Did Trump “dominate” Davos—or just do his chaos-monkey routine in other people’s Common European (& Atlantic-Arctic) Home? Or how not to read Thoukydides in the context of Trump’s grapples with the...
He is a fringe persona in the tDrumpf circle of grifters. He writes these confident assertions about what tDrumpf's intentions were at Davos hoping to get his attention and be invited into the charmed inner circle of grifters.
May I depart from my usual negativity to say that I really liked Farrell's "island of the green eyes" reading of Carney's speech? I think it is both unusual and insightful.
But since you brought up Melos, I must mention Seva Gunitsky, who also liked Carney's speech and expressed a general irritation with the misuse of the Melian dialogue in his Substack review of it:
"The failure of self-knowledge, and the inability to see your own limits — or worse, seeing yourself as exempt from these limits — is what destroys great powers. If there’s one timeless lesson of history we can extract from the Peloponnesian War, that would be it. But it’s not the lesson Trump or Miller have internalized."
Gunitsky puts more weight on the Sicilian Expedition than you do, but you both agree that Athens played a critical role in its own defeat.
I'm always stunned when the Melian dialog is presented as the epitome of international realism. But when its done by someone who used to be a historian?
You mean that I should not have told Larry Summers back in the day that Niall Ferguson would be a great hire for the Harvard History Department—that the Rothschild biography showed an out-of-this-world degree of industry, that he was very smart, and that he enjoyed going against the intellectual grain and thus would be a very valuable Devil's Advocate to have around? :-)
I do think that you are taking Ferguson more seriously than he merits. But I can play the game. The best etymological rendering of "Ferguson" is probably something like "son of the warrior", but a literal rendering is "son of the strong man". If we amend that to "the strongman's dependent", it seems apposite enough.
Perhaps some business was successfully conducted behind closed doors. But Trump is in essence an agent of destruction. He basically came to DAVOS to wreck the conference and he did. Then left. He insulted everyone e deliberately. His conduct was like bringing an incendiary device in to a crowded theater, and lighting it off.
But the crowd did not panic. It snuffed it out. And he left empty handed and in retreat.
..That is the read out. But it is not the final judgment. Because Trump effectively ruined the event and it will never be the same. As Ferguson avers by way of apology for Trump, something did come of his performance. It was monopolizing. There was an opportunity cost associated it with it. Think of all the things thst might as been accomplished if he had not come with destructive intent. Or not come at all. And now we hear the organizers have decided to move the event.
I stopped paying attention to Ferguson years ago, or maybe decades, but I did like the Peloponnesian War discussion. Back in the 1960s, I read Thucydides (the standard orthography in English at the time) in the original Greek and enjoyed him quite a lot; not as much as Homer but more than the dramatists, by and large. Then I moved on to Politics, Philosophy and Economics and frankly Thucydides looked better than ever. He’d have loved writing about modern American politics.
Regardless of their prejudices, perhaps even because of them at times, the reports of people present while the sausage was being made always seem to be more resonant. My personal favorites in addition to Thucydides, are Machiavelli and Montaigne. LIstening to them across the centuries kinda make one glad to be a member of the same species. Wannabes like Ferguson are thin gruel by comparison.
Another great DeLongian romp through the history of how-we-came-to-be-what-we-are-only-to-find-out-to-our-dismay-that-we're-not-as-much-transfigured-as-the-conventional-wisdom-of-would-be-imperial sycophants-has tried-to-delude-us-into-thinking-we-were. (Seems there ought to be a single non-hyphenated German word to describe such historical-rhetorical mastery.) In any case, it does seem to be wasted on buffoons like Ferguson, and venomous guttersnipes like Stephen Miller. Still, we can only mock what circumstance gives us to mock. I certainly enjoyed reading this particular bit of mockery. Bravo!
Ferguson reminds me of the PeeWee Herman scene in which Herman hits the curb and flies uncontrollably over the handlebars of his Schwinn bicycle, then pops up and implausibly claims 'I meant to do that!!!' Except Ferguson further debases his already low credibility to claim 'TRUMP meant to do that!!!,' for this comparable crash and burn incident.
Re: Niall Ferguson
He is a fringe persona in the tDrumpf circle of grifters. He writes these confident assertions about what tDrumpf's intentions were at Davos hoping to get his attention and be invited into the charmed inner circle of grifters.
Hitchens being a model for this transition.
And at a less erudite level, but with the same motivation (I write good stuff but I have no real power) : Krauthammer.
May I depart from my usual negativity to say that I really liked Farrell's "island of the green eyes" reading of Carney's speech? I think it is both unusual and insightful.
