China understands The Odyssey better than we do
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At the start of the second Trump administration, the words on everyone’s lips were “breakneck speed.” On the day of his inauguration, Donald Trump declared a border emergency, designated drug cartels as terrorist organizations and challenged birthright citizenship. He withdrew from international climate agreements and ditched Joe Biden’s mandates on electric vehicles. He rescinded various Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives. On January 20, 2025, he issued pardons for individuals connected to the 2021 riot on Capitol Hill. And he established the Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE), which empowered Elon Musk to begin hacking away at federal bureaucratic bloat. Trump signed 143 executive orders in those first 100 days, more than any previous president.
At the start of the second Trump administration, the words on everyone’s lips were “breakneck speed.” On the day of his inauguration, Donald Trump declared a border emergency, designated drug cartels as terrorist organizations and challenged birthright citizenship. He withdrew from international climate agreements and ditched Joe Biden’s mandates on electric vehicles. He rescinded various Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives. On January 20, 2025, he issued pardons for individuals connected to the 2021 riot on Capitol Hill. And he established the Department of Government Efficiency (DoGE), which empowered Elon Musk to begin hacking away at federal bureaucratic bloat. Trump signed 143 executive orders in those first 100 days, more than any previous president.
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China will inherit Homer, and not because the Communist party has decided to take him. The evidence arrived last week in Beijing, where a doctoral candidate in political theory named Yiyang Zhuge sat down with Christopher Nolan to talk about The Odyssey. She reads Greek and has translated Plutarch’s Moralia into Chinese. She learned her Greek in the United States. Zhuge told Nolan that the concept of atonement does not exist in Greek culture, in the Greek language, or in Homer’s Odyssey. It is in the film. Then she asked him: “Did you Christianize the Odyssey?” Nolan said he had focused on xenia, the ancient obligation between host and guest. As for atonement, he said it was “what we bring as viewers to the story,” and that he had not intended to Christianize the poem.