A Brief Assessment of Greek Culture

Homer aside, the Greeks left us two things as their legacy: philosophy and drama.

The philosophers, concerned with discerning the nature of reality and with defining the good, presented systematic theories on how we should live our lives.  The dramatists, by contrast, told us that there was no telling appearance from reality and that all moral codes have a breaking point: systems won't work.  That breaking point is most clearly defined in Antigone, which best captures the point made by Hegel, millenia later, that tragedy is not the conflict between right and wrong, but between right and right. The tragedians (more so than the comedians, perhaps) acknowledge that there are times when we have multiple conflicting moral obligations and that the good cannot be defined.  Both perspectives -- that of the philosophers and that of the dramatists -- hold equally true -- and hold equal sway on our lives.