As racism is a relatively modern construct, perhaps Padilla should look to reinterpreting the Classics rather than destroying them. Human history has been messy, to say the least. It seems to me that taking in the larger picture will be much more enlightening than turning your back on the entire subject. We must learn from history in order to pave the way to a better future.
Padilla’s arguments are all or nothing absolutism which CBT psychology addresses very well. There is no always and never in human behavior other than birth and death.
While it's an undeniable fact that human nature is essentially the same across all races and civilizations, and that all have been implicated in imperialism and conquest in one way or another, we should also remember that it's been the West that's had the lion's share of it the last few centuries. But that's not to lay the blame on some nefarious nature of western civilization. This involved certain, crucial material factors, as Jared Diamond examines in his popular book Guns, Germs, and Steel. An excellent book to help understand why the West "rules" the last 500 or so years.
Jim, that's right. The West has been the *latest* of the oppressors / colonizers (well, if one doesn't count current Russia and China...), and the honest thing is to admit it and address it. But it is dishonest to talk as if the West were the exception and everybody else has always been oppressed. That's simply historically false.
Thank you for taking the time to discuss this in a calm & rational manner Massimo. As you say, it seems that Padilla is biting the hand that fed (and still feeds) & liberated him in the interest of promoting illiberal Critical Theory arguments. Proponents of this theory are intent on problematising, promoting guilt & viewing the subjects of their critiques through the simple binary lens of good & evil. His views seem like a politically driven revisionism of history as well as the classics.
Vivian, you hit the nail on the head: there is a difference between recognizing problems and problematizing. The first aims at solving those problems, the second one at creating them.
Brilliantly put. All your arguments were excellent and thought out constructively.
My mind during reading was thinking “how do we learn from our mistakes, if we erase the past.”
Indeed, it is quite surprising that an educated person such as Padilla would take such a stance. However, given history I respect the thought. It just does not appear to lend itself to rationality.
James, I can definitely understand where Padilla is coming from. But to me lack of rationality is the root of the problem, so to respond irrationally is simply not going to help. Of course he would likely say that "rationality" is yet another instrument of imperialist oppression. (No kidding, people have actually said that.)
To be fair, some evolutionary biologists think language, which is tightly related to thought, evolved for "Machiavellian" reasons, that is, to manipulate other people in doing one's bidding. But still, the very same people who decry rationality as an instrument of oppression go on using *arguments* to make their point...
Good ideas matter more than race or ethnicity. Maybe the paint peeled off and the statues/busts are sunbleached. The “bearded old white men” may not have been so “white”, whatever that means. Wasn’t the Mediterranean an ancient ethnic and cultural melting pot?
Angela, indeed it was, in terms of people's physical characteristics, their cultures, and even their genetic makeup. It makes absolutely no sense to talk about "whites" in the context of the ancient Mediterannean.
Important points and summary, thank you. Unfortunately there is a deep seated distrust of anything “Western” by many non-Europeans that inhibits their ability to focus on the message rather than the messenger.
In some ways it is the fault of the way that Europeans have treated non-Europeans. For example, the destruction of Carthage. What if Carthage had not been destroyed?
The destruction of the Library at Alexandria is another example.
Then we get to the destruction resulting from the conquest of the Americas.
So I understand where they are coming from.
But of course as you point out the answer isn’t to destroy but rather to build through analysis and synthesis.
David, thank you, appreciated! I'd like to point out that in ancient times there was, of course, no concept of "European," and that both Carthage and Alexandria were part of a common Mediterranean world. The destruction of Meso- and Nordamerica, by contrast, where definitely a European thing, involving Spanish, Dutch, British, and French, among others.
The other point is that non-European/non-white people have meted out just as much destruction across continents and centuries, including the Chinese, the Egyptians, the Aztecs, the Maya, the Inca, various central African kingdoms, the Japanese, and so forth.
So perhaps we would be better off acknowledging that the abilities to build magnificent things and the ability to destroy them are human universals, and finally strive to get past our innate and highly deleterious tribalism.
