Zeus' Law and the Fate of America

The Odyssey is a timely and timeless examination of war, the nature of man, and the rule of law. It is a clarion call for all Americans to ponder the path we are on, and where we are heading.

As you set out for Ithaka

hope your road is a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

“Ithaka”, by C. P. Cavafy

Forget, for a moment, the Hollywood hype.

Forget the actors (although they did an amazing job.)

Forget the criticisms of erstwhile Homerian purists.

Walk over to a mirror, and gaze into the eyes of the person staring back.

Look hard.

Penetrate into the soul that defines the image.

Reflect deep, and reflect honestly.

And then go see this movie.

We Americans proclaim ourselves as a nation of law.

We place the Constitution—that document which defines us as a nation of laws, and sets forth principles and values that ostensibly guide us on our collective journey—on a pedestal for all the world to see.

We helped craft the United Nations Charter, a body of law which by design was supposed to help the global collective navigate away from war toward an ideal of peaceful harmony among all humanity. A body of law which, given the supremacy clause of our own Constitution, assumes the form of the supreme law of the land.

And then we proceed to defile this Constitution, and everything its stands for, as we embark on a 250-year long journey of self-discovery which disguises our own self-destruction as a nation.

And we use the United Nations Charter as a shield for the imposition of American global hegemony under the guise of a rules based order that brings only death, destruction, and disorder.

We anoint ourselves King of the World, as a leader ruling over a shining city on a hill, only to find in the end that we are our own worst enemy, and that we stand for nothing at all.

We invoke the rule of law when convenient, and we cast it aside when it is not.

We pray to our God for guidance, and then we openly mock the very faith we embraced, placing the vanity of man about the divinity of a higher power.

We build a domain premised on obscure notions of liberty, freedom and justice, call it home, and claim we are simply blazing a path to this idyllic destination.

“In order to form a more perfect union.”

Home is a dream, an ideal.

Just like the Constitution that serves as the anchor of our collective existence.

Home is a place where the rule of law reigns supreme.

But there is no rule of law in our world.

Just the rule of “might makes right.”

We claim to be heading home on a journey manifested by destiny ordained by God, but in fact we are on a one-way journey to hell.

To the ancient Greeks, welcoming a stranger into one’s home wasn’t simply a matter of good manners, it was a sacred duty overseen by the god Zeus, the divine protector of travelers, guests and strangers.

Zeus’ law requires the host to welcome guests with food, drink and shelter, even before inquiring as to who they were or why they had arrived at their doorstep. It didn’t matter who the visitor was—king, messenger, friend or beggar—the host had to guarantee their comfort and safety while under their roof.

Zeus’ law also required the guests to be respectful and listen attentively to the host, not to overstay their welcome or abuse the hospitality of the host. And when it was time to part, the guest was fully expected to reciprocate this hospitality in the future.

Literalists will say that the concept of Zeus’ law as put forward in director Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is an invention, a Christian adaption of the ancient Greek code of Xenia, that the Golden Rule of “doing onto others as they should do onto you” was not part of the ethos of ancient Greece.

If this is the case, you stared neither long enough nor hard enough into the mirror.

Because the journey I ask you to reflect upon is not of an ancient Greek warrior, but the America of today.

Where the “Golden Rule” is enshrined in the Judeo-Christian ethic we ostensibly cloak ourselves in.

It is our “Zeus’ Law.”

And we openly defile it through our collective actions on the global stage on a daily basis.

We proclaim ourselves the “indispensable nation”, without which the world simply cannot function.

We revel in the wealth generated by our collective greed, demanding that all others treat us with respect while we loot and plunder the planets resources for our exclusive use.

The rule of law is supreme, we say, until it becomes inconvenient.

Do as I say, and not as I do.

The ultimate manifestation of human hypocrisy.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:

you’ll never find things like that on your way

as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

as long as a rare excitement

stirs your spirit and your body.

Laistrygonians, Cyclops,

wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them

unless you bring them along inside your soul,

unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Zeus’ Law was violated when Paris stole Helen from Menelaus, triggering the Trojan War.

