TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2025
So Karoline Leavitt said: For years, we've been telling you that the Iliad—the war poem which is "often regarded as the first substantial piece of European literature"—provides a portrait of our struggling nation's current situation.
Unfortunately, the Iliad is a portrait of civilizational conflict extending to the death. Let's recall what the leading authority says we're talking about:
Iliad
The Iliad—"[a poem] about Ilion (Troy)"—is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. Like the Odyssey, the poem is divided into 24 books and was written in dactylic hexameter. It contains 15,693 lines in its most widely accepted version. The Iliad is often regarded as the first substantial piece of European literature...
Set toward the end of the Trojan War, a ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Mycenaean Greek states, the poem depicts significant events in the war's final weeks. In particular, it traces the anger of Achilles, a celebrated warrior, from a fierce quarrel between him and King Agamemnon, to the death of the Trojan prince Hector. The narrative moves between wide battleground scenes and more personal interactions.
[...]
Critical themes in the poem include kleos (glory), pride, fate, and wrath. Despite being predominantly known for its tragic and serious themes, the poem also contains instances of comedy and laughter. The poem is frequently described as a "heroic" epic, centered around issues such as war, violence, and the heroic code. It contains detailed descriptions of ancient warfare, including battle tactics and equipment. However, it also explores the social and domestic side of ancient culture in scenes behind the walls of Troy and in the Greek camp.
[...]
The story begins with an invocation to the Muse. The events take place towards the end of the Trojan War, fought between the Trojans and the besieging Achaeans.
That summary omits a central point. From beginning to end, the Iliad is built around themes of sexual politics. More specifically, it's built around the subjugation of the people thought of as women, tracking back to the original reason for the ten years of war, and moving on to the nature of the "fierce quarrel" between Achilles and King Agamemnon which appears at the start of the poem.
The whole thing turns on sexual politics, including overt sexual slavery. For what it's worth, sexual politics is deeply involved in the civilizational struggle now underway between the current warring civilizations—Red America and Blue.
Set that aside for now. For today, we're thinking of the fact that the Iliad is a civilizational struggle which proceeds to the death. There is no possibility of compromise or comity, and no such resolution prevails.
Two new reports in today's New York Times reminded us of that aspect of the current warfare.
We start with a single comment from Tom Edsall's weekly march to the sea. The remark was made last Thursday by Karoline Leavitt as the current shutdown prevailed.
President Trump had commented on the opportunity the shutdown gives him "to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, [Russell Vought] recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent."
Asked if Trump's suggestion was real, Leavitt answered thusly. We highlight one phrase:
Oh, it’s very real, and the Democrats should know that they put the White House and the president in this position, and if they don’t want further harm on their constituents back home, then they need to reopen the government. It’s very simple: Pass the clean continuing resolution, and all of this goes away. We would not be having these discussions here at the White House today if not for the Democrats voting to shut the government down. This is an unfortunate consequence.
In theory, those congressional constituents back home are also a sitting president's constituents. Maybe we're just picking nits, but that construction jumped out at us this morning.
Also, there was today's Senate testimony by Pam Bondi. In her refusal to answer questions, she came equipped with personalized attack messages directly aimed at the individual Democratic senators who were asking the unanswered questions.
Any hint of comity is gone. For the record, different people will form different ideas about whether Bondi's attitude is justified.
As portrayed in the Iliad, the Achaeans and the Trojans were vastly different peoples. The only thing they had in common was the desire for control over Helen, radiance of woman, allegedly the most beautiful woman in the world.
Helen had run off to live with her new husband, the younger son of King Priam, inside the walls of Troy. She had abandoned her previous husband, the son of King Agamemnon.
For ten years, the men of Achaea had fought and died in the dust, furiously trying to get her back, stealing young women from neighboring villages to serve as their sexual slaves.
There was no path to compromise in the midst of this mayhem. As described by Professor Knox, this is where the fury eventually led after Prince Hector was slain by the madman Achilles, with his body dragged through the dust behind Achilles' chariot as his horrified parents looked on:
The whole poem has been moving toward this duel between the two champions, but there has never been any doubt about the outcome. The husband and father, the beloved protector of his people, the man who stands for the civilized values of the rich city, its social and religious institutions, will go down to defeat at the hands of this man who has no family, who in a private quarrel has caused the death of many of his own fellow soldiers, who now in a private quarrel thinks only of revenge, though that revenge, as he well knows, is the immediate prelude to his own death. And the death of Hector seals the fate of Troy; it will fall to the Achaeans, to become the pattern for all time of the death of a city.
