I started my summer reading with Emily Wilson’s recent translation of The Iliad. Having read her Odyssey with gusto a few years ago, I needed a Homeric way to escape the news.
Who needs a beach book to read on the eve of a political apocalypse when you can enjoy an ancient epic poem that describes a brutal war that leads to the downfall of a glorious civilization?
Perhaps you understand my feelings. I want this election season to be over. I don’t mean to vent anymore, but Donald J. Trump’s authoritarian shamelessness seems to know no bounds. I am stooping to my knees at Thursday’s debate between President Biden and President Trump. How on earth are we back in the same dangerous situation we were in four years ago?
I’m a progressive Democrat. I have devout Catholic Republicans in my family. We don’t talk much, and when we do, it rarely comes down to politics. Our worldviews are worlds apart, but I know they’re just as devastated as I am about the state of the country.
But that’s where the similarities end. We’re stuck in an ideological stalemate where any further argument will only devolve into violent accusations. I don’t know how to bridge these gaps or stand up for my beliefs without sounding accusatory. It’s hard to be open-minded and listen when you’re convinced the other person is an arsonist trying to set your house on fire.
Yes, I admit I am angry. I am angry that Donald Trump is waging a war on American democracy and the rule of law. But I am also personally outraged that I have relatives who are supporting a twice-impeached, multiple-times-indicted, convicted felon, and someone who happens to be charged with sexual abuse.
My frustration is compounded by a sense of disillusionment. I thought humans were rational animals with a collective mind, capable of setting aside tribal hatred when it mattered most and defending our constitutional democracy from the depredations of would-be dictators.
Homer’s Iliad, translated by Emily Wilson.
(WW Norton)
Homer helps me realize just how naive I am. The Iliad is a poem about the clash of civilizations, but it is also a song of devastating personal rage. The epic poem begins with a prayer to the Muses, and Wilson vividly evokes the animosity that drives the story: “Sing, O goddess, of the fury of great Achilles, son of Peleus, who has inflicted untold suffering on the Greeks, who has consigned to the underworld the souls of many noble heroes, who has made men a plunder for dogs…”
If there was any doubt that politics is a human sport governed by the most primitive emotions, Homer will shatter this innocence into pieces.
Wilson’s translation of the Iliad may not have the rock-hard grandeur of Richmond Lattimore’s, the lyrical elation of Robert Fitzgerald’s, or the flowing gravity of Robert Fagles’, but the accessibility of his modern translation brings the drama of the battlefield back to the bloody earth.
Warrior values like courage and loyalty are still nobly expressed, but there is an insane quality to the massacres: these celebrated military heroes are killing machines. Wilson offers a scathing critique of patriarchal madness in his frank depiction of human destruction.
Without commentary, Wilson never lets the reader forget that this entire massacre was based on morally questionable pretexts: Paris’ elopement with Helen, Menelaus’ trophy wife, may have been a grave violation of the sacred obligations of hospitality, but it is also another example of men behaving badly.
At the beginning of the Iliad, more than nine years after the start of the war, Greek morale is tested by a new outburst of male pride. Achilles, enraged that Agamemnon has taken the concubine he won in the war, vows to lay down his armor. Later, as Hector leads the Trojan onslaught and Greek soldiers die one by one, Achilles refuses to budge from his indignant position. It takes the death of his beloved companion, Patroclus, for him to rejoin the fight.
Humans bring about their own disaster through their own fragile self-esteem, and it takes great feats of courage to stop the widespread chaos they have caused.
Helen, hardly a paragon of justice, is unable to resist Paris’s beauty even as she sees his character flaws: “This man has no sense, no self-control, no ability to change,” she tells Hector. Hector doesn’t need to be reminded of his brother’s weaknesses; he’s already had to berate Paris for standing back in the middle of a battle: “Poor Paris! Womanizer! Cunning!/You look beautiful at your finest./Oh, that you had never lived or died unmarried.”
Written by Emily Wilson
(Daniel McGarrity/WW Norton & Company)
Yet despite Hector’s nobility and bravery, he, like his Greek colleagues, was not inclined to set aside personal pride for the sake of a diplomatic solution that would save countless lives. Heroism is never an indication of moral perfection.
Of course, the gods encourage these humans’ worst impulses: Zeus and his motley crew of immortals are as petty, territorial, and sinister as their human minions. Nowhere in the universe of the Iliad does reason go unchecked, but as destinies unfold tragically, human actions are judged and recorded for posterity.