Because there can be no Rule of Law if the laws are not enforced.

But in Christopher Nolan’s telling, the Trojan campaign that followed the abduction of Helen is but an excuse for Menelaus’ older brother, Agamemnon, to secure key trade routes controlled by the Trojans.

No law.

Just the political greed of man.

Greek exceptionalism perverted Zeus’ Law.

Just like American exceptionalism perverts the Rule of Law, both at home and abroad.

Odysseus was the architect of the ultimate expression of the violation of Zeus’ Law, the one who devised the scheme of the “Trojan Horse”—a tribute to the Goddess Athena.

As retold in Virgil’s Aeneid,

After many years have slipped by, the leaders of the Greeks,
opposed by the Fates, and damaged by the war,
build a horse of mountainous size, through Pallas's divine art,
and weave planks of fir over its ribs
they pretend it's a votive offering: this rumour spreads.
They secretly hide a picked body of men, chosen by lot,
there, in the dark body, filling the belly and the huge
cavernous insides with armed warriors.

Odysseus tricked Sinon, a Shepard's son sold into service, into remaining behind with the horse after the Greek fleet sailed away beyond the horizon. Sinon plays his role perfectly, telling the Trojans that the Horse is an offering to the goddess Athena, meant to atone for the previous desecration of her temple at Troy by the Greeks and to help ensure a safe journey home for the Greek fleet.

Sinon pays with his life for act of fealty and loyalty.

But even then, this ultimate act of perfidy was nearly discovered. Helen, whose face launched a thousand ships, suspected that the horse was a ploy, and tried to expose the Greek soldiers hidden inside by imitating the sounds of their wives' voices. When one soldier sought to answer, Odysseus silence him by covering his mouth with his hand.

One more Trojan saw through the ruse, and sought to warn the Trojan host. Again, Virgil’s Aeneid:

Then Laocoön rushes down eagerly from the heights
of the citadel, to confront them all, a large crowd with him,
and shouts from far off: “O unhappy citizens, what madness?
Do you think the enemy’s sailed away? Or do you think
any Greek gift's free of treachery? Is that Odysseus’s reputation?
Either there are Greeks in hiding, concealed by the wood,
or it's been built as a machine to use against our walls,
or spy on our homes, or fall on the city from above,
or it hides some other trick: Trojans, don't trust this horse.
Whatever it is, I'm afraid of Greeks even those bearing gifts.”

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.

Laocoön was killed, along with his sons, and his voice and its dire warning forever silenced.

The Trojans had once last chance to avoid the fate that awaited them. Cassandra, the daughter of Troy’s ruler, King Priam, warned that the wooden horse would bring the downfall of the city and the death of its citizens.

She, too, was ignored.

And so Troy met its fate, one last wanton violation of Zeus’ Law, a gift brought into the womb of a home, only to transform into a trap that annihilated the host.

One of the more moving moments of Christopher Nolan’s film is when Odysseus stares in shock and horror at the burning horse while the screams of the women of Troy sound in the background as they and their city are defiled by the rampaging Greek warriors.

Too late the recognition; the deed was done.

The sacking of Troy represents the death of not just a city, but a dream—the false promise of human harmony predicated on the notion of Zeus’ Law.

But Zeus’ Law was always a lie.

The Greeks themselves frequently cited it, but then violated it at will when it suited their needs.

So, to, the notion of the Rule of Law that we American’s so often refer to when justifying our moralizing stance vis-a-vis one another and the world we live in.

We have committed so many unforgivable crimes in the name of defending the Rule of Law, and the Constitution which serves as its philosophical foundation, as to transform the concept into a mockery of itself, a terror-driven mimicry which, once realized and acknowledged, will drive one insane.

To escape this accounting, we have turned ourselves into a nation of lotus eaters, consuming the narcotic of consumerism that allows us to wrap ourselves in a cocoon of indifferent comfort, lulled by the false promise of immortality, just as Odysseus was by Calypso.

We have forgotten our crimes, and the suffering of those who died because of these crimes. We have ignored the blood-soaked reality of our collective journey. And we have even abandoned that which inspired this journey to begin with—our “home”, our Constitution.

