Everything's a form of affectation, but truly: it's because one is so disillusioned and misanthropic that he has to learn a dead and extremely rigid language to feel like he has a semblance of control over his life. You seldom have to fight descriptivist arguments when discussing Latin grammar, because almost no one studies beyond the rote.

>>25628546
In order to actually learn Ancient Greek, you have to read Homer, the tragedians, Thucydides, and Plato in the original. Doing so will give you a perspective different from your own worldview. Whether gaining that perspective (or doing so not in translation) is valuable is entirely up to you.

>>25628546
latin/greek vocabulary helps in intuitively understanding scientific terms

Nothing practical. It's just a hobby

>>25628546
reading and translating latin literature is so fun

>>25628766
what perspective did you get

>>25628546
Well you learn ancient Greek in order to read the ancient Greeks in ancient Greek. Are you retarded?

>>25629175
There are quite a few, and the split between Homer and Classical Athens is stark. I am more inclined to the Homeric worldview, which may be briefly summarized as the notion that 'nobility of self and of deed, as evidenced by undying glory, justifies life.' Classical Athens sublimates undying glory to the temporal glory of the polis, with various philosophical thinkers and schools offering alternative worldviews. These first two perspectives are in contradiction to the broad Christian worldview ('eternal salvation justifies life') and modern secularism ('the inviolability of the self justifies life'). One can, of course, arrive at any of these perspectives through philosophy, but philosophy, when ungrounded in myth, broadly construed, unfurls into strange formulations (eg chuds larping as Nietzscheans).
The more historically grounded perspectives, such as societies where slavery is commonplace and there is little stopping the citizens of a neighboring city from slaughtering you and taking your women, are ones an individual cannot theorize from modern life. The Western man hardly knows the barbarities of which man, especially himself, is capable. (And to be honest, neither does he know the jewels of civilization he can create). There is a very real chance Western man may learn, one way or another, these barbarities first-hand in the next several generations, but I prefer to know them beforehand.

>>25628581
>extremely rigid
Ignorance on full display; language has de-evolved, anon

>>25628546
So you can read ancient texts in their original language and avoid translator bias/agendas

>>25628546
The pleasure of being elitist.