Fun read. Once you quilted Mary Beard i felt better! Mt room mate first year in collegebandbfriendbthereafter was a hard nosed student whilst I was an adolescent having fun he got his doctorate Princeton and has been nenof a coauthor of the history of the Roman republic, working with coauthors on the last revision at 82. A year ago he had fun retranslating Thucydides on the death of Pericles. And learning about Pericles is nnn racist. There are good leaders and bad tyrants everywhere at all times,
Auditing Tim Snyder’s course on Ukraine, really the complex history of Eastern Europe, I learned the Bikings earned their money by selling captured women to the pose wealthy men across the black sea. For the leaders returning to their northern roots to die need good to take to Nirvana, and young women Slavery is in our recent heritage based on Africans stolen. I doubt those capturing for slaves did not care their skin color. Smart careful slaves from Greece and Rome and from America were often freed
For those who insist on things being only black and white, they forget to do so, they must give up blue, red, yellow, green, orange, purple, and brown. That would be a very dull world indeed. Still, even with just black and white, one is forced to see shades of gray.
Jim, Padilla's best arguments are based on the undeniable fact that classical culture and history have indeed been used for nefarious ends, including the justification of colonialism and racism. But as I argue in the essay, that's far from being a good reason to destroy the humanities as he claims he wishes to do. (Last I check he still has not resigned from the Classics Department at Princeton.)
Thanks Massimo. In college were were assigned Lewis Hanke's "Aristotle and the American Indians" (1975), which had a very powerful effect on me as it was the first time I encountered a debate in which Greco-Roman philosophy was used in a real, serious debate on contemporary issues (in 1551 at least!).
It was an eye-opener for me and I thought, at the time, very well written. Despite the rather sensational title, it is a serious book centering on the Vallodolid Debate (1550-51)
While reading your essay, I was reminded of that experience. The book does not always put Aristotle in the best light (but then again, neither did many of his contemporaries!). However, it is a reminder that one can engage with ideas without "institutionalizing" Greco-Roman Philosophy". After the amazing surge of interest in classical Greece during the Renaissance, the changes are apparent. So by the time of Vallodolid the classics had become a central part of Theology and Philosophy.
I guess I understand Padilla's impulse and mission. I can see the point allowing the Greco-Romans to be the exclusive domain of proponents of "The West" or "White Civilization". But as you point out, there are many manifestations of White Supremacy and uncritical acceptance of other modes of oppression.
Glenn, the Valladolid debate was crucially important, thanks for mentioning it. As for Aristotle and modern debates, I think it's unfortunate that people confuse Aristotle the man with Aristotelianism the philosophy. The man, like all human beings, had his own blind spots (e.g., regarding both women and non-Greek). The really interesting question to me is whether and to what extent Aristotelian philosophy can be useful today.
I recently went back to Homer and started looking for good modern translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Interestingly, I found that most of the recent discussions seem to revolve more around contemporary politics (e.g., whether Emily Wilson’s translation is “woke”) than around the actual quality of the translations or the principles behind them. I enjoy studying antiquity partly as a way to escape current issues, so it was a bit frustrating to see that even this topic has become so entangled with today’s political climate.
Speaking of that, it was announced that Christopher Nolan will be doing his own version of the Odyssey next year. Apparently, he’s gathered a very diverse cast—one that doesn’t necessarily align with the ethnicities of the time or with certain explicit character descriptions in the poem—so I imagine there’ll be plenty of debate around that too (brace yourself for interview requests on the topic!).
Personally, I don’t mind when art takes creative liberties like that, as long as the result is good. But I was curious to hear your take. I suppose it all comes down to expectations: if a movie claims to be faithful to the source, then accuracy matters; but if it’s purely fictional, I don’t think it really does. Except cases like Gladiator II that was almost insulting...
After all, aside from a few specific cases (like Athena’s blue eyes or Achilles’ blond hair), I doubt the Greek gods would care much about race anyway!
Demian, I heard of the new Odyssey movie coming up, looking forward to it, though there is a good chance I'll be disappointed. By contrast, I highly recommend the recently released "The Return," with Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus and Juliette Binoche as Penelope.
I saw Emily Wilson reading from her translation of the Iliad at the Brooklyn Public Library, and really liked it. But yes, her work has been marred in political controversy.
I actually do mind creative liberties with historical movies. As I said to Ed in a different comment on this thread, imagine if someone were to make a movie about Gandhi casting a caucasian actor in the leading role...
