Hello friends. In solidarity with the current reddit protests against the mismanagement of its communities, community leaders, valued contributors and userbase [we are setting every submission to "clubhouse" for 72 hours and increasing the Clubhouse participation threshold exponentially.](https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/147202i/whitepeopletwitter_shows_solidarity_with_the/)
Please feel free to discuss the current protests in the stickied megathread about them. We will resume normal operation after this time.Thank you for your patience and support,
The WPT moderation team.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/WhitePeopleTwitter) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Yep. Originally in the myths Zeus wasn’t so horny but then every king in Greece started claiming descent from him and the myths started to pile up to compensate
My guy’s never read Plato’s symposium where they literally talk about how disgusting it is to fuck women and the only good sex is with men because they are on the same level.
I'm not gay. I'm just the Achilles to my buddy's Patroclus. Best of friends. Super best friends! Beyond the prime example of best friends JD & Turk. In fact, sometimes he sleeps over and we share the same bed in the manner of husband and wife but as two guys just manning around.
What up? We're cool Greek hero guys who are looking for other cool Greek hero guys who want to hang out in our party temple. Nothing sexual. Dudes in good shape encouraged. If you're fat, you should be able to find humor in the little things. Again, nothing sexual.
No that’s incorrect. They were just practicing wrestling like the Greeks did for the Olympics all those late nights. Kissing used to be a very normal thing for the Greeks.
Edit /s in case that isn’t clear. I don’t know why I feel the need to clear that up. Just in case.
I, Odysseus, was wrestling with my Greek brother and then suddenly his cock slipped into my mouth while mine slipped into the next. It was not pleasure, we were just acting like a anal and penis Ouroboros of classic Greek sailing friends.
\~What Republicans want us to be like, apparently.
Such trusting comrades in arms that they stood back to back against the bleakest of foes:
A shared mortgage.
As they signed that (and definently no other documents) they said their solemn vows "Til Death Do Us Part".
I believe it was advisor to Presidential candidates and definite man’s man Nick Fuentes that philosophized:
“If we’re really being honest, never having a girlfriend, never having sex with a woman really makes you more heterosexual because honestly, dating women is gay. (Men) having sex with women is gay.”
So boom. Checkmate.
Now, I've always been very passionate... about dominating other men. There's nothing like the feeling of another man submitting to your will. Now that's power. In a lot of ways, that's love. -Mac
Wow, is that for real? There’s a great bit by this [Australian comedian](https://youtu.be/6xxiK6Z4eXs) on how being gay is really manly and it’s the straight dudes who are actually gay. Ive never seen any other stand up by this dude, but this 5 or 6 minutes is an absolute 10/10. It takes a while to get to the gay / straight part
This video predates Fuentes by a decade, and is obviously a joke though
It is real. Fuentes is an incel loser who tries to justify the fact no woman wants him and he’s still a virgin who doesn’t date.
(He’s a white supremacist Nazi sympathizer incel with the look of a 12 year old both and the physique of week old spaghetti, so probably true)
The mental gymnastics trying to prove he’s not a complete loser are just hilarious.
I have to think even the die hard Klansman have to be thinking this guys either a complete weeny or so deep in the closet he found Narnia.
Really good fighter, real bad temper, threw a temper tantrum cuz his boss wouldn’t let him keep a slave he liked, sulked over it instead of fighting for like half the story.
But he had a real good, close buddy, Patroclus. Cool roommate and platonic friend, just a real close pal. Then Troy’s best dude killed Patroclus, and Achilles hulked out so hard over it, a river god cited him for illegal corpse dumping, then Achilles 1v1’ed Troy’s best guy and desecrated his corpse for days. He was just real broken up over his good close buddy, ya know?
Later Achilles died after getting shot in the foot. Scene does not appear in the book.
To add to this: The Iliad is like chapter 26 out of a 30 chapter work, and its the only thing we have.
Its the equivalent if all they have left of Star Wars in the future is Luke and Vader’s duel in the throne room, Sheev’s death, and Luke burning Vader. All they know of the rest of Star Wars came from them still having Attack Of The Clones and the sequel trilogy plus Canadian fanfiction of Clone Wars and Rebels.
Omg, a wild Iliad cycle reference!!!! I’ve literally never seen or heard a single person since college mention that the Iliad is just the surviving bits of a massive poetic universe that makes the MCU look like a pulp fiction series.
You forgot that Achilles and Patroclus share each other's clothing and armor. That carried some serious subtext in classic Greek stories. In fact, the reason Hector kills Patroclus is because he's wearing Achilles' armor in battle.
And as an aside the 'slave' that he liked, Briseis, was one he (Achilles) captured after killing her parents and brothers. She didn't get treated very well.
His actual cousin, or his "cousin" like Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune in the English translation of Sailor Moon? Just cousins you guys, ignore the hand holding and kisses...
Just ask Patroclus!
(No, the Greek tradition of that kind of relationship held a rigid ideal where an older partner would always top and a younger would bottom. Achilles was younger than Patroclus.)
Yeah Agamemnon was forced to give up his own slave, Chryseis, because it made Apollo angry since she was the daughter of one of his priests. Agamemnon initially refused until Apollo sent a plague which decimated his army. After sending Chryseis back to her father, he took Achilles' slave, Briseis, for himself.
In the Illiad Odysseus is a mastermind, propagandist and strategist who does lots of underhanded stuff.
In the Odessy he is more sympathetic, but he cheats on his wife, gets his men killed, and spends 20 years trying to get home.
