Brad De Long wrote:
> Hasn't it always been obvious to everyone that western civilization is an
> enormous con game, simply picking out predecessors of whom we approve?
We agree on something! (That it *is*/has been a con game.)
But I'm afraid that at least in the U.S. huge numbers of people, including many university professors, do not see it as a con game. Consider the reactions (among classical scholars) to Martin Bernal's *Black Athena*. Now I am extremely skeptical of the ancient history he tries to establish in Volume 2 -- especially of his chronology for "Homer." But his history of classical scholarship in Volume 1 is solid. And the savagery with which a number of classical scholars (led by Mary Lefkowitz [sp?]) have attacked his history of ancient greece (volume 2) is transparently a response to his far less vulnerable volume 1. I'm afraid it is the con game of Western Civilization which is being fought over.
Carrol