Classics in Contemporary Culture

Aristotle at the Beeb

The RogueClassicist notes some interesting stuff at Alun's Archaeoastronomy blog...I'll chime in, noting also his link to a BBC broadcast on Aristotle.  Here's Alun:

The Mark Steel Lecture for this week on BBC7 is Aristotle. There are plenty of things to quibble with, I’m pretty certain Solon didn’t create the first constitution. Nevertheless quite funny and interesting in comparing Aristotle to modern times.

Book Reviews: Electra, Nietszche

Noted recently at RogueClassicism (here and here):  Scholia review of a pair of books on the reception of Electra and her story; and BMCR on the publication of conference proceedings regarding Nietzsche and Classics.  From the former:

The GDR writer Heiner Müller wrote a piece entitled Hamletmaschine (1997) in which he combines the myth of Oedipus and of Electra with the story of Hamlet and Ophelia. It is a short, very enigmatic text of approximately eight pages that can hardly be described as drama because of its unconventional form. The text is written in a telegraphic, very condensed style, with a brutal, cruel manner of expression, making extensive use of quotations from other texts. It has often been seen as 'Müller's thinly veiled critique of the GDR's ahistoric and simplistic approach to Vergangenheitsbewältigung ('coming to terms with the past'), its problematic anti-fascist rhetoric, and its totalizing politics' (p. 47). Müller here fuses the characters of Oedipus and Hamlet 'by fashioning a feeble Oedipus in form of an insipid Shakespearean Hamlet' (p. 46) and their female counterparts, 'a suicidal Ophelia, who is then transformed into an assertive and vengeful Elektra' (p. 46). Müller's Elektra incorporates three historical female figures, who have been killed or killed themselves: Rosa Luxemburg, Ulrike Meinhof, and Müller's wife Inge. Elektra threatens to commit suicide and has mutilated her body already to such an extent that '[s]he is disabled to the point that she remains confined to a wheelchair from beginning to end' (p. 53). This physical shortcoming, however, does not prevent her from being full of hatred and self-destructiveness. She has to step in where Hamlet fails. She has taken over the leading role, while Hamlet/Oedipus has quite simply disappeared from stage and thus illustrates very well Scott's underlying argument that the Elektra figure has replaced the one of Oedipus, 'a dispensable, outdated, and problematic ideal' (p. 56) in the twentieth century. Müller's play is full of autobiographical elements, one of them being the desire to destroy Hamlet, who was an obsession for him for thirty years (p. 49). But he leaves us also with a strange legacy. After having declared that Oedipus will be a comedy, he says 'If you don't understand Hamletmaschine as a comedy, the play will be a failure' (pp. 5 and n. 42). For Müller, Greek myths seem to express a very dark sense of humour.

And from the latter:

Nietzsche's relationship to (classical) antiquity, the classical tradition and its consequences for the modern culture, as well as Nietzsche's position in and influence on the classical philology have been enjoying a renewal of scholarly interest in the last thirty years. Reappraisal of Nietzsche's philological heritage was due less to the edition of his Frühe Schriften from years 1854-1869, since this was already done before and during the World War II, than to the publication of Nietzsche's philologica (including his university lectures) in the Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Interesting new insights were also brought by some secondary works in the last decade focusing on Nietzsche's "philological period". Quotation marks are in order here because the authors of these very works emphasize the artificiality of dividing Nietzsche's life into the "philological" and "philosophical" period, since for Nietzsche, throughout his life, the "classical world remained a reference-point, and a polemical point", as Bishop puts it (p. 2).

Hellenistic Philosophy and Its Tentacles

As noted by the RogueClassicist, Martha Nussbaum recently gave a lecture entitled "The Arbitrariness of Canons: The Neglect of Hellenistic Philosophy and Why it Is a Bad Thing":

She specifically mentioned the Stoic, Skeptic, and Epicurean schools of thought and said that they had a profound impact on later philosophers and thinkers, including Kant, Descartes, Hume, and Adam Smith. The classical texts make “the heart of the great books curriculum,” she said.

During the question and answer session that followed her one-hour lecture, one student asked Nussbaum why she considered the mentioned philosophers to be germane today.

Nussbaum answered that Skeptic theories of emotion and the unconscious were similar to modern psychological models, for example, and that many of the philosophers were ahead of their time, acting as the forerunners of women’s liberation.

