Why Remembrance Day is on November 11: First Look to ‘The Iliad’ by Homer

Thanks to Christopher Nolan’s latest blockbuster, The Odyssey, there has been a resurgence of interest in things ancient, Greek, and classical.  In part, this represents a longing for historical knowledge and a desire to contextualize our rapid fire - and rather uncertain - times into a greater narrative of events: such an imagined past might give us meaning, or perspective. 

At the same time, it is in itself suggestive of a pre-Socratic shift in contemporary culture and thinking.  We are less interested in the reflections of Socrates, or his student, Plato, or his student, Aristotle.  Plato, for instance, is less central today, because his idea of politics (as found in The Republic) resembles a form of basic communism, deflowered by the Russian, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago (tr. 1974).  For some, Plato may still offer a valuable critique of democracy, as learned from the death of Socrates at the hands of the demos, or people of Athens.  Aristotle, too, is less fashionable today, owing to his preoccupation with the idea of moderation, the kind of thing in which Canadians alone seem to indulge.

Instead, we have turned  from the classic Greek philosophers to the philosophy of “the flux” as represented by Heraclitus, who stated famously, “The river where you set your foot just now is gone – those waters giving way to this, now this”.[1]  Heraclitus is also remembered for “All things change” and “War is the father of all things”.[2]  Certainly, these thoughts may resonate with the public today, even though they are associated with - if not also espoused by - far Right figures and followers of the German philosopher Heidegger, for example, a known Nazi.

Thus, Homer’s Iliad and The Odyssey – both -  fit within today’s prevailing cultural, pre-Socratic paradigm:  The Trojan War and Odysseus’s 10-year journey back to Ithaca from that war are evocative of a mentality that is less ‘reasonable’ and more ‘epic’, ‘tragic’, and even, in the magical sense, ‘unbelievable’ (if we are to consider, as well, the gods of Olympus ruling over mere mortals).

The role of ‘irrational’ thought to the pre-Socratic mind, however, is not unique to today.  A similar wave of pre-Socratic thought swept Europe in the decades before the First World War (1914-1918), notably represented by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and his French counterpart, Henri Bergson.  Nietzsche, who liked to ‘philosophize with a hammer’, wanted to celebrate Homer and despised Socrates for succumbing to a ‘herd’ mentality.  Bergson spoke of ‘intuition’ and ‘creative becoming’, notions which animated French soldiers as they marched off to their deaths in bright red trousers in the early days of war.

It is also important to realize that, prior to the First World War, Europe had a shared culture in its Greek and Roman heritage, particularly among the educated elite and aristocracy.  This aristocracy came to lose its political hold after the levelling effects of the Great War: following ‘mass’ mobilization and death, the Soviet end to Tsarism in Russia, the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Ottoman Empire, and the abdication of the German Emperor Kaiser Willhelm II.

Today, we have, in effect, almost forgotten how important knowledge and an understanding of the classics was to higher society before the First World War.  In a learned study, The Greek Heritage in Victorian Britain (1981), Frank M. Turner remarks: “Indeed, in 1865 the major commentator on Homer as well as a major translator of the poet, the chief critic and historian of Greek literature, the most significant political historians of Greece, and the authors of the then most extensive commentaries on Greek philosophy either were or had been members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons.”[3]

Just about everybody knows that the First World War Armistice was announced on the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month: November 11, 1918.  But why the 11^th?  Was this just a matter of convenient symmetry?  In my view, there is far more than what meets the eye here.  What I am suggesting is that the 11^th is impossible to understand without a knowledge of The Iliad and without an appreciation for the significance of the number 12 in Western culture.

The Iliad is filled with references to the number 12.  And, indeed, there are 12 Greek gods, as well as 12 Norse gods.  There are 12 hours of the day, and 12 hours of the night; 12 months in a year; Jesus had 12 disciples; and, of course, a “ruler” (in my day) had 12 inches.  In other words, the number 12 was at the numerical “base” of Western culture after which the cycle of 12 is thought to be repeated.

Looking closely at the last chapter in The Iliad (chapter 24!) we see that Achilles, in the battle for Troy, has taken revenge for the death of his friend Patroclus and killed Hector.  Hector’s father, Priam, ruler of Troy, grieves for his son and wants the return of his body.  Following the intervention of Zeus, Priam offers a huge ransom for his son.  Priam then makes his way to Achilles’s camp in secret - and together they both weep, as Achilles, too, thinks of his own father.  Priam then asks that he and his fellow Trojans be allowed to mourn Hector for 11 days: “On the 12^th we will fight, if we really have to”.[4]  Achilles agrees to this.