The images of that night assault—the blazing palaces, the blood running in the streets, old Priam butchered at the altar, Cassandra raped in the temple, Hector's baby son thrown from the battlements, his wife Andromache dragged off to slavery—all this, foreshadowed in the Iliad, will be stamped indelibly on the consciousness of the Greeks throughout their history, immortalized in lyric poetry, in tragedy, on temple pediments and painted vases, to reinforce the stern lesson of Homer's presentation of the war: that no civilization, no matter how rich, no matter how refined, can long survive once it loses the power to meet force with equal or superior force.
His baby son was thrown from the walls, and so on down the various pathways to Hades from there.
You can interpret that further as you will. Beware of overweening pride in the perfect correctness of one's own tribal group.
That said, that night assault brought with it the death of sacred Troy. As portrayed in the Iliad, a more civilized society had fallen after a ten-year siege by a profoundly furious aggregation. After ten years of brutal war, no civilized solution was going to be possible.
That's where European literature started. Borrowing from the early Dylan:
Time passes [extremely] slowly up here in the mountains.
"Beware of overweening pride in the perfect correctness of one's own tribal group."
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that this is one of Somerby's fundamental messages, and it is the one that causes many of his commenters to hate him.
Is it "overweening pride" to state one's views? I think it is free speech and an attempt to advance one's beliefs. The words "overweening pride" have a strong negative tone. First, pride is one of the seven sins among Catholics. Second, overweening refers to pride above one's station, uppityness, but is it really uppity for anyone on the left to state our views, even forcefully. Don't we all have that right?
DeletePsychologists consider pride to be a positive sign of high self-esteem. But I suspect the right and Somerby are irritated when the left expresses our views because of their hatred toward Democrats and the left in general. They don't merely consider us their political opponents but look at all the rest of the name-calling, the bald equation of the left with satan and evil, the rat-fucking, vandalism, and violence directed by the right against the left, goes way beyond pique over pride.
I seriously do not believe that the right hates us because of anything we do, but rather because of who we are, as an expression of their own shitty white supremacist identity politics.
For myself, I hate Somerby because he pretends to be left while advancing right wing talking points. His own negativity toward the left is his reason for continuing this blog and it is relentless while also being non-specific and not at all concrete, so we are blamed without any guidance about what to do differently, except stop opposing the right. Somerby tells lies, just like other Republicans. He supports evil people. He dislikes women (and that alone would be enough for me to dislike him) and stands against most of what the left believes in, while calling himself liberal. He doesn't engage with commenters and he never corrects or apologizes for his mistakes. His attitudes toward Malala and Anne Frank are creepy and his hatred of Maddow is worse.
It might be fine for Somerby to mention that Suzanne Scott is CEO but his over-the-top targeting of her yesterday and today is abnormal, weird, ugly as an expression of misogyny (he was never this bad with Tucker Carlson, who he pitied, for example, or the various male righties who he has defended, even Kyle Rittenhouse).
What's to like about Somerby? When Trump came on the scene, the right decided to stop trying to be decent human beings and let their inner demons loose. The Hillary Nutcracker was one of the first indicators. Then "Fuck Your Feelings" t-shirts, while the right wing leadership applauded. Then Trump coyly endorsed white supremacism and racism ("some of them are good people, he said of the Unite-the-Right marchers when a protester was deliberately run over). This has progressed to tanks in the streets, masked thugs beating up brown-skinned people for no reason other than racism, and an incipient police state, but we on the left are still the problem to Somerby.
Somerby is a lost soul waiting to die. I hope he is still not religious because he is not right with the Catholic God he was raised with, and not right with liberal ethics either. His best bet is now to join the Cosmos peacefully in his sleep, because he is understanding less and less about the world he helps populate and that is sad for all of us who read this blog back when it began.
We are individuals with our own views who affiliate with the group (tribe) that best represents them. We are not people who choose a tribe, then adopt its views and wear the jerseys, as if it were a football team. Maybe the right does that, but my experience is that the left works the other way around. Opinions first, affiliation second.
DeleteThe consequence is that I don't consider Democrats to be perfect in their views. I guess that makes me a
lesser of evils voter. But I do believe in supporting the organization that is working to get the candidate you like best elected. The pride is optional.
Somerby has always complained about the criticism of right-wing miscreants, using labels like racist and sexist and fascist to characterize those who express such "isms". I disagree that it implies we who use such words have "pride" over being non-racist. If Somerby knew a few lefties, he would know that we are working to eliminate our own sins too, not sitting around glowing in our own goodness (as he claims when he maligns us). I say us, simply because I am a Democrat, not because I speak for anyone else with this.
