Who Killed Homer?: The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom

In WHO KILLED HOMER, Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath address the pressing issue of the rapid demise and death of classical Greek learning in the west. At the time of its publishing (2001), the dire straits that Greek thought and culture found itself in have not improved a whit. If anything, the trend is toward a total obliteration of the very foundation of western civilization. Hanson and Heath have plenty of blame to lay and fingers to point, but the bulk of their ire is surprisingly enough directed at their colleagues, all of whom were charged with keeping the immortal spark of classical learning alive. They are especially angry when their colleagues insist that there is nothing wrong at all with their profession. Such misguided academics most often point to the geometric increase in scholarly articles published and conferences attended. And that, Hanson and Heath insist, is precisely the point. The scholarly articles are written in the most opaque jargon-ridden prose imaginable with no one reading them. The conferences are attended mostly by senior tenured professors of Greek and Latin who hand over their few teaching duties to underpaid and overworked teaching assistants who can only dream of the day when they too will be able to enter the sheltered life of a tenured academic when they know only too well that with the shrinking pool of college students who choose classics as a major that that scenario is very likely not to occur. And it is not simply laziness or cupidity that has caused today's teachers of classics to abandon the very barricades that were their responsibilities to maintain. Much of the problem they see as a changing mindset in the very viability and desirability of thinking like the ancient Greeks. Hanson and Heath charge modern modes of thought like post-modernism, cynicism, nihilism, and skepticism as the collective root cause in subverting a two thousand year tradition in the belief of Eternal Truths like beauty, justice, and patriotism into a witches' brew of deconstructive thought that insists that there is no solid linguistic, cultural, or historical groundfloor under our feet. All that we used to call Traditional Values are now to be seen as slipping and sliding in ways that suggest that there was nothing special or enduring about the ancient Greeks at all. They note that it is trendy for cultural relativists to insist that all cultures in all ages are equally viable and worthy of emulation. If so, then why study classics in the first place. The answer, Heath and Hanson insist, is that the relativists are wrong. When Homer was writing his ILLIAD, there was nothing like Greek ideals of polis or thought available anywhere else in the world. This, of course, does not sit well with those who decry the United States as the primary source of all the world's evil. Those who claim that are also the same ones who deny Greece as the initial and irreplaceable source of current western concepts like egalitarianism, property rights, and religious tolerance.As bad as things are, Hanson and Heath do not think them hopeless. In their concluding chapter, "What We Could Do," they list alternatives to the dissolution of their profession. Among them:1) Re-introduce the classics into high school and college curriculums2) Have senior tenured classics professors attend fewer conferences and teach more undergraduate classes3) Reduce the time to complete a Phd in classics to five years or less4) Scrap the traditional doctoral dissertation in favor of several broad papers of Greek culture5) Give tenure only to those who teach a lot rather than publish a lot6) Re-acquire the belief that the Greeks were a special people who have a great deal to say that is relevant today.On the down side, both Hanson and Heath do not believe that any of their suggestions will be implemented anytime soon. As a result, when future Greek classes will be attended only by the doddering senior professors who will preside over a legion of empty seats, then it will be evident even to these soon to be retired professors that their profession has already gone the way of the dodo.

I am reading Professor Hansson’s books for a decade or more and I was always deeply impressed by his extensive and profound exegesis !Finishing one of the most recently published of his books, I was curious about the “old” ones.And what a revelation! I grew up in the Greek cultural soup being educated in Europe, but this book opens profound views about how it was and where we are now! I cannot refrain myself to recommend the book with an unlimited enthusiasm! A real book for Eternity.

