Might Makes Might

So, Thucydides…

He wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War. There’s this part in it called The Melian Dialogue. It’s where Athens is about to attack the island of Melos.

The Athenians have a huge army and they’re about to stomp all over Melos with it. In the dialogue, Thucydides imagines what the conversation was like when, before battle, representatives from the two sides met up to talk things over. The Melians were like:

And the Athenians were like:

And:

…why is it always like this:

…instead of like this:

Maybe the Athenians were right. Maybe that’s just how things go.

Remember that scene in season 4 of The Wire where a security guard at a quickie mart steps to Marlo to complain that he, a man who lives by the rules and does his job, is stuck in a lowly position while Marlo, a man who deals in violence and vice, lives well and does as he pleases? Remember what Marlo said to the security guard?

The same thing applies in this case, the case of might makes right. I’d like it to not be so, but it is.

…or maybe it isn’t. Because might doesn’t make right, not truly. Might just makes might. And if it’s wielded by someone lousy, might just makes things worse for everybody. In fact, it usually makes everyone wish for the right that much more.

I don’t guess any one person can turn the whole world back from being upside down, but one person can do his best to walk rightside up in this upside down world.

And maybe, whenever the world is flipped back to being rightside up, he’ll fit right in.

Cheers.

…Melos was defeated, by the way. It was 416 or 415 BC. The Athenians killed every adult male in the city and sold the women and children into slavery…