But I would rather be a good person than a bad one, so I work at approaching my ideals, whereas the right seems to glory in being bad, go out of its way to hurt others, feel no empathy towards others, and try hard to break laws, behave in uncivil ways, flout rules and be total shitheads, on purpose. It is their pride to be as awful as possible, even when it means getting arrested. And Trump is their role model in that.
No one is silly enoug to claim "perfect correctness" in anything. That is Somerby's hedge word to take back whatever he almost meant with that sentence.
DeleteSaying "fascist bad" does not appear to be one of the deadly sins of pride
DeleteCalling someone else a fascist seems to be. Somerby shares this complaint with the right. It is one of their talking points that he advances here.
DeleteSomerby has followed none of the changes in editorial content at the so-called legacy or mainstream media. Here is part of a report by Judd Legum, Rebecca Crosby and Noem Sims at Public Information substack:
ReplyDelete"In July, CBS News’ parent company, Paramount, paid $16 million to settle a frivolous lawsuit filed by President Trump. In September, CBS News hired a Trump loyalist to serve as its new ombudsman, charged with reviewing news coverage for “bias.”
The most dramatic move came Monday, when Paramount announced that it would hire former New York Times opinion columnist and anti-woke crusader Bari Weiss to be the new editor-in-chief of CBS News. She has no experience in broadcast news. Weiss departed the New York Times in 2020, writing in her resignation letter that the publication had become too left-wing and that she faced harassment for having “centrist” views.
In 2021, Weiss founded The Free Press, a publication that is purportedly committed to “honesty, doggedness, and fierce independence.” In a 2023 column, Weiss suggested the progressive movement “demonizes hard work, merit, family, and the dignity of the individual.” In 2024, Weiss claimed that the “political left… makes war on our common history, our common identity as Americans, and fundamentally, on the goodness of the American project.”
Along with hiring Weiss, Paramount purchased The Free Press for a reported $150 million.
In her initial note to CBS News staff, Weiss said that she was committed to producing journalism that was “fair,” “factual,” and “tell[s] the truth plainly.” A Popular Information review of The Free Press’ work, however, reveals that the publication repeatedly distorted the truth to conform to its right-wing ideological agenda."
Is this kind of thing at CBS any better than what happens at Fox News? If Somerby is actually concerned about the media, might he not have mentioned these developments? You would think so, but his focus has been so narrow here that it is a joke to call this a media blog.
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Yet another commenter who wants to be Somerby's assignment editor.
ReplyDeleteRead it or don't read it. No one else cares what you do.
DeleteI guess someone who claims the nickname "Dogface" will never be accused of pride. That seems sad to me.
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Today Somerby is once again wallowing in the subjugation of women. First, recall that this is a story, fiction, not history. Second, Somerby omits part of the "story" that are inconsistent with his view of subjugation. He entirely disappears the agency of the female goddess Aphrodite (as well as Hera and Athena):
ReplyDelete"The goddess Aphrodite caused Helen to leave her husband, Menelaus, and go with Paris as a reward for Paris in the Judgement of Paris. After Paris chose Aphrodite's promise of the most beautiful woman as the prize, she ensured he was able to win Helen's heart and brought her to Troy. While the narrative in Homer's Iliad suggests Helen was influenced by divine force, other versions of the myth depict her departure from Sparta with different degrees of willingness or even as an abduction." It was Paris who chose Helen (as a bribe for calling Aphrodite the most beautiful goddess), knowing she was married.
I find the term "people thought of as women" offensive as Somerby uses it, because it has a vaguely sarcastic tone, as if women as people are nothing beyond what others think of them. That has never been true in history. That said, the depiction of women as property instead of agents with their own goals and intentionality, is untrue even of women who are slaves. Again, this story is fiction not history and there are doubts about whether women have ever been "objects" in the sense of the Iliad, especially given the way women's participation and accomplishments have been erased from history and culture throughout Western civilization. The record is distorted but Somerby doesn't appear to understand that as he exults, day after day, in the way women are abused in The Iliad.
The goddesses are depicted as vain and troublesome, as women were often regarded by men. That is not "sexual politics" but sexism and misogyny, hatred of women accompanied by negative stereotypes of them. The misogyny is reflected in the patriarchal system depicted and the desire to maintain it and benefit from it shown by the men. The story itself was written by men for the enjoyment of men, including the character of Homer, who may or may not have existed.
