a third thing, and two others
Jun. 9th, 2010 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaznettiWhile I was tossing around thoughts on Methos' relation to Greek and Roman culture, I wondered: if Methos is an Epicurean, does that mean that Duncan is a Stoic?" Having thought about it, I keep coming around to a resounding "no."
Not that I don't still think that Duncan would have done perfectly well in Rome: I mean, this is a society built around concepts of duty and mutual obligation with a sideline in military excellence, and really, have you met Duncan? He wouldn't love everything about it: there's a lot not to love, like the whole massively corrupt kleptocracy side of things. (Methos would also like to mention the time he ended up on the losing side of a battle against the Romans and was enslaved and sent off to work in the mines in Spain until he dropped dead. This is one of those situations in which resurrection is not your friend. I would like to point out that it would have been nice if this story had ended with a slave rebellion in which lots of people escaped and ran away to live in the mountains of central and northern Spain, but that this is not the Methos Way.) But then again, being offended by certain kinds of Rome-inflicted injustice is a pretty Roman thing: you could pretty much make a political career out of yelling, "You! Clean up your act!" at other senators.
This is where my imperfect knowledge of Duncan's history is going to be a problem, but I can't recall seeing him interact with philosophers working in the Western traditions; whenever I think of Duncan and philosophy, I end up thinking of east Asian philosophy.* There is something about the contemplative life as expressed in the Western tradition which just doesn't seem right for Duncan; and although Stoicism does prioritize the active life, there are cruelties in it that I can see Duncan perhaps accepting for himself but never for other people. And I'm not sure that Duncan is interested in topics outside of ethics; I'm not even sure that he's interested in political philosophy. No, I lie: aesthetics is the other subject that clearly interests Duncan, and I don't know enough about that to even guess how he thinks about it, and how that maps onto aesthetics as an area of philosophical enquiry.
I think that the (Roman, anti-philosophical) distinction between teaching via exempla and teaching via praecepta might make sense to Duncan: that it is easier to teach people what the right thing to do is by doing the right thing and setting an example for others to follow, rather than by explaining it to them in words. Isn't that just what Duncan does, over and over again? I don't even know that he's particularly conscious of it, maybe because he has a surprising number of friends who are not the kind of people who follow good examples.
*At this point I fully expect someone to remind me of that episode where Duncan is hanging out with Wittgenstein or Bertrand Russell or something. At which point I will have to admit that I am completely making this up as I go along.
* * *
In other news, I am watching Spartacus: Blood and Sand, and think I like it. Anyway, there are things about it that I rather like, although I could do with less slow-motion blood spurting.
* * *
Also, I followed a link to the Racebending Revenge ficathon, and my first thought was that it would really be interesting to do a something from the ancient world -- actually, I thought wouldn't it be interesting if Livia's mother were Syrian, rather than an Italian -- but there's a huge "could that even happen?" problem. Plus there's a big debate about whether the kinds of prejudice which exist in the ancient world can be called "racism" at all, about which I change my mind every second Tuesday, and by which I would become distracted. Also, I think it would be all too cherchez la femme, and more a thought-experiment than a story. But I could happily talk around the story.
Not that I don't still think that Duncan would have done perfectly well in Rome: I mean, this is a society built around concepts of duty and mutual obligation with a sideline in military excellence, and really, have you met Duncan? He wouldn't love everything about it: there's a lot not to love, like the whole massively corrupt kleptocracy side of things. (Methos would also like to mention the time he ended up on the losing side of a battle against the Romans and was enslaved and sent off to work in the mines in Spain until he dropped dead. This is one of those situations in which resurrection is not your friend. I would like to point out that it would have been nice if this story had ended with a slave rebellion in which lots of people escaped and ran away to live in the mountains of central and northern Spain, but that this is not the Methos Way.) But then again, being offended by certain kinds of Rome-inflicted injustice is a pretty Roman thing: you could pretty much make a political career out of yelling, "You! Clean up your act!" at other senators.
This is where my imperfect knowledge of Duncan's history is going to be a problem, but I can't recall seeing him interact with philosophers working in the Western traditions; whenever I think of Duncan and philosophy, I end up thinking of east Asian philosophy.* There is something about the contemplative life as expressed in the Western tradition which just doesn't seem right for Duncan; and although Stoicism does prioritize the active life, there are cruelties in it that I can see Duncan perhaps accepting for himself but never for other people. And I'm not sure that Duncan is interested in topics outside of ethics; I'm not even sure that he's interested in political philosophy. No, I lie: aesthetics is the other subject that clearly interests Duncan, and I don't know enough about that to even guess how he thinks about it, and how that maps onto aesthetics as an area of philosophical enquiry.
