A useful if not completely unbiased list of the differences
between the Ancient Greek/Early Roman morality I was talking
about can be found in Nietzsche's examination of the
"Master/Slave" morality.
Nietzsche argued that Christianity was a reaction to the
"master morality", which was the morality of the Greeks and
later the Romans. He argued that in order to subvert the
master, as any slave would likely want to do, one had to
overturn the values that lead to their enslavement. Thus
compare the virtues of the ancient Greeks and the early
Romans with the values Christianity professes:
SLAVE/CHRISTIAN VALUES MASTER/GREEK/ROMAN VALUES
Resentful Expresses anger directly
-passive agressive like:
'I'll pray for you're soul.'
Other-directed Self-directed
-Read these commandments -Dare to fight the gods! and obey
them. -Sumbit to me or die.
Other-worldly This-worldly
-Our reward is in heaven. -Life is all there is.
-And punishment for -Fight for all you can. the masters in
hell.
Humble (meek) Proud (not vain)
-The meek shall inherit -I am a man hear me roar! the
earth.
Altruistic Egoistic
-Service to others. -Serve me, you slave!
Democratic Aristocratic
-One man one vote. -By my class I rule.
Confessional Discrete (masked)
-Confess your sins. -Hide your weaknesses.
Morality of principles Morality of persons
-Read this list of -I do what I want, you do commandments and
follow it. what you want.
Have fun with the Odyssey!
Jesse
--- Michael Robison <
miker_zspider@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I finished THE ILIAD at lunch today and
was
> impressed
> with it. Your comments about the difference
between
> the Greek and Christian outlook kept me
thinking
> throughout the book. Homer's characters are
not
> Greek
> ideals, so it was hard for me at times to
> differentiate between character flaws which
Homer
> had
> no problem leaving unresolving and
characteristics
> he
> found totally acceptable. Some interesting
insights
> came out of it, especially in the parallels
between
> Greek and Christian thought. It came to me that
all
> people need to find some comfort, some
> justification,
> some juicy morsel to snatch from death's icy
grip.
> Christians can get a lot. They can die as
martyrs
> and
> then go to heaven. The Greeks, like you stated,
all
> go to Hades, so they are limited to kicking
some
> serious ass, going out in a blaze of glory,
and
> living
> on in the memories of others. The first battle
is
> for
> land. The last is for myth.
>
> The I.A. Richards version I have was very
readable
> and
> smooth. The short summaries of a couple of
the
> books
> that were left out made me wish he had
included
> them.
>
>
> On to THE ODYSSEY now, then Virgil.
>
> miker
===== SFFAudio: http://www.sffaudio.comTable
Treasures & Gifts: http://stores.ebay.com/id=4920689
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Free Pop-Up
Blocker - Get it now http://companion.yahoo.com/
-- # Plain ASCII text only, please. Anything else won't show up. # 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 : 04 Dec 2003 EST