Chapter 2 :The GREEKS |
Greek Culture |
Greek Thought
Classical Period
I. Culture and History
The Greeks wanted a good life.
The question then, as well as now, is how to know what the good
life is? How does one recognize the good life?
The GOOD itself? How does one gain the knowledge needed to pursue the good
life and distinguish it from another that is less good or even not good
but appearing as good for those who are foolish, impetuous and ignorant,
lacking in wisdom?
The Greeks at the time of Socrates and Plato were
undergoing a major change in the way in which they would think about the
world, themselves and reality itself.
Greek culture rose to great heights in the period from 525 BC
to 350 BC, the period that brackets the lifespan of Socrates and Plato.
In this period Athens, the Greek city-state, would rise to the
height of its political and military powers and would come to represent
the height of Greek cultural achievement as well.
The Greeks during this time, and particularly in Athens, were
moving from an oral to a literate culture and from a foundation of
religious belief and mythology to another based upon the inventions and
creations of artistic endeavor and rational thought.
The tales appear to describe a number of gods and goddesses who have each
an assigned place in a general hierarchy.
As the divine beings had an order, so too should the human
community have an order.
The question had arisen: upon what was the order to be based?
Should it be based upon moira, fate or destiny, as with the gods or
upon something else? The
Greeks, as with most humans, hated chaos, disorder.
As the gods enjoyed a cosmos, order, so too should humans have an
order. The Greeks look for
the order in the tales of the gods but by the time of Socrates that
approach was no longer working.
Greek culture was mythopoetic, based upon myths and transmitted through
poetry. These tales had an
imaginative character and an emotional one as well.
The myths proclaim a truth, which transcends reasoning.
These myths try to bring about the truth that they proclaim: the
moral truths. The myths are a
form of action or ritual behavior, which must proclaim and elaborate a
poetic form of truth. The
logic of the events, the order of causality, is anthropomorphic.
If one asks "why" things are as they are , then the
answer will be in the form of "who" is responsible or the agent
behind the events. The
function of these myths, as in most cultures, is to explain, unify, and
order experience. The myths
dispel chaos. They reveal a
structure, order, coherence and meaning not otherwise evident.
The tales spoke of Zeus, Chronos, Poseidon, Hera, Athena and dozens of
other divinities, each with a genealogy and an assigned place in the
pantheon or general organization of the divine community. The divinities did not get along all that amicably.
The tales told of terrible and violent conflicts.
This is probably due to the coming together of the tales and
divinities of two different peoples that became the Greeks of Plato’s
time. There were the original
peoples of the land now called Greece and there were the Aryan invaders,
the Ionians and Dorians. These
peoples had different conceptions of the world and of the realm beyond it.
The indigenous or autotocthonous , peoples were matriarchal with
theriomorphic divinities. They
tended to be pacific and agrarian. The
Aryans, from Anatolia, were patriarchal with anthropomorphic deities.
They were nomadic and belligerent.
The tales of Homer and Hesiod contain an amalgamation of tales in
which the deities (many female) are woven into the tales of the invading
peoples in order to accommodate the belief systems of the indigenous
peoples. For example, while
Zeus is placed at the top of a hierarchy of deities, he has a wife, Hera,
who is supposed to be by his side, but whom he regularly disrespects or
insults. Hera is she who has no specific name; “she” or “her”
the name for the highest female deity of the indigenous peoples.
Athena, one of the highest of the native deities (the “th” indicates
she was a deity of the indigenous peoples) is given a place very high in
the order. Athena is reported
to have been born or to have emerged directly from the head of Zeus,
knowing no woman as mother! Athena,
the protective deity of Athens, represents wisdom (what philosophers seek)
and she also offers assistance to warriors.
She takes on the form of an owl to bring information and advice to
humans. (Owls are associated
with wisdom in much of the western world to this day.)
The physical conflicts between the two peoples who merged into the Greeks
is mirrored in the tales of the deities.
Zeus takes several wives and has affairs, possibly to appease the
indigenous peoples beliefs in the high order of their female deities.
The deities of the indigenous peoples are transformed,
metamorphosed, into human like beings with super human qualities.
The tales organized under Homer and Hesiod were used by the people as an
encyclopedia, as the foundation of the educational system.
The tales were entertaining, containing stories of adventure.
There was a great deal of sex and violence in them s well.
They held the interest of generations of listeners and offered
instruction on how to conduct war, raise children, administer assistance
to the wounded, resolve family conflicts and much more. The tales, epic works, gave the Greeks a sense of history and
their place in the general scheme of things.