I think that the (Roman, anti-philosophical) distinction between teaching via exempla and teaching via praecepta might make sense to Duncan: that it is easier to teach people what the right thing to do is by doing the right thing and setting an example for others to follow, rather than by explaining it to them in words. Isn't that just what Duncan does, over and over again? I don't even know that he's particularly conscious of it, maybe because he has a surprising number of friends who are not the kind of people who follow good examples.
*At this point I fully expect someone to remind me of that episode where Duncan is hanging out with Wittgenstein or Bertrand Russell or something. At which point I will have to admit that I am completely making this up as I go along.
* * *
In other news, I am watching Spartacus: Blood and Sand, and think I like it. Anyway, there are things about it that I rather like, although I could do with less slow-motion blood spurting.
* * *
Also, I followed a link to the Racebending Revenge ficathon, and my first thought was that it would really be interesting to do a something from the ancient world -- actually, I thought wouldn't it be interesting if Livia's mother were Syrian, rather than an Italian -- but there's a huge "could that even happen?" problem. Plus there's a big debate about whether the kinds of prejudice which exist in the ancient world can be called "racism" at all, about which I change my mind every second Tuesday, and by which I would become distracted. Also, I think it would be all too cherchez la femme, and more a thought-experiment than a story. But I could happily talk around the story.
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-09 02:38 pm (UTC)He'd probably get along all right with some of the Western contemplatives -- he does have a mystic streak in him, and a tendency to turn hermit from time to time -- but he likes the world too much to renounce it for good. And despite the years of his mortal life, he isn't a renaissance man, not really; he grew up on the far Celtic fringe of northern Europe, and in some ways he's more a creature of the high middle ages than of the renaissance. In the back of his mind, I suspect that he still makes the tripartite division of the world into those who work, those who fight, and those who pray, and considers that as one of those who fight, it's his job -- his vocation, really -- to take care of the other two groups. (An idealistic formation rather than a reflection of reality, to be sure, but Duncan is nothing if not a howling idealist, and if four centuries and then some haven't knocked it out of him, then he's probably stuck that way.)
no subject
Date: 2010-06-09 08:55 pm (UTC)Yes, I think this is right -- although I think that Duncan is also good at recategorizing, at least on an individual level -- I think that's something all Immortals who don't go crazy become, if they live long enough, simply because being able to recognize when your expectations don't match your reality is something of a survival skill.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-09 03:15 pm (UTC)Quite. He also gets along very well with actual Romans when he meets them, like Marcus Constantine in Pharao's Daughter. (Not a good episode - it's the infamous one where Cleopatra's handmaiden is an Immortal and wakes up after 2000 years unconscious speaking perfect English - but Marcus is likeable.)
Re: Duncan & Western philosophers - I don't recall a meeting with Wittgenstein, no.:) He does have a liking for scholary monks, between Darius and Paul (that's the one Kalas killed), enough so to spend years in Paul's monastery post-Culloden when he was on a soul-searching atonment trip. But theology and philosophy are not the same thing, so they probably don't count as Western philosophers.
And I'm not sure that Duncan is interested in topics outside of ethics; I'm not even sure that he's interested in political philosophy. No, I lie: aesthetics is the other subject that clearly interests Duncan, and I don't know enough about that to even guess how he thinks about it, and how that maps onto aesthetics as an area of philosophical enquiry.
He does have a fondness for music and theatre (in the active sense, being part of the troupe sense, not just in the audience sense) which is more Greek than Roman, or perhaps if Roman, then Antonius-, not Augustus-style Roman. :) And knows more about who invented the twist than Methos, if that quiz at the start of CaH is anything to go by; at a guess, it's one of the ways to keep connected with the passing times rather than aesthetics as a part of philosophy.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-09 09:04 pm (UTC)Well, it depends on the theology -- and the philosophy: you can't really think about Augustine and Aquinas without Plato and Aristotle, can you? And there are some Neoplatonic strands to be found in there. I will consider eating my hat, if you like, although I can more easily see Duncan spending his time praying than philosophizing.
As for the theater, elite Romans are all acting all the time, which is precisely why doing it on stage is so threatening: it makes it clear that the role is a role. After all, Augustus' last words were something like, "If I've played my part well, give me a round of applause and let me go." But on aesthetics... doesn't Duncan end up teaching something about antique weapons? I have that as a memory. And on the one hand these are things he knows as tools, but he also seems to me to appreciate them for their beauty.
(I remember the Cleopatra episode! ::rolls eyes::)