Worst Professor Ever

Last night’s Dionysium was a blast: it had live organ music, a very convincing Socrates re-enactment, and a scene from Lysistrata. Though obviously I can’t compete with all that, I’ve done my best to capture the spirit of the talk I gave.

Sure, Spark Notes told you that “rage” is the first word of The Iliad — but so what? No one says “rage” anyway, unless they’re Eminem.

Except that Jonathan Shay won a MacArthur for discovering that, yep, battle frenzy is one of the most obviously universal human emotions. Also, Homer’s poetry was remembered by thousands of functionally illiterate Greek citizens. So maybe get the book on tape if you don’t want your oral culture to be defined by iPhone ads, Simpsons quotes and Katy Perry hooks.

..because there are no Christians! Score, in more ways than one — lust is nothing to be ashamed of, as long as you don’t blow the family estate on all those perfectly-legal hookers. The tradeoff: gods who couldn’t care less about your day, week, or afterlife. Not that it was a free-for-all HBO would like it to be anyway. The Greeks kept shame alive and well if you didn’t exercise moderation. Translation: the Real Housewives would have been exiled in no time flat.

Sorry, Greg Proops: Plato gets my vote for the smartest man who ever lived. Not only did he worry about how to tell love from lust, but his “chariot of the soul” is prettier (and IMHO more accurate) than anything Freud could have imagined.  Plato often gets static because he calls democracy fickle and inefficient — but somehow, I don’t see a lot of argument on that point lately.

The Greeks were no dummies. They knew that your eyeball was NOT coming into contact with all those material objects it saw. The explanation had to be something you couldn’t see, something that was at the basis of all matter. And so Democritus (or someone before him) called them atoms — Greek for “uncuttable whatsahoozie” — and began the atomic age. You’re welcome, physicists. While we’re at it, let’s not forget that the scientific method rests on acute observation of the world around you, something we seem very bad at these days.

Modern Americans have what, The X-Files? The Greeks had three-headed hell dogs, winged horses, and hundred-handed giants. They win.

This one’s easy. There were only two beverage options for grown-ups: water and wine. Wine with dinner was the norm and enormous  jugs o’ wine were the standard shipping method — so no one could make fun of you for buying in bulk.

The comedian Aristophanes wrote not one but three funny plays about women taking over the government. Laugh (please!) but also know this: humor is only as good as the possibilities it can imagine. 30 years before Obama’s election, Richard Pryor played the first black president of the United States in an SNL skit. I haven’t seen anything like that for women, and until I do, I’m not holding my breath.