From: Carrol Cox <cbcox-AT-rs6000.cmp.ilstu.edu>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: Antigone, Anarchy, and Law & Order
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 1998 09:54:23 -0600 (CST)


Yoshie writes:
> 
> Hugh wrote:
> >[SNIP]
>> Yoshie boldy redefines religion to exclude the gods and
> >fate ("For 'religion' to become a separate sphere set in opposition to the
> >state requires a society different from the polis in _Antigone_. 'Religion'
> >isn't the right word to refer to the Greeks' relationships to gods."). This
> >puts her in a position where religion would never be the right word to
> >refer to *any* people's relationship to gods.
> 
> There are gains to be made in making certain words more specific than
> common usage allows, if one's purpose is to explain the mode of ideology
> specific to capitalism.
> 

Hugh's idea here is interesting. It may be that "religion" is never the
right word to use, especially in the west, for referring to "people's
relationship to the gods." Yoshie has an advantage over the rest of us in
this respect in coming from a culture in which theism and personal
immortality are not the "default positions" of religion as they are in the
west. Those two doctrines have always been confined to a minority of
humanity, and even within that minority have on the whole not entered into
people's daily lives. I've often felt that the Greek conception of the
gods, they differ *in kind* from humans only in being immortal, is a
useful perspective for the consideration of all religions. Christianity
then of course becomes a polytheistic belief, not only because of the
bizarre doctrine of the trinity but because by the Greek (Homeric)
definition, *all* conscious agents (real and unreal, humans and angels)
are gods, since all are immortal.

Many very good classical scholars and translators have (both intentionally
and unintentionally) attempted to bring Greek religion into some sort of
coherence with western religion, one giveaway being the use of "God"
rather than "Zeus" in speaking of or translating a particular text. But it
seems to me that in both Homeric and classical Greek texts "god" and
"lord" (secular lords) are more thinly separated than in later theistic
texts. There is a greek proverb that embodies that close relationship:
"Gifts please gods and gifts please kings." At the very end of the
*Odyssey* the thunderbolt Zeus throws is almost indistinguishable from the
strong right arm of Odysseus.

I'm not sure where to go with this from here, but these observations
certainly are compatible with Yoshie's insistence on the indivisibility of
religion and politics in Greek drama.

Carrol



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