Sexual politics are different than that. The term refers to "the principles determining the relationship of the sexes; relations between the sexes regarded in terms of power" and was explored by feminist authors, none of whom Somerby ever acknowledges or reflects. That itself is a form of misogyny, where men define sexual power relationships for women instead of including women in the discussion.
The objectification of Helen is as ridiculous as the rest of the story. No woman, no matter how beautiful, would be worth fighting a 10-year war over. I doubt she would let it happen except under threat of death. That changes the story a lot, if Helen's wishes were included. The entire premise is fatuous, like a comic book plot that allows men to fantasize about war, stealing women, and other nonsense.
The worst part of Somerby's obsession is that by repeatedly returning to this topic and trying to draw parallels, he encourages the Proud Boy white supremacist types who have made a fetish out of Greek and Roman warrior culture, woman stealing and Western cultural superiority. Somerby himself gave Homer that tone when he first started talking about him, calling this the root of Western culture/literature, when everyone knows that English majors start with Beowulf. To read the classics you study Latin or take an intro course in Western Civilization 101. No one glorifies it the way Somerby and his lost bros do.
Professor Knox says:
ReplyDelete"...immortalized in lyric poetry, in tragedy, on temple pediments and painted vases, to reinforce the stern lesson of Homer's presentation of the war: that no civilization, no matter how rich, no matter how refined, can long survive once it loses the power to meet force with equal or superior force."
In a real discussion, Knox would have to quote the parts of Homer that he thinks support this interpretation. That is how literary criticism works. Somerby just buys this wholesale as a creed worth repeating here, as he has done. No need for Somerby to question whether it is true or whether Homer even intended such a message, or whether Knox added it himself in his forward (Somerby tends to read forwards and prefaces instead of actual books).
There are other views about the rise and fall of civilizations. Some involve climate change and natural disasters. Some involve depletion of resources in an area, causing a people to migrate to a more plentiful area. Only some involve invading hordes. Few involve actual subjugation of people, many others were alliances and trade relationships involving tribute paid to an emperor in a remote area, who may have left a governor but otherwise left people alone, as when Rome ruled Jerusalem or Alexander the Great ruled his empire.
Somerby ignores the role of guile in the fall of Troy. That's because it was written about by Virgil (and others), not Homer. It is the story of the Trojan Horse. There are other stories about Helen that Somerby ignores too, other interpretations. As I mentioned months ago, a city under siege for 10 years doesn't fall because of an overwhelming force, while the Achaeans would have been depleted with each year and no reinforcements. So Professor Knox's idea makes no sense as an explanation for Troy's fall. Intervention by God's might, but we have no Gods like that in our culture, so where is the lesson to us?
And can't we think of an election as two forces meeting and the strongest one defeating the other. Why then is warfare using weapons needed and what is the role of violence? Somerby doesn't say and I doubt he is really thinking about anything he posts these days. He seems to be standing with Hegseth and Trump clamoring for bigger parades to scare our world enemies into respecting us as a bigger force, so they won't send us any trojan horses when they hack our computers. Or how does this work these days? To women, this looks like dick measuring and BSD encounters, games boys play with toys like guns, to feel manly when they are as mortal as the rest of us. Freud had a lot to say about guys like Somerby, Hegseth and Trump.
Slabby ate his Wheaties this morning.
ReplyDeleteWhat have you done that's constructive today?
DeleteSlabby is sometimes interesting. @5:34 wants to suppress other people's free speech by calling them derogatory names.
Delete"That's where European literature started. Borrowing from the early Dylan:
ReplyDeleteTime passes [extremely] slowly up here in the mountains."
The study of European literature started with Medieval literature, which was focus on the revival of Greek and Roman writers. However, each European country had its own literature that predated and continued after the so-called classics such as Homer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_literature
I don't know about Somerby, but I am not Italian. My identity does not come from Rome or Greece but from Ireland and the continuation of Irish culture in North America. That is where Bob Dylan's folk song roots come from, the Irish songs transported to America along with Irish people, which became the tunes and stories familiar in American folk music. And that is where Bob Dylan started as a singer and songwriter, including phrases like the one Somerby quotes.
Somerby has no real interest in American folk music. He grabs this phrase because it has the words "time passing slowly" and not because of anything related to Dylan or the context of his song or anything meaningful about Dylan's life or times. Dylan wrote anti-war songs, peace songs, not songs glorifying strong warriors raping and pillaging Troy. That didn't seem to fascinate Dylan the way it does Somerby.