Chapter 29. Thucydides’ Inversion and the Reversal of Vectors
Abstract: What is the real impact of the ideology of positive human rights on the survival of nations? This chapter answers by elevating the analysis to its purest form, comparing the contemporary constitutional paradigm with the supreme law of political realism: Thucydides’ Principle. Retracing the famous “Melian Dialogue,” the essay demonstrates how the dynamic of the Strong and the Weak applies not only to geopolitics but inexorably regulates interactions between single individuals and the network. In a healthy ecosystem, the Community is the Athens that possesses the structural force to subjugate the pathogen. Today, however, the dogma of immanent rights has triggered a topological mutation: by elevating the abstract “Value” of the single person above that of the Community, the legal system has mathematically transferred “Force” into the hands of the criminal. Thus occurs the fatal Thucydides’ Inversion: the serial pathogen (the new Athens) acts with impunity, doing what it wants, while the community and its defenders (the new Melos), punished by the courts if they dare to defend themselves, suffer what they must.