So, picking up where I left off a month ago...
The Greek gods are terrible people. While they are occasionally just and even gracious, their modus operandi is to do whatever they feel like and to comply with the whims of their favorite mortals, often by killing hundreds of others; e.g., Achilles and Thetis. It seems to me that the only thing that separates them from mortals is their power. They are not more just or wise. They are not more loving or merciful. They are not omnipotent, omniscient, or omnipresent. And they certainly are not love. They are simply the powers of this world personified.
These gods display a good deal about the Greek mentality. If Plato is to be believed, they, through the poets writings about them, had an enormous impact on the Greek mores. One of the most striking differences between Greek and modern American mores is the value of human life.
10.1 "[Jove] was thinking how to do honor to Achilles and destroy much people at the ships of the Achaeans. In the end he deemed it would be best to send a lying dream to king Agamemnon."
So this seems to be the line of reasoning: Thetis saves Zeus when the other gods try to overthrow him; Achilles decides to be whiny and asks Thetis to kill the people he is pouty at; Thetis goes to Zeus for help and Zeus decides to kill a bunch of the Achaeans to honor the whining Achilles. Did I miss something or did he just decide that Achilles' honor is more important than the lives of hundreds or thousands of Achaeans and Trojans? There is the fact that Agamemnon did something wrong and that it makes some sort of sense for him and his followers to suffer for their wrongdoing, but this is never mentioned particularly not as Zeus' motivation for killing them all. The issue is not the action that caused Achilles to lose honor (Agamemnon stole his woman) but the fact that Achilles lost honor at all.
It is hard for my modern American mind to grasp this preference for the honor of one (undeserving) man over the lives of hundreds. I suppose I should have learned more from Pericles.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Friday, September 24, 2010
The Illiad
I've finally made it around to posting on the next book (the first "Great Book"): the Illiad.
There are a good number of interesting things to understand from this book, but I think the chief of them, and the one under which most of the others fall, is the Greekness of it. It is a wonderful window into the Greek mentality, showing the utter difference between their mind and ours in everything from the value of life to views on glory and honor and the purpose of sacrifice. I will get to most of these later as they come up in the book.
However, I want to start with a point of some similarity. Before I get to that though, I have to say this.
Troy is a bad movie. It makes the Illiad an American action movie, ruins nearly all the characters, and strips the story of any Greek elements that it once had.
Right. Now that that's out of the way...
5.3 "This will be best, for the gods ever hear the prayers of him who has obeyed them." -Achilles
This made me think of James 5:16 about the effective prayer of a righteous man. I realize that there are significant differences, especially once you realize that obeying Greek gods often means buying their favor with sacrifices. It still strikes me as an interesting similarity that the righteous man is heard by God.
The other interesting part about this quotation is that Achilles said it. Achilles is often portrayed as a completely arrogant and self centered individual. This statement, so early in the story, shows both that he is pious and that he has good judgment. Perhaps he isn't the two dimensional character that David Benioff wants him to be.
There are a good number of interesting things to understand from this book, but I think the chief of them, and the one under which most of the others fall, is the Greekness of it. It is a wonderful window into the Greek mentality, showing the utter difference between their mind and ours in everything from the value of life to views on glory and honor and the purpose of sacrifice. I will get to most of these later as they come up in the book.
However, I want to start with a point of some similarity. Before I get to that though, I have to say this.
Troy is a bad movie. It makes the Illiad an American action movie, ruins nearly all the characters, and strips the story of any Greek elements that it once had.
Right. Now that that's out of the way...
5.3 "This will be best, for the gods ever hear the prayers of him who has obeyed them." -Achilles
This made me think of James 5:16 about the effective prayer of a righteous man. I realize that there are significant differences, especially once you realize that obeying Greek gods often means buying their favor with sacrifices. It still strikes me as an interesting similarity that the righteous man is heard by God.
The other interesting part about this quotation is that Achilles said it. Achilles is often portrayed as a completely arrogant and self centered individual. This statement, so early in the story, shows both that he is pious and that he has good judgment. Perhaps he isn't the two dimensional character that David Benioff wants him to be.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Democracy
80.2 "The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference and undernourishment."
This is my last quotation from the introductory book. It deals with a topic that is of great importance in the book but about which I have made little mention. Without continual education of its members, democracy is doomed. This is why these books were compiled, why childhood education is insufficient, and why in these United States political discourse is so prevalent and yet so empty of any sense of the past, of truth and of any real ideas. Even the educated men to whom we entrust our political power have been educated largely without the aid of the Great Conversation.
America is and has been the great democratic experiment. We have overcome many hurdles that few thought we could: peaceful transfer of power from president to president, a credible military, and the democratic governance of so large and far-flung a state. This educational hurdle has faced our country for several generations and will continue to face us until we either overcome it or fail in our great experiment.
We have been slowly fading into a soft despotism (thank you Dr. Rahe) and the only remedy that I can see is education. Only the educated man can see this slow shift and resist it. Without education we become a nation of people subject to the will of the most recent fad or demagogue.
None of this is to say that Democracy is necessary. There is a trap in high education as well: pride. The temptation creeps in to think that politics is the highest end of man, that our chief aim should be to preserve our democracy. We think that greater understanding makes us better people and that a superior form of government will save the world. Humanism very easily forgets about God. So make sure as you read through your book list of great writers that you do not forget the greatest Writer. We must be educated if democracy is to survive but there are greater things than democracy or our nation.
This is my last quotation from the introductory book. It deals with a topic that is of great importance in the book but about which I have made little mention. Without continual education of its members, democracy is doomed. This is why these books were compiled, why childhood education is insufficient, and why in these United States political discourse is so prevalent and yet so empty of any sense of the past, of truth and of any real ideas. Even the educated men to whom we entrust our political power have been educated largely without the aid of the Great Conversation.
America is and has been the great democratic experiment. We have overcome many hurdles that few thought we could: peaceful transfer of power from president to president, a credible military, and the democratic governance of so large and far-flung a state. This educational hurdle has faced our country for several generations and will continue to face us until we either overcome it or fail in our great experiment.
We have been slowly fading into a soft despotism (thank you Dr. Rahe) and the only remedy that I can see is education. Only the educated man can see this slow shift and resist it. Without education we become a nation of people subject to the will of the most recent fad or demagogue.
None of this is to say that Democracy is necessary. There is a trap in high education as well: pride. The temptation creeps in to think that politics is the highest end of man, that our chief aim should be to preserve our democracy. We think that greater understanding makes us better people and that a superior form of government will save the world. Humanism very easily forgets about God. So make sure as you read through your book list of great writers that you do not forget the greatest Writer. We must be educated if democracy is to survive but there are greater things than democracy or our nation.
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