Part 34 of Prisoners of the Real
We are living through a chronically tense and, in the wealthier parts of the world, a desperately self-indulgent era. Advertising teaches that fulfillment comes with compulsive consumption. News media trivialize history and turn current events into a competition of spectacles and personality cults. Addicted to fads and the quick fix, frightened of the future and cut adrift from the past, millions of people flee from imagination and look for meaning in pre-digested reality.
The very sense that we are part of real families and communities is under attack. The shallow, virtual images that dominate our days begin to look more real than we do. Experts meanwhile have a field day providing detached evaluations of the psychic assault on humanity and the breakdown of culture, while conveniently omitting that they are among the culprits.
Societal narcissism has reached epidemic proportions. The narcissist has traditionally been viewed as the "beautiful person" who can relate only to his or her own image. However, the definition has more recently been expanded to include traits such as dependence on the vicarious warmth provided by others, fear of dependence, a sense of inner emptiness, boundless repressed rage, and unsatisfied cravings. Narcissists can be pseudo-intellectuals or calculating seducers. Usually, they are afraid of old age and death, and fascinated with celebrities. These callous, superficial climbers seek out the famous, and yet are also compelled to destroy their fantasy figures.
If this was merely a description of a few "sick" individuals we might find some comfort. But patterns of narcissism affect millions and are reinforced daily. And perhaps most disquieting, the narcissistic personality is ideally suited for positions of power. A narcissist leader will sell himself to win at any price.
Capitalism has turned selling oneself into a form of work, with success often resting on the ability to project "personality" and a winning image. Self-promotion, a characteristic both of conservatives and their elite radical counterparts, meshes neatly with an idealization of powerful personalities who represent what the narcissist seeks.
Narcissists identify with winners out of their fear of being losers. Objects of hero worship tend to give meaning to the otherwise direction-less lives of society's many emotional casualties. Yet mixed with idealization is an urge to degrade the object of one's admiration, sparked when the narcissist's hero ultimately disappoints. This desperate urge, intensified by the machinery of mass promotion, turns even assassination into a form of spectacle.
Among the influences that reinforce narcissism, mass media have the most pervasive impact. They tend to create both a sense of chronic tension and a cynical detachment from reality. But detachment doesn't have to express itself as hopeless cynicism. It can also lead to intelligent skepticism. This raises a political question, since media and other institutions could help to reduce our dependence and support us in solving our own problems. In recent years, however, being detached has meant mainly a crippling cynicism about the entire political process, a nihilistic and escapist conclusion that no constructive change is possible.
The abdication of the parental role to various bureaucracies has meanwhile promoted character traits consistent with a corrupted culture, and this in turn has accelerated the excesses of corporate capitalism. The result is mass neurosis. Images of a "good" and a "bad" mother, objects of love and hatred, are formed early, internalized, and become part of the self-image of children. But rather than fusing into a super-ego that also contains social values and self-confidence, these early images often melt into a harsh, punishing super-ego. The emerging adult is torn between repressed rage and the desire for some all-powerful other. Sexual needs are distorted, barriers are erected against strong emotions, and fear of death and old age becomes intense.
In this sense, the modern family reinforces the development of narcissistic people. The decay of older traditions of self-help has eroded competence in one area after another, leaving the individual dependent on the state, the corporation, and other bureaucracies. Narcissism is the psychological dimension of this dependence. Popular culture feeds on narcissistic fantasies, encouraging delusions of omnipotence while simultaneously affirming feelings of dependence and blocking strong emotions.
Ultimately, the bland and empty facade of mass existence becomes overwhelming. Yet within many of us there remains enormous anger and potential for which bureaucratic society provides few outlets. In fact, few people are really satisfied with the facade. Some do nothing, yet know the system just doesn't work. Others actively look for ways to limit the invasion. Some strike out violently. Others tap cultural resources such as cooperative work, art, and spirituality to help counteract the effects.
With the basic belief in individual responsibility undermined, moral impulses in particular help to keep alive the sense that people are responsible for what they do. If such a view spread widely enough, it could redirect an entire society. Another remedy, in response to professional imperialism, is to reclaim the responsibilities we've ceded to experts. Call it a program of conscious self-rule, one that could also protect us from discriminatory or authoritarian tendencies.
Such steps carry risks. For example, reactionary impulses in the family or church are easily exploited. But given the state of society – moral bankruptcy, political corruption, economic inequality, and ecological decay – taking a few risks is preferable to playing it safe. The goal is to restore humanity's basic dignity through compassion, engagement, and mutual aid. Along with healthy skepticism and carefully directed anger, these could be keys to a new, freer and more natural culture.