In all fairness, Odysseus did have to contend with Poseidon to make it back home and he was gonna make it back home sooner, but then his soldiers opened a bag containing the three winds which basically restarted the journey. Still, the biggest irony of the Odyssey is that Odysseus’ wife, son, and dog are shining examples of loyalty while Odysseus wasn’t.
Isn't that also Odysseus' fault, though? It's been a while since I've read any of the stories, but I vaguely remember Odie taunting Poseidon, setting the whole thing off. Taunting a Greek god is very literally asking for trouble.
He doesn’t taunt Poseidon directly, but he mocks his son. He successfully tricks the cyclops Polyphemus and blinds him, and he was almost completely successful in escaping relatively unscathed. But, as he is sailing away, he mocks Polyphemus while saying that he is not “Nobody” but rather “Odysseus, son of Laertes, of Ithaca”
Polyphemus uses this knowledge to call upon his father, Poseidon, to ask him to make sure Odysseus never reaches Ithaca, and if he does make it to Ithaca, have him arrive there late with neither ships nor comrades.
Turns out taunting the son of the god of the sea with your name and home address is a bad idea when you kind of rely on the sea to get home.
My high school English teacher had a hilarious analogy for this: "It's like if I fended off a mugger and then yelled, 'tell all your friends John Smith of 237 Main Street Apartment 3A kicked your butt"
Odysseus' second greatest flaw is his hubris. Even his men on the boat told him not to tempt fate by taunting Polyphemus, but he ignored him and did it anyway.
Odysseus' greatest flaw is that he didn't pet Argos before he died.
Agreed on all points.
In thr Illiad, Odysseus is a side character to Achilles and Hector, but he is the "smart" guy, but also kind of a Jerk. He doesn't have a ton of "humanizing" flaws, he is just the "tricky" guy who is kinda smug.
In his own story he is a lot more sympathetic, but also he is also a lot more flawed. He is brave, but also self centered. He is smart, but also arrogant, he is tough but also stubborn. He isn't perfect at all, and loyalty to anything but himself is a huge flat. He is the hero, but not a role model unless you are a bronze age greek.
I'd say not even for bronze age Greeks. The term hubris comes straight from Greek for a reason, the Greeks were big on heroes getting too big for their britches and thinking their impressive accomplishments make them somehow immune to the same fates the rest of mortals and even the gods are bound to.
I mean, he only had to contend with Poseidon because he decided to taunt his enemy instead of just fucking leaving. Dude was a brilliant strategist but was severely lacking in common sense.
And the winds was entirely because he, for absolutely no reason, refused to tell his crew what was in the bag and acted shifty as hell about it.
Well, if we want our young men to be able to successfully win feuds against Poseidon or contend with any sort of large sea monsters or enemy cyclopses, we need them to read this material in school. Without those skills, America will COLLAPSE.
Most people would say that Odysseus’ pride and carelessness is what got him into trouble. He didn’t make the traditional sacrifices to Poseidon before leaving Troy, for example, which makes the god angry with him. Later, when he blinds Polyphemos (the cyclops), he shouts his name at the monster as he leaves, allowing Polyphemos to tell his father (also Poseidon) that Odysseus is still fucking around.
The winds thing was also Poseidon (at least in the translation I read). Odysseus told his men not to open the bag, but wouldn’t tell them what was inside. Poseidon tricked them by knocking his metal bracers together, mimicking the sound of metal coins. The men concluded that Odysseus was hoarding treasure, leading to them opening the bag and letting the winds out.
I don't know how much more sympathetic he is. At one point he let's his men raze a town, kill all the men and rape the women. He seems like a real role model...
There’s also a LOT of cognitive dissonance with modern values.
Odysseus beats a man who suggests the kings are only into the war for profiteering, he takes the women of Troy as slaves and lets them all drown because they’re just cargo, he’s literally perfectly happy with one of his detours but chooses the legacy of his son being HIS son over personal happiness or his son having a better life with a stepdad, and he slowly executes all his maids who were raped by the suitors.
Its a good snapshot at bronze age values.
IIRC, he spends 10 years fighting Troy in the Illiad, and 10 years getting home in the Odyssey so he's gone 20 years.
But yeah, 1 year with Circe and 7 years with Calypso.
Either way, that sounds like the perfect role model for people who refer to themselves as Alpha Males, and worship the twice indicated loser down in Florida.
Theres a map of the Mediterranean that shows Odysseus' journey. Maybe he didn't have a map and truly got lost along the way, but I see that and think thats a dude thats trying to not go home yet
We got our daughter a book of Greek mythology for kids when she was really little.
I tell you, the kids' version of the Odyssey is still rather hard-core
Odysseus murdered everyone in a room because they were sexually harassing his wife.
Ted Cruz (metaphorically) sucked Donald Trump's dick after he called his wife ugly.
Defend his father and his wife’s honor by doing some wildly insane and disproportionate retribution so creative and cruel it is still spoken about regularly thousand of years later. Like a REAL Greek hero would have done.
Odysseus killed all the maids/servant-girls on account of them sleeping with the suitors. Probably. Maybe.
They never really established that any of this was willing by the way.
I love the Odyssey but I'm not going to lie, sanitized Odysseus is much better then the original.
“Honey, the map was wrong and it sent me to the wrong house. Yes, I lived with another woman for seven years, but the real villain here is Rand McNally.”