Thanks Massimo! I watched "The Return" and really liked it. I was particularly impressed by how Fiennes and Binoche can create such an atmosphere in many scenes without even saying a word... I guess only the best actors can do that.
Let's see what Nolan's versions brings, but I suspect it will cost 100x more and perhaps don't achieve the same level of depth (ticket are already sold out a year in advance so we might have to wait a bit though!).
How about we just keep the classics in place as they are, but publish some children's comic books with Socrates shown as a dark brown dude and Aristotle as black, etc. It's words and thoughts that matter.
Yes, it's the words and thoughts that matter. Then again, as a thought experiment, imagine how people would react if a movie were to depict Gandhi as a white man...
I am reminded of the essay https://www.christianhumanist.org/2014/08/plato-was-not-white/ , which I think you are familiar with. I have read that colour prejudice, together with linking colour to slavery, goes back to the Portuguese in the late 15th century. Given all this, I would have thought that Padilla’s critique should be directed, not towards the classics, but towards the triumphalist and Eurocentric Western Civilisation curriculum, if that still exists.
Paul, yes, that's a good article indeed. The triumphalist Eurocentric curriculum no longer exists in American universities, so far as I can tell (well, with the exception of religious fundamentalist colleges, of course). It would also be good, as I briefly mention in the essay, to stop thinking that Europeans have been the only imperialists in history. Pretty much everyone who's had a decent amount of power has used it to build an empire, across historical periods and continents. It's a human vice, not a European one.
As racism is a relatively modern construct, perhaps Padilla should look to reinterpreting the Classics rather than destroying them. Human history has been messy, to say the least. It seems to me that taking in the larger picture will be much more enlightening than turning your back on the entire subject. We must learn from history in order to pave the way to a better future.
Very nicely put, Paul.
Padilla’s arguments are all or nothing absolutism which CBT psychology addresses very well. There is no always and never in human behavior other than birth and death.
Thomas, are you suggesting Padilla should go to therapy? 🤣
I would suggest it to him at any rate. Even geniuses can still learn.
While it's an undeniable fact that human nature is essentially the same across all races and civilizations, and that all have been implicated in imperialism and conquest in one way or another, we should also remember that it's been the West that's had the lion's share of it the last few centuries. But that's not to lay the blame on some nefarious nature of western civilization. This involved certain, crucial material factors, as Jared Diamond examines in his popular book Guns, Germs, and Steel. An excellent book to help understand why the West "rules" the last 500 or so years.
Jim, that's right. The West has been the *latest* of the oppressors / colonizers (well, if one doesn't count current Russia and China...), and the honest thing is to admit it and address it. But it is dishonest to talk as if the West were the exception and everybody else has always been oppressed. That's simply historically false.
Thank you for taking the time to discuss this in a calm & rational manner Massimo. As you say, it seems that Padilla is biting the hand that fed (and still feeds) & liberated him in the interest of promoting illiberal Critical Theory arguments. Proponents of this theory are intent on problematising, promoting guilt & viewing the subjects of their critiques through the simple binary lens of good & evil. His views seem like a politically driven revisionism of history as well as the classics.
Vivian, you hit the nail on the head: there is a difference between recognizing problems and problematizing. The first aims at solving those problems, the second one at creating them.
Brilliantly put. All your arguments were excellent and thought out constructively.
My mind during reading was thinking “how do we learn from our mistakes, if we erase the past.”
Indeed, it is quite surprising that an educated person such as Padilla would take such a stance. However, given history I respect the thought. It just does not appear to lend itself to rationality.
Fascinating! And there’s me thinking that we use speech for communication so we can do things like this, for example. 😁
James, I can definitely understand where Padilla is coming from. But to me lack of rationality is the root of the problem, so to respond irrationally is simply not going to help. Of course he would likely say that "rationality" is yet another instrument of imperialist oppression. (No kidding, people have actually said that.)
What?! People say that? 😂
Rationality, like reason or logic, is a human skill that has evolved over a great period of time. 🧐
To be fair, some evolutionary biologists think language, which is tightly related to thought, evolved for "Machiavellian" reasons, that is, to manipulate other people in doing one's bidding. But still, the very same people who decry rationality as an instrument of oppression go on using *arguments* to make their point...
