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.
I dont see any other alternatives.
From recent Marine accounts, we hear that terrorists are shooting themselves full of drugs before attacks, to gin up their failing courage.
I agree with your points. Homer and the Greeks understood courage, a point I make only in passing in my short piece. (I also mention the envy of Islam for the West, its hatred of us for our virtues, something that distinquishes that culture from Bronze-age Greece and could be the subject of a book!) Observing the importance of the Iliad, I note that half of the plays that come down to us from the three great classical Greek dramatists concern Homeric characters.
I would never put Achilles in the same category as terrorists; I was simply using several lessons from Homer to point to several of the dysfunctional aspects of Islamic culture today. And indeed, one of the universal values found in Western civilization is an appreciation for the lessons of history!
By the way, see my review of a book about my political hero, Marcus Cicero. I'd like to make a movie of his incredible life!
http://www.objectivistcenter.org/text/ehudgins_founders-fathers.asp?navigator
Ed Hudgins
In The Iliad, combatants were not afraid to say who they are and where they came from. Partly out pride and
partly attempted intimidation. Ergo, if you defeat "Joe Blow, son of ..., grandson of ...", so much greater the
prestige gained.
I'm not surprised that the cowardly terrorists gain sympathy. Somewhere along the way, many cultures value the
miscreant. The other week, I heard an old Jean Sheppard broadcast. He was railing against a sympathetic
John Dillinger film because he lived in a town where the Dillinger gang came in, and shot 3 people in cold blood,
just because they could.