Thus, as the First World War ground itself to a halt and as Empires began to crumble, the number 11 – as inspired by The Iliad – was inevitably considered by leading politicians and other important figures as an appropriate occasion for mourning: hence the Armistice on November 11.  There are other parallels between the First World War and The Iliad: notably a long trench (built by the Greeks to defend themselves from the Trojans) and the poppy, symbolic of a man’s head weighed down by death.  Most of this has been forgotten today, as we are no longer schooled in the ancient Greek language as was the aristocracy in 19^th century Europe.

We can carry the argument even further by looking ahead to the timing of the Paris Peace Conference which began, interestingly, on Saturday, January 18, 1919, so promoting ‘continuity’ between the Armistice and a subsequent Peace.  Accordingly, historical dates are not all random happenings, and certainly not the Armistice of November 11, 1918.

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[1] Heraclitus, Fragments, tr. Brooks Haxton (Toronto : Penguin, 2003), p. 27

[2] Ibid., p. 25.

[3] Frank M. Turner, The Greek Heritage in Victorian Britain (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), p. 5.

[4] Homer, The Iliad, tr. E.V. Rieu, revised by Peter Jones and D.C.H. Rieu (London : Penguin: 2003), p. 438.

St. Upid

 
      h/t Being Liberal

Whigs & Tories – and Trump’s Air Force One decoy

Elsewhere I have indicated that Trump has been busy overturning the Lockean tradition in America.  So, Trump, in other words, is no Whig, or liberal.  But let’s not mistake him for a Tory, either.

The key Whig virtue is “keeping one’s word” or “trust” which is the building block of a predictable commercial society, where there are contractual forms of interdependence.[1]  We find the beginnings of this in the Scottish Enlightenment and in the eighteenth-century Age of Enlightenment generally.  Whig virtue is an expression of rational, constitutional freedom, along with notions of a principled and accountable public life.  Hence: public honesty.  The concept of a National Debt was, consequently, a Whig invention; it was intended to help with obligations to those in despair.

The key Tory virtue, on the other hand, is “loyalty”, one based on landed wealth, for which the idea of a National Debt came to be considered an unbearable burden.  Hereditary rights and hierarchical order are therefore preeminent.  So too is the authority of the patriarch, the central pillar behind Sir Robert Filmer, who, writing in Patriarcha (1680), defended the book of Genesis, the lineage of those descended from Adam, and the importance of an absolute monarchy accountable to no person.

The struggle between Whigs and Tories in America is mirrored in divisions between the North and South, and the American Civil War, which explains why Trump relocated from New York City to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.  It’s a struggle between rational freedom and personal loyalty, or at least it was.

Here’s the kicker: while Trump certainly does not engender Whig “trust”, he can no longer command Tory “loyalty”.  Trump’s Air Force One scandal, when he secretly switched planes to avoid an apparent threat by vengeful Iranians – only to leave in the decoy plane members of his own  Cabinet (Marco Rubio and Scott Bessent) as well as members of the media  - can only introduce doubt among the indoctrinated.  This story became public on 10 August.  This is quite possibly why White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced her resignation two days following, on 12 August. 

It also reminds us of Trump’s attitude towards his own former Vice President, Mike Pence, at the time of the January insurrection against Congress  in 2021.  Mike Pence was expendable then.  So, too, are Rubio and Bessent today.  One can only speculate as to why these two men in particular could be sacrificed while Pete Hegseth, apparently, travelled along with Trump.

Anglo-Saxon Tory “loyalty” was sometimes considered on a par with Asiatic cultures – notably India and China, each with a recognizable tradition of hierarchy and patriarchy.[2]  I suspect, however, that there is a difference in terms of degree.   Trump has pushed the boundaries of Anglo-Saxon “loyalty” with his Air Force One decoy.  He has instead clearly entered the realm of despotism, the main element of which is “fear”.

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[1] See John W. Burrow, “Henry Maine and mid-Victorian ideas of progress” in Alan Diamond, The Victorian Achievement of Sir Henry Maine: A Centennial Reappraisal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 57.  See also John W. Burrow, A Liberal Descent: Victorian Historians and the English Past (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 77.

[2] John W. Burrow in The Victorian Achievements of Sir Henry Maine, p. 57.

Canada’s problem with the ‘equality of feeling’ as found in the CBC

Turn on any English language CBC programme as it churns out the breathless news of the day, and you will hear the same fundamental question: ‘how do you feel about such and such event?’ – not: ‘what do you think?’  The difference is telling, and it is evident our public broadcaster is still afflicted by aspects of Trudeau-era Romanticism.  Here, for the benefit of the reader, is a succinct analysis of the hidden assumptions – and shortcomings - behind the idea that everyone is equal in feeling:

The phrase equal feeling is at the root of the matter.  Man is by nature good.  He is by nature the equal of his fellow men; that is to say, equality of men is really an equality of goodness.  Now men have come to differ obviously in outward circumstances, in wealth and power.  That in which they still preserve a rough sort of equality is feeling.  Our desires are surely more nearly common than anything else about us.  If then we assume that feeling, instinct, desire, are in themselves good, we have brought equality into the practical world.  We have gained a powerful means of persuading people that inequality is not in the nature of man.  We have put inequality, and the whole problem of evil, into the accident of things; that is, into our environment.  A little freewill can work wonders with environment.  We have solved the problem of evil, and with that one assumption – that man’s feelings are naturally good.  That men have similar feelings observation shows.  Therefore men have similar goodness.  Hence something unnatural, something foreign to man’s real self, has produced badness and inequality among men.[1]

 

 

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[1] Crane Brinton, The Political Ideas of the English Romanticists (London: Oxford University Press, 1926), p. 25.

President or King? A look at Federalist No. 69

In the Federalist Papers, the framers of the U.S. constitution specifically sought to dispel fears the American presidency was comparable with the British king: The equivalency, in their eyes, was considered  false.  The following excerpts illustrate the argument that the powers of presidency could not exceed that of the governor of New York, for example.  Readers, however, should also keep in mind that the authority associated with the British monarchy has diminished (partly in response to American Independence and the French Revolution) since the signing of  the American Constitution in 1787.

That magistrate is to be elected for FOUR years; and is to be re-eligible as often as the people of the United States shall think him worthy of their confidence. In these circumstances there is a total dissimilitude between HIM and a king of Great Britain, who is an HEREDITARY monarch, possessing the crown as a patrimony descendible to his heirs forever; but there is a close analogy between HIM and a governor of New York, who is elected for THREE years, and is re-eligible without limitation or intermission. If we consider how much less time would be requisite for establishing a dangerous influence in a single State, than for establishing a like influence throughout the United States, we must conclude that a duration of FOUR years for the Chief Magistrate of the Union is a degree of permanency far less to be dreaded in that office, than a duration of THREE years for a corresponding office in a single State.

The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the king of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable; there is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable; no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution. In this delicate and important circumstance of personal responsibility, the President of Confederated America would stand upon no better ground than a governor of New York, and upon worse ground than the governors of Maryland and Delaware.

…

Hence it appears that, except as to the concurrent authority of the President in the article of treaties, it would be difficult to determine whether that magistrate would, in the aggregate, possess more or less power than the Governor of New York. And it appears yet more unequivocally, that there is no pretense for the parallel which has been attempted between him and the king of Great Britain. But to render the contrast in this respect still more striking, it may be of use to throw the principal circumstances of dissimilitude into a closer group.

The President of the United States would be an officer elected by the people for FOUR years; the king of Great Britain is a perpetual and HEREDITARY prince. The one would be amenable to personal punishment and disgrace; the person of the other is sacred and inviolable. The one would have a QUALIFIED negative upon the acts of the legislative body; the other has an ABSOLUTE negative. The one would have a right to command the military and naval forces of the nation; the other, in addition to this right, possesses that of DECLARING war, and of RAISING and REGULATING fleets and armies by his own authority. The one would have a concurrent power with a branch of the legislature in the formation of treaties; the other is the SOLE POSSESSOR of the power of making treaties. The one would have a like concurrent authority in appointing to offices; the other is the sole author of all appointments. The one can confer no privileges whatever; the other can make denizens of aliens, noblemen of commoners; can erect corporations with all the rights incident to corporate bodies. The one can prescribe no rules concerning the commerce or currency of the nation; the other is in several respects the arbiter of commerce, and in this capacity can establish markets and fairs, can regulate weights and measures, can lay embargoes for a limited time, can coin money, can authorize or prohibit the circulation of foreign coin. The one has no particle of spiritual jurisdiction; the other is the supreme head and governor of the national church! What answer shall we give to those who would persuade us that things so unlike resemble each other? The same that ought to be given to those who tell us that a government, the whole power of which would be in the hands of the elective and periodical servants of the people, is an aristocracy, a monarchy, and a despotism

 

Source: Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers: No. 69 “The Real Character of the Executive”, Friday March 14, 1788.  Yale Avalon Project, online.

Tim Cook's 'Lifesavers and Body Snatchers' - A Review by George Eliot

Tim Cook, Canada’s most prolific war historian, and I both did our undergraduate studies in History at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada.  I was interested in reviewing his book Lifesavers and Body Snatchers: Medical Care and the Struggle for Survival in the Great War (Penguin, 2022).  Unfortunately, he was overtaken by death in the meantime at age 54.  So, I chose otherwise.  Here, from my readings of George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1872), is, in my view, the most conceivably light-footed manner for replying to Cook’s work:

“I am thinking of a great fellow, who was about as old as I am three hundred years ago, and had already begun a new era in anatomy.”

“I can’t guess,” said Rosamond, shaking her head. “We used to play at guessing historical characters at Mrs. Lemon’s, but not anatomists.”