The myths provided a set of moral exemplars, which each Greek was
to follow. Each Greek was to
be the best that they could be, pursue virtue (arête), accept fate and
prepare for the next life. For a presentation of the Greek Myths you could look into a well known work by Thomas Bullfinch also found here. The vocabulary was not advanced and often the Greeks would think in terms of the stories and the characters in them rather than in the abstract. For example, if one were to call for justice the Greek would call upon the female deity who represented justice to come and settle the matter in some way. The figure of a robed woman with blindfold holding a scale in one arm, is the representation of the goddess whose actions are what the Greeks had thought of as Justice. Themis, the Divine Right or Divine Justice and Dike, human Justice, were the deities whose actions constituted the Greek idea of the Right or Justice. It is Socrates' time that the Greeks are seeking an answer without recourse to those stories and without the picture thinking methodology of the mythopoetic culture, which was rapidly waning.
The Greeks at the time of Socrates and Plato had experienced a criticism of the tales and the morality of the gods in their dramas performed in public amphitheaters. There was a raising of questions concerning the moral foundation that was disturbing the order. Chaos was threatening! There was a noticeable breakdown of traditions. There was a decline in respect for both the tradition and the laws. The Greeks were familiar with speculation about the nature of the universe that did not involve the deities. They had experienced a development in technology that afforded a much higher quality of life than known by their ancestors. Through trade, travel and warfare they had come to know of other peoples, their history and cultures; their belief systems and values. The Greeks were undergoing a shift in their worldviews and along with that a change in their values, their ethical orientation and conceptual frameworks. In these ways the Greeks of 400 BC are like the peoples of advanced technological societies today in a post-modern era.
The key question for humans was and is: how to live a GOOD life? Before 500 BC the Greeks answered that by thinking that the way was to follow the gods and to accept moira. After 400 BC the answer was not so clear at all. What had happened? This is something worth examining for what it may offer those in our time. Before 1800 the answer to the question in the West had been to obey God’s commandments and accept God’s will. Today that answer does not appear to be the actual approach in practice. There does not appear to be any commonly accepted answer to the question In a post-modern age the general respect for the laws of God, the truth of science, the traditions of our ancestors all seems in doubt. Ideas of an objective truth and single standard for justice are regularly derided in discussions of the judicial system. Ideas of relative truths and morality are very popular. The Greeks were clustered due to conditions of geography and geopolitics. They lived in city-states, polii. (The term ” politics” comes from this condition.) They often quarreled and went to war with one another. The various city-states were organized under different forms of government. There were several: tyranny, military dictatorship, Oligarchy, Autocratic, Aristocracy and Democracy. These forms might change over time. Indeed, in Athens prior to Plato the Athenians had experienced several transitions; arriving at a form of democracy that would put Socrates to death and motivate Plato to become a philosopher and write about an ideal polii or state in his work , the Republic. The Greeks preferred any form of government and thus order to chaos or disorder as would be present with tyranny (no rule of law or constitution). Athens had defeated great city-states and foreign empires in several wars; sea war in particular. Athens enjoyed a great prosperity as a result that brought many public works, theaters, temples, buildings, water works, streets, commerce, festivals, foreign “teachers” or speakers. Athens represented an open city and a way of life that was open to ideas, foreigners, trade etc.. Athens principle threat at the time of Socrates death was Sparta. If Athens represented the way of ADVENTURE , Sparta represented the way of SAFETY. I the quest after cosmos over chaos, Sparta had become an oligarchic state with a strict disciplinary code and a great deal of uniformity. Sparta had a totalitarian government. Athens created a democracy. Just prior to Socrates trial and death Sparta defeats Athens in battle and imposes a rule by thirty young men who would become the tyranny that would be overthrown an democracy put in its place. Socrates lived and died in Athens. He embodied much of its spirit. He was open minded and questioned all. His life in pursuit of the GOOD was also one of intellectual adventure. The chaos that threatened Athens in 399BC was associated with the openness of the preceding years. In an attempt to restore an order, to fashion a cosmos again, Socrates appears as a thereat to the rulers of Athens and that threat must be removed. In the lives of many humans there often come moments when a choice must be made between the path of adventure versus that of safety. Athens and Sparta represented those paths. The Greeks were moving from pre-history and the mythic time to history. They recorded events and preserved them and transmitted them. The Greeks were moving from the mythic mode of thought as well. Instead of accepting and repeating the tales they were starting to reflect upon them, to examine them closely and even to question, doubt and disbelieve. A clear indication of the process of rational reflection upon the mythic epics is given in the works of the playwrights. This is the material of the next section. You can learn a lot about the rise of Greek Civilization, Athens and Socrates at this PBS site. |
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