Homer was a woman !!??

Originally posted by TranHungDao Even Congressional Medal of Honor winners have PTSD.� PTSD is a modern term for what has gone on since wars first began.�Heck, probably since the first fratricide, namely that of Able by his bro Cain.

PTSD is a lame modernism. Soldiers used to believe in fortitude and didn't need labels of victimhood. The martial culture of previous eras rendered soldiers fit for war (and often, nothing else). What they call "severe PTSD" is something else entirely and has always existed, but it should be distinguished as something of an entirely different class than the more common sorts of PTSD.

Different cultures used to cope differently. We might regard butchery by the blade as something totally horrific even to watch, but ancient peoples didn't have supermarkets, most of them were farmers who butchered livestock regularly, some cultures even watched butchery as a mass entertainment (eg the gladiatorial events in Rome). Deaths were a part of everyday living, and they weren't removed or segregrated to a special place like the intensive care ward; it happened in homes, on the street, wherever. We moderns banish death from the public experience, and the result is a collective thanatophobia. They had different attitudes towards death. We are a culture with a hitherto unknown level of fear about certain types of death, including violent death.

In the first world war, they called it shell-shocked.

Shell-shock is in a class all by itself. It's nothing like any of the other traumas people may have because of war. Shell-shock victims often didn't see anyone die from shelling at all; they were secure in underground bunkers. For days at a time. With 50-60 heavy artillery shells landing on the ground above for up to a week at a time ...

Imagine being confined in a pitch black room for a week, then imagine the building around the room being torn apart by about 100 wrecking balls. For days on end. It reduced people to gibbering madmen, even when they had not seen one person injured.

[quote]Even some Vietnam War vets talk about still looking out for snipers and booby traps as they walk
about during the day.�[/qoute]

Vietnam and certain other modern conflicts were unusual, in that there were long periods of wariness for the danger of unseen instant death. Not a common feature of warfare in pre-modern eras, or even warfare that didn't occur in a jungle environment.

Edited by edgewaters - 12-Jul-2007 at 14:22

my point of saying Homer wasn't "traumatized" was that Greeks engaged in war every summer - it's nothing like our modern society where we basically have mercenaries like Carthage, not the citizen-soldiers of Rome or Greece. everyone was touched by war, death in combat was a very real, not unlikely ending for any man.

i don't think the trauma soldiers from the first world experience is comparable to that that the Greeks would've experienced, because we live in the bubble of modernity.

ther is a word for homer that says: when he was alive even in his village he wasnt allowed,but after his death 7 cities wanted him...

Even Congressional Medal of Honor winners have PTSD.  PTSD is a modern term for what has gone on since wars first began.  Heck, probably since the first fratricide, namely that of Able by his bro Cain.  In the first world war, they called it shell-shocked.  Iraq War veterans often talk about constantly looking for IED's as they're driving down Main Street in their own home towns.  Many sleep with a gun under their pillows.  Even some Vietnam War vets talk about still looking out for snipers and booby traps as they walk about during the day.  Recurring nightmares are by far the norm.

(If you're not an American, the Congressonal Medal of Honor is the highest honor an American can recieve, military or non military.  It is a military honor for bravery in combat.  It's equivalent to being knighted by the Queen or being awarded the L�gion d'honneur, and so on.)

 

Come to think of it...

If the "scholarly" PTSD analysis of Achilles is correct, then it would suggest Homer was indeed probably a man, who had prior to his days as a poet, had real combat experience, which traumatized him and/or his comrades.   Presumably, he would then incorporate this into his writings. 

Originally posted by Komnenos Dr Dalby, whose study, Rediscovering Homer, will be published by W. W. Norton in September, said: �It is possible, even probable, that this poet was a woman. As a working hypothesis, this helps to explain certain features in which these epics are better � more subtle, more complex, more universal � than most others.�

Ridiculous.  The most probable explanation/speculation for the "more subtle, more complex, more universal � than most others" is that Homer was gay or bisexual, which was very common back then in ancient Greek (and Roman) society.

Put it this way:  If Homer were alive nowadays, he'd probably frequent the Pottery Barn. 

Looks like squeaky wheel phenomena:  Make controversial assertions to sell books and/or get attention.

Originally posted by Komnenos No Ponce, it's not about Homer Simpson.

  
Hmm.  Obviously a preemptive strike against a trouble maker. 

Originally posted by Top Gun thats ridiculous because this story is written in helen times and women didn't had much privilege at that time

Sappho made it a little bit later.

Homer was a woman!?   HAHAHAHAHAHA LOL  Yea and Nile Armstrong was rilly Melly Armstrong...   And I did not exist.  We never went to the moon.   And  JFK is alive       Dear God whats going on with are history...  

"A Million Little Authors"

Good that he was, if he indeed was.