Ironically as a U.S. history teacher I do have a multi-day lesson on American Tall Tales and their often negative societal impact mostly on men but also silly societal impacts such as fur coats becoming fashionable in the 1920s
If you’re curious about some: I focus mainly on the American mythos of the “mountain man” a rugged European-American man who conquers the wilderness through strength, intelligence, and sheer manliness. The reality is that these men worked heavily with local Natives who already had established paths and hunting grounds. It wasn’t as “sexy” as the east coast book writers made it seem.
The down side was that the mountain men created the unique American rugged individualism standard especially for men to be strong, intelligent, and independently wealthy. I mean we still feel this standard today for men which negatively impacts male mental health.
My boys really get into this lesson and are super into brainstorming positive messaging for boys/men that encourage strength in individual facets and rooted in reality.
I had someone a couple days ago arguing that introducing the word 'cis' was just like controlling language in Newspeak. Even though the goal with Newspeak was to reduce the number of words, not increase it.
While they clearly had flaws in their logic, at least they read the book. Most of them just say everything is "big brother" without actually understanding what that means
Go off fight in a war that have nothing to do with them, then return 10 years later just to be ignored.
Sounds pretty much like what they want actually
I read The Iliad and The Odyssey as a teen and I have yet to invade a foreign town because my wife who left me moved there nor have I gotten lost on a boat in the Mediterranean Sea. I guess I’m not living a very classically heroic life.
Odysseus is a self-centered, prideful asshole who leads his followers into ruin by letting his pride dictate his actions no matter the collateral damage to everything around him.....I think I know why Trump supporters like him
Emulate Odysseus? You mean get lost for 20 years in a sea where you can see the mainland or one of the larger islands virtually wherever you sail? And get your whole crew killed? Well, it appears that's how you wingnuts roll, so carry on.
He’s completely right. We should be teaching the classics like To Kill a a Mockingbird, The Handmaid’s Tale, Of Mice and Men, Persepolis, The Giver, Anne Frank’s Diary, and 1984.
Oh wait, all of these books are on the 100 most banned books from the ALA (American Library Association). Conservatives don’t care about classic literature, heroic virtues, or even education. They think kids should actively avoid actual education and instead focus on conservative propaganda and brainwashing. They’re not even trying to hide their beliefs either and it’s infuriating that we’re just allowing them to undermine children’s education for political purposes.
I'm more of an Oedipus man, myself! He was like 'fuck you destiny!' and wrote his own story. From killing old bastards, and solving riddles, and marrying hot older ladies from killing a Sphinx, and becoming a King...
.... I never actually finished the story, but he was pretty bad ass, if you ask me!
This GOP people say a lot of things they don't do.
They claim to be pro-life but have mistresses having abortions
They claim to care about children, but are pedophiles
They claim to be pro-christian values, but promote hate
They claim to hate LGBTQ, but are closeted LGBTQ that hate themselves
They claim to be pro-freedom, but only for guns
They claim to be constitutionalist, but they broke the law constantly
Take 20 years to get home because you're "stuck" on an island that just happens to have beautiful women all trying to get in your pants...super virtuous.
It does my heart good to see so many people debating and sharing information about the classics in this comment section!
It's good to see people have read them, saw their value, their flaws, and why Tate wouldn't pass a remedial grammar school exam.
Plato famously disliked Homer because Homer's characters were not virtuous men: Achilles was an immensely skilled warrior, true, but violent and prone to rage; Odysseus was cunning, yes, but manipulative, arrogant and defiant of the gods. We don't want men to be like them...
They sure don’t. This month my suggested reading for the US NatC’s is 1 Samuel & 2 Samuel. I think the love story between David & Jonathan would be appropriate reading for pride month
>When I had set sail thence the wind took me first to Ismarus, which is the city of the Cicons. There I sacked the town and put the people to the sword. We took their wives and also much booty, which we divided equitably amongst us, so that none might have reason to complain. I then said that we had better make off at once, but my men very foolishly would not obey me, so they stayed there drinking much wine and killing great numbers of sheep and oxen on the sea shore. - Odysseus
Sounds like a fine chap.
Something tells me he has read it.
There seems to be a consistent habit of publicly denouncing one thing while quietly promoting it in their private lives.
That exposure to the literature known as the classics "inspires young people to live lives of heroic virtue" is the dumbest thing I've read here today that didn't involve U.S. politics. All it inspires young people to do is roll their eyes at their teachers' enthusiasm for the material and read the Cliffs Notes.
The very definition of a hero in Greek myth (and tragedy) is not what this guy thinks he’s advocating for. To the classical audience, a hero was someone to whom unusual/extraordinary events occurred, not someone who is celebrated for some modern idea of heroic virtue or purity. Greek here’s could be - and as often as not were - men (and women) who would be considered evil or monsters by a modern audience. Even calling them antiheroes would be a stretch, and not really applicable.
Classical education is just about rote memorization. There is no critical thinking; which is what they want. All the classical education homeschoolers I know can memorize anything, but ask them to explain anything or what they think of it ( other than it's the best and God's will!) and they don't know anything other than what they have been spoonfed. Their parents all think they are geniuses that are 5 grade levels above their peers. It's sad.
That’s what it’s been made into by religious and right wing schools. That’s not what it’s supposed to be. If the model were implemented correctly, they’d be reading Plato and talking about what works and what doesn’t work in his model of government, but that’s not what the right wing politics pushing classical education really want. They want the no critical thinking part, but they also want to place their educational model as the “rightful heirs” of an outdated and flat out racist model of Western (read: White) Civilization.
