But the film also serves as an important object lesson for both classical liberalism and modern Europe, one that may be less cinematic but should not be left on the cutting room floor. The most haunting metaphor from both literary sagas, The Iliad and The Odyssey—the nifty but bloody military maneuver that guaranteed victory for the Greeks in the Trojan War—applies to another more contemporary deployment of a Trojan horse.
In Nolan’s film (though not in Homer’s text), Odysseus, the wily warrior who conjured the entire Trojan horse scheme, is left traumatized by its aftermath—the slaughter of all those Trojan men, women and children.
We’re told never to look a gift horse in the mouth. Yet, the craftsman of that ultimate equine gift, Odysseus, knew that it’s probably good practice to more heavily scrutinize a gift. One never knows whether it may contain a surprise from which the beneficiary may never recover.
Contemporary Europeans know a little something about booby-trapped gifts. The West has been led to believe for...
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