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| Home > Reconstructionism > Greek/Hellenic > Kerux Index > Kerux #3 | Search |
| The Kerux #3 1 Boedromion 4/694 (30 August 2000) edited by Drew Campbell |
|
THE KERUX #3
1 Boedromion 4/694
30 August 2000
CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE
* Book Review: Who Killed Homer?: The Demise of Classical Education
and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom by Victor Davis Hanson and John
Heath
* From the Hearth: A Recipe for Kykeon
* Poll Results: Do you have a patron or matron deity?
* New Poll: Hellenic Ethics
* Upcoming Events
* How to Contribute to the Kerux
***
BOOK REVIEW
_Who Killed Homer?: The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom_ by Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath (New York: Free Press, 1998). ISBN 0-684-84453-2
J'accuse!
In answering the provocative question that is the title of their book, Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath tell us, "It was an inside job." Themselves insiders--products and producers of modern academia--Hanson and Heath set out to discover why, when Classics scholars are churning out record numbers of books and articles, the public still knows so little about the Greeks.
_Who Killed Homer?_ is not just another in the growing list of campus exposes. Hanson and Heath are firmly on the conservative side of the culture wars, but they did not get that way by listening to Rush Limbaugh or accepting research grants from the Heritage Foundation. They got that way by taking to heart the ideas they propose to teach: those of Homer, Plato, Sophokles, Thukydides. In short, they suggest that if Classicists want their discipline to survive, they ought to spend less time worrying about the postmodern trinity of race, gender, and class, and more time reading, teaching, and living Hellenic ideals.
Out of the Cave
What are some of those ideals? In their chapter, "Thinking Like a Greek," Hanson and Heath point to a number of well-known but all-too-often ignored propositions bequeathed to us by the Greeks, including the separation of science from political and religious authority, civilian checks and balances on military power, constitutional and consensual government, an aversion to theocracy, belief in the goods of private property and free economies, a tradition of dissent and open criticism of authority, and firm faith in average citizens as the backbone of society.
The authors do not deny the charges that the ancients fell short of our modern democratic ideals, especially with regard to women and slavery. They point out, however, that the same culture that produced those ills also produced the means to overcome them, a claim which they believe cannot be made for any other culture. The West may have built some rickety edifices, and ones that we are glad to see toppled, but its Greek foundations remain firm.
Friends of Wisdom
Indeed, the authors see Greek wisdom as the health-giving antidote to some very modern ills. To cultural relativism, they offer an affirmation of absolutes:
"At the core of the Greek belief system lies the conviction that there are unchanging absolutes in the world, ageless and immune from situation and interpretation, a small but vital body of knowledge that is largely agreed-on and indisputable. It is this moral universe which Antigone called the _agrapta nomima_, the unwritten laws that have always existed." (pp. 39-40)
"Word must match deed": The authors spare no venom for their hypocritical colleagues who hack away at the branch of Western culture, oblivious to the fact that it alone affords them their lofty views.
"It is not reductionist or fantastic to ask why it is that even the most vociferous academic critic of the West would prefer to fly Swissair, check into the Mayo Clinic, scream obscenities in Times Square, run a red light in Omaha, swim with his girlfriend on Santa Cruz beach, or live next to a U.S. Army base in Texas--rather than board a Congolese airliner, leave his appendix in Managua General, use Allah's name in vain in downtown Jeddah, jump the curb in Singapore, wear a bikini and Speedos in Iran, or vacation near the home of the Korean National Guard. Why? The Greeks."
"Human nature," they affirm, "is constant over time and space," and a just society is not the inevitable product of that nature. Such a society depends on the conscious shaping of human lives by means of timeless virtues and well-worn customs.
"What We Could Do"
Hanson and Heath are writing to their colleagues--and, no doubt, to anyone else who will listen. And who better to take up their standard than those of us who have dedicated ourselves to the most basic of all Greek values: that of traditional religion. The authors are, to put it mildly, pessimistic about the prospects of Classics as a discipline and the place of Greek ideas in our increasingly global culture. But they are unaware that small cohorts around the globe are already striving to live the ideals they so cherish.
As religious traditionalists, we Hellenes stand in a peculiar relationship to our common culture. Our dedication to Hestia and to our families make us upholders of "traditional family values"--but those traditions are not the ones usually indicated by that charged phrase. We may hold the virtue of xenia (hospitality, reciprocal guest-host honor) dear, but also refuse to share lustral water with those whose lives do no honor to the gods. We may find ourselves, like Antigone, caught between the laws of piety and the (often unwritten) laws of the land.
