Sorry, couldn't resist. But it's not mine. It was written by either or both Poul Anderson and Gordon Dickson in one of their "Hoka" collaborations.
I think there's a distinct difference. Achilles was primitive, sure, but he was a great warrior and hero. His anger resulted because Agammemnon treated him unjustly and impugned his honor, and honor is basic to the aristocratic hero. On the whole, honor, rightly understood, is a good thing. Moreover in the episode at the end of the poem when Priam comes to Achilles and begs for the body of his dead son Hector, Achilles rises to a whole new level of greatness.
By contrast, most terrorists are cowards. They prefer to blow up women and children. They prefer to shoot people in the back. They prefer to cut off the heads of helpless people whose hands are tied. That is not the mode of Achilles.
The Greeks had real courage in battle, which is an admirable thing.
Hi good buddy.
I don't think the recent big screen production sufficiently communicated the length of the Trojan Wars.
I thought the made for TV "Helen of Troy" was much better. Strangely, the made for TV movie was much more explicit about the adultery, rape, seduction and abduction involved, for which so many men died and killed each other.
Except, I will say this about the movie, I thought Brad Pitt was awesome. When he started talking about his "brothers," that really spoke to me.
The connection to the War on Terror is, maybe, a bit of a stretch. You are right to identify uncontrolled passions as common to both the Trojan War and the War on Terrorism, but one was based on lust and the other on chilliastic (I think that's the word, meaning ushering in the end-times) fanaticism.
If I had to choose between the two, I think fighting over a woman is a better idea than fighting to usher in the end-times.
That bin Laden guy, along with Mullah Omar and the others, they really are scary.
Those guys make a war for oil seem rational!
Sorry I don't have any more time to chat, gotta run, see you later!
Clifford
"After the sack of sacred Ilium that society collapsed."
"Similarly, Islamists are immersed in a primitive theistic mindset. God is responsible for all things. It is through the will of Allah that everything happens and in the name of Allah that they commit the most heinous crimes imaginable. Allah is as real to them as Zeus, Poseidon and Ares were to the warriors before the walls of Troy."
Given the above truths which you relate, I cannot believe that you can draw the conclusion that, "...it will only be an ethic of reason and the subjugation of whims to thoughtful reflection that can lead those cultures and their people back to enlightenment and free their imaginations and creativity so they can lead truly human lives." To me, this is the ultimate non sequitur.
As much as I hate to say it (considering myself a civilized man), I think the logical extention of your initial observations would be to immediately NUKE Medina and Mecca. Only then will these barbarians truely understand the will of Allah!
If Islam didn't exist, it would have to be invented. Otherwise, the terrorists would be exposed as common criminals, devoid of the cover of a sham religion.
It's surprising that the author appears to be unaware that Islam merely overran existing learned cultures (eg the Persian and Eastern Roman empires). The respective societies long period of descent began after Islam had enough time to calcify existing channels of science and education.
Great piece. Welcome to FR!
Since this author is leapfrogging over history allow me to add that the Greeks of the 19th Century fought and defeated Islam.
This article and author are pure a$$-wipe.
Bumping for a later read.
You'll need a pitchfork for that load...
ping.
Aristotle's theology is too generous to pit human freedom as an antagonsit against the gods. And we all know that ethics had already walked the earth before Aristotle made his observations to separate humans from natural phenomena. That's where he noticed the real difference: we are not like soulless stones that can't be trained to roll up hill. i.e. we can habituate ourselves. And we don't hate stones for all that. On the other hand, habituation wasn't freedom wasn't enough to throw darts or chase gods out of the universe. Here's an interesting snippet on Aristotle's admiration of the divine:
If then God is always in that good state in which we sometimes are, this compels our wonder; and if in a better this compels it yet more. And God is in a better state. And life also belongs to God; for the actuality of thought is life, and God is that actuality; and god's self-dependent actuality is life most good and eternal. We say therefore that God is a living being, eternal, most good, so that life and duration continuous and eternal belongs to God; for this is God.Such a life is superior to one that is simply human, because someone lives thus [in complete happiness], not in so far as he is a human being, but in so far as there is some divine element within him. And the activity of this divine element is as much superior to that in accordance with the other kind of virtue as the element is superior to the compound. If the intellect, then, is something divine compared with the human being, the life in accordance with it will also be divine compared with human life. But we ought not to listen to those who exhort us, because we are human, to think of human things, or because we are mortal, think of mortal things. We ought rather to take on immortality as much as possible and do all that we can to live in accordance with the highest element within us; for even if its bulk is small, in its power and value it far exceeds everything.--Nicomachean Ethics Book 10.7 1177b