I finally got to see Troy (the movie) tonight. My wife had already seen it and she was unimpressed. She particularly disliked Achilles, because he’s a selfish, arrogant jerk. Just like in the book. She hasn’t read the Iliad, so she didn’t know what to expect. Over the last 2800 years or so we’ve become a lot less tolerant of flaws in our heros. We demand that great deeds be accomplished by men incapable of error. This cuts two ways, both on the part of the hagiographer who plasters over the gaping flaws in a man’s character, and in the critic who points them out as if this in some way diminishes the greatness of the deed. We look to the Greeks as the founders of our civilization, and their clear-eyed view of human failings should be revived. Heroes are heroic because they do great things, not because they are without failings. By acknowledging this simple fact we are better able to see the greatness in others, and the potential for greatness in ourselves.

The world just lost a man who will be remembered by history long after most of us are dust. I disagreed with much of what he did, but no amount of kvetching on my part can take away from his legacy, which is no less than to liberate the world from totalitarian communism. The Soviet Union is dead, and Ronald Reagan killed it. The rest is details.