At the same time, John Bellamy Foster hopes for ecological and social revolution, based in part on Epicurus:

In conceiving such a social and ecological revolution, we can derive inspiration, as Marx did, from the ancient Epicurean concept of “natural wealth.” As Epicurus observed in his Principal Doctrines, “Natural wealth is both limited and easily obtainable; the riches of idle fancies go on forever.” It is the unnatural, unlimited character of such alienated wealth that is the problem. Similarly, in what has become known as the Vatican Sayings, Epicurus stated: “When measured by the natural purpose of life, poverty is great wealth; limitless wealth is great poverty.” Free human development, arising in a climate of natural limitation and sustainability is the true basis of wealth, of a rich, many-sided existence; the unbounded, pursuit of wealth is the primary source of human impoverishment and suffering. Needless to say, such a concern with natural well-being, as opposed to artificial needs and stimulants, is the antithesis of capitalist society and the precondition of a sustainable human community.

A book on data mining also cites Epicurus, while Harriet Rubin wishes that journalists covering natural disasters read more Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius.

Influential Classicist (singular)

The journals Foreign Policy and The Prospect have collaborated on a project to name the world's top "public intellectuals." Their list of 100 includes one classicist (ok, classed as a philosopher): Martha Nussbaum. A Kagan is on the list, but it's not Donald. Web-voting for your top 5 choices, with the possibility of adding a write-in candidate to their list, can be done here. Their criteria for "public intellectual":

What is a public intellectual? Someone who has shown distinction in their own field along with the ability to communicate ideas and influence debate outside of it.

Candidates must have been alive, and still active in public life (though many on this list are past their prime). Such criteria ruled out the likes of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Milton Friedman, who would have been automatic inclusions 20 or so years ago. This list is about public influence, not intrinsic achievement. And that is where things get really tricky. Judging influence is hard enough inside one’s own culture, but when you are peering across cultures and languages, the problem becomes far harder.

[Thanks to Political Animal]

Origen Rising...?

Robert Jackson ruminates on the Pope, Platonism, and heresy...

On Sunday morning I watch the inauguration ceremony for the new Pope. I have an interest in ancient philosophy, so my ears prick up when I hear him invoke the patristic definition of human individuals as "thoughts in the mind of God". He goes on to say that every individual is thus loved by God: also, that each individual is "necessary". This suggests the heresy of the pre-existence of souls, for which Origen was condemned at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553. If the individual soul is necessary, then it is eternal, and if eternal, it pre-exists the body. So why not transmigration - as Plato thought and as Buddhism teaches? As he is an unlikely heretic, I decide that the Holy Father probably meant that the individual is "important", rather than "necessary".

Ataraxia Now!

Not hot off the press, but I just came across 2003's Epicurus: His Continuing Influence and Contemporary Relevance, edited by D. R. Gordon and D. B. Suits. The press release from the school the editors belong to proclaims that "Epicureanism is Alive and Well in the 21st Century":

Epicurus taught a peace-of-mind philosophy.

“He emphasized drawing upon the strengths that a human being had—this you might say is timeless advice—and not worrying about gods or the afterlife,” says Gordon, professor emeritus in philosophy at RIT. “He believed there was hardly anything better in the world than friendship.”

Suits, professor of philosophy at RIT, agrees. “Epicurus’ advice to people in his day would apply exactly to us today. The goal is to live a simple life of stable happiness with friends.”

Epicurus was not an atheist. Gods, he thought, were inspirational, but irrelevant entities that neither rewarded nor punished humans. This eliminated the anxiety and worry of angering the gods and falling victim to supernatural wrath.

“Epicurus wanted to convince us that death didn’t matter,” Suits says. “That we could still have a long, happy life whose main ingredients were satisfaction and friends.”

“Epicureanism could be a philosophy for today,” Gordon adds. “It is an honorable alternative to Christian teaching.”

The table of contents is not quite so contemporary-sounding:

The philosophy of Epicurus : is it an option for today? / Dane R. Gordon
Philodemus, the Herculaneum papyri, and the therapy of fear / David Armstrong
The angry god : Epicureans, Lactantius, and warfare / James I. Campbell
Plotinus and Epicurean epistemology / Lloyd P. Gerson
Atomism and Gassendi's conception of the human soul / Veronica Gventzadze
Epicurus and Bishop Butler / David E. White
The young Marx on Epicurus : dialectical atomism and human freedom / Paul M. Schafer
The fixation of satisfaction : Epicurus and Peirce on the goal / David B. Suits
Theological paradox in Epicurus / Marianna Shakhnovich
Epicurus on friends and goals / Daniel R. Russell
Epicurus on friendship : the emergence of blessedness / M.R. Wheeler
Death as a punishment : a consequence of Epicurean thanatology / Stephen E. Rosenbaum
Diogenes's inscription at Oenoanda / Andrew M.T. Moore.

