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Eros: The Myth Of Ancient Greek Sexuality: Bruce S Thornton

Classics scholar Bruce S. Thornton argues that the Greeks were not hedonistic and saw Eros as a dangerous force in need of control. Thornton offers an iconoclastic account of ancient sexuality that links the wary attitudes of the Greeks to our own modern concerns about love, sex, and family. We see here a vision of sexuality that is perhaps more honest and mature than our own dangerous illusions.

Review:

To begin with, pace the Kirkus Review reviewer, whose review is not worthy of being posted: this book is not an apologetic for Greek or any other misogyny. Feminists usually understand the fact that just as it is not equivalent to anti-Semitism to be in opposition to certain policies of the State of Israel, it is also not equivalent to misogyny to disagree with certain claims that are advanced under the banner of feminism (particularly of radical feminism). In this book, Thornton does question certain claims that have become status quo in at least the form of fairly radical feminism that has become the current orthodoxy in academia and the American Left; so what? Does this make his book a "misogynist" work? Not at all, and the Kirkus reviewer claiming that it is such should think twice before making such an accusation, as should all people.

Nor, for that matter, is this book an "antifeminist diatribe." Yes, as noted above, Thornton takes issues with certain aspects of what has become de rigeur radical feminism. This does not make the work "antifeminist" unless one means "anti-certain-trends-within-radical-feminism" which is a much less catchy but more accurate phrase that desccribes almost everyone I know -- probably including the Kirkus reviewer. Feminism is not a monolithic block of consistently brilliant and great ideas: like every huge movement it has spawned silly and unadmirable things along with the great things (such as women voting) for which it is largely responsible. Many feminists disagree with each other on many things, and many people would not consider themselves feminists but are not misogynists. It is simply foolish to call a searching book like this names like that.

This is not the greatest book I have ever read in my life, but it's interesting and should be read by people interested in the subject. Those who call this "an ideological reading" should probably ask themselves whether other readings they prefer aren't ideological. The answer may frustrate them. Further, I have yet to read a negative review of the book that seemed TO ME to evaluate it on its own merits. Several reviewers, including the Kirkus review, seems to dislike Thornton's anti-theory approach, by calling his careful scrutiny and report of evidence "pedantic"; many have simplified his argument. Yes, Thornton is a fan of Hanson, and a friend; however, last time I checked, ideas are to be evaluated on their own merits, not on with whom someone has dinner. Further, the reviewer below who wishes to paint Thornton as an "apologist for the status quo" is treading on dangerous turf: does he wish to reduce all scholarship to the question of whether they uphold or "subvert" the "status quo"? And what exactly is the "status quo"? Should a scholarly work report on what it discovers in the evidence or should it use the evidence to undermine the "status quo"? Only the most foolish doctrinaire postmodernist believes the latter. Must all works of scholarship be evaluated on whether or not they support a given reviewer's perception of what the Revolution is trying to accomplish?

In this book, among other things, Thornton clearly wishes to demolish what he probably would regard as a namby pamby view of the Greeks as being unproblematically in favor of homosexuality. He has combed through centuries of texts to do this. The book is polemical and not heavy on social or literary theory, and should be read alongside and in contrast to something like David Halperin's utterly contrasting work to get a fuller picture of what is at stake here. Thornton's nods to Camille Pagila actually made the book very interesting to me: she is a startling and original thinker in certain respects, especially in her opposition to the Romantic, Rousseauian nature-worship aspect of modern thought, and if you liked her "Sexual Personae" and want to see how that set of ideas could be applied to classical literature regarding sex, this is an interesting effort.

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Rating:
2.5 out of 5 by Book123