Victor Davis Hanson: The Ancient Greeks – Were they like us at all?

The New Criterion ^ | May 2004 | Victor Davis Hanson

[quidnunc]

The classical Greeks were really nothing like us — at least that now seems the prevailing dogma of classical scholars of the last half-century. Perhaps due to the rise of cultural anthropology or, more recently, to a variety of postmodern schools of social construction, it is now often accepted that the lives of Socrates, Euripides, and Pericles were not similar to our own, but so far different as to be almost unfathomable. Shelley’s truism that “We are all Greeks” has now become, as we say, “inoperative.”

M. I. Finley, the great historian of the ancient economy, spent a lifetime to prove his questionable thesis that the Greeks — who imported grain from southern Russia, calibrated the cost of the Parthenon to the drachma, and left us a plethora of mortgage stones, financial inventories, and complicated estate exchanges — were to be understood as economically unsophisticated and irrational, more as tribal barterers than calculating capitalists without much abstract appreciation of interest, supply, demand, or any of the other practices associated with the complex market. Historians of gender more recently have sought to show that the Greeks were without real sexual identity, their sexual mores not understandable through innate natural proclivities, much less fathomable by analogy to common social customs across time and space. With whom and how one had sex was instead “constructed” and thus explicable only through understanding of Foucauldian power relationships of submission and dominance.

By the same manner, ancient Hellenic childhood is supposedly equally enigmatic to us. Art historians have pointed out that Greek kids were not customarily sculpted and painted as real children, but most often portrayed through convention (or is it due to artistic incapacity?) as veritable shrunken adults — mature frowns and puzzled expressions slapped on tiny faces. The proverbially rich Greek language, we are often reminded further, lacks the variety of English’s clearly defined and evolving hierarchy of childhood nomenclature: “baby,” “toddler,” “kid,” “teenager,” “adolescent,” “young adult.” The chronological inexactness of Greek’s numerous generic terms for youth — pais, kouros, neanias — is offered as further proof of the great divide that separates attitudes toward coming of age in both ancient Greece and modern America.

-snip-

[quidnunc]

FYI

[spetznaz]

Homosexual expression was more prevalent in ancient Greece than anywhere today (including San Francisco). However the Greeks were lovers of knowledge, and quite a number of their literally works are to put it simply amazing.

As for the comparison between the US and ancient Greece, I'd personally say a better allusion would be with the Roman empire. Far closer than with the Greeks.

[DestroytheDemocrats]

Interesting.

Funny, I was just now reading about the ancient Greek hero Theseus. I have also just finished reading The King Must Die today. So I guess there's at least two of us interested in Greek history tonight.

[Billthedrill]

VDH bump. Of course the ancient Greeks were nothing like us. They were vain, bossy, stubborn, opinionated, occasionally volatile, arrogant, aggressive, in short, not one bit like...uh...wait a minute...

[vbmoneyspender]

Somehow I suspect that human nature has not changed much in 2,500 years.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

And Achilles cried like a baby when his slave woman Brisius was taken away from him.---But he had other slave women to take her place for him and Patrokus.

[Old Professer]

There is nothing so poor that something more wanting can't be imputed to modern time.

[epigone73]

We have a winner!

[SedVictaCatoni]

Voila! That is the fundamental insight of conservative philosophy.

[Age of Reason]

The classical Greeks were really nothing like us

Perhaps it only seems that way because we know the Greeks better than we know ourselves.

[NaughtiusMaximus]

The ancient Greeks had a healthy suspicion of authoritative government and valued individual worth at a time when their contemporaries were licking the toes of god-kings. The "stories" of their high culture still resonate for us. A century ago English youths set out to rule a worldwide empire with little more preparation than a grounding in Greek and Roman languages and literature, and they succeeded. Conservatives wisely respect them. Academic liberal "hubris" does not. The liberals say that the Greeks have nothing to teach them. "Those whom the gods would destroy they first make proud." There will come a day of reckoning and we will see who was the wiser.

[rmh47]

How could we possibly learn anything from these barbarous Greeks? They oppressed women and owned slaves!

(/sarcasm)

[Keltik]

bump

[Psycho_Bunny]

Three of us....

Although, I'm not so much interested in the history, I am reading all the Plato dialogues right now.

While I read several in my early 20s, I'm finding them much more interesting in my mid-30s.

Interesting and applicable.

It's fascinating how many more argumentative devices I'm recognizing...and how much more frequently I'm finding myself thinking "How'd I ever get worked up about that?  They were arguing about the same stupid sh!t in Plato's day."

"Same sh!t, different time"

[an amused spectator]

The ancient Greeks had a healthy suspicion of authoritative government and valued individual worth at a time when their contemporaries were licking the toes of god-kings. The "stories" of their high culture still resonate for us. A century ago English youths set out to rule a worldwide empire with little more preparation than a grounding in Greek and Roman languages and literature, and they succeeded. Conservatives wisely respect them. Academic liberal "hubris" does not. The liberals say that the Greeks have nothing to teach them. "Those whom the gods would destroy they first make proud." There will come a day of reckoning and we will see who was the wiser.

Excellent post, NM.

[blam]

August 2204 GGG bump.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Blam. Apropos of nothing, here's a Google search that shows (apparently) all your FR posts. 's cool. You may want to save the link to your favorites, works nicely, opens in new window.

Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

[MacDorcha]

"Historians of gender more recently have sought to show that the Greeks were without real sexual identity, their sexual mores not understandable through innate natural proclivities, much less fathomable by analogy to common social customs across time and space."

would this mean that Socates was possibly a woman then? howcome we never heard of woman scholars in Greece? if they werent sexualy defined, then their society should have more women scholars, yes?

[justshutupandtakeit]

Pericles' lady friend was something of an intellectual but she was an exception.