So there are at least two things one can mean here by ‘exceptionalism’. I think one is descriptive and true, the other isn’t descriptive and false. So classical Greece/Rome is “exceptional” in one sense. Its influence on the western intellectual tradition is vast. This 1/6 https://twitter.com/DavidHunterTO/status/1359857223011287047

doesn't deny other influences or their importance. It doesn’t deny other influences for the Greeks/Romans themselves. But the difference in degree is so large that, purely descriptively, there is something unique (or “exceptional”) about Greece/Rome relative to this 2/6

tradition. So here is one way to respond to this: (i) This influence is so vast and permeates so much of the western tradition that this tradition is largely unintelligible if we don’t understand it. So there is a reason to privilege, in some sense, the Greece/Rome centered 3/6

study of classics. Ok, but there is the other sense of ‘exceptionalism’—that this outsized influence is deserved because ancient Greece/Rome are superior to other traditions and cultures. I don’t want to defend that version. And yes, this is central to Enlightenment and 19th 4/6

century German historiography and was perpetuated by all sorts of awful regimes and is still accepted by many Classics defenders. So here is the other way to respond: (ii) The study of Greece/Rome can’t be separated from the pernicious form of exceptionalism; if you 5/6

continue to center Classics on Greece/Rome, you are just going to be perpetuating it. This is oversimplified, but I take the the difficulties that attend reconciling these two responses to be one of the major fault lines in these debates. 6/6