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The Homeric ethical outlook creates conflicts for those who accept it. Some of the conflicts arise for the individual himself. He has to adjust his conception of his aims and interests to the demands of those who can honor or dishonor him. This may not create a conflict if other people endorse his aims. But the different aims of different individuals may create a conflict between the aims of one individual and the actions approved by others. In such a conflict the individual cannot claim to be following his own values against the expectations of others; for his values attach most importance to the approval of others, and he violates his own values if he fails to be guided by their opinions.

Achilles illustrates just this sort of conflict between self-assertion and conformity to the demands of others. He competes for honor with Agamemnon, and Agamemnon wins the first round by taking Briseis; but Achilles would have won the second round, had he accepted Agamemnon's offer of compensation. At this point Achilles seems almost to free himself from the normal heroic dependence on other people's opinion. He claims to be content with the prospect of an obscure life without honor, since honor is unstable and transitory, and in any case does not matter much to someone when he is dead. It turns out, however, that Achilles is not as independent and self-directed as he claims to be. His shame at the dishonor he suffers from the death of Patroclus forces him back into the battle, even though he knows his own death will be the result.

Homeric ethics creates these conflicts within an individual, but it also creates them within a society. For it gives each member a reason for doing actions that are bad for the society as a whole. Since each hero wants his own honor, and sees a reasonable chance of winning it in competition with others, he is unwilling to refrain from competition; but when everyone tolerates this system, it may be bad for everyone.

If heroic morality is bad even for the heroes who have most to gain from it, it is still worse for their social inferiors. They can expect protection from a hero, within the limits imposed by the hero's pursuit of his own honor; but these limits make the hero rather an unreliable protector. If I am a hero judging a legal action involving a poor dependant of mine and a rich man of my own social position, I may see no point in giving the verdict to the poor man, if an alliance with the superior man will do more for my status and honor. I will be an unreliable protector, just as Achilles was of Patroclus, and Hector of his family and community; for it is easy to think of situations where the duties of a protector have to come second to the overriding claims of honor. The hero's pride and self-esteem require the pursuit of the heroic virtues, and make him ashamed to fail in them.

Homer does not expose this consequence of Homeric ethics in the Iliad. It is closer to the surface in the Odyssey, in the conduct of Penelope's suitors. Their selfish and parasitic behaviour is bad for the whole community; and yet, from one point of view, it is eminently heroic, since it promises considerable rewards in honor and status for the lucky one who marries Penelope. But Homer's near contemporary, the poet Hesiod, exposes the antisocial aspects of Homeric morality. Like Homer, he recognizes a heroic age in the past; but in his own day he sees 'bribe-eating kings' who cheat the poor at law. The distance between the Homeric heroes and Hesiod's bribe-eating kings is quite short; even if Homer does not advocate the corrupt behaviour attacked by Hesiod, his own moral outlook seems to justify it.

Homer largely ignores the effects of the observance of 'Homeric morality on the non-heroic classes who are its victims. He attends to them in just one episode in the' Iliad. Thersites--a brash, obstreperous, and (for good measure) ugly rabble-rouser, corresponding to some people's prejudices about trade-union leaders--presents a good argument against the kings and their outlook, denouncing them as selfish parasites wasting the resources of the community. He is answered by the skilful debater Odysseus; this time, however, Odysseus relies not on his debating skill, but on forcible suppression. Homer is not the last conservative to approve of this treatment of subversive arguments presented by unmannerly people who do not know their place. Nor is he the last to represent the lower classes as agreeing with such treatment for those who complain about their betters.

A defender of Homeric morality might argue that, despite its inconvenient results for some people, it is on the whole best for an unstable society exposed to external attack; as a warrior and protector, the Homeric hero may seem to perform a service useful to his community. This is a weak defence; its weakness exposes a general flaw in explanations and defenses of social institutions that appeal to their positive function in society. Even if some defence is needed, why should the Homeric hero be the only, or the preferable, means of defence? And would his services be needed so much if he were not so devoted to quarrels and wars? His own values help to create the social conditions for which those values seem appropriate. . .

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