Python Liberation Front

Greeks, Democracy, Underlying Values: Intimations for Our Time and the Future

Democracy, Speciality, Philosophy, Society, Culture, the Greeks:

The classical Greeks started out with a set of unique shared values including the quest for individual speciality and excellence, a reverence for truth, beauty, and language, and they created a cornucopia of cultural innovation. It is the values they shared as a society and the cultural innovations they created that matter most to history.

Part of their belief in the importance of the individual found expression in their invention of democracy, which derives from two Greek words meaning "rule of the people." But direct democracy as practiced by the Greeks was reserved for a small subset of the population not including women and slaves. Also, direct democracy is not easily extensible to large populations, and indirect democracies such as in the USA are easily controlled by money and powerful organizations. At any rate, democracy can equate to tyranny if the majority has uncontrolled animosity for minorities.

What is needed to control, moderate and shape indirect democracies is a system of values shared by the whole community, or at least accepted as binding by the whole community, that establish toleration and fairness as well as setting a work ethic and a motivation for striving for improvement and excellence; a good raison d'etre.

In most societies throughout most of history, such an ethic and set of shared values has been provided by a religion. It is the task of our age for humanity to forge such a set of values that can be accepted by societies around the world. This is not easily accomplished by any existing religions since they are now seen as mythological and lacking in scientific believability and authority.

What values should we agree upon?

Should we choose power, individuality, speciality, excellence, winner-take-all, and money?

Or are we all Greeks now?

"Does the eagle know what is in the pit,
Or wilt thou go ask the mole?
Can wisdom be put in a silver rod,
Or love in a golden bowl?" W. B.

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Greeks, Liturgy, Drama, and Alphabet compared to Computers, Internet, the Web

I would welcome any comments or discussions about the Greeks, my book review, or especially about the implications of the Greeks constructing an aphabet usable for literature and philosophy, and easy enough to learn to promote mass literacy; and the possible parallels with our times, computer technology and the web.

Also, in particular, I am intrigued by the beginnings of Greek drama, and the original aspects of how the "liturgy", or chorus and audience responses to soloists and actors, fostered the growth of new dramatic forms and later of all of Western drama.

You do not need to have read the book in order to comment or discuss; just jump right in and let me know that I'm all wet for whatever reasons! ;-)))

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Techne

Ok, I am going out on limb a little bit with this post, but a long while ago I read a book by Donald Knuth that included the definition of a Greek word, "techne". The word means something like "art" as in craftsmanship, and of course is the root of our modern English word, technology.

I am going to start a new category of post on my Blog, called Techne, but I am going to re-define the word to mean technology selected with practical concerns in mind, with down to earth, practical, even political considerations taken into account; a sort of "all things considered" approach to technology advocatism.

I guess my scripting languages post will become the first of the series. look for more real soon now...

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I Saw the Movie "Troy": Thoughts on East vs. West

Troy

I watched the new movie "Troy" this weekend. I recommend it, it's worth watching; but it highlights a gap between our times and classical Greek times.

Still, it perhaps represents the first in an ancient and continuing series of battles between East and West. The Greeks were in some ways the first cultural expression of what we have come to call Western civilization. And even though Troy was only right next door in Asia Minor, still in this movie, and in the Iliad and the Odyssey, I believe that Troy symbolizes waht we have come to know as the East.

The Greeks invented the Western way of total war, that has so dominated the planet ever since that we see it still today in American military hegemony. The Greeks invented drama and western literature, western philosophy and arts.

I hypothesize a dichotomy (a very Greek thing to do, by the way) between things Western and Eastern, as highlighted by these two lists of opposing (but related) characteristic:

West-East

male-female

individual-community

yin-yang

science-religion (art?)

thought-feeling

sensing-intuition

Of course this is provisional, partial, etc. But there are basic differences between East and West. Maybe I have missed the most important ones, and gotten some wrong. What do you think?

I think that if we are ever to have peace on earth, it will require a peace between East and West, and a marriage combining the best aspects of both.