Next: Community & Consciousness
To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
Humanity at the Turning Point
Part 33 of Prisoners of the Real
For a century, humanity has been in the early stages of a great transformation, perhaps the greatest it has ever faced. As revealed in the dissolution of the "superpower" known as the Soviet Union, it is not merely a matter of one economic and social system prevailing over another. All systems are under severe stress. Alliances crumble, ethnic and religious upheavals shake the world, class and racial conflict flares across the US, the planet itself shudders under the threat of environmental Armageddon.
Martin Buber recognized the stakes when he wrote, "What is in question, therefore, is nothing less than man’s whole existence in the world."
During the various stages of human evolution, the central dynamic has consistently been the relationship between human beings and the rest of the natural world. But over the last five hundred years the tempo of our crusade to assert power over nature has increased dramatically, and with devastating effect. As crises pile upon one another, we have slowly begun to see just how fragile our "triumph" has been. In quickly repressed moments of intuition we sense that the high road of progress is actually a high-speed ride along the narrow ledge of an abyss. What we desperately need is conscious, responsible knowledge, and flowing from it, truly heroic deeds.
But taking account of the journey ahead will not be enough. In order to act effectively we will need to acknowledge where the journey began. Human beings first emerged from nature by banding together –to protect themselves, hunt, gather food and work. Yet, from the very start, we faced each other as independent entities. A "social" world was created by beings both mutually dependent and fiercely independent. No group of animals had ever constructed such a society before.
Apes use tools, but don't "produce" them for one another. Insect societies have division of labor, but it governs them completely; they don't improvise, strike out independently, or develop one-to-one relationships. It is precisely this unique quality of humanity – the complex and dynamic tension between autonomy and unity – that has brought us to our turning point.
Communities form, reform and evolve on the basis of the twin principles of growing personal independence and collaboration. In every group, in one form or another, division of labor emerges, each person utilizing special capacities in a renewing, shifting association. This is the first step in the evolution of any human organization. The second is the development of relations between groups – in other words, some agreement to combine effort in the pursuit of an external objective. In doing both, we acknowledge differences in nature and function. No matter what the particular shape or customs of a human society, a balance between functional autonomy and mutual aid must be struck both within groups and in relations between them.
Power centers come and go – cities, states and bureaucracies that boldly guarantee order and security. Yet at the root, what counts is the organic and enduring human community in which we live and work, where we compete with and support one another. And within each community and group, asserting independence while simultaneously fulfilling responsibilities to fellow human beings, is the individual – autonomous and yet profoundly social.
How tragic, then, that these fundamental aspects of human development have been so distorted by centralistic and absolutist institutions. The problem isn't merely that the State has weakened and in many respects destroyed free associations – although it has also done that. The true tragedy is that the centralist impulse has become embedded in all forms of social interaction. It has changed the inherent structure of groups, the family, institutions, and societies, as well as the inner life of humanity. Modern industrial development has meanwhile accelerated society's subsumption within the State.
Struggles between States have become struggles between whole societies. And societies, perceiving threats both from outside and within their very nature, have often submitted further to centralized power as a result. The pattern has replayed itself in varied political systems, from the most brutally totalitarian to the proudest democratic.
As the importance of power, the interests of the State and the marketing of mass culture have saturated societies, the inner development of the individual has become confused and disfigured. The family, work group and community no longer provide a source of reassurance. Individuals cling increasingly to the great collectivities, abdicating individual freedom and responsibility. In the process, a key component in social life – mutual support between human beings – has been severely undermined. In many places and situations, autonomous relationships have become meaningless. As Buber put it, "The personal human being ceases to be the living member of a social body and becomes a cog in the 'collective' machine."
Just at the moment when, in some societies at least, there is finally time to improve community life, it has been hollowed into an empty shell.
Next: Narcissism & Grand Delusions
To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey
For a century, humanity has been in the early stages of a great transformation, perhaps the greatest it has ever faced. As revealed in the dissolution of the "superpower" known as the Soviet Union, it is not merely a matter of one economic and social system prevailing over another. All systems are under severe stress. Alliances crumble, ethnic and religious upheavals shake the world, class and racial conflict flares across the US, the planet itself shudders under the threat of environmental Armageddon.
Martin Buber recognized the stakes when he wrote, "What is in question, therefore, is nothing less than man’s whole existence in the world."
