Thursday, August 13, 2026
The Odyssey and one present message.
Those who have been following this blog know that I have a bit of a fascination with the "Late Bronze Age Collapse," which refers to the sudden decline of several civilizations at the same time in the 1200's BC. From Europe to Asia, and particularly in the Eastern Mediterranean, societies seem to have gone into reverse socially, culturally and technologically. There is no real consensus on why, though theories range from environmental disasters to invasion by a suddenly dominant (and unidentified) group sometimes called "the Sea People."
My own theory is that this is what the Christopher Nolan film version of the Odyssey is really about. When Odysseus returns and tells Penelope about the destruction of Troy, she is taken aback. She has been fearing an invasion by the Sea People, but suddenly sees it differently. "We are the Sea People," she says, stricken.
In other words, it is the break-down of broad cultural norms (a key theme in The Odyssey) relating to how people treat one another that led to the universal breakdown, not invasion from a mysterious force. And yet fear of those outsiders had amplified the breakdown of norms, and made everything worse.
It is hard not to see this as a pretty contemporary message.
