Reviews
Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom
Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath
(New York: Free Press, 1998) 290 pp., $25
In raising the question “Who Killed Homer?” Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath have more in mind than the fate of the man whom Plato called the “greatest of poets.” For them Homer represents the wisdom of ancient Greece and Rome, and his murder, attributed to the decline of classical education, has led to a greater crime: modern America’s ignorance of the values of these ancient cultures.
In tracking Homer’s killer, the authors indict several villains. Those most familiar with the victim—that is, classicists—are charged with sacrificing teaching to the pursuit of highly specialized research. The current state of American education and the pursuit of elite careerism are also to blame. The confluence of these factors, according to the authors, has resulted in a world in which “there is really no interest in the Greeks in or out of the university.”
Classicists themselves, Hanson and Heath have written out of passion and anger to answer the question “How did we grow so utterly distant from those to whom we have devoted our lives?” Their opening chapter, “Homer Is Dead,” seeks to marshal the evidence indicating that there has been a decline both in the amount and in the quality of classical education. “Thinking Like a Greek,” the second chapter, defines “Greekness” and its enduring value to subsequent cultures; the modern world’s inheritance from antiquity consists not only in customs, beliefs and certain kinds of knowledge but also in the practice of critical dialogue about fundamental issues that leads to new kinds of knowledge. Asking “Who Killed Homer—and Why?” the third chapter summarizes attacks on this inheritance from antiquity to the present, emphasizing the curricular reforms of the 1970s, the spread of the doctrine of multiculturalism in the 1980s and the continuing attack of postmodernists on objective truth. While conceding that “we do need fresh ideas and new approaches in Classics,” the authors conclude that “current trends have nothing to do with explaining the Greeks” and, in fact, are often “a one-sided and negative offensive against the very Greeks [classicists] were studying.”
The last two chapters are more optimistic. Chapter four convincingly explains why the study of Greek, the Greeks and “Greekness” is well worth the immense effort required. The case is made concrete by example of two of “the brave” who “show us what we too could do had we the imagination and courage”: Colin Edmonson (spelled Edmondson throughout) and Eugene Vanderpool. The enthusiasm and sweep of interest of both scholars made the classics alive in the present; they lived what they taught and were eager to share their knowledge. If we, too, were brave, we could reverse the demise of classical learning by instituting a wholesale curricular reform, one that Plato would find familiar, which the authors present in chapter five. Not surprising, the proposal emphasizes study of Latin, Greek and modern languages together with serious attention to western culture. The authors’ optimism for reform fails in the end, however, for they do not believe that their ideas will prevail. Instead, they submit, as the study of classics ebbs, a new Dark Age with its “retreat from culture” will follow. Their hope is that from this dismal period, “a new Greek” will emerge in which Homer will delight not just the elite of the Mycenaean palaces; as in the Classical Age, he will once again be the poet of everyone. As palliative until that occurs, they offer two lists of books we can read: ten primary sources and ten secondary accounts.
This book’s most valuable contribution is genuinely Hellenic. Socrates’s maxim “Know Thyself” applies to one’s lifework as well as to one’s self. To know the field of classics and to bring that knowledge to others demands reflection and, often, criticism. The authors score high on both counts. Their sections on Greekness and the difficulty of sharing its content are heartfelt. If, however, there is merit in working cooperatively toward any reform, their tactics fail. For instance, much as some will concur with their poor opinion of postmodernist views and language—“Sometimes all a reader can do is sit back and watch the words go by”—it is counterproductive to do no more than insult.
The authors dismiss not only individuals but entire cultures. They lament the “too many” British classicists brought to America from the “third or fourth tier” of English schools “to give a high-toned veneer to American Greek and Latin.” In the eyes of many, these “imports” are among the most important scholars in the field, and, yes, they can and do go home again—to Oxford and to Cambridge.
Even more sweeping is the authors’ view of non-Western cultures. Acknowledging that “there is nothing particularly objectionable to ‘universal inclusivity’ as a general warm and fuzzy principle,” the authors insist that the world, “past and present, has always voted with its feet, and the only check on the great migration toward the West has been for other cultures to reinvent themselves in its image.” Not very realistic in a truly multicultural world.
Perhaps the authors are unlucky in their colleagues and acquaintances. I am fortunate to have friends who pursue their interests in classics, archaeology and history both in and outside colleges and universities. Many teach far more courses than their formal schedules reflect. Why do so many people write book reviews if there are no interested readers left to read them? Why do camera crews follow in Alexander’s footsteps through Afghanistan if there is no general audience for such films? What dementia lies behind the publication of a new magazine called Archaeology Odyssey that is intended for general readers? Why are lectures of the American Institute of Archaeology so well attended? Perhaps because there are present-day Edmonsons and Vanderpools.
In a word, cultural dialogue is occurring, in itself a very Hellenic phenomenon. The Greeks (and Romans, too) borrowed constantly and transformed what they discovered. And they talked incessantly to, with and at one another. Who Killed Homer talks at its readers, many of whom will not—learning that they are stegosauri—be inclined to try conversation as a means of obtaining knowledge. But even from their tar pits, they will be relieved to learn that Homer has not truly been killed: The phrase “What we have seen to be killing Homer” carries some of the precision of the ancient Greeks’ own use of language, in which, for example, verbs could express nine tenses of time. Hanson and Heath’s words express not completed action but rather present perfect progressive action. As such, it can be stopped, and there are a good many who are already doing just that.
Who Killed Homer? The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom
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