Today’s World – Questions Keep Getting Answers, Mysteries Still Remain
Posted: Wednesday, October 05, 2011
by Christofer French
Rain Dancer Associates, LLC
Pandora's Box is an artifact of Greek Mythology, but it has so many modern metaphors. Taken from the myth of Pandora's creation around line 60 of Hesiod’s Work and Days. The "box" was actually a large jar (pithos) given to Pandora ("all-gifted"), which contained all the evils of the world. Evil that cannot be undone has so much to do with our modern world, because so many of our “gifts” turn into burdens. Technological development has this way of being irreversible.
The original Greek word used was “pithos” which is a large jar, sometimes as large as a small human. It was used for storage of wine, oil, grain or other provisions, or, ritually, as a container for a human body for burying. In the case of Pandora, this jar may have been made of clay for use as storage as in the usual sense, or of bronze metal as an unbreakable prison.
The mistranslation of pithos is usually attributed to two important artists. This mistranslation became the way we understand “box” versus “jar”, and especially as it describes this myth. The metaphor seems to have more power and meaning when one thinks of the size of the jar, it’s allusion to burial and the value of man’s physical resources.
Hope Does Come Out
The myth itself though appears in many different versions; the most distinctive difference is that in some myths Hope does come out. The main purpose of the myth of Pandora though is to address the question of why evil exists in the world. Since there is Hope in the world, we can live with this option.
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When we think of “Today’s World” we can see how Prometheus eventually is unbound; and indeed since the Industrial Age, we can all agree breathlessly that the things man has manifested in the last 300 years would be viewed by most all ancient humans as magical, but irreversibly potentially dangerous. We have Today’s World and yes we are in awe, and overwhelmed and sometimes speechless. We live wrapped in fear and anticipation. Pandora’s Jar sets up a plausible description for Today’s World. 1) We live in a Technological World of a growing population and a demand on resources. 2) Regardless of Modernity, we still need to eat, keep our health, pursue happiness, have friends, loves, family, work and play and keep the human balance that we idealize. 3) Questions do keep getting answered, and problems continue to be solved, and the more we solve, the more we confront. This to me, this is the challenge of Pandora – that our challenges do not go away; they just take on new configurations. 4) Our human challenges remain. Modernity and complexity make us both, at once, more confused and more inspired. We seek peace and we seek prosperity. We fear the loss of these things. We reach out for greater Spiritual Growth. And so, all kinds of mysteries remain. The Great Human Misunderstanding – The “Barbarian” Syndrome Have you ever seen two friendly dogs suddenly bare teeth and bark when they are struggling over a bone? Have you seen man’s glorious evolved nature manifest itself in a crowded riotous setting? The dogs have it over us. They can calm down quickly. We like Prometheus burn with envy, hunger, pride, selfishness. The desire to “get back” at our enemy is as strong in an individual today as it was when we fought in small villages over limited resources. The great human misunderstanding is that we are at such a high level of development because of our technologies. Because we have cell phones, we use fewer epithets? Because we have advanced agricultural techniques, we can settle our hunger down when it groans in our core? Because we have super fast trains, we will not push and shove in line? Because we can build newer and bigger structures to work in, we will not be lazy anymore? Just because the Romans and Greeks had nicer tans and got their urban buildings up in immensely magnificent fashion they called all those people who lived just north of them “barbarians”, after the manner of their foreign tongues, i.e. “babababa arians”. It didn’t take vast superiority in working iron, clothing manufacture or hunting and agriculture. They built good roads and those roads were used to conquer. But you might have noticed that it doesn’t take much for people to look down on each other. Within a couple hundred years, these barbarians were taking over all of Rome. But boy do we want to be superior to our neighbors and make big noise about it as we rip off their crops and hidden gold (like Julius Caesar did with Gaul). This “Barbarian Syndrome” is our Great Human Misunderstanding. We use it with our ancient forefathers. Because of our technology and universal ability to dig our restored sports cars and shine up our antique jewelry, we are looking down on our great grandparents. We think we are so much better than our Neolithic ancestors. Look how we treated the Native Americans - An Industrial Age people crushed a Neolithic people. We could go on and on. This all too human tendency is what we carry into the 21st Century. We are not better than our Neolithic ancestors, even though we wear artificial fabric and eat packaged food, and consume mood-elevating drugs. Strip us down and deprive us, and we are a couple riots away from severe violence and revolution-prepared mumbo jumbo threats scrawled out on poster board. Technology and Societal Complexity Can Keep Us from Self-Directed Spiritual Development or Help us Forward Both the potential confounding of our growth, and the opportunity for the forward and upward development of our species is greater than ever. It is truly for us to consciously determine as we sit amongst our Technology and Societal Complexity. We can make choices. Here’s Something: Digital Writers Colonies There are so many things in this world of complex modernity, but, look, here’s something! Because our writers and contributors are from all the continents and various political points of view, we have something that really never could exist before. There are other things that are thusly true, but think of the potential spiritual, psychological and philosophical change that can be