Re: RARA-AVIS: achilles

From: Rene Ribic ( rribic@optusnet.com.au)
Date: 27 Jul 2002


Anthony wrote:

> Yeah, about 2-3 percent of them must have been. Not necessarily large
> enough though to make it into a myth though and having read the
various
> historical who's who in gay history along with the reasoning behind
> entries, it's pseudo-science at best and politically motivated tripe
at
> worse. Jesus hanged out with 12 guys and never married, he must be
gay.
>
> But in the end, what all that has to do with a 20th century literary
> form is beyond me. Achilles homosexuality has no bearing on Achilles
> heroic action. It's ironic how some strive for equality so hard by
> trying to show that x individual was superior because of their sexual
> preference or skin color or whatever. True equality doesn't give a
shit
> about the trivial aspects of the individual and neither does true
> heroics. Neither being gay or straight has anything to do with
anyone's
> heroic or evil actions.
>

I never said it did. My point was that the Greeks felt about it the same way you (apparently) & I do, even though (like many people today) they saw homosexual love between 2 adult males as a character blemish. In other words, a hero was a hero even if you didn't approve of his actions, he didn't have to be virtuous to be a hero. Similarly, the Greeks wouldn't have approved of the desecration of a noble enemy's body, or Achilles sulking in his tent because he couldn't get what he wanted, or dressing as a woman to avoid going to battle. None of these are characteristics of "arete" (the Greek concept of manly excellence) but despite these flaws (by Greek definition not mine) Achilles is the greatest of the Greek heroes. In the duel between Achilles & Hector, Hector loses his nerve & runs around the walls of Troy fleeing from the murderous Achilles - yet the Greeks honoured Hector as a great warrior. There are plenty of other examples. Achilles' sexuality was just one
(obviously not the best, in light of the argument generated) example brought in to illustrate that "heroism" & "virtue" were 2 very distinct notions to the Greeks but not to us modern types. As an example, the story of the fall of Troy, retold in modern times, casts the "Greeks" as bad guys (MAD MAX II). Max is a hero (in modern usage of the word) BECAUSE he's a virtuous man,underneath his hardboiled, cynical facade
(very much like hb heroes such as Sam Spade, for example) as well as a great warrior. Wes (who parallels Achilles) is not a hero despite being a great warrior because he is morally bankrupt - he's just a killer. To Homer, both Max & Wes would have been heroes because the term hero had no connotations of virtue, other than bravery & warrior skills.(Most of my info on these ideas would have come from the book THE GREEKS by H D F Kitto if anyone is interested).

It's ironic how some strive for equality so hard by
> trying to show that x individual was superior because of their sexual
> preference or skin colour or whatever. True equality doesn't give a
shit
> about the trivial aspects of the individual and neither does true
> heroics. Neither being gay or straight has anything to do with
anyone's
> heroic or evil actions.
>
Even being taken out of context I can't recall anybody saying or implying that anybody was superior to anybody else on any basis whatsoever, let alone sexuality or skin colour (how did we get to skin colour, for Krishna's sake?) Are you now referring to the great PC Conspiracy, Anthony? As to politically motivated tripe, the notion of Achilles being homosexual (whether it was true or not) is millennia old
& definitely predates political correctness.

Rene

--
# To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to
# majordomo@icomm.ca.  This will not work for the digest version.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 27 Jul 2002 EDT