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Loving Latin at the End of the World
- waynecochran 7y ago> 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.
- baked_ziti 7y ago> 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.
- mirimir 7y agoMuch of my writing style comes from Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico ;)
- schoen 7y agoWith many of your posts having been read by me, I don't notice much use of the ablative absolute.
- mirimir 7y agoI 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.
- mrmonkeyman 7y agoI like. It.
- guscost 7y agoIt’s the end of the world, and deep in the apocalyptic hell-scape of 2019 Massachusetts, some random professor whines that Latin is problematic.
- youareawesome 7y agoJoel 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.
- dr_dshiv 7y agoWhat 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.
- keiferski 7y agoWhile 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master-slave_morality
- Vesuvium 7y agoThe powerful are always wrong when they are white men. Otherwise, they are always right.
- dr_dshiv 7y agoThat'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.
- tgv 7y agoEdgy drivel mixed with guilt by association: how pathetically needy of recognition the writer must be.