[lbo-talk] It's Teh Bigneth, stoopit

Jim Farmelant farmelantj at juno.com
Sun Oct 19 13:11:22 PDT 2008


On Sun, 19 Oct 2008 14:24:06 -0500 Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> writes:
>
>
>
> Chris Doss wrote:
> >
> > The "nature" of the Greeks consisted of a god living under every
> rock and in every tree and river, and divine beings spinning around
> the earth, that you worshipped and had to appease or they would kick
> your ass.
> >
> > For Homer, something is good if it is powerful and noble and
> inspiring respect, not because it is harmless.
>
> I don't have the energy just now to debate this, but this is
> absolutely
> wrong. The very term, "good," makes no sense at all in this
> context.
> Something that was powerful was powerful, PERIOD. It is absurd to
> add
> "good" or "bad" to this proposition. The nearest Homer comes to
> applying
> such a judgment (and only implicitly, since I doubt that the
> appropriate
> abstraction existed in his vocabulary) is in an episode that I have
> not
> reread recently and can't be specific or not, but the gods begin to
> laugh uncontrollably. The gods are powerful and must be respected,
> or
> elese, but there is essentially nothinng "good" about them. Because
> they
> cannot die, they cannot have the dignity nor the greatness of an
> Achilles knowing he is going to die, and acting under that
> knowledge.
>
> You and I look at the same evidence and come to opposite
> conclusions,
> so I don't know what can resolve the debate.

It seems to me, if I am not mistaken, that Chris' take on this draws upon Nietzche's analysis in his *The Birth of Tragedy*.

Jim F.
>
> Carrol
>
>
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