전쟁의 원인과 국제관계에 대한 투키디데스의 분석 -긍정적 인간성과 평화의 지향에서 보이는 현대적 의미-

Abstract

Thucydides, a historian of the Ancient Greece, considered the real cause of the Peloponnesian War, which was formally kept out of sight, to be the growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which the Lacedaemonians felt against Athens. In the same context, the realism of power domination is described, as it is well known, in the Athenian debates against the revolting Mytilenians and in the argument of the Athenian ambassador in Melos. Some scholars supposed that Thucydides supported the concept of power domination, but others denied this kind of simplification and tried to find various concepts in Thucydides, for example, morality, humanity, and the influence of chance (tyche) which could not be calculated in advance. This essay is to suggest that the purpose of Thucydides in writing history was not only defined to describe human natures, but could be extended to find a method to solve the troubles of war and power domination. In the beginning of his History, he wrote that he came to write the Peloponnesian War, as it lasted longer than any other previous one, and its scale of preparation was the largest among them. Then, the human nature could never be erased, but, it seems to me, Thucydides tried to give a lesson that in the state of peace the negative human nature based on violence got reduced and the positive one of moral humanity promoted. The war which used to break out upon excessive human desire for power, however, makes the negative human nature enhanced. It could be said that the lesson Thucydides tried to give a message helps to overcome the realism of power and imperialistic aggression. It is a warning, in my opinion, against pursuing excessive human desire, undue concentration of power and long lasting war. The war could be tolerated in case of inevitable defence against attack, but it should not be extended to the rule of power looking after excessive human desire and private profit. It is not easy, however, to define actually the boundary between the defensive and offensive war, and it needs really a wise, moderate discretion. One criterion for a wise judgment might be whether whoever inside as well as out of a country enjoys freedom and equality, not being repressed by the violence of power. The actual democracy does not just refer to the formal rights of voting, but to a really free state of any kind of violence. Internal governing system has directly something to do with international relations as well. Thucydides’ warning against the deployment of negative human nature on the war of great scale or the violence of power may be also applied to today’s assignment for the decentralization of power against central authority, as well as disarmament. In relation to this, we had better refer to the suggestion of Platon, who warned against a large scale of community, that a desirable state be consisted of 5040 citizen members. And in the first half of the 20th century, J.A. Hobson brought forward a thesis that “the democratic government goes for international harmony, and the dictatorship for international agony”.