A political troublemaker like Marjorie Taylor Greene might seem out of place in Homer’s world, but the haughty congresswoman may be the descendant of the “foul-mouthed” Greek soldier Thersites, who “buzzed for hours on end with pointless and irrelevant complaints about the rulers, and anything he thought might elicit a laugh among the other Greeks.” Thersites is understandably infuriated by the way the war is being conducted by Agamemnon, but when Odysseus brutally chastises him, the soldiers are grateful that the “rude chatterer” has finally shut up.
Homer even has a precedent for the most egregious MAGA pranks.It’s no wonder Sigmund Freud was fascinated by this treasury of human nature: the linchpin of his psychoanalytic theory is that our behavior is not entirely under conscious control, that we are heavily influenced by impulses, emotions and memories that lie beyond our direct awareness, and that the better angels of human nature are engaged in a fierce battle with our instinctual urges.
In Civilization and Its Discontents, Freud takes a hard look at how the psychological makeup of humanity prevents it from flourishing. As Homer so vividly depicts, aggression and self-destruction are an inseparable part of the human equation. The sublimation of instincts is a prerequisite for civilization, but it is also a source of conflict. We find security in the group, but we hesitate when our freedom is unduly compromised.
Freud’s Dark Realism is uplifting to read, but these days I find a more encouraging companion in DW Winnicott, the British psychoanalyst best known for his concept of the “good enough mother.” For Winnicott, the “good enough mother” described the environmental conditions necessary for a child to thrive. He was adamant that normal mothers were capable of adapting to this important role.
British psychoanalyst DW Winnicott photographed in London in 1963.
(Barbara Young/Photo Researchers History/Getty Images)
In his 1950 essay, “Reflections on the Meaning of the Word ‘Democracy,'” he applies his idea of a “reasonably good mother” to democratic society as a whole. But first he points out something obvious and often overlooked: voting is an emotional act. Why else would the secret ballot be such a fundamental part of the foundations of democracy?
For Winnicott, voting is an expression of “deep feelings distinct from conscious thought.” It is the result of an inner struggle in which social discord is internalized and made personal. Thus, he writes, private conflicts are temporarily “fought out in terms of the external political situation.”
I was struck by the irrationality of Trump supporters. Everyone is more or less emotionally driven when voting. This insight does not justify poor decision-making, but it does shed light on why information and knowledge are often not persuasive.
Winnicott understands democracy as a human achievement “at a certain point in time in a limited society.” No constitutional framework can guarantee its permanence. Democracy, he argues, depends on the emotional maturity of its people. As the proportion of antisocial individuals in a population increases, he points out, so does “anti-democratic tendencies.” Winnicott wrote this essay with deep concern about the psychological effects of World War II, but reading it today, I cannot help but shudder at the connection he makes between social breakdown and authoritarianism.
Is there anything that fosters democracy? Winnicott expands on the idea of the sufficient mother by saying,Average nice house What exactly is this mysterious ingredient that “provides the unique environment in which the innate democratic elements can emerge”? Maturity. Emotional development. Psychological resilience. Without this foundation, a society’s political structures cannot be renewed.
By exploiting voter resentment and anxiety, Trump has presided over the nation’s regression. Immaturity now roams the streets in public, accountable to no one. But immaturity comes in many forms, one of which is the expectation that people behave like an idealized version of themselves the moment they step out in public. We take our id with us wherever we go.
But perhaps we could have done a better job of pretending to be civilized in the past. Malice has made us sloppy.
But Americans have reason to be angry. For one, a decent, average home is literally out of reach in these inflationary times. The economy is working against both Democrats and Republicans. Our policy proposals couldn’t be further apart, but does this us-versus-them mentality serve anyone but Donald Trump and his wealthy supporters who profit from the hypocrisy of his Christian nationalism? It’s time for a new tack.
Simone Weil believed that love for our neighbors is best expressed by a simple question: “What are you experiencing?” Can you imagine asking that of someone who has a political yard sign that differs from your own? I can’t, and that’s why I bring this up.
Fascism consumes humanity. That’s how it succeeds. One of the reasons I feel so consumed right now is because the constant political battles have eroded my own humanity. I’m tired of being at the mercy of partisan algorithms. I’m tired of oscillating between anger and helplessness. It feels good to demonize others, but it never feels good until it doesn’t. So what exonerates me from the fundamental contradictions of being human? This Freudian darkness I acknowledge as my own. Pardon my slight twist of Shakespeare.
As I said before, there is no room for anger anymore. It is time to change course. In preparing for the worst, I have lost sight of what is best for us. It is not too late to hope that the American people will do the right thing and elect a mature candidate who cares about “good, normal homes.” I may be sorely disappointed. But if I am, I will need this faith to continue this fight.