During the various stages of human evolution, the central dynamic has consistently been the relationship between human beings and the rest of the natural world. But over the last five hundred years the tempo of our crusade to assert power over nature has increased dramatically, and with devastating effect. As crises pile upon one another, we have slowly begun to see just how fragile our "triumph" has been. In quickly repressed moments of intuition we sense that the high road of progress is actually a high-speed ride along the narrow ledge of an abyss. What we desperately need is conscious, responsible knowledge, and flowing from it, truly heroic deeds.
But taking account of the journey ahead will not be enough. In order to act effectively we will need to acknowledge where the journey began. Human beings first emerged from nature by banding together –to protect themselves, hunt, gather food and work. Yet, from the very start, we faced each other as independent entities. A "social" world was created by beings both mutually dependent and fiercely independent. No group of animals had ever constructed such a society before.
Apes use tools, but don't "produce" them for one another. Insect societies have division of labor, but it governs them completely; they don't improvise, strike out independently, or develop one-to-one relationships. It is precisely this unique quality of humanity – the complex and dynamic tension between autonomy and unity – that has brought us to our turning point.
Communities form, reform and evolve on the basis of the twin principles of growing personal independence and collaboration. In every group, in one form or another, division of labor emerges, each person utilizing special capacities in a renewing, shifting association. This is the first step in the evolution of any human organization. The second is the development of relations between groups – in other words, some agreement to combine effort in the pursuit of an external objective. In doing both, we acknowledge differences in nature and function. No matter what the particular shape or customs of a human society, a balance between functional autonomy and mutual aid must be struck both within groups and in relations between them.
Power centers come and go – cities, states and bureaucracies that boldly guarantee order and security. Yet at the root, what counts is the organic and enduring human community in which we live and work, where we compete with and support one another. And within each community and group, asserting independence while simultaneously fulfilling responsibilities to fellow human beings, is the individual – autonomous and yet profoundly social.
How tragic, then, that these fundamental aspects of human development have been so distorted by centralistic and absolutist institutions. The problem isn't merely that the State has weakened and in many respects destroyed free associations – although it has also done that. The true tragedy is that the centralist impulse has become embedded in all forms of social interaction. It has changed the inherent structure of groups, the family, institutions, and societies, as well as the inner life of humanity. Modern industrial development has meanwhile accelerated society's subsumption within the State.
Struggles between States have become struggles between whole societies. And societies, perceiving threats both from outside and within their very nature, have often submitted further to centralized power as a result. The pattern has replayed itself in varied political systems, from the most brutally totalitarian to the proudest democratic.
As the importance of power, the interests of the State and the marketing of mass culture have saturated societies, the inner development of the individual has become confused and disfigured. The family, work group and community no longer provide a source of reassurance. Individuals cling increasingly to the great collectivities, abdicating individual freedom and responsibility. In the process, a key component in social life – mutual support between human beings – has been severely undermined. In many places and situations, autonomous relationships have become meaningless. As Buber put it, "The personal human being ceases to be the living member of a social body and becomes a cog in the 'collective' machine."
Just at the moment when, in some societies at least, there is finally time to improve community life, it has been hollowed into an empty shell.
Next: Narcissism & Grand Delusions
To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey
Thursday, March 18, 2010
The Path of Invention
Part 32 of Prisoners of the Real
In Sufism, Dionysus is described as a process of "deep understanding" or direct perception. In Zen, it is called kensho – to enter inside. And the I Ching, whose first hexagram refers to Apollonian power and energy, calls it K'un – the Receptive.
K'un, the second hexagram, is a series of broken lines representing the dark, primal power of yin, related both to devotion and the Earth. It is a perfect complement to the Creative, representing nature in contrast to spirit, earth in contrast to heaven, and the female in contrast to the male. Within the individual, it points toward the need for co-existence between the spiritual world and the world of the senses.
With the help of Dionysus, humanity can liberate itself from manipulative structures and transform the arrogant dragon into a receptive spirit: plurality can become unity, the gradual building of trust and love between all beings, with individual entities acknowledged as temporary forms filled with a single mind-energy. Planning can be matched by designing, sequence can be mated with synchronicity. In short, the isolated parts of the social body can be re-united as interdependent elements, equipotential within the whole.
This Dionysian force is a universal, collective and dynamic instinct within all human beings, the single substance within every system. It expresses itself through patterns of instinctual behavior, archetypes or motifs of the psyche pre-existent in the collective unconscious. Eternal repetition has engraved these archetypes into humanity's psychic constitution, not as images with content but, at least initially, as forms without content that represent the possibility of a certain kind of perception and action. The potential can be released through dreams and active imagination; although both have valuable uses in organizations, the latter can be more easily applied to social and work life.