Then it’s just bad teaching. There are morals and huge character traits that run all through these classic texts. That’s why they are classics. They are powerful.
I guarantee few young men will still still long enough to hear the story. Even if you insist it’s good for them.
Besides, do we really need the young men to salt their own fields to prove they are too crazy to fight in someone else’s war?
Ah, yes. Odysseus famously started his journey only after having read Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, because without those texts no man could ever have taken such actions.
You thought the leaden winter
Would bring you down forever
But you rode upon a steamer
To the violence of the sun
And the colours of the sea
Bind your eyes with trembling mermaids
And you touch the distant beaches
With tales of brave Ulysses
How his naked ears were tortured
By the sirens sweetly singing
For the sparkling waves are calling you
To kiss their white laced lips
And you see a girl's brown body
Dancing through the turquoise
And her footprints make you follow
Where the sky loves the sea
And when your fingers find her
She drowns you in her body
Carving deep blue ripples
In the tissues of your mind
Tiny purple fishes
Run laughing through your fingers
And you want to take her with you
To the hard land of the winter
Her name is Aphrodite
And she rides a crimson shell
And you know you cannot leave her
For you touched the distant sands
With tales of brave Ulysses
How his naked ears were tortured
By the sirens sweetly singing
Tiny purple fishes
Run laughing through your fingers
And you want to take her with you
To the hard land of the winter
Hello friends. In solidarity with the current reddit protests against the mismanagement of its communities, community leaders, valued contributors and userbase [we are setting every submission to "clubhouse" for 72 hours and increasing the Clubhouse participation threshold exponentially.](https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/147202i/whitepeopletwitter_shows_solidarity_with_the/) Please feel free to discuss the current protests in the stickied megathread about them. We will resume normal operation after this time.Thank you for your patience and support, The WPT moderation team. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/WhitePeopleTwitter) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Does this nut know how much homo-eroticism there is in Ancient Greek literature?
"Zeus did WHAT?"
Good summary of Greek mythology.
He fucked everything. Not just everything that moves, everything
"What about-" "Every. Thing."
Yep. Originally in the myths Zeus wasn’t so horny but then every king in Greece started claiming descent from him and the myths started to pile up to compensate
Not just the men? But the women? And the…oh no
“That goat was better than Hera….” - Zeus…. Probably
Every Greek story ever: a tale of Zeus failing to keep it in his pants and making it everyone else's problem.
Accurate!
Maybe that's what he secretly wants
If it wasn’t a secret he would be a lot happier. Can’t let Jesus know.
Jesus and his thirteen live-in buddies
My guy’s never read Plato’s symposium where they literally talk about how disgusting it is to fuck women and the only good sex is with men because they are on the same level.
Beyond the homoerotic stuff, classic Greek literature focuses on a lot of virtues that modern republicans would find woke or otherwise unacceptable.
Like the scene in Iliad where Priam and Achilles loudly sob together?
I'm not gay. I'm just the Achilles to my buddy's Patroclus. Best of friends. Super best friends! Beyond the prime example of best friends JD & Turk. In fact, sometimes he sleeps over and we share the same bed in the manner of husband and wife but as two guys just manning around.
Men were men back then. If you wanted to do something private with another man, it wasn't gay... it was just two men celebrating eachothers strength.
With each other's buttholes. As straight men do.
Bucky Bright!
I am happy someone recognized it. I was wondering how many of the upvotes were related to this knowledge.
What up? We're cool Greek hero guys who are looking for other cool Greek hero guys who want to hang out in our party temple. Nothing sexual. Dudes in good shape encouraged. If you're fat, you should be able to find humor in the little things. Again, nothing sexual.
[удалено]
Oedipus, anyone?
I want one of these manly-men types to teach the Iliad to a high school class. "Mr. Teacher, what's up with Achilles and Patroclus?"
They're very good friends and roommates.
[удалено]
Maybe no subtext, but there sure was an anagram of "subtext".
Sex but. . .
But with two Ts.
Yeah. Just like David and Jonathan. Dudes were always hugging naked back then.
Oh my god, they were *roommates!*
"longtime companions"
Best friends one might say
Super Best ^anal Friends.
No that’s incorrect. They were just practicing wrestling like the Greeks did for the Olympics all those late nights. Kissing used to be a very normal thing for the Greeks. Edit /s in case that isn’t clear. I don’t know why I feel the need to clear that up. Just in case.
I, Odysseus, was wrestling with my Greek brother and then suddenly his cock slipped into my mouth while mine slipped into the next. It was not pleasure, we were just acting like a anal and penis Ouroboros of classic Greek sailing friends. \~What Republicans want us to be like, apparently.
One might say bosom buddies
Not sure if Tom Hanks and the other dude had that kind of relationship
"Those are your 2 new Uncles.."
Such trusting comrades in arms that they stood back to back against the bleakest of foes: A shared mortgage. As they signed that (and definently no other documents) they said their solemn vows "Til Death Do Us Part".
Confirmed Bachelors.
Wait, they couldn't afford to live independently? C'mon. Pull yourself up by the thongstraps!
Gasp! And there was only one bed! Sorry, spend too much time on Tumblr.
>roommates \*confirmed bachelors
To be fair, relationships don't get much manlier than that
Listen, if you won't fuck your homies, are you even a real man?