especially created in this particular representative group. Yes, there have been monks in caves in Tibet, writers off of Ireland’s coast, thinkers locked away in cathedrals and synagogues. There have been shamanistic traditions and tales borne around the world, armies of students hand-transferring ancient books in Asia. All around the world, spiritual growth has sprouted over the millennia and spread across the lands, the oceans, and the mountain ranges of our planet. The previous examples were done for the development of disciplines and faiths. But today, these days, one group (colony) of writers can gather in one setting (SearchWarp or WryteStuff) and share a harmony of thought or a heated friction of tradition that all get to be heard and expressed in one setting. Does this mean that “converts” are thus created to one cause? No, but what might develop is a group of thinkers and writers who have been exposed to more diverse philosophies than others ever have. Pondering our positions, struggling with comments on opposing points of view and actually thinking about the nature of debate and disagreement – all of these can lead to a higher level of development within the “colony”. Hope Did Escape with Pandora’s Jar, and It Is Soaring through our Modern Skies and Buzzing through our Wireless Systems Maybe Today’s World can be transformed even more than we can now imagine. HOPE did escape with all of the contents of the Jar. Because we see hope every day, and no matter how over developed we become or fraught with worry we might be over our destiny, we will always have Hope to beckon. We will always have Hope to invoke, when we feel we are losing our way! Today’s World throws a gauntlet down in our path. The less cut off and lonely we allow ourselves to be, the more difficult it will be to collectively pick up that gauntlet and allow mutual creativity to declare its pre-eminence. http://en.wikipedia.org/ |
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Top-level comments on this article: (5 total)You have touched so many possibilities, hope you had fun writing about today's world!Yes indeed. It took this wild and crazy HyunSoung Kim to get me going. You are my primer. Don't go away.
Great article, intelligently written. I so agree with your point regarding our disdain regarding the ancient ones who had more knowledge and wisdom regards what really matters than we can imagine. Yet, the wheel is turning and the wakening is happening. External reality is merely a mirror of the level of our internal consciousness. The change needs to come from within each soul, not from the elimination of anything externally.
'Be the change you want to see" (Gandhi)
Well, written with many fine points. Because of your section regarding Digital Writers' Colonies, I will share a thought with you I had -on the road-. I became convinced that the Tour of Babylon is communication technology. Just wondered what you and you and others here may think of that idea."Tower" of Babel, traditionally, was mankind all in one spot, developing ideas that would eventually give us the ability to "go to space and defy god". A kind of ersatz prophecy that uppity man, if not confused would bring the industrial age by 3000 BC.
The more modern, Visiting Alien types see it as a battle between alien forces had to stop using man as an experimental tool of the top alien power, and thus man was "sent to various" places, which caused the development of divergent tongues. The "divergent tongues" is what happened also in Story One.
You can get argument til doomsday on this topic, but your take is essentially correct. Man being able to overcome linguistic barriers to share ideas, and reach to the heavens. Which fast forward - is what we have in our current day.
Thanks, Christofer. I value your input.
This para really struck me, Christofer - "The great human misunderstanding is that we are at such a high level of development because of our technologies. Because we have cell phones, we use fewer epithets? Because we have advanced agricultural techniques, we can settle our hunger down when it groans in our core? Because we have super fast trains, we will not push and shove in line? Because we can build newer and bigger structures to work in, we will not be lazy anymore?"
That's just it. Technology doesn't improve people's capacity to be wise or emotionally fluent, it doesn't help us touch each other's hearts. Technology is supposed to make everything quicker and easier, but the thing about wisdom, healing, love, true relationships is that there is no quick and easy route to any of them.
Technology is like a new god. The world is worshipping it at the moment, but it's intrinsically a false idol, I think, because it's just a reflection of the thinking brain. And I don't think that's where our power lies. It lies in our hearts.
Great article, as usual, and thought-provoking, thanks :)
It is wonderful seeing the inspiration of my article come back to me in the form of Jennifer Stewart's sensible and sensitive thought profusion. Your paragraph should be in my article. And, ta dah, it is, in the form of your commentary. Thank you very very much.
Insightful, powerful information that tells us, if you removed all of our technologies, wealth, buildings, etc., and put us on a Desert Island with the same provisions as our ancestors, it is doubtful we would survive.
A humbling realization, that we have regressed more than we have progressed due to our materialistic pursuits. Doesn't all we have now depend on something or someone else? Isn't that dependence a pandora's box of it's own?
Great Article.I think technology has increased our sense of independence, and let us experience a vast array of experiences that we would otherwise not have had, and allowed more souls these experiences. However, it does not answer our core questions, and makes us think we do not need to address our core mysteries. But we do and we will, and the hope is that technology will not lead us to utter destruction, but further adaptations so that the drama can continue with new dialogue, new scripts and new sub plots and thus come much closer to the Secret Mystery that we are god shards finding our way home.
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