We like to think of ancient Greece and Rome as the cradle of Western civilization, yet in the underlying anthropology of family, they had more in common with classical China.
I don't think our current western culture rejects historical greatness for any other reason but to be able justify celebration of our current greatness. To be able to celebrate Zuckerberg, Bezos, Gates and Musk, LeBron, Messi, Taylor Swift, Oprah, Shapiro, Tucker, Trump, ... one must reject the greatness of Achilles and Odysseus and Penelope and Hector
because they have very different if not always the opposite qualities
on the high points of Ancient culture and society, you seem to fail to see the obvious - at the time those societies used to be seen as flawed and problematic as we see ours today. They longed for the old great days and struggled to accept the changes driven by general dissatisfaction with the social norms. Rome became secular and later turned to christianity because they were not happy with the greatness of their society
At the end of The Odyssey the Goddess Athena literally comes down from heaven and tell Odysseus and the Suitors friends and family that they need to just put aside the cycle of honor revenge killings because she says so. They do it immediately.
This is perhaps also part of the lesson Odysseus Is supposed to learn on his journey, to shut up and do what the God's tell him. Not because he's a pansy that won't kill people for honor. And not because the God's necessarily have a problem with that (Athena literally helps him kill people for his honor, including women who slept with his enemies). But because something divine is literally needed to end the honor killing spiral.
It's a literal Deus Ex Machina, a term invented to describe a God being lowered onto the stage by a crane at the end of the story to solve the problems humans can't solve for themselves. You can call it bad writing, but its literally the eagles in the lord of the rings (and golem tripping over a rock into mount doom), Harry Potter having the allegiance of the Elder Wand because bullshit (there is a literal "room of plot requirement" in the story). I could go on and on and on. It can be bad writing, but it can also be people recognizing the limits of human agency and need for the divine.
As to the combination of pagan and christian virtues, C.S. Lewis explores this a bit in The Necessity of Chivalry. Something written in 1940 trying to address the christian impulses that led to the 1933 King and Country debate at Oxford versus what the pagan fascists were doing on the continent.
I haven't seen Nolan's Odyssey. But his Xenia defiantly isn't the Greeks Xenia. That's something more like "assume trust until proven otherwise". Xenia wouldn't exist between the Greeks and Trojans, who were in a state of open war for ten years. And anyway, the Greeks did fight an open manly conflict with them for years. Achilles beat Hector in single combat. The Greeks won field engagements. It was Troy's walls that held them, not a lack of virile greek combat prowess and desire for open combat.
I could go on and on. The real Odysseus hates the lotus eaters, he doesn't try to get high because of his trauma. The magic dames that bang him aren't slinging feminism at him.
The point is it's not like the ancient greeks were total savages that were unaware of the dangers of an honor culture. They just weren't as hung up over it.
This is the first post I've finally read of KaiserBauch! Sublime as expected. In my youth, with barely any internet knowledge, I already called Russia "more European than Europe", so I'm familiar how rabid the reactions are to such a statement. And indeed, what is Europe at all? I agree with Chechar on westsdarkesthour.com who calls the secular West "a red giant of hyper-Christian axiology", following an old essay from ca. 2007. Hence I don't view the modern West as "atheist" or lacking in moral fervor - just the opposite. Christianity began as a cult to destroy all idols - modern atheists merely go one step further, but the inherent impetus is the same - the derision of the hierarchical, orderly, meaningful society.
I wonder if modern China isn't disastrously feminist, however? While even the RoK is in early stages of its overt Christianisation (and China isn't eveb that), isn't the rapid fall in TFR a sign of the spread of the same Western morality? Just like modern Israel is incapable of conducting genocides that come so naturally to non-Christian people (Azerbaijan, Burma, Vietnam). This is why I'm eagerly awaiting if China will have the will and intellect to drop feminism and bring back foot binding - the Sinospheric societies seem to have the power to change themselves under pressure (Meiji, Juche, Deng Xiaoping), unlike the West (militarist Germany, stale USSR, woke America, they all keep doing it until total collapse).
As regards the question if this cuckoldry is innate to the Indo-Germanic race - I might disagree with both views, and advance the notion that the White race has been genetically modified by Judaea-Christianity. Likely not irreversible damage, but genetic damage nonetheless.
Have you ever heard of Lloyd deMause and his idea of psychohistory? He posited an advancement of gentleness in child rearing, splitting history into psychoclasses. This is the favorite idea of Chechar from westsdarkesthour.com who belongs to the exterminationist school of racist thought - he blames the Christian Iberians for not doing to Indians what the Anglo did in the north, and thus turning Mexico into hell on earth, with bunnies hanging by their ears...
I, however, tend to view it differently. As the woke West is being immolated in the pyre of hyper-Christian morality, the rest of the world remains pagan. And in due time, the pyramids of Tenochtitlan will be rebuilt in Washington, with the Return of Quetzalcoatl, and rivers of blood and dead children.
