Date: Tue, 30 Sep 1997 08:48:15 -0400
From: Reg Lilly <rlilly-AT-scott.skidmore.edu>
Subject: PLC: Playing with Greek


Paul,
	You play fullly remark "Silly Greeks!  How could we ever have taken them
seriously!"  As a person that teaches a fair amount of Greek philosophy, I'm
finding that not only students, but colleagues, especially women, are expressing
greater disdain for Greek culture and thought than ten or fifteen years ago.  I
believe, for example, Pat Sloan expressed something along these lines on this
list not long ago.  A student I had, actually a very bright one, said she had
for a while separated in her mind the transhistorical significance of Greek
thought from "clearly repulsive" Greek practices -- slave holding, subordinated
women, ect. -- but came to find that the more she learned the less she was able
to "save" Greek philosophy from these objectionable elements."  She had at one
time been attracted to Greek tragedy & comedy, but "lost her appreciation for
the Greek sense of beauty."   
	I was wondering if others in philosophy and literature have experienced this
rejection of Greece and what you think of it.  Even teaching "cultural
relativity" seems to go only a short way, especially with philosophers.

Reg
rlilly-AT-scott.skidmore.edu

PS. Thanks Paul, for the French note and correcting my "e's" to "oi's".