Good ideas matter more than race or ethnicity. Maybe the paint peeled off and the statues/busts are sunbleached. The “bearded old white men” may not have been so “white”, whatever that means. Wasn’t the Mediterranean an ancient ethnic and cultural melting pot?
Angela, indeed it was, in terms of people's physical characteristics, their cultures, and even their genetic makeup. It makes absolutely no sense to talk about "whites" in the context of the ancient Mediterannean.
Important points and summary, thank you. Unfortunately there is a deep seated distrust of anything “Western” by many non-Europeans that inhibits their ability to focus on the message rather than the messenger.
In some ways it is the fault of the way that Europeans have treated non-Europeans. For example, the destruction of Carthage. What if Carthage had not been destroyed?
The destruction of the Library at Alexandria is another example.
Then we get to the destruction resulting from the conquest of the Americas.
So I understand where they are coming from.
But of course as you point out the answer isn’t to destroy but rather to build through analysis and synthesis.
Thought-provoking post as always. Thank you.
David, thank you, appreciated! I'd like to point out that in ancient times there was, of course, no concept of "European," and that both Carthage and Alexandria were part of a common Mediterranean world. The destruction of Meso- and Nordamerica, by contrast, where definitely a European thing, involving Spanish, Dutch, British, and French, among others.
The other point is that non-European/non-white people have meted out just as much destruction across continents and centuries, including the Chinese, the Egyptians, the Aztecs, the Maya, the Inca, various central African kingdoms, the Japanese, and so forth.
So perhaps we would be better off acknowledging that the abilities to build magnificent things and the ability to destroy them are human universals, and finally strive to get past our innate and highly deleterious tribalism.
Great points thank you.
Fun read. Once you quilted Mary Beard i felt better! Mt room mate first year in collegebandbfriendbthereafter was a hard nosed student whilst I was an adolescent having fun he got his doctorate Princeton and has been nenof a coauthor of the history of the Roman republic, working with coauthors on the last revision at 82. A year ago he had fun retranslating Thucydides on the death of Pericles. And learning about Pericles is nnn racist. There are good leaders and bad tyrants everywhere at all times,
Auditing Tim Snyder’s course on Ukraine, really the complex history of Eastern Europe, I learned the Bikings earned their money by selling captured women to the pose wealthy men across the black sea. For the leaders returning to their northern roots to die need good to take to Nirvana, and young women Slavery is in our recent heritage based on Africans stolen. I doubt those capturing for slaves did not care their skin color. Smart careful slaves from Greece and Rome and from America were often freed
Dick, yeah, it's complicated!
For those who insist on things being only black and white, they forget to do so, they must give up blue, red, yellow, green, orange, purple, and brown. That would be a very dull world indeed. Still, even with just black and white, one is forced to see shades of gray.
Excellent work! But now I ask: What would you say is Padilla’s strongest argument?
Jim, Padilla's best arguments are based on the undeniable fact that classical culture and history have indeed been used for nefarious ends, including the justification of colonialism and racism. But as I argue in the essay, that's far from being a good reason to destroy the humanities as he claims he wishes to do. (Last I check he still has not resigned from the Classics Department at Princeton.)
Thanks Massimo. In college were were assigned Lewis Hanke's "Aristotle and the American Indians" (1975), which had a very powerful effect on me as it was the first time I encountered a debate in which Greco-Roman philosophy was used in a real, serious debate on contemporary issues (in 1551 at least!).
https://www.abebooks.com/9780253201324/Aristotle-American-Indians-study-race-0253201322/plp
It was an eye-opener for me and I thought, at the time, very well written. Despite the rather sensational title, it is a serious book centering on the Vallodolid Debate (1550-51)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valladolid_debate between Bartolomeo de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda.
While reading your essay, I was reminded of that experience. The book does not always put Aristotle in the best light (but then again, neither did many of his contemporaries!). However, it is a reminder that one can engage with ideas without "institutionalizing" Greco-Roman Philosophy". After the amazing surge of interest in classical Greece during the Renaissance, the changes are apparent. So by the time of Vallodolid the classics had become a central part of Theology and Philosophy.
