The Ancient Greek gods are all the things that humans are — full of emotions, constantly making mistakes — with the exception of their immortality. It makes their lives and actions often comical or superficial — a sharp contrast to the humans that are often at their mercy. The gods can show their favor, or displeasure; men and women are puppets in their world. Barry B. Powell, author of a new free verse translation of Homer’s The Odyssey, examines the gods, fate, divine interventions, and what it means in the classic epic poem.
Fate and free in The Iliad and The Odyssey
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What role do the Gods play in The Iliad and The Odyssey?
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Who is Hercules and how does he play a role in The Odyssey?
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Greek Gods versus modern omnibenevolent God
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Barry B. Powell is Halls-Bascom Professor of Classics Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His new free verse translation of The Odyssey was published by Oxford University Press in 2014. His translation of The Iliad was published by Oxford University Press in 2013.
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Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey is a classic adventure filled with shipwrecks, feuds, obstacles, mythical creatures, and divine interventions. But how to visualize the thrilling voyage?
The map below traces Odysseus’s travel as recounted to the Phaeacians near the end of his wandering across the Mediterranean. Odysseus’s ten-year trek began in Asia Minor at the fallen city of Troy (the green marker) following the end of the Trojan War. His ultimate destination: his home in Ithaca (the red marker). Click the markers for information on each step of his journey. It is important to note that the 14 locations plotted on this map have been widely debated by both ancient and modern scholars.
Barry Powell, translator of a new edition of The Odyssey, asserts that the currently agreed upon location of the Island of the Sun (#11) is in fact modern-day Sicily. However, the characters in The Odyssey are in “never-never land,” and consequently, the locations plotted cannot be deemed entirely accurate.
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Barry B. Powell is Halls-Bascom Professor of Classics Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His new free verse translation of The Odyssey was published by Oxford University Press in 2014. His translation of The Iliad was published by Oxford University Press in 2013.
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By Adam Ferrier
So, recently there was another report from the scientists of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) telling us that climate change (what used to be called global warming) is upon us and there are real changes happening now. The scientists urged us to heed their warning and change our behaviours, and we ignored them in droves. Why we ignored them is interesting. The information they are giving us is dire. The environment is already changing for the worse, and will continue to change. We must all act now to avert some pretty disastrous outcomes.
However, the real issue is that humans just don’t really care about the information they have to hand. We never have. We’ve just lived through the wonderfully coined ‘information age’, a time where all of the world’s information was organised for us and made available to all of our fingertips. How many of the world’s problems did all of this easily accessible information solve? None.
The presentation of information alone is rarely a powerful enough motivator to get people to change. Especially when the information is complex, negative, or about the future (such as information about climate change). Due to various cognitive biases and a desire to believe everything is ok just the way it is we tend to tune out. How then can scientists get their message across, and effect genuine behavioural change within the broader community?
Well, there is a very handy behavioural change tool in existence, one that has proved itself capable of changing behaviour en-mass time and time again. This tool has been used to get people to loose weight, make them move more, volunteer their time to good causes, and cook healthier meals for themselves. This tool is one that if scientists could get hold of it, and use its powers effectively could get people to change their behaviours and start to look after the environment. The tool is called ‘reality TV’.
It pains me to say this, but over the course of the last 15 years, high-rating reality TV shows have continually proved themselves to be the best changers of mass behaviour. In my country of origin, Australia, we only need to look at what Bondi Rescue did for surf club enrolments, what The Block has done for the home renovation industry, and what Masterchef has done for the sales of Wagyu beef. Every country would have its own proven examples of reality TV changing the behaviour of the masses.
Reality TV is a great behavioural change agent because we like to be entertained first and informed second. An entertaining platform helps to make information that will be useful easier to digest. However, this is not all. To change people’s behaviour, you need to consider their motivation to do something and how easy it is for them to do it. Reality TV shows are a great way of increasing motivation for a particular activity as they make something feel like it’s already popular and thereby change the social norms (i.e. if there is a reality TV show about something it must be popular; therefore, I should get involved). People like to conform so if they think others are already doing something, they’ll do it too. However, reality TV shows also make a new behaviour easier to do by modelling it. Ever watched a reality cooking show? They model how to do the behaviour. So reality TV, in more ways than one, increases people’s motivation to undertake that behaviour and makes it easier by skilling people up via modelling.
So, the people who can make us start taking proactive steps towards saving the environment are the producers of reality TV. They will also need to convince the broadcasters that a TV show about the environment will rate. Thus, the show needs to be an extremely compelling reality TV series where you have lovable winners and lots of losers battling it out to save the environment.
Those who come up with good ways to make a difference to the planet will, just like the contestants on the cooking shows who dream up a great way to cook cous cous, act as models for all of us. We, too, will adopt the winning behaviours, and momentum will build to start acting in a pro-environmental way, becoming mainstream very quickly.
Unfortunately, there is a saying in TV that states ‘green doesn’t rate’, and this is largely because they have been treated as overly worthy, or blandly in the past. No one has sensationalised and popularised environmental issues as only reality TV can. This means, even more so, that we have to dumb down the environmental messages and turn them into a reality TV show. There you go Simon Cowell, here’s your new big challenge. You got the world singing, now get us all to take positive action to save our wonderful planet.
Adam Ferrier is a consumer psychologist and Chief Strategy Officer at independent creative:media agency Cummins & Partners. His book http://www.oxford.com.au/ferrier.” target=”_blank”>The Advertising Effect: How to Change Behaviour
is out May 28th.
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