Deliberate concentration can produce a group of fantasies – chance ideas, as yet unrealized possibilities. They can be considered through reflection, searched for their associations and material contexts. The result has been called inspiration and innovation. For Maslow it was primary creativity, for Noam Chomsky an "instinct for freedom," and Emerson called it transcendentalism. Whatever the name, it is the door of perception opening.
In Sufism, Dionysus is described as a process of "deep understanding" or direct perception. In Zen, it is called kensho – to enter inside. And the I Ching, whose first hexagram refers to Apollonian power and energy, calls it K'un – the Receptive.
K'un, the second hexagram, is a series of broken lines representing the dark, primal power of yin, related both to devotion and the Earth. It is a perfect complement to the Creative, representing nature in contrast to spirit, earth in contrast to heaven, and the female in contrast to the male. Within the individual, it points toward the need for co-existence between the spiritual world and the world of the senses.
With the help of Dionysus, humanity can liberate itself from manipulative structures and transform the arrogant dragon into a receptive spirit: plurality can become unity, the gradual building of trust and love between all beings, with individual entities acknowledged as temporary forms filled with a single mind-energy. Planning can be matched by designing, sequence can be mated with synchronicity. In short, the isolated parts of the social body can be re-united as interdependent elements, equipotential within the whole.
This Dionysian force is a universal, collective and dynamic instinct within all human beings, the single substance within every system. It expresses itself through patterns of instinctual behavior, archetypes or motifs of the psyche pre-existent in the collective unconscious. Eternal repetition has engraved these archetypes into humanity's psychic constitution, not as images with content but, at least initially, as forms without content that represent the possibility of a certain kind of perception and action. The potential can be released through dreams and active imagination; although both have valuable uses in organizations, the latter can be more easily applied to social and work life.
Deliberate concentration can produce a group of fantasies – chance ideas, as yet unrealized possibilities. They can be considered through reflection, searched for their associations and material contexts. The result has been called inspiration and innovation. For Maslow it was primary creativity, for Noam Chomsky an "instinct for freedom," and Emerson called it transcendentalism. Whatever the name, it is the door of perception opening.
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The Dionysian collective has weathered a chilling winter of rationalism. Violated in the seventeenth century. dismembered by skeptics in the Age of Reason, its essence was given a ritual burial as rationalized humanity sacrificed itself to the clockwork deity it had constructed. But Dionysus is about to return, and arrogant dragons will relearn the meaning of annihilation. Historical circumstances, environmental consequences and instinctual will have combined as humanity gazes over the edge of history at a 2000 year cycle that began with Pythagoras, and is ending with the dictatorship of structures and the fetishism of the "real."
Throughout this cycle, and particularly for the last four hundred years, our guardians of order have been rational managers who have turned further outward and upward. The One has become a digit, objectified and classified by purveyors of data. Scientists have built a routinized world through a logical sequence, a progression that has simultaneously destroyed intuition and myth for the greater glory of reason.
In reaching to command and shape natural forces, other living beings and humanity, these managers have smothered their instincts in a machine-made blanket of facts. Total systemic predictability has been an imaginary carrot dangled from the calibrated stick of science. As a result, tools have been used to shape human beings in an image that appeared to Renaissance philosophers, astronomers, mathematicians, and certainty-bound mechanics. In the 20th century, the reflex doctrine of controlled and controlling humanity became the central prophecy of our age.
But as the I Ching suggests, the current standstill will not last. "First standstill," predicts the oracle, "then good fortune." Rational leaders have made necessity the commanding father of spontaneous invention. But human beings who discover within themselves the potential of Dionysus can turn the inverted pyramid back upon its base. In doing so, they can find wisdom and creative intellect, using Earth as the foundation for understanding higher things. They can make invention the tolerant mother of order and necessity, and through their intuitive methods create a web of Dionysian collectives that will regenerate the world.
Throughout this cycle, and particularly for the last four hundred years, our guardians of order have been rational managers who have turned further outward and upward. The One has become a digit, objectified and classified by purveyors of data. Scientists have built a routinized world through a logical sequence, a progression that has simultaneously destroyed intuition and myth for the greater glory of reason.
In reaching to command and shape natural forces, other living beings and humanity, these managers have smothered their instincts in a machine-made blanket of facts. Total systemic predictability has been an imaginary carrot dangled from the calibrated stick of science. As a result, tools have been used to shape human beings in an image that appeared to Renaissance philosophers, astronomers, mathematicians, and certainty-bound mechanics. In the 20th century, the reflex doctrine of controlled and controlling humanity became the central prophecy of our age.
