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