Daniel Tusk, former prime minister of Poland, current president of the European Council, speaking in Athens: Thucydides still important!

At a forum on democracy
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He's got a good grip on a terrifying passage about civil strife (Thucydides
3.82-83):

It is no accident that in the latest issue of the prestigious Polish
periodical *Political Review (Przegląd Polityczny)* devoted to Brexit,
there are essays on Thucydides and his reflection on the theme of stasis,
an ancient Greek term literally meaning: a part, a fraction, denoted a
state of public disorder, chaos resulting from political passions and a
constant escalation of internal conflicts. As an example Thucydides gave
the situation in Korkyra [Corfu], where agreement was not possible also
because, in the heat of the battle, the *sides freely changed the meanings
of words, while values were being reversed*. Madness and reckless audacity
came to be seen as courage; common sense as cowardice, moderation as
conformism. Every pause for thought or attempt at reflection was treated as
capitulation or laziness. Those who sowed anger, resentment and destruction
became figures of political and even moral authority, and whoever resisted
them, in the name of order and prudence, was under suspicion.

Thucydides noticed that in the state of upheaval, *human nature comes
before justice*. Emotions and passions, inherent in our nature, are
stronger than our attachment to the laws and rules we ourselves have
established, and will always be pushing us towards violation and
domination. The most important political inventions of humanity –
democracy, human rights and freedoms, international order, checks and
balances, the rule of law – they all stem from this awareness  of our
nature as well as from past, negative experiences. But do they stem only
from the past? Aren't we today facing our own stasis [discord], amplified
by the technological revolution and the mass character of social phenomena?
Are Europe and the world not turning, before our eyes, into ancient Korkyra?

I am curious* how today Thucydides would diagnose the situation in the
United States under the administration of President Trump, in the United
Kingdom in the time of Brexit* and permanent parliamentary crisis, in some
countries in East Central Europe, where the foundations of liberal
democracy and the rule of law are being undermined, or on the border of
Russia and Ukraine. For sure he would have something to write about.

Thucydides generally concluded that what happened was awful, but the next
time around, we'll have a better understanding of what went down-- though
perhaps still unable to prevent it.  UK and USA have both been caught up by
forces they largely didn't expect or understand, and now must muddle
through.  As Thucydides says, these events may bring out the worst in us.

Dan