But as the I Ching suggests, the current standstill will not last. "First standstill," predicts the oracle, "then good fortune." Rational leaders have made necessity the commanding father of spontaneous invention. But human beings who discover within themselves the potential of Dionysus can turn the inverted pyramid back upon its base. In doing so, they can find wisdom and creative intellect, using Earth as the foundation for understanding higher things. They can make invention the tolerant mother of order and necessity, and through their intuitive methods create a web of Dionysian collectives that will regenerate the world.
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Dionysian leaders use artistic methods to invent structures of reality. Although they acknowledge that both scientific and artistic processes have worth, they de-emphasize logical reasoning and deduction and focus on metaphorical thinking. Their interest is not definition but discovery.
Metaphor is a ceaseless movement of association – of ideas, experiences and tensions. It swings in two directions as one object is related to another, one phenomenon, experience, behavior, or personality. Pairs define one another and emerge mutually. Reality is related to unreality and becomes partially abstract. Unreality – the inexpressible – becomes more tangible. Through their fusion the two create a new reality with an evolved nature.
Metaphorical method relies upon both sense experience and spontaneous creation. The first, observation by the senses, is a traditional scientific tool. When combined with abstract thought it leads to scientific theory. Used in concert with reflection – that is, purposeful concentration as a vehicle of spontaneity – it instead produces artistic discovery.
Dionysian beings use metaphor for creative activity rather than abstract reasoning, suspending their routines as they deal with the "real world." They remain receptive to the subject of group action, and to the various members of their group. Though they may be leaders, they don’t consider themselves "professionals" or executives within a hierarchy. They act instead as integrated group members whose specific contribution is their ability to create images of whole systems, and to initiate change while maintaining a harmony of meaning between their groups and the environment.
The intuitive approach places the leader within the subject. She "sees" it, coincides with its unique aspects. She remains mobile within a shifting organizational framework, using her skill to provide others with images, expressions to which they can respond. Another crucial aspect is the maintenance of ethical sensitivity. Dionysian leaders are value-conscious adhesive bonds within their groups. Others may monitor output on a timely basis, but the primary concern of the Dionysian leader is input.
In Dionysian collectives structure emerges gradually as a by-product of activity. History combines with the sum of individual perceptions to shape the future of the group. The leader is a generalist. Others may move toward specialization as they increase their awareness of interpersonal relations and the meshing of individual and group purposes. The leader assists them in shaping and reshaping their group meaning, and varying their individual experiences. Although leaders assume "operational" tasks along with everyone else, their central assignment is the continual posing of questions that promote spontaneity and change. Rather than relying on analysis – the orderly sequencing of thoughts – they use association – the relationship between ideas.
Taken together, these approaches make the leadership role a force away from centralization. Large systems are broken into more functional units, each one operationally autonomous yet sensitive to the infinitely varying purposes of other groups. It is at the level of purpose that Dionysian collectives relate, and their leaders open the gates for the transfer for energy.
The assumption that unifies these entities is that belief regulates structure. Dionysian leaders expand the limits of belief and restrict the limits of resulting structures.
Next: The Turning Point
Metaphor is a ceaseless movement of association – of ideas, experiences and tensions. It swings in two directions as one object is related to another, one phenomenon, experience, behavior, or personality. Pairs define one another and emerge mutually. Reality is related to unreality and becomes partially abstract. Unreality – the inexpressible – becomes more tangible. Through their fusion the two create a new reality with an evolved nature.
Metaphorical method relies upon both sense experience and spontaneous creation. The first, observation by the senses, is a traditional scientific tool. When combined with abstract thought it leads to scientific theory. Used in concert with reflection – that is, purposeful concentration as a vehicle of spontaneity – it instead produces artistic discovery.
Dionysian beings use metaphor for creative activity rather than abstract reasoning, suspending their routines as they deal with the "real world." They remain receptive to the subject of group action, and to the various members of their group. Though they may be leaders, they don’t consider themselves "professionals" or executives within a hierarchy. They act instead as integrated group members whose specific contribution is their ability to create images of whole systems, and to initiate change while maintaining a harmony of meaning between their groups and the environment.
The intuitive approach places the leader within the subject. She "sees" it, coincides with its unique aspects. She remains mobile within a shifting organizational framework, using her skill to provide others with images, expressions to which they can respond. Another crucial aspect is the maintenance of ethical sensitivity. Dionysian leaders are value-conscious adhesive bonds within their groups. Others may monitor output on a timely basis, but the primary concern of the Dionysian leader is input.
