What Odysseus can teach us about liberalism

I finally went to see Christopher Nolan’s new movie, “The Odyssey,” to watch a summer blockbuster — and it more than delivered. I didn’t intend to comment on the various controversies surrounding the movie, from the attacks that it is woke to the claims that it is historically inaccurate. (For goodness’ sake, it is a nearly 3,000-year-old yarn that is filled with gods and goddesses, one-eyed giants and magic!) But Ezra Klein’s commentary on the movie did lead me to think about the broader issues the movie raises, which strike me as interesting and important.

Klein argues that while the critique of Nolan’s “Odyssey” as woke — because he cast a Black actress as Helen of Troy — is trivial and superficial, the movie is liberal in a more profound sense. Nolan fundamentally replaces the morality of the ancient world, in which conquest and victory were celebrated unabashedly, with a morality that is more nuanced. While Homer’s Odysseus was constantly lauded for his clever, guileful ways, Nolan’s Odysseus is haunted by the ravages of the war and by his own deceit that was at the center of the victory — the Trojan horse.

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