Source: EconLog
by Tyler Cowen
“In my reading, Pylos and Sparta, the polities visited by Telemachus, is what the world looks like when you do not have the critical faculties acquired by traveling. Pylos is the world prior to an understanding of options, as only Odysseus has seen war, anarchy, orderly kingship, and various polities based on intoxication. Sparta represents post-traumatic tragedy and intoxication as a substitute for ongoing conflict. Ogygia is the rejected and intolerable utopia. Sparta vs. Ithaca is one meaningful contrast, but most of all The Odyssey is a comparison between Phaeacia and Ithaca, so to that contrast I shall now turn.” (03/03/25)
https://www.econlib.org/library/columns/y2025/cowenodysseypart3.html