In Dionysian collectives structure emerges gradually as a by-product of activity. History combines with the sum of individual perceptions to shape the future of the group. The leader is a generalist. Others may move toward specialization as they increase their awareness of interpersonal relations and the meshing of individual and group purposes. The leader assists them in shaping and reshaping their group meaning, and varying their individual experiences. Although leaders assume "operational" tasks along with everyone else, their central assignment is the continual posing of questions that promote spontaneity and change. Rather than relying on analysis – the orderly sequencing of thoughts – they use association – the relationship between ideas.
Taken together, these approaches make the leadership role a force away from centralization. Large systems are broken into more functional units, each one operationally autonomous yet sensitive to the infinitely varying purposes of other groups. It is at the level of purpose that Dionysian collectives relate, and their leaders open the gates for the transfer for energy.
The assumption that unifies these entities is that belief regulates structure. Dionysian leaders expand the limits of belief and restrict the limits of resulting structures.
Next: The Turning Point
To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Dionysus & Apollo
Part 31 of Prisoners of the Real
The worship of Dionysus predates the Greek version of the myth and grew out of an ancient belief in the spirit of nature and fertility, often expressed in celebratory rites. It was only a matter of time before the Greeks recognized the cult. For them, Dionysus was the God of Wine, a constantly changing energy that oscillated between benefaction and destruction. His cup was life-giving and could heal any illness. His influence quickened courage and banished fear. Worshippers soared as they realized through Dionysus their innate ability to transcend their own limits. Working within and around human beings, he could transform them into gods and goddesses.
As Edith Hamilton described it, "The momentary sense of exultant power wine-drinking can give was only a sign to show men that they had within them more than they knew."
Dionysus has also been identified with the Indian figure Shiva, the Egyptian myth of the dead and resurrected god Osiris, as well as various rites of the killed and resurrected divine king. In The White Goddess, Robert Graves describes the figure of the lame king in Levantine, Cretan, Greek, Celtic and Germanic legend. Dionysus is said to have had a bull-foot. Campbell relates these symbols to the moon, the celestial counterpart of the sacrificed and resurrected king. The moon is lame on one side, then on the other. One side of the tree of life is beautiful, the other in decay. The moon is also the heavenly cup of liquor drunk by the gods.
In Jewish and Chinese legends of the deluge, the hero becomes lame. Noah is injured by a lion (a solar beast). He and China's Great Yu survive, ending the old and bringing on the new. The deluge itself is described in several ways – as mathematical inevitability, culmination of a cosmic cycle, monstrous catastrophe brought on by a freely willing god, or local geographical event marked by neither guilt nor mathematics. In any case, it is a hero legend whose central theme is not the deluge but the virtue of the hero who responds in harmony with the order of nature.
One of the most arresting of the Greek gods, as well as one of the two gods of earth, Dionysus eventually achieved the status of a major divinity. His admission to Delphi indicated the full acceptance of his worship as part of the state religion, often expressed in dramatic festivals. More than a mere merrymaker who freed people momentarily through wine, however, Dionysus represented the spirit of human liberation through inspiration.
Countless poems were composed for this expression of the divine idea. Through the power of Dionysus human beings were said to act gloriously, even divinely. He was a symbol of revelry, inspiration, destruction, and also afflicted suffering. According to the Greeks, Dionysus died with the coming of the cold, torn to pieces by elemental forces. But this death was merely a prologue to resurrection, since Dionysus also embodies the idea of life beyond material existence – the basis of belief in immortality.
In sum, the Greeks realized that instincts couldn't be denied. Therefore, they embraced and elevated as a god a force that personifies basic human instincts and desires. They were also well aware, of course, that the dangers of denial were paralleled by the dangers of excess. As a result, Dionysus reflected both the potential for inspired creation and frenzied destruction. Unfortunately, the inheritors of Greek culture lost sight of the liberatory implications and, much like the vengeful Hera, embarked on a campaign of persecution.
To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey
The worship of Dionysus predates the Greek version of the myth and grew out of an ancient belief in the spirit of nature and fertility, often expressed in celebratory rites. It was only a matter of time before the Greeks recognized the cult. For them, Dionysus was the God of Wine, a constantly changing energy that oscillated between benefaction and destruction. His cup was life-giving and could heal any illness. His influence quickened courage and banished fear. Worshippers soared as they realized through Dionysus their innate ability to transcend their own limits. Working within and around human beings, he could transform them into gods and goddesses.
As Edith Hamilton described it, "The momentary sense of exultant power wine-drinking can give was only a sign to show men that they had within them more than they knew."
