How does the classical world shape our politics, culture, language and lives today?
On today’s episode, we’re joined by two of the greatest names making classics accessible for the modern day.
Dame Mary Beard is a classicist who taught at Cambridge for almost 40 years. She has close to 20 books to her name, including Pompeii, which won the Wolfson History Prize, SPQR and Emperor of Rome, both of which were bestsellers in the UK and US.
Charlotte Higgins is the chief culture writer of the Guardian. She studied Classics at university , and has since written many books on this topic, including Greek Myths: A New Retelling.
Charlotte and Mary sat down with classicist and author Honor Cargill-Martin to explore taking a ‘post-truth’ approach to antiquity, how the idea of the Romans have been used as a political tool throughout history, and what the Greeks got right and wrong about human nature.
You can find more of Mary and Charlotte discussing antiquity and the present day on their new podcast, Instant Classics, available to watch or listen weekly from Thursday August 28.
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Does Charlotte get a chance to talk in part 2? 🤣
Rich guys and how they got rich and what they spend their riches on and how wonderfully brilliant and insightful they are. Boring.
the answer to most of these debates is never one or the other but a gray area in between...
interesting perspective
interesting convo
we don't need myths. in the same way we can accept the rules of a made up game, we can accept and live how a society has set up its rules.
i feel like i wouldn't want immortality unless i got to decide when to shut it all down.
weird to hear about AI being discussed over a decade ago and being in the AI world now
i feel it has to be a balance of caring for your well being and caring for others - odd he's a conservative commentator when they are the ones who tend to care less for other people and are very "i got mine, screw you" or "unless you are exactly like me, screw you"
we need community and purpose... we don't need religion and unsubstantiated claims
dont drink wine but still interesting to hear about how it's judged
there's this weird idea of looking at facts and caring about outcomes instead of just relying on what you feel like should be the case
again the question isn't should we have done nothing, it's whether this was the correct response and looking back, I'd say no
Glad to hear someone with reasonable views
Chanel supports genocide #BDS now #NoThanks https://www.algemeiner.com/2023/10/18/chanel-tory-burch-others-fashion-donate-help-israelis-impacted-hamas-war/
As a Pakistani history teacher, I am enjoying this conversation. it is informative.
Podcast is great but this episode is meaningless, unstructured rambling.
This guest is #RoseColoredGlassesSquared or maybe even to 3rd power, while vastly underestimating the power of #TribalIdentities, #ConfirmationBias & #PartisanMediaInputs. Media presents polar opposites incompatible truths that people believe implicitly. At least in the US, the people he is talking about might be the middle 10-15%. The bulk of the rest are dyed in the wool #TrueBelievers for their side, where no amount of evidence can sway their views. Even #Socrates said you couldn't change a man's mind with facts, but only with months of many discussions questioning him with curiosity until he finds his own logic errors, and even then thats a maybe.
say what you mean, Ms. Jin, don't spanning around, unfortunately the podcast does NOT answer the question ( which I'm afraid she simply can't for the very obvious reason): does Western understand China wrong?
Complete nonsense. Sexist man hating feminist spin doctor. Don't waste your time. Especially if you are looking for a balanced look at the world we live in. Sad this is getting any air time.