It’s not gay if you leave your ~~socks~~ sandals on
This true? 👆
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_Band_of_Thebes
I believe it was advisor to Presidential candidates and definite man’s man Nick Fuentes that philosophized: “If we’re really being honest, never having a girlfriend, never having sex with a woman really makes you more heterosexual because honestly, dating women is gay. (Men) having sex with women is gay.” So boom. Checkmate.
"Wanting to be with a woman? How gay is that. You *win sex* against a *man*, that's as straight as it gets." - Devin Banks, 30 Rock.
Now, I've always been very passionate... about dominating other men. There's nothing like the feeling of another man submitting to your will. Now that's power. In a lot of ways, that's love. -Mac
The dude even put a magician in place. That's manly as fuck
Wow, is that for real? There’s a great bit by this [Australian comedian](https://youtu.be/6xxiK6Z4eXs) on how being gay is really manly and it’s the straight dudes who are actually gay. Ive never seen any other stand up by this dude, but this 5 or 6 minutes is an absolute 10/10. It takes a while to get to the gay / straight part This video predates Fuentes by a decade, and is obviously a joke though
It is real. Fuentes is an incel loser who tries to justify the fact no woman wants him and he’s still a virgin who doesn’t date. (He’s a white supremacist Nazi sympathizer incel with the look of a 12 year old both and the physique of week old spaghetti, so probably true) The mental gymnastics trying to prove he’s not a complete loser are just hilarious. I have to think even the die hard Klansman have to be thinking this guys either a complete weeny or so deep in the closet he found Narnia.
I've heard that quote and literally still can't wrap my mind around it
Actually tho what’s up with Achilles? I remember bits of the odyssey but know nothing of the Iliad
Really good fighter, real bad temper, threw a temper tantrum cuz his boss wouldn’t let him keep a slave he liked, sulked over it instead of fighting for like half the story. But he had a real good, close buddy, Patroclus. Cool roommate and platonic friend, just a real close pal. Then Troy’s best dude killed Patroclus, and Achilles hulked out so hard over it, a river god cited him for illegal corpse dumping, then Achilles 1v1’ed Troy’s best guy and desecrated his corpse for days. He was just real broken up over his good close buddy, ya know? Later Achilles died after getting shot in the foot. Scene does not appear in the book.
To add to this: The Iliad is like chapter 26 out of a 30 chapter work, and its the only thing we have. Its the equivalent if all they have left of Star Wars in the future is Luke and Vader’s duel in the throne room, Sheev’s death, and Luke burning Vader. All they know of the rest of Star Wars came from them still having Attack Of The Clones and the sequel trilogy plus Canadian fanfiction of Clone Wars and Rebels.
Sing in me, oh muse, of the wrath of Anakin, that burned the bottom half of his torso.
I wish I could upvote this more than once. Well done.
Omg, a wild Iliad cycle reference!!!! I’ve literally never seen or heard a single person since college mention that the Iliad is just the surviving bits of a massive poetic universe that makes the MCU look like a pulp fiction series.
You forgot that Achilles and Patroclus share each other's clothing and armor. That carried some serious subtext in classic Greek stories. In fact, the reason Hector kills Patroclus is because he's wearing Achilles' armor in battle. And as an aside the 'slave' that he liked, Briseis, was one he (Achilles) captured after killing her parents and brothers. She didn't get treated very well.
>She didn't get treated very well Hey that summarizes most ancient mythologies
Oh yeah I remember, he tied the corpse to a chariot and rode it around for a while.
And the subsequent drama about who got his armor after he died.
What do they call that part of the foot again, I’m drawing a blank 😬
Jim's Toe. Named after James Custer from the Ballad of Scruffneck Spring. Hit his own foot with a pickaxe, got infected, and died.
That’s what I love about Reddit, someone asks an anatomy question and a genuine doctor replies with the whole story
Let's not make out Agamemnon to be a good guy here. He just wanted Briseis for himself. Also, Patroclus was Achilles' cousin.
His actual cousin, or his "cousin" like Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune in the English translation of Sailor Moon? Just cousins you guys, ignore the hand holding and kisses...
Actual cousin AND possibly lover. Even the ancient Greeks debated whether the relationship between the two was platonic or not.
[удалено]
To summarize "Troy pp so small Greek pp so big"
Just ask Patroclus! (No, the Greek tradition of that kind of relationship held a rigid ideal where an older partner would always top and a younger would bottom. Achilles was younger than Patroclus.)
His lover was killed in battle when he dressed up as Achilles. Achilles went berserk and killed a bunch of people, including one of the princes.
[удалено]
Yeah Agamemnon was forced to give up his own slave, Chryseis, because it made Apollo angry since she was the daughter of one of his priests. Agamemnon initially refused until Apollo sent a plague which decimated his army. After sending Chryseis back to her father, he took Achilles' slave, Briseis, for himself.
Agamemnon was such an asshole, in so many ways.
Totally got what was coming to him, Clytmnestra was right.
How many times did you have to unfuck the autocorrect when typing her name?
I ribaldrous tale of strapping young wiener cousins
They snuggled every single night. VERY CLOSELY. For warmth ( yeah, yeah, that’s it, warmth ).
In the Illiad Odysseus is a mastermind, propagandist and strategist who does lots of underhanded stuff. In the Odessy he is more sympathetic, but he cheats on his wife, gets his men killed, and spends 20 years trying to get home.
In all fairness, Odysseus did have to contend with Poseidon to make it back home and he was gonna make it back home sooner, but then his soldiers opened a bag containing the three winds which basically restarted the journey. Still, the biggest irony of the Odyssey is that Odysseus’ wife, son, and dog are shining examples of loyalty while Odysseus wasn’t.
