A new — and somewhat unlikely — group of candidates are emerging as ardent champions of Classic literature online: the alt-right.
That's according to Donna Zuckerberg, a Classics scholar who argues that ancient Greek and Latin texts are being co-opted to promote dangerous narratives of toxic masculinity and Western supremacy.
She's spent much of her adult life immersed in online culture; all of her siblings, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, work in the technology sector, and the Princeton-educated academic is the editor of the online Classics journal Eidolon.
"[The alt-right] seem to be middle-class, male, primarily between the ages of 18 and 35, and fairly educated," Zuckerberg told RN's Late Night Live.
While the alt-right form different groups and go by various names on the internet — the 'manosphere', 'Men Going Their Own Way', 'pick-up artists' — their ideologies are united by common themes, like resentment against women and people of colour.
Collectively, the groups self-identify as the 'Red Pill' community — a nod to the film The Matrix.
"The red pill metaphor really encapsulates for them the fact that they really see their misogyny and racism as a form of enlightenment," Zuckerberg said.
"They are able to see the world more clearly than the rest of us… and what they see is that white, heterosexual men are discriminated against in our society."
Loading...Some Red Pill members are drawing on Classical texts — written by the likes of Homer, Marcus Aurelius and Ovid — to further legitimise their ideas.
"The ones who are reading the Classics tend to be the more educated members of the community… they read these texts and distil them for the community," Zuckerberg said.
Why Homer, Aurelius or Ovid?
It's not just because they love the Iliad or Metamorphoses.
Online alt-right men's groups are using the work of Classicists like the Stoics to affirm their idealised notions of superior masculinity, Zuckerberg says.
"Stoicism is really having a cultural moment," she said.
"The essential concept of the [Stoic] philosophy is that the only true good is virtue… other things like health and wealth are preferable, but are not good; they're indifferent."
Zuckerberg has authored a book on the issue, Not All Dead White Men: Classics and Misogyny in the Digital Age.
In it, she writes that Red Pill websites discuss Stoic texts to illustrate how "women and people of colour are not just angrier and more emotional than men, but morally inferior as well".
Similarly, on other websites, pick-up artists are turning to Ovid to give cultural credence to their vision of "ideal white masculinity".
In particular, pick-up artist communities cite Ovid's Ars Amatoria — a text they see as the original seduction manual.
"This is sort of an intellectually-legitimising strategy for them," Zuckerberg said.
"It makes the business of giving seduction advice look like something that is very highbrow… if you can connect it back to one of the greatest poets of Ancient Rome."
It also perpetuates the idea that male-female dynamics haven't changed throughout history.
Accordingly, Zuckerberg says, "[the] same techniques that worked on women a thousand years ago would also work today, because women have an unchanging nature".
The 'intellectual dark web'
By co-opting the Classics, Zuckerberg says, members of alt-right online communities are seeking cultural capital.
"'Western civilisation' is a concept that also many establishment conservatives are very deeply invested in," she said.
"And also some people who are part of what is sometimes called the 'intellectual dark web', which is a group of scholars who think of themselves as renegades for speaking hard truths.
"Which often sound quite a bit like what was commonly accepted wisdom in the 1950s, like 'men and women have different aptitudes'."
What's concerning, Zuckerberg says, is how the viral nature of the internet can at times allow alt-right groups to mushroom, and further spread racist and misogynistic ideologies — during what she calls large-scale 'red pill moments'.
These are when a "larger group of people find the community, because of what's happening in the world", she says — citing the election of Donald Trump and 'Gamergate' as two recent examples.
"The election of President Donald Trump in 2016 empowered these online communities to be even more outspoken about their ideology," Zuckerberg writes, citing a 'manosphere thought-leader' who said:
"His presence [in office] automatically legitimises masculine behaviours that were previously labelled sexist or misogynist."
Countering the counter-narratives
The alt-right's reinterpretation of the Classics doesn't necessarily have to shape modern conceptions of ancient texts, Zuckerberg says.
And it's possible to teach Classics in a way that doesn't promote notions of Western superiority, or advance toxic masculinity and racism.
"One way to do so is to focus on the ancient Mediterranean as a set of communities for which ancient Greece and Rome were really the far western edge," Zuckerberg said.
"[And] to think of the Ancient Mediterranean as an incredibly diverse place, which was by no means primarily — let alone exclusively — white, in the way the alt-right would like to believe."
For Zuckerberg, it's about countering these counter-narratives.
"Within our classroom, we can resist falling back on these easy and attractive narratives of 'Western civilisation'," she said.
"We can also teach how the idea of Western civilisation has been used to empower white supremacists."