We sometimes say that reconstructionism is not about reviving a long-dead society, but about bringing the religious beliefs of that society forward to our own day. In the face of rampant cultural relativism and the ludicrous moral positions it can generate, are we ready to revise that platitude? Are we ready to pursue "the good life" with its stubborn virtues and moral strictures? Are we willing to risk the label "conservative,"--or worse yet, "intolerant"--in order to stand by our cultural values? Or will we join the chorus:
"Poor Cyclops. Until Odysseus and his rapacious exploiters arrived with their fire-water, he had an Eden, didn't hurt anybody at all, took pride in his native culture and indigenous gods. He was visually challenged (but who is to say two eyes are normal?), yet still grazed and herded his sheep and goats sustainably, communed with animals, and lived on milk and cheese (oh, and occasionally people). His unpolluted land of rare and protected indigenous flora and fauna was without substance abuse, a stewardship of native equals in ecological equilibrium without linear hierarchies, where no constructs of marriage, family, religion, or law could valorize any one group or stifle anyone's inner child." (p. 55)
***
FROM THE HEARTH
Kykeon
Important Safety Note: One of the ingredients in kykeon, pennyroyal, should not be ingested by pregnant women as it can cause miscarriage!
4 c. water
2 heaping tablespoons dried pennyroyal
2 tbsp. honey
2/3 c. barley flour
1/4 c. semolina (or instant Cream of Wheat)
Bring water to a boil. Add pennyroyal and simmer for 10 min. Add honey and simmer for 5 more min. Strain out the herb and discard. Return liquid to heat, and whisk in barley flour a little at a time to avoid lumps. Whisk in semolina in the same way. The result will be a thin, smooth porridge. If the mixture becomes too thick to drink, whisk in some hot water.
***
POLL RESULTS
QUESTION: Do you have a patron or matron deity--one (or more) of the gods to whom you have specially dedicated yourself?
CHOICES AND RESULTS
- Aphrodite, 9 votes, 12.68%
- Apollon, 10 votes, 14.08%
- Ares, 2 votes, 2.82%
- Artemis, 6 votes, 8.45%
- Asklepios, 2 votes, 2.82%
- Athena, 9 votes, 12.68%
- Demeter, 4 votes, 5.63%
- Dionysos, 4 votes, 5.63%
- Hades, 1 vote, 1.41%
- Hekate, 5 votes, 7.04%
- Hephaistos, 0 votes, 0.00%
- Hera, 0 votes, 0.00%
- Hermes, 4 votes, 5.63%
- Hestia, 1 vote, 1.41%
- Pan, 4 votes, 5.63%
- Persephone, 1 vote, 1.41%
- Poseidon, 3 votes, 4.23%
- Zeus, 1 vote, 1.41%
- Other, 1 vote, 1.41%
- I don't have a patron/matron deity., 4 votes, 5.63%
***
NEW POLL ON HELLENIC ETHICS To vote, go to http://www.egroups.com/polls/kerux
***
UPCOMING EVENTS
=Northern California=
Tuesday, September 5, 2000: Mystery Circle, Thiasos tes Glaukos, and the Fellowship of the Spiral Path present an Eleusinian ritual for the Two Goddesses. Offerings and meditation on the Greater Mysteries. 7:30 p.m., Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists.
Saturday, September 23, 2000: Bay Area Hellenic Pagan Get-Together at the "Taste of Greece" Festival, Annunciation Cathedral, 245 Valencia St., San Francisco. Great food and dancing. Time and place of meeting TBA.
Saturday, December 2, 2000: "History of Paganism" class for Collegium, the clergy training program of Fellowship of the Spiral Path. 2 p.m., private East Bay location. For more information on any of the above events, contact Drew at brightwave@y...
Saturday, September 30th: Thiasos Olympikos will be hosting a Pyanepsia celebration. For more information, contact Pyrokanthos at rhinoceroslodge@p....
=New England=
The Greater Boston Pagan Network hosts a series of open rituals by different local Pagan groups. The next open ritual will be a Hellenic style one honoring the Olympian deities led by Daitales. If you care to bring your own headwreath, its appropriate festival garb for this ritual. Fri., September 15, 7:30 p.m. At the Boston Church of the New Jerusalem, 140 Bowdoin St., Boston, MA, across from the Statehouse on Beacon Hill. Free and open to the public, donations welcome, potluck after ritual snacks welcome. For transportation and parking details, send a blank message to: sabbats-faq@n... or contact Maureen (MaureenRW@e...) (781-388-3773).
***
CONTRIBUTE TO THE KERUX The Kerux is always looking for articles, reviews, and announcements of interest to the Hellenic Reconstructionist community. We're particularly interested in items that support home-based religious practice and eusebeia (piety). Paste your contribution into an email and send to kerux-owner@egroups.com.
***
The Kerux is a project of Nomos Arkhaios, an educational resource center promoting the study and practice of traditional Hellenic religion. For more information, visit the website at Individual authors appearing in the Kerux retain all rights to their work. If you'd like to reprint something you see here, please write directly to the author of the piece for permission.
This article originally appeared on Andrew Campbell's Nomos Arkhaios site which is currently on hiatus.
This article is copyright © 2000-2003 by Andrew Campbell and is reprinted here with permission.