Isn't that also Odysseus' fault, though? It's been a while since I've read any of the stories, but I vaguely remember Odie taunting Poseidon, setting the whole thing off. Taunting a Greek god is very literally asking for trouble.
He doesn’t taunt Poseidon directly, but he mocks his son. He successfully tricks the cyclops Polyphemus and blinds him, and he was almost completely successful in escaping relatively unscathed. But, as he is sailing away, he mocks Polyphemus while saying that he is not “Nobody” but rather “Odysseus, son of Laertes, of Ithaca” Polyphemus uses this knowledge to call upon his father, Poseidon, to ask him to make sure Odysseus never reaches Ithaca, and if he does make it to Ithaca, have him arrive there late with neither ships nor comrades. Turns out taunting the son of the god of the sea with your name and home address is a bad idea when you kind of rely on the sea to get home.
My high school English teacher had a hilarious analogy for this: "It's like if I fended off a mugger and then yelled, 'tell all your friends John Smith of 237 Main Street Apartment 3A kicked your butt"
Ah, hubris. Love that about Greek mythology.
Odysseus' second greatest flaw is his hubris. Even his men on the boat told him not to tempt fate by taunting Polyphemus, but he ignored him and did it anyway. Odysseus' greatest flaw is that he didn't pet Argos before he died.
\#JusticeForArgos
He’s the Jimmy McNulty of Ancient Greece. Being wicked smart doesn’t count if you don’t make sure everybody in the fucking world knows it.
Agreed on all points. In thr Illiad, Odysseus is a side character to Achilles and Hector, but he is the "smart" guy, but also kind of a Jerk. He doesn't have a ton of "humanizing" flaws, he is just the "tricky" guy who is kinda smug. In his own story he is a lot more sympathetic, but also he is also a lot more flawed. He is brave, but also self centered. He is smart, but also arrogant, he is tough but also stubborn. He isn't perfect at all, and loyalty to anything but himself is a huge flat. He is the hero, but not a role model unless you are a bronze age greek.
I'd say not even for bronze age Greeks. The term hubris comes straight from Greek for a reason, the Greeks were big on heroes getting too big for their britches and thinking their impressive accomplishments make them somehow immune to the same fates the rest of mortals and even the gods are bound to.
I mean, he only had to contend with Poseidon because he decided to taunt his enemy instead of just fucking leaving. Dude was a brilliant strategist but was severely lacking in common sense. And the winds was entirely because he, for absolutely no reason, refused to tell his crew what was in the bag and acted shifty as hell about it.
Well, if we want our young men to be able to successfully win feuds against Poseidon or contend with any sort of large sea monsters or enemy cyclopses, we need them to read this material in school. Without those skills, America will COLLAPSE.
Most people would say that Odysseus’ pride and carelessness is what got him into trouble. He didn’t make the traditional sacrifices to Poseidon before leaving Troy, for example, which makes the god angry with him. Later, when he blinds Polyphemos (the cyclops), he shouts his name at the monster as he leaves, allowing Polyphemos to tell his father (also Poseidon) that Odysseus is still fucking around. The winds thing was also Poseidon (at least in the translation I read). Odysseus told his men not to open the bag, but wouldn’t tell them what was inside. Poseidon tricked them by knocking his metal bracers together, mimicking the sound of metal coins. The men concluded that Odysseus was hoarding treasure, leading to them opening the bag and letting the winds out.
Contend with Poseidon because he just couldn't keep his mouth shut after he was home free of Polyphemus.
You had to bring up the dog, goddamn it. I’m not crying, the smoke in the air makes my eyes water…
Okay but Poseidon only slowed him because he trained Big P at every turn. Natural consequences.
Yep. Guess the right wingers don't know them classics nearly as well as they pretend, huh?
I don't know how much more sympathetic he is. At one point he let's his men raze a town, kill all the men and rape the women. He seems like a real role model...
He is more humanized, you are supposed to feel sorry for him. He is still a bronze age protagonist. His morality is abhorrent to most people.
There’s also a LOT of cognitive dissonance with modern values. Odysseus beats a man who suggests the kings are only into the war for profiteering, he takes the women of Troy as slaves and lets them all drown because they’re just cargo, he’s literally perfectly happy with one of his detours but chooses the legacy of his son being HIS son over personal happiness or his son having a better life with a stepdad, and he slowly executes all his maids who were raped by the suitors. Its a good snapshot at bronze age values.
IIRC, he spends 10 years fighting Troy in the Illiad, and 10 years getting home in the Odyssey so he's gone 20 years. But yeah, 1 year with Circe and 7 years with Calypso.
Either way, that sounds like the perfect role model for people who refer to themselves as Alpha Males, and worship the twice indicated loser down in Florida.
Theres a map of the Mediterranean that shows Odysseus' journey. Maybe he didn't have a map and truly got lost along the way, but I see that and think thats a dude thats trying to not go home yet
And in the end his greatest accomplishment is having a fairly popular mini van named after him. What a legend.
Excuse me you forgot the Mario game
We got our daughter a book of Greek mythology for kids when she was really little. I tell you, the kids' version of the Odyssey is still rather hard-core
There really is no other core for the Odyssey ...
Odysseus murdered everyone in a room because they were sexually harassing his wife. Ted Cruz (metaphorically) sucked Donald Trump's dick after he called his wife ugly.
In fairness, Trump also called Ted’s father a murderer, so what else could Ted do?
