Posted on 06/25/2004 1:59:30 PM PDT by Ed Hudgins
The Iliad and Islam By Edward Hudgins
"Sing, oh Goddess, the wrath of Peleus' son Achilles, which brought pains a thousand-fold upon the Achaians."
So opens "The Iliad," the world's first great literary work. Homer's poem about the Trojan War has intrigue, politics, sex, and vast battles—all the elements of an exciting epic, whether recited in the halls of ancient palaces or made into a Hollywood blockbuster. The Bronze-Age society of the Greeks who fought before Priam's fortress around 1250 BCE was in many ways primitive and brutal. After the sack of sacred Ilium that society collapsed. Five hundred years later Homer told the tale in a Greek society that had emerged from a dark age and was in transition to the classical civilization that marked the birth of the West.
America today is at war with barbarians from a culture that also is primitive and brutal but which is hopefully in transition to something far better. Homer's Iliad thus offers lessons for us today that echo from that distance age.
Wars are always brutal, ancient ones especially so. The battles described in the Iliad were gory, blood-soaked affairs, with spears spilling brains from skulls and swords tearing out entrails. Homer's epic portrayed courage in battle, but also dramatizes a particular cause of war and violence.
Achilles was a man driven by his unrestrained passions. When the Greek commander Agamemnon took from him a captive woman he was awarded by the army, Achilles sulked in his tent, seething with anger, as Hector and the Trojans killed his friends and threatened to drive the Greeks into the sea. When his beloved friend Petraclos was killed by Hector, Achilles' grief and fury turned him into a human killing machine, hacking off heads and limbs, as he butchered his way to the walls of Troy and slew Hector. His anger still unsated, he committed sacrilege, dragging the body behind his chariot. Only when Hector's father, King Priam, sneaked into Achilles' tent and begged for the body of his son for a proper burial did Achilles' fury finally dissipate. He became human again, recovering his sense of decency.
The classical Greek philosophers who came after Homer understood that reason, not emotions, should rule the soul, that whims should be subjected to cool, objective appraisal, that one should discipline one's passions. Aristotle taught that anger out of all proportion to the incitement is a vice in an unbalanced soul. Plato taught that the souls of the most miserable individuals are ruled by master passions that drive them to spiritual and physical destruction. Such thinkers understood that it is to the extent that a society's culture is ruled by reason that the arts of peace and civilization flourish.
Radical Islamists today—like ancient Achilles—are dominated by their rage and hatred. Add to that envy of the West, which is heir to classical Greece. We see in their obsession with abusing and mutilating the bodies of dead enemies and cutting of the heads of the innocent a reflection of the wrath portrayed by Homer that has brought pains a thousand-fold upon the Middle East.
Further, Islamists share with Bronze-Age Greeks an obsession with religion. When those Greeks got ideas in their heads, it was the gods who were whispering them in their ears. When they showed courage or succumbed to fear, it was often the gods who prompted them. They saw their fates in the hands of the gods; they sought the gods' favor and acted in the names of the gods.
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. But, of course, all of those gods were simply in their heads, not in Olympus or heaven.
But the classical Greek thinkers, Aristotle especially, understood that impersonal laws of nature—not the gods—govern the order of the world, and that our rational minds are capable of understanding the world—thus the birth of science. They understood that each of us - not the gods—are responsible for our own actions, that our individual wills—not those of the gods—create the character of our souls, and that the path to happiness is through self-discipline and subjecting our whims to the rule of reason—thus the birth of ethics.
Of course most Greeks in classical times were not atheists. But it was the secular elements that distinguished the classical culture from the Bronze Age, that produced the great achievements in classical times and still produce achievements in our own society today.
A millennium ago Islam had a tradition of rational thought and critical thinking that created a major civilization; Islamic scholars in that era reintroduced the works of Aristotle into backwards, Medieval Europe. Today the backwards cultures in most Islamic countries are dominated by anger, violence and superstition. And 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. ----------
Edward Hudgins is the Washington director of the Objectivist Center.
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.
I dont see any other alternatives.
That's true, but to its credit, medieval Moselms allowed themselves to be influenced by these other learned cultures, adopting many of their advances and developing a more nuanced worldview as a result. Islam 1000 ago was not dominated by fundamentalist fanatics the way it is today. It was not a benign force, don't get me wrong, but it was not the crazed jihadist monstrosity it is today either.
The respective societies long period of descent began after Islam had enough time to calcify existing channels of science and education.
That's not true. Byzantine and Persian civiliations were declining long before the time of Mohammed.
There once was a king, name of Priam
Who battled the Greeks ad nauseum
He ended the wars
By accepting a horse
That shat Greeks on the streets of Ilium.
from The Lost Limericks of James Joyce"
From recent Marine accounts, we hear that terrorists are shooting themselves full of drugs before attacks, to gin up their failing courage.
Our present worldwide problem with nutjob Muslims is like a bad Startrek plot. We're the good ship Enterprise, beseiged by religiously lobotomized crazies. What would Captain Kirk and Spock do?
Today the backwards cultures in most Islamic countries are dominated by anger, violence and superstition. And 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.
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.
"Once they've had their d*cks knocked into the dirt!"
After victory comes peace. Some people are just too "morally superior" to grasp the simple truths of history.
#2 is not really possible. Which leaves only 1 and 2. Intelligent Muslims should think seriously about this.
Which leaves only 1 and 3. Sorry about that.
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