Loving Latin at the End of the World | Hacker News Reader

Loving Latin at the End of the World

bostonreview.net

22 pointsdiodorus16 comments

What I don't understand is this binary, black/white view of the oppressed Vs oppressor, where the powerful are always wrong. Classical civilization is amazing for its achievements in a world that was filled with oppression, rape, cruelty, horror, etc. It did not invent these things. It showed a way out.

This freedom, initially for the few, has grown measurably to encompass nearly the entire globe. Never before in all of history has there been such real support for the plight of the underprivileged. Far from being in opposition to classical civilization, it is the extension of its ideas, to create a more beautiful and harmonious world. Beauty is not unity or totalitarian, but, in a classical sense, diversity in unity.

While I don’t agree with his diagnosis entirely, Nietzsche is a good place to start on this particular topic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master-slave_morality

The powerful are always wrong when they are white men. Otherwise, they are always right.

That's not the issue I'm referring to. While I agree that prejudice against white men exists, it's not really a terrible burden and doesn't really matter in my view.

But, if we believe that the philosophical ideals underlying modern society are fundamentally evil or rejectable -- that is a serious deal to me.

I reject the idea we should be born with shame for the whole of western human civilization as an evil upon the earth. We need to appreciate what we've all come from.

When we know that we come from societies that are thousands of years old, we can better prepare for a positive future, thousands of years in the future.

Taking white dudes down a notch, I have no issue with that. But I take issue with associating the classics with fascism -- and promoting the idea that reading and loving the classics is a sort of fascist act. No way. For instance, I think that if more people read Plato and understand his role in history, they would be happier -- and happier about the world they live in.

> Taking white dudes down a notch, I have no issue with that

Then you should have no problem dismissing the author and the content of his essay.

For ages fascists have tried to propagate the idea that classics support their views; everyone dismissed them as preposterous.

Now, it's the left that says it, to promote the idea that they are just, and no one is else, ever, even 2000 years ago.

What I find a bit problematic is this emphasis we see on "classical civilization" as somehow more exceptional or 'amazing' than anything else from ancient history, when it's simply the ancient culture that we happen to know the most about. There were plenty of other cultures back then that could be just as "classical" to us, if only they were better studied.

Knowledge of the past is key. If we don't know anything, how can we appreciate it? But this isn't a racial thing about white europe. The classical nature is present in China, Egypt, India, Europe and in the new world.

HOWEVER. It isn't just an appreciation for being old and powerful. I assert that there are specific moral/ethical/philosophical ideas -- shared between some but not all cultural forms -- that are more better. Yes!

This isn't black and white, but there are better values and worse values. For instance, in China, Europe and India, the idea of harmony is expressed as diversity in unity -- and this serves as a kind of foundational value in classical civilization. Harmony was not MA'AT or perfect uniformity, as it was in Egypt. And I don't know what the new world believed, but I don't dig the human sacrifice. Does that mean I reject the civilization of Egypt and the new world? No. But I appreciate that we have certain classical ideals at the heart of our modern societies.

> but all the while it has remained a totemic language—attractive to religious schools, nationalists, and traditionalists alike for its implicit cultural but all the while it has remained a totemic language—attractive to religious schools, nationalists, and traditionalists alike for its implicit cultural authority, its tradition of exclusivity, power, and prestige.authority, its tradition of exclusivity, power, and prestige.

There is an author who has never spent a minute in any of these schools or talked with anyone in them. What ignorant trash.

It’s the end of the world, and deep in the apocalyptic hell-scape of 2019 Massachusetts, some random professor whines that Latin is problematic.

Joel is a family friend. I personally don't know him very well but I remember a great demonstration of his encyclopedic knowledge of the classics at my bar mitzvah. Great to see him getting published.

Edgy drivel mixed with guilt by association: how pathetically needy of recognition the writer must be.

> There is a real-world danger to this aestheticizing attitude toward linguistic study, this appeal to “beauty” and “pleasure.”

I can't imagine feeling this way and being a classicist. Like, why even bother?

> Brexit

> Trump

> Boris Johnson

> Nazis

Ugh. It's like bingo at this point.

Much of my writing style comes from Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico ;)

With many of your posts having been read by me, I don't notice much use of the ablative absolute.

I meant that I strive to write simply and directly. Using short sentences.

More recently, though, I owe a lot to Abercrombie and Stover. Who also write like that.

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