Amid this confusing constellation can it be that we have missed even the most obvious and egregious things that have happen in the wake of 11 September 2001? Have we missed the repeal of civil liberties-many dangerously close to, if not in fact, transgressing the Constitution; have we missed the war profiteering of those corporations whose campaign contributions raise suspicions about their waiting bounties from the coming tax cuts; have we missed the naive thinking that suggests in a world more complex than any of us can imagine either you stand with the Bush Administration or with Usama bin Laden; could it be that we missed the American Council of Trustees and Alumni's report that persons who have not missed such things and who work on university campuses are accused of being the weak link in the national character?

Not surprisingly, my name was not on the list of those professors accused. I wonder if it is has anything to do with the fact I teach those books so revered by Ms. Cheney and Mr. Bennett (and not simply that I am nobody). I teach the so-called great books, the classics. But just as there are many choices between Mr. Bush and Mr. bin Laden, there are many more lessons to be learned from these books than one might be lead to believe by conservatives.

Last week I walked into the seminar room and looked out to eager students, ready with their copies of Confucius open for that day's investigation. "How did Homer's Odyssey end?" I began. "Homer?" their faces seemed to say, "Doesn't he know that was 12 weeks ago?" Then a courageous hand rose, seeming both reserved and assured. "Odysseus and others were killing everybody in revenge, but the gods stepped in and said they had seen enough killing and said there would be peace." A defensible, if not definitive, answer I thought. These gods, as we know, little resemble the monotheistic G-d who today is said to be taking sides, first one and then another depending on who is speaking in his name. From our studies together we wondered if someone as complex as a god could settle for the limitation of only two or three choices.

We finally got to Confucius. He would come to teach us that one of the nine considerations exemplary persons (junzi) must make is to pause and think about regret when they are angered. Not an idle exercise, we thought, while war rages in the world.

Two weeks ago we read the erotic poems of Sappho who is seldom on the conservatives' lists, though she in many ways belongs to the series of circumstances that make other authors requisite classics on their account. It seems Sappho has problems with Homer; even if he ends with peace, it may well have taken him too long to arrive there in her estimation. In any event she writes: "Some say cavalry and others claim/Infantry or a fleet of long oars/Is the supreme sight on the black earth./I say it is/The one you love. And easily proved."

We shall see if such things are easily proved, but waving flags and swirling stars will not get this difficult task accomplished. And for all our uncertainty it seems clear that some things do need to be in place if we were to succeed. Foremost among them, perhaps, are these: citizens free to question and read who remain protected by the Constitution; a government divorced from the greedy will of multinational corporations and connected instead to the will of the people seeking a common good; and a set of options for a genuine future that are developed through imagination, dialogue, and wisdom rather than vengeance, militarism, and willful ignorance.

The fault, in this hour, might well be in our stars.

Ramsey Eric Ramsey is Faculty Director of the Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University West in Phoenix. He is the author of The Long Path to Nearness (Humanity Books).

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