Excerpts from David Konstan's fairly positive review below the fold...

Intellectual History

A new on-line resource of concern to this blog: the Dictionary of the History of Ideas (1973-74 edition)...Lots of good stuff...Go check it out...[Thanks to Henry Farrell at Crooked Timber]

The Tyrant Is Dead...Or Is He?

A symposium entitled "Tyranny, Ancient and Modern" was held recently at the University of Chicago, debating the relative merits of concepts like "tyranny," "totalitarianism," and so on...The discussion was sparked, it seems, by Mark Lilla's 2002 essay in the NYROB [unfortunately not free!]. The Boston Globe reported on the proceedings in a fairly lengthy article; here's an excerpt:

...there are regimes and movements that fall way to the tyrannical side of that gray zone. And far from being a purely 20th-century phenomenon, the writer Paul Berman argued, totalitarianism is the true modern successor to classical tyranny. It combines a revolt against modern liberalism with a grotesque perversion of the soul -- the very notion at the heart of the ancients' definition of tyranny. The austere creed of liberalism, with its foundation in reason, "is not satisfying to the soul," which craves more than parliamentary debate and legislative efficiency, Berman said. We have to recognize the totalitarian impulse as both a spiritual rebuke to -- and consequence of -- that liberalism.

Looked at this way, Berman argued, ostensibly antithetical movements such as Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's secular Ba'athism exist on a continuum of totalitarianism. Berman reiterated his support for the Iraq war as a strike against a "weak link" in the totalitarian system -- hardly a popular position at the gathering -- though he was highly critical of the conduct of the occupation. (Musing over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, Nathan Tarcov concluded, "There are tyrannical desires in everyone, not just the ancient Greeks.")

Remember Epictetus

Tony Long (professor of Classics at Berkeley) was interviewed [quite a while ago now, I see] for the Berkeley Alumni Association on the subject of Epictetus' continuing relevance...

Long says that Epictetus, whom he calls "one of the most memorable and influential figures of Greco-Roman antiquity," has never gone out of print, or completely out of style. Epictetus was absorbed into Christianity, read widely in the Renaissance, and enjoyed great popularity in 19th-century America. "His emphasis on autonomy and freedom resonated well with the nonconformist individualism of Emerson and Thoreau," Long says. Walt Whitman wrote, at the end of his life: "Epictetus is the one of all my old cronies who has lasted to this day," adding that when he first read the Roman Stoic, "It was like being born again."

...and Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full...

[Q:] What relevance does Epictetus have today, 2,000 years after he lived?
[A:] Have you heard of Jim Stockdale?
[Q:] Ross Perot's Vice-Presidential candidate in 1992?
[A:] Yes. Before that he served in the Vietnam War, where he was shot down, badly injured, and then kept as a prisoner of war in solitary confinement for several years.

I met him quite a number of years ago because I had heard that what kept him alive was his memory of reading Epictetus as an undergraduate at Stanford. He told me that what gave him some kind of hold on sanity was Epictetus's emphasis on your capacity to draw on your inner resources when the world outside could not be blacker. Stockdale was the inspiration for the main character in Tom Wolfe's novel A Man in Full.

[Thanks to Stoic News]

Athens, Jerusalem...and Mecca

One Erik Zielinski has a piece in the Asia Times that takes as a given that the US war in Iraq was undertaken to further the interests of Israel, the existence of the "Straussian cabal"--but to his credit, actually cites a bunch of Strauss, especially on the differences between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. First, Judaism and Islam stress revealed law, whereas Christianity stresses revealed doctrine [ok, fine]...and eventually, the whopper:

Finally: "Classical Greek philosophy permitted, nay, demanded an exoteric teaching (as a supplement to its esoteric teaching) which, while not claiming to be strictly speaking true, was considered indispensable for the right ordering of human society." (Plan of a book tentatively titled Philosophy and the Law: Historical Essays in Jewish Philosophy and the Crisis of Modernity, Appendix1)

By esoteric teaching, Strauss means Greek natural philosophy, and by exoteric teaching he means Christianity. Indeed, many Greek thinkers were notorious doubters frequently accused of disbelief in gods. Thus the Western Christian world carried in itself Greek values "of the full dedication of the individual to the contest for excellence, distinction, supremacy" (Jerusalem and Athens, page 4) and in secret, preoccupation with natural philosophy, while the Muslim world developed cohesive societies a la Plato's Republic. And here we are now, with Western countries preoccupied with individual rights and technical advances and Middle Eastern societies deeply in poverty and dominated by totalitarian regimes.

[emphasis mine]

Well, if anyone can make sense of this, feel free to leave comments!