[PREV - FORBIDDEN_PLANET]    [TOP]

THE_ILIAD_AND_THE_PROTESTANT

   
                                              July 2, 2004
The immediately striking thing                 
about Homer's "Iliad" is the                              
incessant low-level interference         (850 BC,         
of the gods with the human action,        they say)       850 BC - Homer    
to the point where it totally                             400 BC - Plato    
kills the story.                                            4 BC - Aristotle
     
  There's a line about how                              
  the "reins of victory                               
  are in the hands of the          A character literally
  gods", and that pretty           can not slip in some 
  much says it.                    dung without it being
                                   taken as a sign from 
      Agamemnon is a bastard,      the gods.            
      Achilles a spoiled brat,                   
      and Paris an irresponsible                                               
      fop; and the twists and                                                 
      turns of the plot depend                                                 
      entirely on the quirks of                                                
      the gods squabbling in the                                               
      background where Zeus                   
      always has the last say.                                  
                                                            
               
            (This was some 8 centuries   
            before Aristotle         
            warned about invoking       
            the deus ex machina.)       
                                      
              
                           
              
Compare this to -- to take the first        
example that comes to hand --      
C.S. Forrester's "The Captain from               Originally in the 
Connecticut" (1941):                             "Saturday Evening Post".
                                        
   "What Providence took away in one fashion 
   she restored in another, keeping an even  
   balance so that a man's success or failure
   depended entirely on himself, as it should be."

                         p. 15, Chapter 2.
                                          
   "Peabody's philosophy was such -- illogical though he 
    would have admitted it to be if he had happened 
    to analyze his feelings -- that to him it was the 
    most natural thing in the world for the wind to shift 
    and moderate after his own efforts had made the 
    change almost unnecessary.  To grumble at the whims 
    of uncontrollable natural forces -- at the dictates 
    of Providence -- was to him a little absurd, like a 
    heathen beating his god for not responding to prayer."
                                          
                        p. 31, close of Chapter 2.



This is of course, a             
Christian/Protestant          Though whether this stuff is    
attitude that Forrester       strictly consistent with the    
is writing about.             stated premises of Christianity
                              is a different question.       
   And it is also,            The connections between           
   very clearly, my           official doctrine and social   
   attitude...  and           attitudes are complicated.        
   I would venture                                      
   to say, *our*                              LETTERS_FROM_EARTH          
   attitude.                  
                          

In comparison, the point of
view presented in the Iliad 
is exceedingly strange.

Hector complains to                                        
Paris about how             Book 3, Line 70: 
useless he is, and          "Ah Hector, you criticize me fairly, yes 
Paris essentially           nothing unfair, beyond what I deserve. 
responds, well,             ... 
yeah, you're right,         the heart inside your chest is never daunted. 
but we are what the         Still don't fling in my face the lovely gifts 
gods made us.               of golden Aphrodite.  Not to be tossed aside, 
                            the gifts of the gods, those glories... 
                            whatever the gods give of their own free will-- 
Was there every a           how could we ever choose them for ourselves? 
people who really           ..."  
had this odd                      
mixture of                        
fatalism and egotism?             
                                  
Who would go around               
pretending that the               
gods were hovering                
on their every move,                  
and yet claim no                     
responsibility for              
any of these moves,             
since all is the                
tinkering of the                
gods anyway...                  
                                
It doesn't really seem possible 
to me -- I expect rampant hypocrisy, 
a tendency to ignore this religious 
doctrine whenever it conflicts with 
practicality.                   
                                
But then, I can't claim that my
own notions of "responsibility"        
are anything like a consistent                
doctrine. It's clearly a hacked           SELF 
together patch job...

And there, in the Iliad, is an 
example of a different set of 
hacks... 

--------
[NEXT - FLIES]