Stupid, Pointless Wars

Abstract

Nemesis is the justified indignation people feel at a violation of social norms, or, as here, behavior that gives rise to such indignation. This is a shifty thing for the Trojan elders to say, since by treating one moral issue whether Helen is worth fighting over they obscure a simpler one on which there can be no real doubt. Taking Helen was wrong, and it will soon be revealed to be even more decisively wrong after the violation of the truce. So considering whether she is, in herself, worth fighting over, if one had some legitimate claim to her, is an evasion. This may be a real question for the Achaeans, but not for the Trojans. But even if we take the remark at face value, it invites criticism. It is possible for a character to say that something is not nemesis or nemesseton as a litotes, where the speaker means that it is absolutely the correct thing to