Excerpt from Bringing in the Trojan Horse

Excerpt from Bringing In the Trojan Horse

As Virgil relates it, the tale of the Trojan hHorse is par excellence a story of about the state of mind that leads to self-delusion. Priam asks no questions; instead he ordered the shepherds to release Sinon from his chains and accepted himaccepts Sinon as a friend and ally. Why didn’t Aeneas’ uncle Capys had thought the horse ought to be destroyed. Why didn’t he Priam at least suggest that Sinon be interrogated? Why did Aeneas himself say nothing? The Trojan aristocracy had every reason not to trust Priam’s judgment. Although Priam had been warned that the son his wife Hecuba [rgl1]bore on that day would destroy Troy, and Hecuba herself dreamedt that she was about to give birth to a firebrand, Priam did not have his son killed. Instead, Priam , but allowed him to be exposed, that is, put hiParism out to die in the wilderness, on Mt. Ida, where the baby was rescued and raised by a shepherd. The Trojans would never have become involved in a war with the Greeks if Paris had not been allowed to live.[rgl2]

The Trojan wWar itself was the direct result of a selfish decision made by Paris, when as a young man he was shepherding his flocks on Mt. Ida. The god Hermes asked him to pick which of three goddesses was the most beautiful. Each of the goddesses (Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite[rgl3]), offered him Paris a gift. Athena offered him wisdom, and Hera offered him rule over all of Asia. But Aphrodite offered him the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen of Sparta, the daughter of Zeus. Paris was bound to get into trouble whichever of the three goddesses he chose, because he would anger the two goddesses whose gifts he had declined. In such circumstances, the most sensible course of action for Paris would have been for Paris to refuse to make the decision. But then if he had been compelled to choose, the best plan would have been to pick the most powerful goddess, the one who could best protect him against the other two. That goddess was Athena. But instead Paris chose Aphrodite, the weakest of the three goddesses, who gave him Helen as his reward. Unfortunately, when Paris took Helen away to Troy, she was already married to Menelaus, the king of Sparta, who then came to Troy with his brother Agamemnon and an army to bring her back. Without Aphrodite’s gift to Paris, there would have been no Trojan wWar.[rgl4]

So, it was not coincidental that after all those years of fighting, the Greeks won the Trojan wWar by deception rather than by sheer force. Odysseus (and Athena) [rgl5]had reason to believe that the Trojan royal family[rgl6], if given a choice, was not inclined to act in their own best interests.

There is a lesson for the rest of us here, a lesson that is not particularly encouraging.: Virgil’s narrative shows us that people will believe what they want to believe, even when warned by wise advisors to be mistrustful. They People will ignore well-informed and well-intentioned advice if it goes against their own desires. The process is well -known to psychologists. As Nobel prize winner Daniel Kahneman has suggested, human beings make two kinds of judgments, fast and slow.[1][rgl7] The fast system (#1) is immediate and intuitive; the slow system (#2) is more deliberative[rgl8]. In many cases, pPeople tend to make important decisions before slow systemSystem 2 can kick in. The Trojans’, as the Trojans did with decision to bring in the wooden horse is just one example of the process. [rgl9]But even time does not always guarantee that people will make an informed decisionchoice. Campaigns in the United States go on for many months, but often—too often—we make fast judgments about the candidates[rgl10]and pick the wrong candidate. We believe each other and do not question what we are told by people who appear to speak with authority[rgl11]. It seems that in the end, group thinking may not be all that different from or better informed than individual thinking[rgl12], because people easily believe one another and do not question what they are told by people who appear to speak with authority. As Sloman and Fernbach[rgl13] argue in their recent book, “We live with the belief that we know more than we do.”[2]

[1] Kahnemann, D. 2011. Thinking Fast and Slow. New York.

[2] Sloman, S. and P. Fernbach, 2017. The Knowledge Illusion. New York: 169.

[rgl1]Does Priam have more than one wife? If not, change the punctuation to "his wife, Hecuba,"

[rgl2]This section is a little problematic. First, it does not support the idea in the first sentence, which is about the Trojans’ delusion. Also, if the Trojan aristocracy has reason not to trust Priam, and the Virgil's readers know this, readers will not be surprised that Priam doesn’t interrogate Sinon. It’s just another example of bad judgment.

I think this paragraph and the two paragraphs that follow will be stronger with reorganization. This paragraph could talk about the Trojans’ delusion, with examples or a summary of the argument thus far. Then you could talk about how Priam’s self-delusion is another example of how the Trojans specialize in self-delusion—as the leader is, so are the people.

The following paragraph could talk about Paris’s actions in bringing about the Trojan War.

Then, in the paragraph after that (“So it was not coincidental”), it will be important to say why the Greeks thought deception was their best strategy against delusion. That’s a sticky argument, if you think about it, at least to the modern mind: of course being deluded will bring about your destruction in the end, but is trickery any better than delusion? However, it is a really interesting argument and one worth exploring.

[rgl3]You’ve been using the Latin names, because your source is Virgil. I think you need to stay with Latin names or say why you are changing to the Greek ones—for example, the story comes from a different source.

[rgl4]I would say, “Without Paris’s unfortunate choice” or something similar. That would keep the focus on bad decisions, rather than on a weak goddess.

[rgl5]Use Latin names?

[rgl6]And the Trojan people?

[rgl7]I will bring the footnotes into CMS style in the final edit.

[rgl8]Checking: deliberative or deliberate? M-W suggests deliberate.

[rgl9]Your previous argument suggests that the Trojans would not have made the right decision even with time, so this may not be the best example here. I think instead it might be good to say why Kahneman believes that people make fast judgments and stick to them, rather than using slow judgment.

[rgl10]I changed this because you are talking generally about candidates, rather than about someone specific.

[rgl11]This is confusing, because we do believe the candidates, who themselves speak with authority. What we don’t believe are the pundits/prophets.

[rgl12]This would be a great place to tie in the idea that Priam, the leader, is just one example of the Trojans' delusion.

[rgl13]Use their full names, as with Daniel Kahneman above?