Dionysus has also been identified with the Indian figure Shiva, the Egyptian myth of the dead and resurrected god Osiris, as well as various rites of the killed and resurrected divine king. In The White Goddess, Robert Graves describes the figure of the lame king in Levantine, Cretan, Greek, Celtic and Germanic legend. Dionysus is said to have had a bull-foot. Campbell relates these symbols to the moon, the celestial counterpart of the sacrificed and resurrected king. The moon is lame on one side, then on the other. One side of the tree of life is beautiful, the other in decay. The moon is also the heavenly cup of liquor drunk by the gods.
In Jewish and Chinese legends of the deluge, the hero becomes lame. Noah is injured by a lion (a solar beast). He and China's Great Yu survive, ending the old and bringing on the new. The deluge itself is described in several ways – as mathematical inevitability, culmination of a cosmic cycle, monstrous catastrophe brought on by a freely willing god, or local geographical event marked by neither guilt nor mathematics. In any case, it is a hero legend whose central theme is not the deluge but the virtue of the hero who responds in harmony with the order of nature.
One of the most arresting of the Greek gods, as well as one of the two gods of earth, Dionysus eventually achieved the status of a major divinity. His admission to Delphi indicated the full acceptance of his worship as part of the state religion, often expressed in dramatic festivals. More than a mere merrymaker who freed people momentarily through wine, however, Dionysus represented the spirit of human liberation through inspiration.
Countless poems were composed for this expression of the divine idea. Through the power of Dionysus human beings were said to act gloriously, even divinely. He was a symbol of revelry, inspiration, destruction, and also afflicted suffering. According to the Greeks, Dionysus died with the coming of the cold, torn to pieces by elemental forces. But this death was merely a prologue to resurrection, since Dionysus also embodies the idea of life beyond material existence – the basis of belief in immortality.
In sum, the Greeks realized that instincts couldn't be denied. Therefore, they embraced and elevated as a god a force that personifies basic human instincts and desires. They were also well aware, of course, that the dangers of denial were paralleled by the dangers of excess. As a result, Dionysus reflected both the potential for inspired creation and frenzied destruction. Unfortunately, the inheritors of Greek culture lost sight of the liberatory implications and, much like the vengeful Hera, embarked on a campaign of persecution.
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Apollo and Dionysus are primal twins buried within the human psyche, yet for almost two thousand years we have worshipped Apollo and devalued the god of inspiration. Master musician and archer, Apollo is also known as a healer and god of light. No darkness exists, for the deity or his followers, as they seek the truth. Known as the son god, his second name – Phoebus – means "brilliant" or "shining."
The origins of Apollo, like Dionysus, stretch back further than the Greeks; in this case, to Indo-European migrations and ancient tales of fear and vengeance. To the Greeks, however, he was simply the son of Zeus and Leto, another victim of Hera's spite. Driven from country to country in search of sanctuary, Leto eventually settled on Delos, the island on whose northern slopes Apollo is said to have been born. A favored child, he was fed on nectar and ambrosia, reaching manhood in four days as a result.
Though courageous and skilled, Apollo was also hasty. Seeking to kill the serpent named Python, for example, he tracked it to the shrine of Mother Earth at Delphi, and struck it down in the very spot where the oracle spoke. Earth, demanding atonement for the defiling of her sacred place, forced Zeus to send his son away for ritual purification.
And despite Apollo's gifts, including the power of prophecy, he wasn't always kind. To Greek herdsman, for example, he was a fearful, "wolfish" presence that had to be placated, a god who could either protect them from wolves or, if he was offended, give tangible shape to their fears.
Here is another link between myths and men, with more lessons about the complex nature of human will. The light-giver, who can heal and purify, can also be quite pitiless and cruel. Just as the excesses of Dionysus have been accentuated, the cruel and primitive side of Apollo has been ignored.
The origins of Apollo, like Dionysus, stretch back further than the Greeks; in this case, to Indo-European migrations and ancient tales of fear and vengeance. To the Greeks, however, he was simply the son of Zeus and Leto, another victim of Hera's spite. Driven from country to country in search of sanctuary, Leto eventually settled on Delos, the island on whose northern slopes Apollo is said to have been born. A favored child, he was fed on nectar and ambrosia, reaching manhood in four days as a result.
Though courageous and skilled, Apollo was also hasty. Seeking to kill the serpent named Python, for example, he tracked it to the shrine of Mother Earth at Delphi, and struck it down in the very spot where the oracle spoke. Earth, demanding atonement for the defiling of her sacred place, forced Zeus to send his son away for ritual purification.