And through the many decades of neglect, we have allowed our home to be corrupted by those who falsely cite the Rule of Law as an excuse for their actions, just as Odysseus’ wife, Penelope, was courted by suitors who abused the precepts of Zeus’ Law to camp out in hopes of coercing her to abandon her husband and court their favor.

Penelope’s suitors had names, and so, too, do the modern-day suitors who seek to defile the very foundation of their existence—the Military Industrial Complex, the Deep State, the Israeli Lobby, the Bankers and fellow practitioners of Usury, those who lobby in the interests of big business, and those who pervert the cause of academia for convenience and profit.

Like Ithaca of old, America today is little more than a putrid shadow of what it once claimed to be, a land where the people have abandoned their laws, and forgotten the very system which defines who and what they are. We have a Congress that has yielded its duties in the name of greed, a judiciary which punished virtue and forgives sin, and an Executive that functions not as a leader of a united people, but rather a decadent cult of personality, where the most base of human individual acts like a God.

To survive, we must break free of Calypso’s fantasies of infallible immortality, and return to our home—our Constitution—and acknowledge our wrongdoings and betrayals before it.

Hope your road is a long one.

May there be many summer mornings when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you enter harbors you’re seeing for the first time;

may you stop at Phoenician trading stations

to buy fine things,

mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,

sensual perfume of every kind—

as many sensual perfumes as you can;

and may you visit many Egyptian cities

to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you’re destined for.

But don’t hurry the journey at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you’re old by the time you reach the island,

wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,

not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

The most moving moment in Christopher Nolan’s movie is when Odysseus confesses his sins to Penelope, and to the ghost of all he believed in and ultimately betrayed.

Throughout the movie the audience is warned of “the People from the Seas” who are destroying the civilized world.

Only through his confession to Penelope does the truth about the origins of “the People from the Sea” become known. While speaking with Penelope, Odysseus, under disguise, describes the destruction of Troy and the role he played in violating Zeus’ Law to obtain this victory. “We violated all that’s sacred between people,” Odysseus declares.

Odysseus admits that he had avoided returning to Ithaca to avoid facing the consequences of his crime. As he describes his actions, and those of his men, Penelope’s eyes widen. “You’re the people from the sea,” she says, aghast.

And so we are, too—the modern-day incarnation of the Homeric barbarism which would eventually destroy the civilized world.

Odysseus had a solution to his problem—he put everything on the line to preserve his love for Penelope, and purged his household of the very suitors who had corrupted Zeus’ Law.

In doing so, however, Odysseus once again violated Zeus’ Law, a crime which if left unanswered simply promoted an endless cycle of revenge-based death and destruction.

The remedy for Odyssey was exile. Accompanied by Penelope, he took to the sea, sailing West into the unknown.

What can we, the modern day manifestation of Odysseus’ sin, do to absolve ourselves of the crimes we have committed in the name of the Rule of Law?

First we must confess. We must openly acknowledge the crimes we have committed, and the fact these crimes had perverted the very cause we purported to defend—the Rule of Law.

Then we must defend that which defines us and gives us strength—our Penelope, the Constitution.

We must purge our home of those who have broken faith with the Rule of Law, the false suitors whose actions have contributed to the downfall of civilization.

And then we must make way for those who have acted in good faith regarding the Rule of Law, those who believe in the ideals expressed in the United Nations Charter.

The age of American exceptionalism is over.

We are the enemy the world fears.

And we must be willing to right the wrongs by removing ourselves from the global stage.

The American hegemon can be no more.

If we love our Constitution—and we must if we are to survive as a people—we must sail away from the world of the American hegemon, and enter a new multipolar reality where Zeus’ Law—at least the Christianized interpretation of it as presented in Christopher Nolan’s cinematic masterpiece—holds precedent:

“Do unto others as you would want others to do unto you.”

Then and only then will the promise and premise of our Constitution take hold and flourish.

Look into the mirror.

What do you see?

And, more importantly…what will you do?

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.

Without her you wouldn’t have set out.

She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.