Achilles is the warrior, the man of direct action. Words that connote “straight” cluster around Achilles. He hits his enemies until they fall down—even when his enemy is a river or a god. Achilles will never stop and is unstoppable. He attacks his objective in a straight line.
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Odysseus is the strategist, the man of beguiling words, outthinking his enemy, of tricks and and stratagems. Words that connote “twisty” cluster around him (and in later Greek though “crooked” or “twisted”—Odysseus becomes far less heroic in later Greek literature).
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Odysseus tells Polyphemus his name is “no one,” μή τίς, mē tis, leading to the cyclops’ pathetic cry “No one is murdering me!” But this “lie” is also the truth, because μή τίς is indistinguishable (aloud) from μῆτις, which means “cunning,” “guile,”—which is PRECISELY Odysseus.
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As an aside, Achilles and Odysseus as archetypes very clearly map onto Superman and Batman. Even to the point of Batman’s habit of saying his name, “I’m Batman.” That is equivalent to Odysseus saying “My name is μή τίς.” Batman’s superpower is effectively “being Batman."
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Something new happens with the coming of philosophy. Plato dares to propose that HE, and NOT Homer, deserves to be the TEACHER OF ALL THE GREEKS. How do you PROVE something like THAT? You write a book which both is and is better than the Iliad and the Odyssey put together.
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Plato would be insanely hubristic—if he didn’t pull it off. With the Republic, Plato gives the Greeks a NEW IDEAL, the man of WISDOM, SOCRATES. Thereafter, BE LIKE SOCRATES is the answer to “What mode of being in the world should I pursue?” Be like Socrates. Seek Wisdom.
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Not only the Platonists—including that most Platonic of rogue Platonists, Aristotle—but also the Cynics, like Diogenes, and the Stoics—in short, ALL THE PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOLS concur in this: BE LIKE SOCRATES Epictetus goes so far as to say Stoicism amounts to just this.
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As epic (literally) as Achilles and Odysseus are, the West proper gets it shape only when philosophy appears on the scene and Socrates is held up as the IDEAL for the human mode of being in the world. Socratic piety is to seek God in Wisdom in humility, knowing he does not know.
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Socrates represents, as it were, the highest ideal the man could give himself. If there were no God, man could not aim at a higher ideal than Socrates. Nietzsche concurs:pic.twitter.com/ZyEr4XrOHo
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The Wanderer and his Shadow
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