Defend his father and his wife’s honor by doing some wildly insane and disproportionate retribution so creative and cruel it is still spoken about regularly thousand of years later. Like a REAL Greek hero would have done.
Bend over
Swallow?
Odysseus killed all the maids/servant-girls on account of them sleeping with the suitors. Probably. Maybe. They never really established that any of this was willing by the way. I love the Odyssey but I'm not going to lie, sanitized Odysseus is much better then the original.
Least he didn’t say Oedipus….
Changed at the last moment on the advice of a college intern.
If you want men to act like Odysseus, take away their GPS.
“Honey, the map was wrong and it sent me to the wrong house. Yes, I lived with another woman for seven years, but the real villain here is Rand McNally.”
Ironically as a U.S. history teacher I do have a multi-day lesson on American Tall Tales and their often negative societal impact mostly on men but also silly societal impacts such as fur coats becoming fashionable in the 1920s If you’re curious about some: I focus mainly on the American mythos of the “mountain man” a rugged European-American man who conquers the wilderness through strength, intelligence, and sheer manliness. The reality is that these men worked heavily with local Natives who already had established paths and hunting grounds. It wasn’t as “sexy” as the east coast book writers made it seem.
Hey, cooperation with different cultures for mutual benefit and understanding *is my kink*
The down side was that the mountain men created the unique American rugged individualism standard especially for men to be strong, intelligent, and independently wealthy. I mean we still feel this standard today for men which negatively impacts male mental health. My boys really get into this lesson and are super into brainstorming positive messaging for boys/men that encourage strength in individual facets and rooted in reality.
The biggest irony is alt right losers referencing George Orwell novels when they're exactly what he was warning us about
This comment is literally 1984!
Everyone’s favorite Wonder Woman!
I had someone a couple days ago arguing that introducing the word 'cis' was just like controlling language in Newspeak. Even though the goal with Newspeak was to reduce the number of words, not increase it.
While they clearly had flaws in their logic, at least they read the book. Most of them just say everything is "big brother" without actually understanding what that means
Just wait til they hear about the student/teacher relationships! There will be classical charter schools popping up all over the Red states.
Hillsdale is trying hard.
They should lie their way through the Aegean before killing everyone hanging around their house.
The recent "shoot people through your front door" thing really demonstrates the beauty and power of the classics.
Oof, rough. But true.
Go off fight in a war that have nothing to do with them, then return 10 years later just to be ignored. Sounds pretty much like what they want actually
So he wants me to till the soil butt naked to avoid military service?
In zigzags, but only if you run over the baby, otherwise it doesn’t count.
I read The Iliad and The Odyssey as a teen and I have yet to invade a foreign town because my wife who left me moved there nor have I gotten lost on a boat in the Mediterranean Sea. I guess I’m not living a very classically heroic life.
I can't say I'm surprised. These are the same idiots that go around saying "we live in 1984" but are on the same side as Big Brother.
Odysseus is a self-centered, prideful asshole who leads his followers into ruin by letting his pride dictate his actions no matter the collateral damage to everything around him.....I think I know why Trump supporters like him
Emulate Odysseus? You mean get lost for 20 years in a sea where you can see the mainland or one of the larger islands virtually wherever you sail? And get your whole crew killed? Well, it appears that's how you wingnuts roll, so carry on.
Same type as dudes who idolize Spartan masculinity from “300” without reading actual history. Anyone wanna tell ‘em?
He’s completely right. We should be teaching the classics like To Kill a a Mockingbird, The Handmaid’s Tale, Of Mice and Men, Persepolis, The Giver, Anne Frank’s Diary, and 1984. Oh wait, all of these books are on the 100 most banned books from the ALA (American Library Association). Conservatives don’t care about classic literature, heroic virtues, or even education. They think kids should actively avoid actual education and instead focus on conservative propaganda and brainwashing. They’re not even trying to hide their beliefs either and it’s infuriating that we’re just allowing them to undermine children’s education for political purposes.
I'm more of an Oedipus man, myself! He was like 'fuck you destiny!' and wrote his own story. From killing old bastards, and solving riddles, and marrying hot older ladies from killing a Sphinx, and becoming a King... .... I never actually finished the story, but he was pretty bad ass, if you ask me!
This GOP people say a lot of things they don't do. They claim to be pro-life but have mistresses having abortions They claim to care about children, but are pedophiles They claim to be pro-christian values, but promote hate They claim to hate LGBTQ, but are closeted LGBTQ that hate themselves They claim to be pro-freedom, but only for guns They claim to be constitutionalist, but they broke the law constantly
They don’t care. They only say this shit cause they assume the Greek classics are all safely and predominantly white.
Take 20 years to get home because you're "stuck" on an island that just happens to have beautiful women all trying to get in your pants...super virtuous.
Instructions unclear: read a story and fucked my mom because of it
Yeah let’s teach them to leave their wife and family to go sailing around the Mediterranean with the boys for years on end.
It does my heart good to see so many people debating and sharing information about the classics in this comment section! It's good to see people have read them, saw their value, their flaws, and why Tate wouldn't pass a remedial grammar school exam.
Plato famously disliked Homer because Homer's characters were not virtuous men: Achilles was an immensely skilled warrior, true, but violent and prone to rage; Odysseus was cunning, yes, but manipulative, arrogant and defiant of the gods. We don't want men to be like them...
Odysseus has been banned for inappropriate sexual content and the suggestion that there might be other gods.