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Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter, a Book Review

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"Sailing the Wine Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter", by Thomas Cahill, Doubleday 2003, 304 pages.

A timely book, "Sailing" is a gentle and easily readable re-introduction to Greek civilization and culture, with numerous parallels and lessons drawn to our own times by the astute author. Cahill has a real knack for this sort of thing, as he has amply demonstrated in three previous volumes in his "Hinges of History" series. I was introduced to his work in his first volume in the series, "How the Irish Saved Civilization"; and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Cahill aims to give us a well rounded glimpse into the way the ancient Greeks lived, saw the world, and in fact into the whole of Greek experience. He does this in an idiosyncratic way that will please neither academics nor purists, but which does allow one to taste and smell the Greeks' cultural milieu, and not just to cogitate about it. But cogitate you will, as Cahill gives enough food for thought as post modern man is likely to be able to bear.

According to Cahill, the Greeks' invention of the alphabet (or refinement of the Phoenician alphabet) into a potent intellectual tool was the beginning and the heart of their cultural expansion. Perhaps, in our own time, the arrival of computer technology and the web carries a similar promise, if only we can tease as much innovation from the web as the Greeks did from the alphabet.

But it is hard to consign the Greeks' invention of democracy (a Greek word meaning "rule of the people") to second place, even to so fine a contender as the alphabet itself. For the Greek city-state of Athens truly did refine direct democracy and their achievement can be seen as the bedrock and foundation of Western Europe's later development of democracy, and especially of the American experiment in indirect and representational democracy.

Yet of equally revolutionary significance is the Greek invention of total warfare, with highly organized militaries made up of hoplite soldiers and shrewd, calculating generals. This Greek way of warfare has been the foundation of the Western way of war ever since, right down to and including our current American military dominance of the planet. Cahill cites extensively from the brilliant and influential military historian Victor Davis Hanson and his book "The Autumn of War" to the effect that the western way of total warfare has dominated the planet ever since; and it appears that Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Chaney are well versed in Mr. Hanson's theories, not to mention Greek hubris.

The lessons for the USA in its war on terrorism alone are compelling, if not down right chilling. Central to the cultural echoes provided is a speech from Pericles, ruler of Athens at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, a mighty struggle that lasted for 30 years, beginning with Athens at the height of its imperial, cultural and financial powers, and ending with Athens defeated and subjected to domination by Sparta and her allies, never again to regain the zenith of her glory and might.

At an annual ceremony honoring and burying the bones of her young war dead after the first year of the 30 years war, Pericles orated about the Greek forefathers, and he sounds a lot like a contemporary American politician:

"...generation after generation in unchanging and unbroken succession, they have, by their hard work and courage, handed down to us a free country... "

This comes from what is by far the longest of the many quotes Cahill intersperses in his book, and it sounds ever so much like George W. Bush. I admire the way the author intersperses these quotes without ever boring the reader. The quotes from such luminaries as Homer, Socrates, Plato and others are absolutely integral to the book and greatly enhance its character. If Pericles' speech above reminds us of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, so it must also remind us somewhat of our current President's oratory about the War on Terror.

The book is organized around chapters that bring together material in an organic way, not an academic way; with titles like: "The Warrior: How to Fight", "The Wanderer: How to Feel", "The Poet: How to Party", "The Politician and the Playwright: How to Rule", "The Philosopher: How to Think", "The Artist: How to See", and "The Way They Went: Greco-Roman World meets Judeo-Christian".

All in all, this is a quick read, a delightful and thought provoking exercise, and a worthwhile adventure. I highly recommend it. Be forewarned though, you may find yourself wanting to go on and read the other volumes in the series, including "How the Irish Saved Civilization", "The Gifts of the Jews", "The Desire of the Everlasting Hills" (about early Christianity), and the three forthcoming volumes, the next of which is promised to be about how the Romans became Italians. By the time all three future volumes are published, this promises to be a very accessible investigation into the making of the modern world and the impact of its cultural innovations on the sensibilities of the West.

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