ACHAEANS: Are we all Achaeans now?

WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 2024

In one key respect, we aren't: At the start of this week, we raised a pair of award-winning questions concerning those of us who live in present-day Blue America.

Regarding November's election, we raised this awkward question:

Have we possibly "earned our way out" through some aspects of our behavior?  

With regard to that possibility, we raised this related, as yet unspecified question: 

Are we all Achaeans now?

Are we all Achaeans now?  And what do we even mean by that peculiar question?

Tomorrow, we'll start to explore the behaviors within our own Blue America which have called that question to mind. For today, let's examine one basic way in which the "thought leaders" of our own Blue nation have been falling short of the behaviors put on display by the Achaeans who are alleged to have walked the earth during the late Bronze Age.

We return at this point to the western world's first, famous poem of war. In the Iliad's fast-moving Book One, the Achaeans (the Argives, the Mycenaeans, the Greeks) are in the tenth year of their violent siege of Troy.

They're conducting that siege for one reason only. As a matter of basic anthropology, we'll turn to that topic tomorrow.

As the Achaeans conduct their deadly siege, their conduct is constantly driven by rage. That said, please understand this:

On the opposite, far side of Europe. the Magna Carta was still two millennia away!

What the heck was the Magna Carta? We can tell you this:

As we noted yesterday, Agamemnon, lord of men, ruled the Achaeans (in effect) by the divine right of kings. Despite his frequent emotional meltdowns, Agamemnon carried the royal scepter which had come to him through a long line of descent, a line of descent which had started on Olympus with Zeus himself.

Deference to the divine right of kings is a basic part of human mental history. In 1215, on the far western end of Europe, a group of rebel barons cut into the reign of that ancient impulse. The leading authority on that topic starts to explain:

Magna Carta

Magna Carta Libertatum (Medieval Latin for "Great Charter of Freedoms"), commonly called Magna Carta or sometimes Magna Charta, is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, on 15 June 1215. 

First drafted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Stephen Langton, to make peace between the unpopular king and a group of rebel barons, it promised the protection of church rights, protection for the barons from illegal imprisonment, access to swift and impartial justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown, to be implemented through a council of 25 barons. Neither side stood by their commitments, and the charter was annulled by Pope Innocent III, leading to the First Barons' War.

We note that this royal charter of rights protected barons against illegal imprisonment. It would seem that it offered no such protection to anyone else. 

Still, the charter codified a limitation of the monarch's absolute power. After everyone broke their commitments, the sacred isle was subjected to the events of First Barons' War.

Whatever! The Magna Carta was still two millennia away as the Argives (the Achaeans) fought on the  plains outside Troy by day, then conducted their wartime councils by night.  And to their credit, understand this:

Agamemnon may have held the royal scepter. But he was subjected to scathing criticism during those nighttime assemblies.

Agamemnon held the royal scepter, but lesser chieftains were prepared to dispute his actions and views. Consider:

In Book Nine of the deathless war poem, Agamemnon has melted down again. He has said that the Argives should abandon their plan to take Troy and should sail for home instead. 

Agamemnon (AKA Atrides) had melted down again. He was the anointed successor to Zeus (AKA the son of Cronus), but a lesser chieftain dissented:

Silence held them all, struck dumb by his orders.
A long while they said nothing, spirits dashed.
Finally Diomedes lord of the war cry broke forth:
"Atrides—I will be first to oppose you in your folly,
here in assembly, King, where it's the custom.
Spare me your anger. My courage—
mine was the first you mocked among the Argives.
branding me a coward, a poor soldier. Yes, well,
they know all about that, the Argives young and old.
But you—the son of Cronus with Cronus' twisting ways
gave you gifts by halves: with that royal scepter
the Father gave you honor beyond all other men alive
but he never gave you courage, the greatest power of all...

Oof! The headstrong young lord of the war cry had risen to savage his king. At this point, Nestor scrambles to his feet to offer his standard good, sound advice, with which he saves the day.

Diomedes was willing to challenge the acknowledged lord of men. In Book One, the Iliad quickly describes another night-time assembly. In this instance, it's Achilles who voices his rage against the Argive monarch:

But Achilles rounded on Agamemnon once again,
lashing out at him. not relaxing his anger for a moment:
"Staggering drunk, with your dog's eyes, your fawn's heart!
Never once did you arm with the troops and go to battle
or risk an ambush packed with Achaea's picked men—
you lack the courage, you can see death coming.
Safer by far, you find, to foray all through camp,
commandeering the prize of any man who speaks against you.
King who devours his people! Worthless husks, the men you rule—
if not, Atrides, this outrage would have been your last."

Tomorrow, we'll start to examine the alleged "outrage" which has triggered Achilles' vast rage. But Achilles continues his furious dissent, holding the scepter which lets him speak in assembly:

This scepter will be the mighty force behind my oath:
someday, I swear, a yearning for AchiIles will strike
Achaea's sons and all your armies! But then, Atrides,
harrowed as you will be, nothing you do can save you—
not when your hordes of fighters drop and die,
cut down by the hands of man-killing Hector! Then—
then you will tear your heart out, desperate, raging
that you disgraced the best of the Achaeansl"
Down on the ground
he dashed the scepter studded bright with golden nails,
then took his seat again. The son of Atreus smoldered,
glaring across at him, but Nestor rose between them,
the man of winning words, the clear speaker of Pylos...

Nestor saves the day again, but Achilles has angrily said that he'll fight no more forever. As we explained yesterday, he held the less powerful scepter—the scepter studded bright with golden nails which gave a chieftain permission to speak—as he denounced the lord of men.

Thousands of years before the Magna Carta, Agamemnon held the royal scepter--but he was subject to rebuke and challenge by the lesser Argive chieftains. In thissense, the Argives were practicing an early form of democracy--a form or democracy which has keeled over and died within the withered thought leaders of our own Blue America.

They embarrassed themselves on cable last night, then again this very morning. Within their own withered night-time councils, they agree to repeat our tribe's standard claims, with this memorized motto emblazoned on our Blue nation's coat of arms:

That's exactly right!

Our thought leaders are paid by their corporate owners. They're paid extremely well. As a general matter, you aren't allowed to know how much.

They know they must go on the TV machine and tell us the stories we like. The "thought leaders" who crowd Red America's stages behave the same way. Frequently, though not always, their behavior is even dumber and worse.

Tomorrow, we'll move ahead to the question of motive, where we're all Achaeans now. But before we move on in that way, we wanted to assure you of this:

In this one major way, the lunatic men who laid siege to Troy were our moral and intellectual betters. They weren't willing to take dictation, not even from the lord of men. 

The lord of men held the royal scepter. It had come to him from Zeus himself.

Despite that fact, lesser chieftains were prepared to rise in council and state their actual views. Our cable stars know that they mustn't do that. None of them rise to the level of being Achaeans now.

Tomorrow: Why these crackpots sailed