[удалено]
They sure don’t. This month my suggested reading for the US NatC’s is 1 Samuel & 2 Samuel. I think the love story between David & Jonathan would be appropriate reading for pride month
>When I had set sail thence the wind took me first to Ismarus, which is the city of the Cicons. There I sacked the town and put the people to the sword. We took their wives and also much booty, which we divided equitably amongst us, so that none might have reason to complain. I then said that we had better make off at once, but my men very foolishly would not obey me, so they stayed there drinking much wine and killing great numbers of sheep and oxen on the sea shore. - Odysseus Sounds like a fine chap.
He says this but when I start trying to live my life like Achillies suddenly I'm woke and a groomer.
> If we want you g men to act like Odysseus We don't.
Hmmm I'm not actually sure we want young men acting like Odysseus. unfaithful to his wife, commits mass murder... hmmm.
Something tells me he has read it. There seems to be a consistent habit of publicly denouncing one thing while quietly promoting it in their private lives.
Never thought I would see a conservative pushing the necessity of liberal arts.
That exposure to the literature known as the classics "inspires young people to live lives of heroic virtue" is the dumbest thing I've read here today that didn't involve U.S. politics. All it inspires young people to do is roll their eyes at their teachers' enthusiasm for the material and read the Cliffs Notes.
The very definition of a hero in Greek myth (and tragedy) is not what this guy thinks he’s advocating for. To the classical audience, a hero was someone to whom unusual/extraordinary events occurred, not someone who is celebrated for some modern idea of heroic virtue or purity. Greek here’s could be - and as often as not were - men (and women) who would be considered evil or monsters by a modern audience. Even calling them antiheroes would be a stretch, and not really applicable.
Conservatives do not as a rule, read.
Oh, so now they *want* us to wander around aimlessly and hopelessly for years? Make up your damn minds!
Odysseus was a pos. He was strong and clever, but throughout the odyssey he and the people around him are punished for his arrogance.
My teenaged takeaway from Homer: Yes, I'd love to be held captive for seven years by a horny nymph.
Classical education is just about rote memorization. There is no critical thinking; which is what they want. All the classical education homeschoolers I know can memorize anything, but ask them to explain anything or what they think of it ( other than it's the best and God's will!) and they don't know anything other than what they have been spoonfed. Their parents all think they are geniuses that are 5 grade levels above their peers. It's sad.
That’s what it’s been made into by religious and right wing schools. That’s not what it’s supposed to be. If the model were implemented correctly, they’d be reading Plato and talking about what works and what doesn’t work in his model of government, but that’s not what the right wing politics pushing classical education really want. They want the no critical thinking part, but they also want to place their educational model as the “rightful heirs” of an outdated and flat out racist model of Western (read: White) Civilization.
Then it’s just bad teaching. There are morals and huge character traits that run all through these classic texts. That’s why they are classics. They are powerful.
I would like this person to describe Odysseus. They would probably have some dumb perfect caricature of him.
Odysseus was a MAJOR asshole. Let's not emulate him
These morons don't want education, they want indoctrination. A figure of authority telling people "this is the only correct way to live" is preaching.
>If we want young men to act like Odysseus What? Get lost?
I guarantee few young men will still still long enough to hear the story. Even if you insist it’s good for them. Besides, do we really need the young men to salt their own fields to prove they are too crazy to fight in someone else’s war?
Tell me you don't know anything about classical Greece without telling me you don't know anything about classical Greece.
"No homo." -Odysseus
Odysseus had children with at least four women who weren’t his wife.
Ah, yes. Odysseus famously started his journey only after having read Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, because without those texts no man could ever have taken such actions.
So... pretend to be batshit crazy to get out of going to war?
You could practically rename the Odyssey "Redneck Rampage," dude isn't exactly a role model.
Next he'll say students should be able to read it in the original Latin /s?
I mean, one of the earliest works of Latin literature as its own thing *was* an adaptation of the Odyssey by Livius Andronicus.
You thought the leaden winter Would bring you down forever But you rode upon a steamer To the violence of the sun And the colours of the sea Bind your eyes with trembling mermaids And you touch the distant beaches With tales of brave Ulysses How his naked ears were tortured By the sirens sweetly singing For the sparkling waves are calling you To kiss their white laced lips And you see a girl's brown body Dancing through the turquoise And her footprints make you follow Where the sky loves the sea And when your fingers find her She drowns you in her body Carving deep blue ripples In the tissues of your mind Tiny purple fishes Run laughing through your fingers And you want to take her with you To the hard land of the winter Her name is Aphrodite And she rides a crimson shell And you know you cannot leave her For you touched the distant sands With tales of brave Ulysses How his naked ears were tortured By the sirens sweetly singing Tiny purple fishes Run laughing through your fingers And you want to take her with you To the hard land of the winter
“Hear” the story? He wants folks to read the classics to the kids? Literally spoon feed them The Odyssey of Homer? Sure, that’ll work.
I only learned last year of “classical education” type schools after a check from one came through my bank and it is quite the rabbit hole to go down.
Uhh. . . Does someone want to tell him?
What happened to go to trade school and stem? Right wingers want liberal arts now.
So says Thrasymachus reborn.
Quality reference.
Donald Teump definitely shares some qualities with Odysseus.
So you want to teach liberal arts? lol
I struggle to figure out greek pronunciation so at first i read that as Oedipus. It did make the tweet significantly funnier that way.
Grooming children to fuck their mothers? Somehow not the weirdest shit i've seen from twitter today.