Мария Бирд: античность учит защищать демократию, но требует критического взгляда

Renowned British classicist Mary Beard says we can all still learn from antiquity, but warns against excessive reverence. Nine to Noon 6 min read Nine to Noon 6 min read A curator at the British Museum in London set the young Mary Beard on the path to becoming a world authority on the classics. After seeing the more famous and glamorous Egyptian mummies on a visit with her mother, she went into an exhibit showing the everyday lives of ancient Egyptians and noticed a piece of 4000-year-old bread in a glass case. “He [the curator] put his hands in his pocket got out some keys, he opened the case and he brought out this piece of bread from the back of the case and he held it right in front of my nose and it was mind-blowing, it was like time travel,” she tells RNZ’s Nine to Noon. The 'Queen of Classics' is coming to New Zealand “It tore the ground from under my feet, the idea that I could be so close and yet in some ways so far from something so old.” He showed Beard there were people in the world, “who will open museum cases either literally or metaphorically for kids”. The relevance of antiquity on the modern world is something she ponders in her new book, Talking Classics, The Shock of the Old. After 50 years immersed in this world, the British academic, writer and broadcaster remains fascinated with antiquity and all we can still learn from it, but she warns against excessive reverence. “Slavery, misogyny you name it, the ancient world has got some pretty nasty stuff and I think it is important in part to think how did it make sense to them and I've spent quite a lot of time trying to think through that question, but at the same time you have to say ‘and what does this mean to me?’” She doesn’t entirely accept the idea we must judge the ancients on their own terms. “You can't leave your own morality at the library door; you have to say in the conversation that you're having with history how do I put my views into this? How do I understand, but also in some ways, criticise the idea that the Romans put thousands upon thousands of people to death in the amphitheatre? “You can't you can't just look away and say oh that's what the Romans did. I think that's what makes history so exciting in a way, because you are both trying to see it through their eyes and also to see it through your eyes.” She looks at how the symbols of antiquity still resonate in politics today in her book. “There is a very conservative strand in both the UK and the US which sees classical architecture as a wonderful symbol of conservative authoritarianism.” That’s half the story, she says. “But don't let's forget that classical architecture and the forms of classical architecture were embedded in revolutionary socialism in the 18th and 18th to the 20th century. “French revolutionary architects wondered how to create a new civic space that was non-monarchical what did they do? They turned to classics.” With democracy seemingly weakening in many parts of the world, the Athenian ideal remains worth fighting for, she says. “What I've come to learn about ancient democracy, and I think this is a lesson for us, is if you want it you have to fight for it. The Athenians didn't just stand there, get dressed up in sheets and pontificate in a rather sort of learned way about political questions they fought each other some of them, many of them didn't want democracy at all. “I now look back at ancient Athens and I think look if we want to preserve democracy, which I do, we've got to get up there and shout about it and fight for it and realise democracy is a process, it's not just something that we inherit, you have to work for it.” The ancients can also help us challenge some of the “presentism of contemporary discourse”, she says. “I had a very moving moment at a school listening into a discussion of high school students talking about free speech and these kids, very bright kids, they thought that issues of free speech had only become tricky with the advent of social media. “Go back to 399 BC and Socrates is being put to death on issues of free speech, they looked wide-eyed and said no one had said that before.” Talking about thorny topics like this in relation to the ancient Greeks and the ancient Romans helps fruitful discussion, Beard says. “They're long dead, we can say what we like about Socrates, it's a free safe space for an argument and if you deprive kids of that, of seeing the history of their own arguments, you've deprived them of a lot - and they actually they enjoy it.” Mary Beard is in New Zealand in November for An Evening with Mary Beard: Talking Classics appearing at Isaac Theatre Royal Christchurch, 18 November and Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre, Auckland 19 November. Get weekly Life highlights Coverage Our editors pick the best of food, arts, culture and lifestyle. Delivered straight to your inbox every Saturday.