Maurizio Bettini - In Praise of Polytheism

Its fairly uncommon to page through a book of philosophy without coming across at least one quotation by Plato. This is true not only for academic or scholarly works dedicated to ancient philosophy, but for philosophical writings in general. Philosophers are always conversing with Plato. In the same way, people interested in semiotics read Aristotle, alongside the works of Charles S. Pierce, and St. Augustine too. And even popular books about democracy (a critical topic these days), often find inspiration, for better or for worse, in the Greek forms of democracy, especially the one from Athens. I mention these facts in order to defend a rather obvious thesis: classical antiquity is not just a popular topic for professional classicists or students working their way through the consecutio temporum; it constitutes a source of inspiration, a living source, for contemporary cultural production.

This is clearly true in other fields spanning across literature (from Seamus Heaney to Derek Walcott), the visual arts (the numerous ancient works re-envisioned by contemporary artists), theater (new productions of Greek tragedies are often genuine rewritings), up to the tenth muse of cinema. Even though the ancients will never know anything about it, they have been for the moderns the muses for whom they searched. I can safely claim that just as happened in the pastin the Middle Ages, in the Renaissance, and in the Age of Enlightenment or in the 1900sGreek and Roman cultural creations remain relevant, and continue to provide food for thought for todays culture. It is not my intention here to discuss how and to what extent this classical presence is still alive in the contemporary world, and even less to compare our times to those of the past. This is not my aim. I simply want to highlight how classical philosophy, politics, literature, art, and theater (that is, the vast majority of their cultural production) stay relevant not only as objects of study for Greek and Roman scholars, but how they interact daily with contemporary culture. And religion? Can we say the same about the many religions of classical antiquity? Do they play a similar role today?

These questions may sound bizarre, since according to conventional wisdom, religion is not considered a form of cultural production comparable to theater or art. Religion gives the impression of being something else. We really should know better, though, when we are discussing civilizationsespecially the ancient onesin which sculpture was intended to provide religious imagery, poetry was often construed as an offering to the gods on a par with material sacrifice, rituals were regularly accompanied by music and song, and ceremonies were carried out in buildings whose architecture is still admired today. And this doesnt even begin to take into consideration that a large part of what we call classical literature could be categorized as stories about gods and heroes, and thusfrom a certain point of viewas works of a religious character. There is no question, therefore, that religion in the ancient world was a legitimate cultural product; moreover, it was a locus in which multiple cultural forms were interlaced. The fact that religion is a fully cultural construct is fairly evident: if it werent, its practices and organization would not have changed so radically from one era to another, from one continent to another, or from one nation to another. Why, then, does ancient religion remain tightly closed behind the doors of university departments (those few in which it is still taught, incidentally) and provide material for scholarly conferences, yet never seems to interact with contemporary culture to the same degree as theater or philosophy?

The answer is predictable enough: because Christianity has, since its beginnings, gradually positioned itself against ancient religions, relegating them to the territory of falsehood and error. And Christianity is not only still alive and well, compared to the ancient religions, but it has earned a place as the dominant religion in many parts of the globe. More importantly, it even influences a large portion of the cultural perceptions of people who are no longer or have never been Christians, but who are nevertheless part of a post-Christian civilization. Although it is not explicitly stated anymore (and for obvious reasons, since the ancient gods lost their followers quite a long time ago), the original Christian censure remains present in the very words that are used to define the Greek and Roman religions: words such as paganism, idolatry, and polytheism itself (about which we will speak later).

If we return to the theme of Christian censure, we see that whenever any aspect of the Greek or Roman religion managed to escape this censorship, it was only because it had changed its meaning or its identity. The gods who were honored and venerated by two civilizations, and who were at the center of quite complex social, cultural, and intellectual organizations, have been shrunk down, transformed into characters from a generic mythology, turned into mere actors within tales of fantasy. The results of this metamorphosis, carried out centuries ago, are still very much present in our culture. To take one example, the Wikipedia page about the goddess Juno is entitled Juno (mythology). Already in the early 1800s, the Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi had understood how pointless any appeal to classical mythology was since we havent inherited the Greek and Latin religion like we have their literature.

Although the movie industry has revived many ancient gods, hybridizing them with Marvel characters, ancient polytheism (from this point forward I too will call it by this name) is not a source of living inspiration for modern and contemporary culture comparable to the Greek and Roman philosophy and theater. I do not mean to suggest that there have not been modern poets, philosophers, writers, or directors who celebrated the values of polytheism. But this is not the place to investigate the history of such a complex phenomenon.in the mysterious Program of German Idealism found amongst Hegels papers and written (or transcribed) in his handwriting:

Poetry thereby obtains a higher dignity [...]. At the same time we so often hear that the great multitude should have a sensual religion. Not only the great multitude, but even philosophy needs it. Monotheism of reason and the heart, polytheism of the imagination and art, that is what we need! [...] we must have a new mythology; this mythology must, however, stand in the service of ideas, it must become a mythology of reason. Until we make ideas aesthetic, i.e. mythological, they hold no interest for the people, and conversely, before mythology is reasonable, the philosopher must be ashamed of it.