Mass psychology according to Thucydides and its reflection on his narration of Corfu War<p>Thukydides'e göre kitlelerin psikolojisi ve bunun Korfu Savaşı anlatısına yansıması
Journal Title: Journal of Human Sciences - Year 2015, Vol 12, Issue 1
Abstract
Even if the most detailed studies about mass psychology were written in the Cold War periods having erupted during and after II. World War, the first study still belongs to Thucydides. Being a contemporary of Herodotus, our historian established the historiography, which will be identified with Ranke in the future. He disrupts the writing form, which was built upon documents, objective and cleared completely of myth in his eight books of work only for two narrations. One of these is the great plague of Athens; the other is the civil war in Corfu. Thucydides makes some remarks about the human nature and its effect on mass movements in terms of these two incidents. The main theme of these remarks is that: Human beings act by personal interests, power and their instincts to survive. Preferring not coming to light in peacetime, these passions suddenly come alive in times of war and lead to horrible results. Thucydides clearly warns us that these instincts are in the nature of human and will rise to the surface unavoidably in the future. These warnings were extremely ignored in the centuries that he lived. Thucydides’ s idea would be memorialized by Thomas Hobbes and John Adams centuries after his death, both of whom have similar ideas to his. The difference of these two philosophers from Thucydides is that they would find solutions to the existing problem. ÖzetKitle Psikolojisi konusunda en ayrıntılı çalışmalar II. Dünya Savaşı ve sonrasında patlak veren Soğuk Savaş dönemlerinde yazılsa da elimizdeki ilk çalışma Thukydides'e aittir. Herodotos'un çağdaşı tarihçimiz, gelecekte Ranke ile özdeşleştirilecek bir tarihyazımı kurar. Belgeye dayalı, nesnel, mitlerden tamamen arındırılmış yazım şeklini sekiz kitaplık eserinde sadece iki anlatıda bozar. Bunlardan biri Atina'daki vebâ salgını, diğeri ise Korfu'daki iç savaştır. Thukydides bu iki olay üzerinden insan doğası ve onun kitle hareketlerine etkisi hakkında bir takım değerlendirmeler yapar. Bu değerlendirmelerin ana teması şudur: İnsanlar kişisel çıkar, güç ve hayatta kalma güdüleri ile hareket ederler. Barış zamanlarında gün yüzüne çıkmayan bu tutkular, savaşta birden canlanır ve korkunç sonuçlara sebep olurlar. Thukydides bizi bu güdülerin insanların doğalarında bulunduğu için gelecekte kaçınılmaz olarak ortaya çıkacakları konusunda net bir şekilde uyarır. Bu uyarılar yaşadığı yüzyıllarda fazla ciddiye alınmaz. Thukydides'in fikirleri ölümünden yüzyıllar sonra, benzer düşüncelere sahip olan Thomas Hobbes ve John Adams tarafından anılacaktır. Bu iki düşünürün Thukydides'ten farkı, var olan probleme çözüm üretmeleri olacaktır.
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