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{"id":4821,"date":"2009-06-13T07:37:48","date_gmt":"2009-06-13T07:37:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leithart.level2d.com\/?p=1821"},"modified":"2017-09-06T22:51:55","modified_gmt":"2017-09-06T16:51:55","slug":"cult-of-the-greeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/leithart\/2009\/06\/cult-of-the-greeks\/","title":{"rendered":"Cult of the Greeks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n<\/head>

<\/p>

David Gress\u2019s excellent From Plato to NATO: The Idea of the West and Its Opponents <\/a> $\"\"$ shows that classics programs, the discipline of classics, great books programs, are founded on a highly questionable \u201cgrand narrative\u201d of Western civilization. According to this narrative, Western history is a series of magic moments, beginning with Athens, the \u201cmagic moment of magic moments,\u201d and that it is a continuous development from that Athenian beginning. <\/p>\n

Gress finds this unconvincing for several reasons: <\/p>\n

There is not a single West, he argues, but several. The Roman West is not the same as the Greek, the medieval West is something else again, and the modern West another civilization. There are continuities of various sorts, but to see them all as expressions of the original impulse of Athenian civilization distorts the record. The main distortion here is the complete elision of the influence of Christianity and Christian theology from the story. <\/p>\n

The disciple of classics, and the great books programs that grew up in the early 20th century, are expressions of a \u201ccult of the Greeks.\u201d Romans had their own cult, but this \u201cersatz religion\u201d really came into its on after the Enlightenment. \u201d Greece <\/span> was adopted by the modern West as, in part, a replacement for Christianity,\u201d Gress writes. \u201cThis was not the actual <\/span> Greece <\/span> of two thousand five hundred years ago, however, but the <\/span> Greece <\/span> re-created by adoring scholars, mostly in <\/span> Germany <\/span> and <\/span> England <\/span> , starting around 1770.\u201d <\/span> <\/p>\n

Goethe had a significant impact on this development, and according to Gress the attraction of Greek culture was \u201cprecisely that they were not Christians.\u201d Because of Goethe and his followers, one historian was able to speak of the \u201ctyranny of Greece over Germany.\u201d <\/span> <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"