Rarely have I encountered a book wherein the answer to a question posed by its rhetorical -- but well-intended and no doubt provocative -- title is so obvious. Merely reading the cover jacket will inform a potential reader who "killed" the ancient Greek poet; one needn't slog through over three hundred pages to solve this mystery. Furthermore, the questioning title assumes a fact I wholeheartedly reject: that Homer is "dead" -- a concept (as it must be) that the authors never actually define beyond his near-disappearance from the collegiate curriculum.To that end, I doubt it'd be giving away much to tell you that -- according to Hanson and Heath -- Homer's killing took place in that nest of vipers itself, the modern university. Being professors they cover this familiar territory quite well, recounting seemingly every folio of recent classics scholarship that wouldn't be out of place in a Woody Allen spoof: everything from "feminine subjectivity in the Odyssey" to the homoerotic breakdown between Achilles and Patroclus. The authors go further and posit solid reasons for this tawdry state of affairs, and while their culprits -- academic infighting and privilege, multiculturalism, subjective historicism, devaluation of the humanities -- are not terribly surprising they still benefit from a fresh airing, especially in this context. The introduction itself describes a sordid little tale of how their initial paperback publisher balked at its *own printing* at the last minute, apparently strong-armed by a clutch of academics whose delicacies were bruised in the first edition. On more than one occasion, I got the impression the authors -- both in writing this book and toiling within their respective classics departments -- were characters in their own Greek tragedy.And perhaps that was at least partly their intention, for when they arrive at remedies Hanson and Heath fall back on Greek wisdom itself. Reviving the study of Homer by "thinking like a Greek" and having professors actually *model their behavior* by centuries-old standards might seem a quaint piece of overreach. But the authors appear quite serious, and given their intricate detailing of the university's suffering due to the loss of Greek wisdom they have little choice but to recommend harsh remedies. I was rather disappointed they didn't consider more pragmatic alternatives, from both the "demand" (e.g., introducing the epics to a younger audience) and "supply" (suggesting more wholesale university reform) sides. I understand that college is their turf -- but I wish they betrayed more knowledge that it's not the *only* turf.A few other pitfalls tarnish the author's case. Organization is not a strong suit: five languid chapters read like extended (albeit interesting) essays and one is even entitled "Who Killed Homer - and Why". (Isn't that the name of the book?) Curiously missing among the chapters, however, is a more serious omission: any *consequences* of Homer's "death". (Wholesale elimination of Classics departments? The final death knell of classical wisdom? A new dark ages?) I'm aware this comes perilously close to reviewing a book the authors *didn't* write -- but given the dramatic problems and remedies discussed, this seemed an especially curious oversight.But "Who Killed Homer?" is still worthwhile reading for both its withering indictment of university practices and detailing of the cavalcade of rude jokes that now pass for classics scholarship. Its bibliography and suggestions for "when all we can do is read" are also more than welcome and might even inspire a healthy number of non-students to tackle the Greeks (and Romans). In fact, if enough readers outside the ivory towers surmount the tasks of understanding classics and even applying their teaching to their lives -- another topic Hanson and Heath consider far too briefly -- their demise at universities might just be nothing more than another nail in that overpriced, coddled, and increasingly irrelevant coffin.

Potentially, I might have agreed with the book in that its central thesis is plausible: That the practice of professional academics are in some way harming the Classics. I still think that, however this book is eminently terrible and the fact that so many people think otherwise really testifies how few people know anything about classical antiquity. I'll stick to just a few essential points.1) We need to think like Greeks. WTF? I doubt any anthropologists would agree such a thing is possible OR desirable. What is funny though, is that Greek somehow = right wing 20th century American. Not only is this naive it's dependent entirely on selectively (mis)reading our sources. Can we know how Greeks thought? Well it's highly dependent on class, polis, period etc (as well as the usual constraints!) but it's a world apart from this book.2) Casual racism. Apparently modern Greeks don't speak good Greek!? British people are subservient and conniving? and so on...3) Plaintive wailing: So much of this book is dedicated to basically complaining about complexity, apparently people use big words (wah), and scholarship is too complex. No s***, when dealing with complex topics complexity naturally arises. Not everyone is happy to treat classical Greek as modern American and getting beneath the skin of another people is very, very, difficult and tentative.4) Rants against Evidence/Privileging own Viewpoint: What's really odd is how he'll occasionally attack the extant literature. Callimachus is bookish, Menander trite, Polybius second rate. Now what makes this hilarious is that he'll then tell us to read Virgil, heavily influenced by Callimachus et al, or Tacitus (who needs Polybius) and so on. Worse, the first two of these were some of the most important authors for the Greeks AND Romans. This is indisputable. Are we to assume that the authors are more Greek or Roman than they were themselves?Idiocies like these abound. I've picked what I think are the most striking even to the untrained but you could easily open any page and lift a dozen more. It is, seriously, a terrible book. Which is a shame since a good expose remains a desideratum...this just isn't it, not even close. Instead we have is something terribly confused and misinformed, pursued with the vehemence of the fanatical and the ignorant.

Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath point out that our constitutional government, free speech, separation of religion and politics, private property, civilian control of military, and free scientific inquiry originated with ancient Greeks. Greek writers themselves analyzed the good and bad of their systems. Classical education has much to teach us.