Rules and imperfections: some comparisons

The tension between idealized Greek culture and the direct experience of Greek social life provides an instructive parallel with some of the fundamental symbolic oppositions of anthropological discourse. In order to make that comparison more useful, we must now examine in some detail the workings of the dominant tropes through which Greeks explore the tension between grand abstract ideals and social and historical experience.

Prominent among these is the theologically derived metaphor of a fall from cultural grace. This metaphor is familiar from the anthropology of the mid–Victorian period, which had inherited from its medieval and Renaissance theological roots the image of a humanity struggling toward ultimate redemption from the consequences of original sin. Whether the so-called savages of this world were corrupt backsliders from the great evolutionary destiny, or were simply retarded in progress toward it, the imagery remained firmly judgmental.

The symbolism of the fall, in both the theological and the secular senses, affirmed European civilization as the ultimate cultural touchstone. Europe, the secular Eden, brought humanity within sight of perfection. In Greece, a country that owed its independence in large measure to the romantic desire to resuscitate antiquity, national self-images of all kinds acquired meaning only in direct relation to this hegemonic standard. Since Europe claimed ancient Greece as its spiritual ancestor, Europe also decided what was, or what was not, acceptable as Greek culture in the modern age.