Fascinating and depressing read. We are so brain-rotted we cannot even appreciate our own culture anymore.
I don't think our current western culture rejects historical greatness for any other reason but to be able justify celebration of our current greatness. To be able to celebrate Zuckerberg, Bezos, Gates and Musk, LeBron, Messi, Taylor Swift, Oprah, Shapiro, Tucker, Trump, ... one must reject the greatness of Achilles and Odysseus and Penelope and Hector
because they have very different if not always the opposite qualities
on the high points of Ancient culture and society, you seem to fail to see the obvious - at the time those societies used to be seen as flawed and problematic as we see ours today. They longed for the old great days and struggled to accept the changes driven by general dissatisfaction with the social norms. Rome became secular and later turned to christianity because they were not happy with the greatness of their society
At the end of The Odyssey the Goddess Athena literally comes down from heaven and tell Odysseus and the Suitors friends and family that they need to just put aside the cycle of honor revenge killings because she says so. They do it immediately.
This is perhaps also part of the lesson Odysseus Is supposed to learn on his journey, to shut up and do what the God's tell him. Not because he's a pansy that won't kill people for honor. And not because the God's necessarily have a problem with that (Athena literally helps him kill people for his honor, including women who slept with his enemies). But because something divine is literally needed to end the honor killing spiral.
It's a literal Deus Ex Machina, a term invented to describe a God being lowered onto the stage by a crane at the end of the story to solve the problems humans can't solve for themselves. You can call it bad writing, but its literally the eagles in the lord of the rings (and golem tripping over a rock into mount doom), Harry Potter having the allegiance of the Elder Wand because bullshit (there is a literal "room of plot requirement" in the story). I could go on and on and on. It can be bad writing, but it can also be people recognizing the limits of human agency and need for the divine.
As to the combination of pagan and christian virtues, C.S. Lewis explores this a bit in The Necessity of Chivalry. Something written in 1940 trying to address the christian impulses that led to the 1933 King and Country debate at Oxford versus what the pagan fascists were doing on the continent.
I haven't seen Nolan's Odyssey. But his Xenia defiantly isn't the Greeks Xenia. That's something more like "assume trust until proven otherwise". Xenia wouldn't exist between the Greeks and Trojans, who were in a state of open war for ten years. And anyway, the Greeks did fight an open manly conflict with them for years. Achilles beat Hector in single combat. The Greeks won field engagements. It was Troy's walls that held them, not a lack of virile greek combat prowess and desire for open combat.
I could go on and on. The real Odysseus hates the lotus eaters, he doesn't try to get high because of his trauma. The magic dames that bang him aren't slinging feminism at him.
The point is it's not like the ancient greeks were total savages that were unaware of the dangers of an honor culture. They just weren't as hung up over it.
This is the first post I've finally read of KaiserBauch! Sublime as expected. In my youth, with barely any internet knowledge, I already called Russia "more European than Europe", so I'm familiar how rabid the reactions are to such a statement. And indeed, what is Europe at all? I agree with Chechar on westsdarkesthour.com who calls the secular West "a red giant of hyper-Christian axiology", following an old essay from ca. 2007. Hence I don't view the modern West as "atheist" or lacking in moral fervor - just the opposite. Christianity began as a cult to destroy all idols - modern atheists merely go one step further, but the inherent impetus is the same - the derision of the hierarchical, orderly, meaningful society.
I wonder if modern China isn't disastrously feminist, however? While even the RoK is in early stages of its overt Christianisation (and China isn't eveb that), isn't the rapid fall in TFR a sign of the spread of the same Western morality? Just like modern Israel is incapable of conducting genocides that come so naturally to non-Christian people (Azerbaijan, Burma, Vietnam). This is why I'm eagerly awaiting if China will have the will and intellect to drop feminism and bring back foot binding - the Sinospheric societies seem to have the power to change themselves under pressure (Meiji, Juche, Deng Xiaoping), unlike the West (militarist Germany, stale USSR, woke America, they all keep doing it until total collapse).
As regards the question if this cuckoldry is innate to the Indo-Germanic race - I might disagree with both views, and advance the notion that the White race has been genetically modified by Judaea-Christianity. Likely not irreversible damage, but genetic damage nonetheless.
Have you ever heard of Lloyd deMause and his idea of psychohistory? He posited an advancement of gentleness in child rearing, splitting history into psychoclasses. This is the favorite idea of Chechar from westsdarkesthour.com who belongs to the exterminationist school of racist thought - he blames the Christian Iberians for not doing to Indians what the Anglo did in the north, and thus turning Mexico into hell on earth, with bunnies hanging by their ears...
I, however, tend to view it differently. As the woke West is being immolated in the pyre of hyper-Christian morality, the rest of the world remains pagan. And in due time, the pyramids of Tenochtitlan will be rebuilt in Washington, with the Return of Quetzalcoatl, and rivers of blood and dead children.