I guess I understand Padilla's impulse and mission. I can see the point allowing the Greco-Romans to be the exclusive domain of proponents of "The West" or "White Civilization". But as you point out, there are many manifestations of White Supremacy and uncritical acceptance of other modes of oppression.
Thanks for raising these questions!
Glenn, the Valladolid debate was crucially important, thanks for mentioning it. As for Aristotle and modern debates, I think it's unfortunate that people confuse Aristotle the man with Aristotelianism the philosophy. The man, like all human beings, had his own blind spots (e.g., regarding both women and non-Greek). The really interesting question to me is whether and to what extent Aristotelian philosophy can be useful today.
Thanks Massimo,
I recently went back to Homer and started looking for good modern translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Interestingly, I found that most of the recent discussions seem to revolve more around contemporary politics (e.g., whether Emily Wilson’s translation is “woke”) than around the actual quality of the translations or the principles behind them. I enjoy studying antiquity partly as a way to escape current issues, so it was a bit frustrating to see that even this topic has become so entangled with today’s political climate.
Speaking of that, it was announced that Christopher Nolan will be doing his own version of the Odyssey next year. Apparently, he’s gathered a very diverse cast—one that doesn’t necessarily align with the ethnicities of the time or with certain explicit character descriptions in the poem—so I imagine there’ll be plenty of debate around that too (brace yourself for interview requests on the topic!).
Personally, I don’t mind when art takes creative liberties like that, as long as the result is good. But I was curious to hear your take. I suppose it all comes down to expectations: if a movie claims to be faithful to the source, then accuracy matters; but if it’s purely fictional, I don’t think it really does. Except cases like Gladiator II that was almost insulting...
After all, aside from a few specific cases (like Athena’s blue eyes or Achilles’ blond hair), I doubt the Greek gods would care much about race anyway!
Demian, I heard of the new Odyssey movie coming up, looking forward to it, though there is a good chance I'll be disappointed. By contrast, I highly recommend the recently released "The Return," with Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus and Juliette Binoche as Penelope.
I saw Emily Wilson reading from her translation of the Iliad at the Brooklyn Public Library, and really liked it. But yes, her work has been marred in political controversy.
I actually do mind creative liberties with historical movies. As I said to Ed in a different comment on this thread, imagine if someone were to make a movie about Gandhi casting a caucasian actor in the leading role...
Thanks Massimo! I watched "The Return" and really liked it. I was particularly impressed by how Fiennes and Binoche can create such an atmosphere in many scenes without even saying a word... I guess only the best actors can do that.
Let's see what Nolan's versions brings, but I suspect it will cost 100x more and perhaps don't achieve the same level of depth (ticket are already sold out a year in advance so we might have to wait a bit though!).
I'm patient, I can wait...
How about we just keep the classics in place as they are, but publish some children's comic books with Socrates shown as a dark brown dude and Aristotle as black, etc. It's words and thoughts that matter.
Yes, it's the words and thoughts that matter. Then again, as a thought experiment, imagine how people would react if a movie were to depict Gandhi as a white man...
People SHOULD react the same, but who knows--racism abounds.
Yeah, they should, but you care to make a bet? 🤣
I am reminded of the essay https://www.christianhumanist.org/2014/08/plato-was-not-white/ , which I think you are familiar with. I have read that colour prejudice, together with linking colour to slavery, goes back to the Portuguese in the late 15th century. Given all this, I would have thought that Padilla’s critique should be directed, not towards the classics, but towards the triumphalist and Eurocentric Western Civilisation curriculum, if that still exists.
Paul, yes, that's a good article indeed. The triumphalist Eurocentric curriculum no longer exists in American universities, so far as I can tell (well, with the exception of religious fundamentalist colleges, of course). It would also be good, as I briefly mention in the essay, to stop thinking that Europeans have been the only imperialists in history. Pretty much everyone who's had a decent amount of power has used it to build an empire, across historical periods and continents. It's a human vice, not a European one.
Thanks for addressing a sensitive subject logically. Excellent
Colin, thank you. As you say, the subject is sensitive, but it needs to be addressed nonetheless.
Thanks for your sensible critique of internal inconsistency, petty tribalism, and guilt.
Steven, I think that tribalism, of any kind, is the single most destructive force in human affairs.