The Greek World

I’m taking a philosophy class this semester in which we discuss great “works of art.” The philosophy course itself is rooted in the belief that something in our modern world has gone wrong. Thus, we study great “works of art” and try to understand the multiplicity of worlds in hopes of fixing or even realizing what is wrong with our world. Because, according to my professor, maybe there isn’t even a “world” in modern times.

This course might just be my favorite course I’ve taken at Berkeley thus far…it reminds me so much of AP Literature, my high school senior year’s English class. The discussions and content of the courses are quite similar, although my current course covers more complicated topics and subjects, which is pretty normal considering this is a college course… But anyhow, we finished reading The Odyssey.

In my discussion section today, we discussed just what it is that Homer is trying to teach us. Here are some lessons we (meaning my section and my GSI) came up with –

1. We should stop trying to climb the ladder and just be good and comfortable in our roles.
2. All possible good lives have to take account of man’s limitation. You can’t be whatever you want to be.
3. Be more committed. Learn how to be passionate to one mood. Throw away the “whatever” attitude, the indifference.
4. Stop trying to calculate and deliberate things in our lives, and allow ourselves to be swept away by mood.
5. In some sense, Odysseus is like us. Like him, we live in cross-worlds. Odysseus can teach us how to be  across-world being and find meaning. The difference between Odysseus and us is that his worlds are interconnected. In our world, we come home from work and we want to forget about it. We come back from a day of school and don’t want to think about it. The meaning of each world in our lives are not connected. We need to have unity in our lives, just like Odysseus’ life consisted of unity despite the many roles he played, including father, king, wanderer, and warrior, all of which fit together.
6. The good of one world is deeply, fundamentally connected with the good of another world.

What is it about the Greek world that is all deeply connected?

It’s the work of art. In our world, we lack this work of art.

The Greek’s lives and society as portrayed by Homer is quite different from our lives and our society… It’s almost admirable to be able to throw away all the plans we seem to have and instead just let ourselves be taken over by instinct, by moods, and be okay with whatever that happens. But it’s not practical. How can we live that way, when there are rules and requirements we must abide by and fulfill? It almost seems like the kind of lives we lead are pointless, but then again are they really? Who defines what is pointless and what isn’t, what’s good and what is not good, what is admirable and what is not admirable?

And then in the end I realize that it really doesn’t matter, because the meaning I find in my life is derived by me and what’s around me, and at the end of the day, that’s enough for me. Regardless of what I believe, though, it’s so interesting and mind-opening to me to study these cultures and societies, attempting to understand the beliefs and thoughts behind such worlds… I am definitely looking forward to reading more of the books for this class and discussing them.

[Site update] — Also, new header image, inspired by this post. Haha. It was time for a change anyway! Also, I’ve added some new favorite quotes.

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