Seneca on Liberal Arts Education 4

"It is no more to the point, of course, for me to investigate whether Homer or Hesiod was the older poet, than to know why Hecuba, although younger than Helen, showed her years so lamentably.

"What, in your opinion, I say, would be the point in trying to determine the respective ages of Achilles and Patroclus? Do you raise the question, 'Through what regions did Ulysses stray?', instead of trying to prevent ourselves from going astray at all times?

"We have no leisure to hear lectures on the question whether he was sea-tossed between Italy and Sicily, or outside our known world (indeed, so long a wandering could not possibly have taken place within its narrow bounds); we ourselves encounter storms of the spirit, which toss us daily, and our depravity drives us into all the ills which troubled Ulysses.

"For us there is never lacking the beauty to tempt our eyes, or the enemy to assail us; on this side are savage monsters that delight in human blood, on that side the treacherous allurements of the ear, and yonder is shipwreck and all the varied category of misfortunes. Show me rather, by the example of Ulysses, how I am to love my country, my wife, my father, and how, even after suffering shipwreck, I am to sail toward these ends, honorable as they are.

"Why try to discover whether Penelope was a pattern of purity, or whether she had the laugh on her contemporaries? Or whether she suspected that the man in her presence was Ulysses, before she knew it was he? Teach me rather what purity is, and how great a good we have in it, and whether it is situated in the body or in the soul."

--Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to  Lucilius, 88 (tr Gummere)

Let us certainly discuss who Homer was, or whether he even existed. Let us debate the textual specifics or the historicity of his narrative. An ancient scholar may have wondered how old the characters were, or what we might be able to learn about their appearance and behavior. A modern scholar may speculate whether the relationship of Achilles and Patroclus was platonic or romantic. We see what we wish to see, because we often already have a conclusion in mind.

I was always fascinated by the work of Schliemann that seemed to confirm that the Trojan War was based on some sort of real historical events. But I still always felt the odd one out, because I never thought it really mattered to the story.

Was there a real Achilles? Where did Odysseus really travel? What was really going on in Penelope's mind? All that would be nice to know, but it misses the mark.

What can the wrath of Achilles teach us about being just? Wherever Odysseus traveled for a decade, what can that tell us about the nature of the journey of life? Whether Penelope knew or did not know, how can her actions inform us about love and loyalty?

Always the eccentric, it was Hector and Andromache that were at the center of my attention. And always at the center of that attention was a question of virtue. How could this man consider it good to defend a wrong wrapped in a right? Why did this man walk away from his wife and son to die with supposed honor? Those are the questions that are truly 'liberal', truly concerned with living freely and living well.

Plato wrote about the lost continent of Atlantis in his dialogues. I have absolutely no idea whether there ever was such a land, where it was, or how large it might have been. I have always taken it, whether as an allegory or as a fact, as a moral lesson about human pride.

But how many books and articles, how many television shows and films have been made, concerned all about these supposed facts? I find the backlash equally amusing. If Atlantis never really existed, we are told, then the story is totally useless and without meaning.

I imagine Plato either laughing or rolling in his grave. 

I am especially amused when the question strays from human choices and actions to the intervention of aliens. It must be aliens.  This is the modern equivalent of sloppy narrative, the 'deus ex machina.'

Plato wove all sorts of tales, 'noble myths', but I have never considered him a liar. It was no different when I told my children about Santa Claus, or fought dragons outside their bedroom windows to help them sleep, or read them fairy tales to lift their hearts and minds.

Edmund Husserl once said that "merely fact-minded sciences make merely fact-minded people." Of course the facts matter, but their meaning, how we understand them and employ them in search of purpose, is what will make all the difference.

I once knew a lawyer who had made quite a pretty penny on malpractice cases. "Hey," he said, "the government makes the laws, the cops enforce them, the judges interpret them, but I just argue the cases. It isn't my problem what the laws mean or if they're right."

Yes, sir, it is your problem. It is a problem for all of us, big or small, rich or poor. It is the only problem that defines our shared humanity, and the only question that makes any form of education worthwhile.

Written 1/2010