Your Doom is Sealed

Book 2 in my Leadership and the Liberal Arts class:  Homer, The Odyssey

I have read this book at least a half-dozen times.  Ever since I discovered the Fagles translation, I have been completely enamored with this book.  Rereading it this year was once again a marvelous experience—there is something a bit stunning in the fact that one of the oldest authors in the world has one of the best books ever written.  (Well, technically two of the best books ever written—The Iliad is also amazing.)  (And, yes, I know about the whole “Did Homer write Homer’s books?” debate. Yawn.)

One of the signs of this book’s greatness is the sheer number of ways it could be used in a classroom; there are a zillion different angles all woven throughout this book.  And it is a great story.  Truly Great story—the stuff of children’s books and potential dramatic Hollywood movies (though the last attempt to do so, Troy—ugh.  What was that disaster?  (Speaking of which, is there any hope the Russell Crowe Noah movie will be any good?)).

As a leadership text, Homer makes a fantastic bookend to the debate.  Odysseus is a Leader, with a capital L.  Why?   His virtues, beautifully illustrated in his stops along the way home, all point in one direction—never get distracted from your goal.  The man who succeeds is the man who avoids the temptations of the moment, always keeping a firm focus on the end goal.  And then, in the magnificent endgame, Odysseus goes out and takes what he wants.  He schemes and acts decisively.  Slaughter in the Hall.  Blood everywhere.  “How it would have thrilled your heart to see him—/splattered with bloody filth, a lion with his kill!” (23:51-52).  In the contest Odysseus vs (insert leader of your choice): who wins?  Odysseus by a mile.  The man is clever and silver-tongued and strong and brave.  He takes what he wants and all good people rally around him because he is a Natural Born Leader.

The framing story amplifies the point.  The book begins with Telemachus, Odysseus’ son, wondering if he is really good enough to follow in the footsteps of his long lost father.  As the story develops, Telemachus grows into maturity and becomes every bit the man his father is.  And then the book ends with a marvelous display of the passing of the heroic virtues from Laertes to his son Odysseus to his son Telemachus.  Homer asks the Muse to sing for our time too—and that is Homer’s challenge to us—are we good enough?  Can we too rise up and lead like Odysseus?  Or is our age so degenerate that we no longer recognize heroic leadership when we see it?

Homer would be utterly depressed by my class.  I tried really hard to convince them that this was True leadership, that simply rising up and acting was the best possible, if not the only, form of leadership.  I tried to convince them that the slaughter in the halls should be replicated here at Mount Holyoke—a single slaughter of the noisy, lawless students breaking quiet hours during finals week in one of the dorms, say Abbey, would be a magnificent act of leadership and bring untold benefits to the campus for years to come.  Yet, none of the students seemed to think murdering their fellow students as a means of bringing order to the society was a good idea.  (Shocking, I know.)  Indeed, they all seemed to think this sort of action wasn't really leadership at all.  They argued that true leadership really needs some sort of ethical core, that for example, Odysseus was sorely lacking in mercy.  They wanted more conversation, less action.

While I did not concede the point in class, the students were right. (Insert sighs of relief from the Reader who was hoping I didn’t really think a slaughter in a dorm was a good idea.)  Yet, faced with the starkness of Homeric leadership, it really is hard to see what other type of leadership would merit the name.  Odysseus, standing in the halls after the slaughter, is a magnificent image.  One part recoils from the image, one part is attracted to it.

All of which gets me wondering if leadership won’t end up being something like Honor—a double-sided coin which simply cannot be split into its good and bad sides, allowing us to have the good without the bad.  Twelve more books to go—maybe I’ll sort this out by the end of the semester.

For my Movie of The Odyssey, here is the song playing at loud volumes when Odysseus is slaughtering the suitors.