“I’ll tell you. His name was Vesalius. And the only way he could get to know anatomy as he did, was by going to snatch bodies at night, from graveyards and places of execution.”

“Oh!” said Rosamond, with a look of disgust on her pretty face, “I am very glad you are not Vesalius. I should have thought he might find some less horrible way than that.”

“No, he couldn’t,” said Lydgate, going on too earnestly to take much notice of her answer. “He could only get a complete skeleton by snatching the whitened bones of a criminal from the gallows, and burying them, and fetching them away by bits secretly, in the dead of night.”

“I hope he is not one of your great heroes,” said Rosamond, half playfully, half anxiously, “else I shall have you getting up in the night to go to St. Peter’s churchyard. You know how angry you told me the people were about Mrs. Goby. You have enemies enough already.”

“So had Vesalius, Rosy. No wonder the medical fogies in Middlemarch are jealous, when some of the greatest doctors living were fierce upon Vesalius because they had believed in Galen, and he showed that Galen was wrong. They called him a liar and a poisonous monster. But the facts of the human frame were on his side; and so he got the better of them.”

“And what happened to him afterwards?” said Rosamond, with some interest.

“Oh, he had a good deal of fighting to the last. And they did exasperate him enough at one time to make him burn a good deal of his work. Then he got shipwrecked just as he was coming from Jerusalem to take a great chair at Padua. He died rather miserably.”

Source:  Middlemarch  Project Gutenberg eBook  Release date: July 1, 1994 [eBook #145] Most recently updated: April 12, 2026.  See Chapter 45.

On Company Towns in Canada, Robert Owen, and a Clubhouse

                                                 
Ioco Townsite, British Columbia, 1940's (h/t Port Moody Station Museum) 

What do Kitimat, Powell River, Fort McMurray, Flin Flon, Ioco and New View Society (in Port Coquitlam, B.C.) have in common?  All but one are Company Towns in Canada, and all of them share an intellectual debt to Robert Owen (1771-1858).

Robert Owen was a social reformer; a Utopian Socialist, in fact.  He was a successful cotton manufacturer who took it upon himself to manufacture “men of virtue”.[1]   He began with his model cotton mills he came to own in New Lanark, Scotland, and then carried it to New Harmony, Indiana, where his plans ended in failure.  Throughout, however, he believed that the environment shaped and formed each individual’s character, which meant that education was essential to improving lives.

Following along the lines of Rousseau, Owen believed that man was naturally good.  When he took over New Lanark, conditions were poor – housing and sanitation were sorely neglected. “Within a few years, Owen had turned this dirty little village into one of the wonders of Europe, a place of pilgrimage for English earls and Russian grand dukes.  And the company paid better dividends than ever.  Owen began by sanitary reform.  He provided for the orderly disposal of waste, and forbade household refuse pits in front of the cottages.  He built new houses, and eventually gave each family several rooms.”[2]

From this, Owen developed his ideal for a model community.  “…. a new village will be built. The buildings will be constructed around a central parallelogram devoted to lawns and gardens.  They will include living-quarters with common kitchens, dining rooms, and recreation-rooms, but providing separate apartments for each family.  A school, a community hall, and other necessary public buildings will complete the parallelogram.  Barns and workshops will be built a little apart.”[3]

As I see it, Owen’s New Lanark was the model for the Ioco Townsite and many other company towns.  When the Imperial Oil Company established the beginnings of the oil refinery on the North Shore of Port Moody, B.C. in 1914, the shanty town that quickly developed needed attention.  As local historian and long-term Mayor of Belcarra, Ralph Drew put it: “The construction of the ‘Ioco Townsite’ complete with playgrounds, bowling greens, tennis courts and sports fields became a ‘jewel of Vancouver’s suburbs’  Almost every aspect of worker’s social life – dances, sports, and more casual socializing – occurred within the purview of the ‘company town.’” [4]

But Owen’s effect does not end with the company town.  His ideas in A New View of Society (1813-1816), are clearly the inspiration behind the New View Society, a mental health clubhouse in Port Coquitlam, founded in 1973  in the wake of Riverview Hospital downsizing.  Spanning the Tri-Cities, and far beyond, Robert Owen’s legacy lives on.

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[1] Crane Brinton, English Political Thought in the Nineteenth Century (London: Ernest Benn, 1933), p. 44.

[2] Ibid., p, 52.

[3] Ibid., pp. 54,55.

[4] Ralph Drew, Townsite Tales: The History of Ioco, Anmore Valley & North Shore of Port Moody Arm (Belcarra, B.C.: Ralph Drew, 2017), p. 319.   See also: Lucie K. Morisset and Jessica Mace, Identity on the Land: Company Towns in Canada (Montreal: Patrimonium, 2019).