you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 116 points 2 months ago (62 children)

The Achilles thing made me chuckle. And then it made me weep a bit because general education seems to be dead. I learnt about the Trojan war and attached mythology at school, doesn't that happen anymore or is it an attention issue?

  • source
  • hideshow 62 child comments
  • [–] 82 points 2 months ago (7 children)

    Maybe it's just anything Greek. I remember reading a comment chain right here on Lemmy like 6 months ago, something about a thing/machine/software named Prometheus. One commenter wondered why they'd name themselves after an Alien movie.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • [–] 61 points 2 months ago (6 children)

    Ouch. Prometheus himself would probably have turned around and returned the fire where it came from if he knew about that.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 6 child comments
  • [–] 10 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    Right!? The Alien from 'Kablam!' who taught Bob deserves better than that.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 20 points 2 months ago (25 children)

    I don't think I ever covered any Greek myths in school in the UK. Like many others I did have an interest in them so I did read the Iliad and Odyssey in my school years (though I don't remember which translations). We did cover a few Norse myths; the bit of the Prose Edda with the giant Skrymir was one that stuck with me for some reason

    At the end of the day there is simply far too much history to give everyone an overview of all of the big things. There are interesting aspects of the relationship between myth, history, historiography, and archaeology that I expect Troy could be a great subject for, but I don't think there's anything so unique about it that it has to be a topic

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 25 child comments
  • [–] 21 points 2 months ago (10 children)

    Here in the U.S., we cover the Greek stuff A LOT. Like it is hammered into your head. The reason for this is, of course, the U.S. sees itself as the heir to Athenian Democracy and Roman Republicanism, so we have to really emphasize that in our conditionin.... Uhhh education.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 10 child comments
  • [–] 16 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    No, the reason is that the storytelling methods which we still use to this day originated in Greek drama and comedy. It’s foundational for a complete understanding of literature, theater, poetry, and indeed most all art forms. Any education without at least a significant time spent on the classics is utterly worthless.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    Studying Greek classics being used as an "America bad" is the biggest stretch, jfc. Not everything is a conspiracy. Take it down a notch.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago* (4 children)

    That's not an "America Bad" thing, it's just fact? That's the explicit reason for the entire framing of western history in American classrooms. We start with Egypt, then the hand the torch over to the Greeks, then they hand the torch to the Romans, then the Dark Ages (spoooooky), then the Renaissance, the British Empire, and then the USA. It's one of our foundations for American Exceptionalism

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Sudying Greek history and mythology merely for the sake of propaganda and as a through line to exceptionalism is not a fact, no.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • load more comments (2 replies)
  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    I read a lot of Greek mythology on my own and through elective classes but I think the only core course material I had on it was pretty brief. Shakespeare was pretty much every year starting in middle school but not much Greek.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (7 children)

    Here in german speaking central europe i learnt (i wont stop using it just to piss @atomicbocks@sh.itjust.works off lol) about the wars among the greek citystates, with references to Homer, and later on when learning Latin (which i sucked at, but that's not so important right now) we read excerpts and learnt (hahaha roflcopter) about the mythology a lot more. There also were references to the Greek mythology in our literature classes.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 7 child comments
  • load more comments (7 replies)
  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago

    I don't remember learning about the Greek myths in Canada's (Ontario) public school either. I heard about them for the first time when I studied it in a university history class. We did ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt as a young kid but I don't believe the myths were mentioned.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    Interestingly, my education regarding norse mythology was sorely lacking after school. We touched a few subjects, but without personal initiative i wouldn't know shit about it outside of Odin, Loki, Thor and the Midgard Snake.

  • source
  • parent
  • load more comments (25 replies)