-Caveat Lector-
Undisclosed Gay Greeks
by Paul Gottfried
On September 23, we are told about a sign of change that the New York
Times obviously approves of. The editors of the Loeb Greek and Latin
classics (published at Harvard) are now offering translations of
ancient authors that do justice to their homoerotic interests. Though
the account makes it appear that the new enlightened editors are at
last honoring James Loeb, the founder and patron of the series who had
no use for "bowdlerized" translations, these comments are both vacuous
and hypocritical.
The media and the filmmakers doctor reality incessantly to make it fit
their escalating ideological agenda. Thus in films we hardly ever see
blacks committing violent crimes in inner cities, while media reports
of black and Hispanic riots typically attribute them to economic
oppression and white racism. Note also the cloying way homosexual
activists are presented in the Times, unlike such predictable heavies
as (non-leftist) Southern whites, non-media big business, and
Christian traditionalists. If disclosing the full truth is what the
past Loeb editors failed to do, their sins fall far short of those
committed by our national press, including the Times.
The two ancient authors mentioned in the news item whose homoerotic
interests had been allegedly hidden by prudish or mendacious
translators, Aristophanes and Plato, are bad illustrations for a
questionable argument. Aristophanes, in his plays, reported the
"bawdy" humor surrounding Athenian pedophiles, but it is doubtful this
playwright had any sympathy for the libertines featured or ridiculed
in his work. A critic of Socrates, whom he thought was corrupting
Athenss youth, Aristophanes detested non-traditional morals and
beliefs and never, as far as I know, treated homoeroticism in a
favorable light. Moreover, Plato was so critical of homosexual acts
that he made them a capital offense in The Laws. Though the accuracy
of this harsh judgment has been subject to dispute by politically
correct classicists, most famously Martha Nussbaum, it is hard to read
the disputed text without agreeing with the established translation.
When the Eleatic Stranger, who leads the conversation, concludes that
homosexuality is para phusin, he does mean what he says, that the act
is "against Nature."
Platos Symposium is another case in point, a now misrepresented text
that offers negative judgments about homoerotic relations. Here the
future political adventurer and self-absorbed pedophile Alcibiades
recalls a night spent sleeping next to Socrates. This deeply ascetic
teacher resisted his advances and acted in such a manner as would
"befit a father or older brother." Alcibiades and the other former
symposiasts testify to Socratess efforts to contrast homoerotic
passions to the yearning for a "higher beauty" that is spiritual.
If gay activists and their media boosters are looking for a usable
past, they might try such plausible candidates as Ernst Roehms Brown
Shirts. On the other hand, misrepresenting the intentions of respected
ancient authors does have its propagandistic advantage, especially if
scholars can be browbeaten or rewarded into going along.
October 4, 2000
Paul Gottfried is professor of history at Elizabethtown College and
author, most recently, of the highly recommended After Liberalism.
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