But since you brought up Melos, I must mention Seva Gunitsky, who also liked Carney's speech and expressed a general irritation with the misuse of the Melian dialogue in his Substack review of it:
"The failure of self-knowledge, and the inability to see your own limits — or worse, seeing yourself as exempt from these limits — is what destroys great powers. If there’s one timeless lesson of history we can extract from the Peloponnesian War, that would be it. But it’s not the lesson Trump or Miller have internalized."
Gunitsky puts more weight on the Sicilian Expedition than you do, but you both agree that Athens played a critical role in its own defeat.
Local speakers sometimes pronounce Davos with a 'b' sound like 'Dabos' reminds me of the Napoleon/Elba palindrome...
So bad was I ere I saw Dabos.
Ferguson lost Davos, and the plot
I'm always stunned when the Melian dialog is presented as the epitome of international realism. But when its done by someone who used to be a historian?
It is absolutely remarkable—but it is a good touchstone of who has and who has not actually read the Peloponnesian War...
You mean that I should not have told Larry Summers back in the day that Niall Ferguson would be a great hire for the Harvard History Department—that the Rothschild biography showed an out-of-this-world degree of industry, that he was very smart, and that he enjoyed going against the intellectual grain and thus would be a very valuable Devil's Advocate to have around? :-)
I have to admit that, whenever I've made an against-the-grain hiring recommendation, it's turned out badly
Yet we do desperately need truly diversified intellectual portfolios, especially as we age...
But not if the portfolio is structured as an index fund, with weights reflecting the prevalence of opinion in the US.
I do think that you are taking Ferguson more seriously than he merits. But I can play the game. The best etymological rendering of "Ferguson" is probably something like "son of the warrior", but a literal rendering is "son of the strong man". If we amend that to "the strongman's dependent", it seems apposite enough.
Excellent. Here is my take.
Perhaps some business was successfully conducted behind closed doors. But Trump is in essence an agent of destruction. He basically came to DAVOS to wreck the conference and he did. Then left. He insulted everyone e deliberately. His conduct was like bringing an incendiary device in to a crowded theater, and lighting it off.
But the crowd did not panic. It snuffed it out. And he left empty handed and in retreat.
..That is the read out. But it is not the final judgment. Because Trump effectively ruined the event and it will never be the same. As Ferguson avers by way of apology for Trump, something did come of his performance. It was monopolizing. There was an opportunity cost associated it with it. Think of all the things thst might as been accomplished if he had not come with destructive intent. Or not come at all. And now we hear the organizers have decided to move the event.
Trump kills everything he can get his hands on.
Trump did dominate the Davos conference. He threw away, in a short period, what a whole generation of Americans who fought WW2 and the Cold War built.
America is not the leader of the free world, just another thug.
I stopped paying attention to Ferguson years ago, or maybe decades, but I did like the Peloponnesian War discussion. Back in the 1960s, I read Thucydides (the standard orthography in English at the time) in the original Greek and enjoyed him quite a lot; not as much as Homer but more than the dramatists, by and large. Then I moved on to Politics, Philosophy and Economics and frankly Thucydides looked better than ever. He’d have loved writing about modern American politics.
Regardless of their prejudices, perhaps even because of them at times, the reports of people present while the sausage was being made always seem to be more resonant. My personal favorites in addition to Thucydides, are Machiavelli and Montaigne. LIstening to them across the centuries kinda make one glad to be a member of the same species. Wannabes like Ferguson are thin gruel by comparison.
Another great DeLongian romp through the history of how-we-came-to-be-what-we-are-only-to-find-out-to-our-dismay-that-we're-not-as-much-transfigured-as-the-conventional-wisdom-of-would-be-imperial sycophants-has tried-to-delude-us-into-thinking-we-were. (Seems there ought to be a single non-hyphenated German word to describe such historical-rhetorical mastery.) In any case, it does seem to be wasted on buffoons like Ferguson, and venomous guttersnipes like Stephen Miller. Still, we can only mock what circumstance gives us to mock. I certainly enjoyed reading this particular bit of mockery. Bravo!
:-)
Ferguson reminds me of the PeeWee Herman scene in which Herman hits the curb and flies uncontrollably over the handlebars of his Schwinn bicycle, then pops up and implausibly claims 'I meant to do that!!!' Except Ferguson further debases his already low credibility to claim 'TRUMP meant to do that!!!,' for this comparable crash and burn incident.
I really enjoyed this post! Thanks.
Brilliant! Putting super-dweeb and the cowardly cabinet in their place. Yet the Orange Terror does roll along….
thx much... - B.