Who Killed Homer?

Stanford Magazine ^ | 1998 | John Heath and Victor Davis Hanson

[cornelis]

other discussions

[AnAmericanMother]

Hear, hear!

- (major in History but a minor in Classics.)

Another, often overlooked advantage to studying Greek and Latin is that you can argue theology with your rector. :-) (It's astounding how low we have sunk from the days when a man with a theology degree was expected to have Greek, Latin, AND Hebrew -- a rector of a major metropolitan Atlanta church has NONE of the above.)

[DrNo]

Ohmygod, what will Marge and the kids do?!

;^)

[arkady_renko]

Thank the Lord it's just about literature - I thought they cancelled the Simpsons!

Doh!

arkady_renko

[cornelis]

it's just about literature

I see you've been had. Are you a character in the Simpsons by any chance?

[dighton]

I just followed up Gorky Park with Polar Star. Can *anyone* kill Arkady Renko, who has more lives than my cat?

(Please excuse this interruption. We now return to the Classics).

[The Chief]

[woofie]

Albuquerque NM is now naming its baseball team the "Isotopes" and plans to feature Homer and the gang in its advertising

[woofie]

Hey, we are litrate ...we can reed...

[arkady_renko]

"Are you a character in the Simpsons by any chance?"

My wife will testify that I am, sadly, a character.

Seriously, I think that there is more valid social commentary in one episode of The Simpsons than in all of public broadcasting.

a_renko

[woofie]

Greek restaurants are also well loved in our society ...I favour the Classic "shish ka bob"

[freebilly]

When I was a kid, we learned about the Greeks from Greek literature. The next generation will learn about the Greeks from Persian literature.

Our culture will exchange the Hellenic ideas and ideals for those of the Medes and Persians.

Ain't we lucky....

[arkady_renko]

Polar Star was excellent, wasn't it? Renko has a strong moral compass it seems.

Smith can write - you could almost smell the fish factory.

a_r

[freebilly]

We also learned about the Jews from the Bible. We're now learning about the Jews from the Koran.

Ain't we doubly lucky....

[Taft in '52]

In his classic commentary, On Education (1944), which I just finished reading, Richard Livingstone, an English classicist, comments that "our civilization...was born in Greece; Rome applied Greek thought to the life and assumptions of a great empire; Christianity added new forces." He adds that "Greece, Rome, and Christianity have made Western Civilization, permeate its thought, morals, literature, and institutions, ant touch its members at every moment of their lives."

It's time to rise to the occasion and confront the challenge to Western civilization posed by the multiculturalists and deconstructionists.

[xp38]

So the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding was right!

[Dumb_Ox]

One depressing day of my life came when I realized that my Greek professor was but a scholar of Aristotle, and not an Aristotelian. It is impossible for the Classics to be a living tradition when the scholars themselves see their ancient subjects as things to be dissected, rather than men to argue with.

Doesn't professor Hanson overreach when he says that modern classicists have abandoned Greek traditions by capitulating to postmodernists? It seems that contemporary scholars have in fact adopted the philosophy of one disreputable set of Greeks, the sophists. I recall one textbook's distinct glee of newly discovered relevancy when it pronounced that the sophists, too, viewed society as a social construct.

The academic deans willing, I will have my Bachelor's degree in Classics this December. I have found that focusing upon learning the languages is a sure way to get to the meat of the ancient texts, while avoiding the latest theoretical fads.

[Dumb_Ox]

Our culture will exchange the Hellenic ideas and ideals for those of the Medes and Persians.

No doubt without the benefit of a constitutional debate.

[The Great Satan]

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