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Social Standards In The Odyssey

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Throughout The Odyssey we are told a lot about Ancient Greece’s cultural phenomenons and moral principles. These are the very human behaviors and laws that our societies today are based off of .But we’ve adapted the Greeks welcoming gestures and standards of behavior to fit the world we live in now. The way humankind sees the world has changed over thousands of years. Our ideas of what is moral and what is not have changed, as has our trust in other people. We can’t be the kind, hospitable societies that were portrayed in the Odyssey, because time has progressed. Nor can we be or do the barbaric things that were the “norm” in Ancient Greece. The social standards of today are a lot different than what they used to be. Today we fight for equality, women's rights, and freedom; we don’t solve everything with fists, but with words. We respect all different kinds of people (or at least try to), and everyone lives by the same laws. What was once uncivilized is civilized now, and vice versa, what was once civilized is now uncivilized. …show more content…

Odysseus was the hero, he could do no wrong. But some of the decisions he made and actions he took that made him a hero to all, would bring him all the wrong kinds of fame in our society today. After winning the Trojan War, Odysseus and his men ransacked the Ciccone's island of Ismarus. They “killed the men” and dragged “the wives and plunder” away (Homer 212). This kind of disregard and blatant disrespect for other people would make Odysseus the opposite of a hero today, he and his men would be the kind of people that parents pray their children don’t turn into. They would be ostracized from communities, not welcomed into them. This is an example of how once civilized, normal actions, became

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