out, and, above all, not reactionary and angry, he might well have won the war without augmenting his fundamental principle that the Spartans, if ignored, couldn’t do anything to them. I think Frankie/Bluedell advocate this moderate approach to response – they agree with Andy that it doesn’t actually matter a fuck one way or the other what the media say, but, like Norris and the radical conservatives they realise that these sort of attacks, especially over sustained periods of time, have effects on solidarity, morale and confidence. If we had a, Murray-down policy of contesting only the grossest of mistruths, without becoming petted-lipped reactionaries towards anything bad said about us, we might remind them that we have a big stick too, and though we’re not interested in petty wars, and prefer a moderate approach, we do have some sort of response, and aren’t going to take shite.

 

So there we go.

[Frankie 8,145]

I think that explains the situation rather well metaphorically speaking... :D

[Big Spliff 0]

You are one of a kind bmck, there's no doubt about it!

 

More power to your elbow.

[bmck 117]

I think that explains the situation rather well metaphorically speaking... :D

 

i'd expect your support, you get to be metaphorically right although shroomz'll hate you for being a neocon

Edited August 17, 2009 by bmck

[Bluedell 5,329]

Wow.....I think....

 

 

 

[Super_Ally 0]

Wow.....I think....

 

 

 

 

Pretty much sums up my reaction.

 

Managed to follow Bmck's reasoning (I think) without knowing anything much about the Peloponnesian Wars. I don't think watching the 300 or reading a few novels about Spartans counts does it?

[26th of foot 5,827]

Graham Spiers Sports Diary.

 

I note those red, white, and blue cavalcaders have ceased dragging their collective knuckles, superceeding their favoured pastime by launching an in depth critique of the Peloponnesian Wars. I love a sword and sandal epic, heaving oiled bodies replete in leather and metal plate doing the macho thang. I am undone by the necessary violence of those short stabbing bacon bayonets.

 

My salad days as a Divinity undergraduate at St Andrews was one long Greek Tragedy. As a homage to Cambridge Footlights, we formed East Neuk Catamites but alas the weekend Marathon from Elie to Crail threw up so few windswept Hoplites prepared to administer satisfying facial humiliation. My crie de couer on the Fife coastal path often went the way of tidal driftwood, I was prepared to impale myself on any spear.

 

I urge my fellow Rangers supporters to disist from further study of the Peloponnesian Wars, extra virgin olive oil is a poor lubricant.

[Frankie 8,145]

Haha - superb stuff mate!

[biggordy 0]

One of the best posts I've ever seen concerning matters Rangers and the phoney " war "

[andy steel 0]

What an awesome post. Follow that!

 

It would be impossible to argue with the central tenet - that dignified silence ought to be balanced out with occassional bites to let them know RFC has teeth - and my only quibble would be that I think that's what we ARE doing.

 

Bluedell, in another thread, points to the success of the "Rangers For Me" boycott - well, as one who happily took part in same and who refuses to pick up the book, even for a glance, when in a bookshop, I would point to that as an example of how fans kick back against the pricks without the need to do the same at every single criticism.

 

In the end, iirc, General Pericles was voted out - ostracised - from Athens, and lived out his time in comfortable exile. An uncomfortable thought for me!