And despite Apollo's gifts, including the power of prophecy, he wasn't always kind. To Greek herdsman, for example, he was a fearful, "wolfish" presence that had to be placated, a god who could either protect them from wolves or, if he was offended, give tangible shape to their fears.
Here is another link between myths and men, with more lessons about the complex nature of human will. The light-giver, who can heal and purify, can also be quite pitiless and cruel. Just as the excesses of Dionysus have been accentuated, the cruel and primitive side of Apollo has been ignored.
*
**
***
Dionysus is the desire to burst through the reality bubble that surrounds us, to experience a general sense of affirmation, to touch the unknown. It's the spirit of magic, potential scattered through time, matter becoming spirit, the ideal that cuts through the skin of the real world. Apollo is Dionysus is ordered form, spirit becoming matter, the actuality of space, the practical application of Dionysus when this unlimited complexity is captured.
The Pythagorean synthesis fused formless substance with harmonious form, incorporating the evolutionary movement from impulse and sensitivity to rational order. But the goal of the process was spiritual, personal and subjective – to grasp the One through the power of intellect. In the two millenia since the great triangle was conceived, however, humanity has used and abused intellect primarily to gain mastery over knowledge. Ultimately, the triangle was inverted: wisdom and creative intellect were sacrificed in order to concentrate on classifying truth. We lost sight of the One by endlessly subdividing it into the many.
The harvest of our rational, Apollonian choice, and the concomitant denial of intuition, has been a painful and deadly discontinuity and alienation between entities. The world is perceived as atoms, particles, and individuals, bound to one another only by the laws of cause and effect. Rationalized humanity has assumed that aggression and territoriality are inherent. In this bright, cold world surrendered freedom has been promoted as the only way to avoid war and shield the world system from chaos – widely accepted as the "state of nature."
Next: The Path of Invention
The Pythagorean synthesis fused formless substance with harmonious form, incorporating the evolutionary movement from impulse and sensitivity to rational order. But the goal of the process was spiritual, personal and subjective – to grasp the One through the power of intellect. In the two millenia since the great triangle was conceived, however, humanity has used and abused intellect primarily to gain mastery over knowledge. Ultimately, the triangle was inverted: wisdom and creative intellect were sacrificed in order to concentrate on classifying truth. We lost sight of the One by endlessly subdividing it into the many.
The harvest of our rational, Apollonian choice, and the concomitant denial of intuition, has been a painful and deadly discontinuity and alienation between entities. The world is perceived as atoms, particles, and individuals, bound to one another only by the laws of cause and effect. Rationalized humanity has assumed that aggression and territoriality are inherent. In this bright, cold world surrendered freedom has been promoted as the only way to avoid war and shield the world system from chaos – widely accepted as the "state of nature."
Next: The Path of Invention
To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Rediscovering Dionysus
Part 30 of Prisoners of the Real
A small pearl-white sphere bounced before the eyes of the French scientist Marc Mathieu. Within it was the very essence of human life energy. The infinite, encased in a technological package, was about to be put to practical use.
"It so happens," Mathieu explained, "that when we become matter -- all right, when we die -- the energy within us frees itself with a fantastic speed. That's all. We call it speed of ascent. We were able to harness it and to make it work for us. Damning it, so to speak. Locking it in a generator. Or storing it in a tank."
How simple it sounded. Yet even this rational scientist was aware that a strictly realistic strategy for the use of the ultimate power would not suffice. When the approach of science is merely scientific, it often betrays human values. Thus, Mathieu planned to use the captured spirit of humanity -- the Gasp -- to control destructive power. A technological solution would be applied to the arms race and other forms of international hostility. The Gasp, he thought, would serve as a coercive force for peace.
But this final solution also posed a final problem. Since the people who wished to use it hadn't changed, the Gasper became another manipulative tool of negative power. One frightened Pentagon emissary pondered, "What we are faced with here is the possibility -- the probability-of overpull...the living will be emptied of their -- let's say, energy. Instant dehumanization, that is."
"Dehumanization," Mathieu mumbled. "Funny the Pentagon should suddenly start to worry about that."
Despite the dangers, Mathieu continued his research. The only answer to science, he assumed, was more science. And another irony. His purpose was moral awakening, yet his product threatened a genocide of the spirit, formless substance enslaved by form. And control wasn't the end. The next step was fission, the splitting of the Gasp.
"It can be done," thought Mathieu, "therefore it must be done...and I did it...The fission of the gasp has a power of destruction about a billion times stronger than that of the biggest bomb ever built...The gsp is potentially the most dangerous, the most devastating force in all creation, such as it is known and accessible to man. Which is exactly what the world's greatest poets have often said, but now this is no longer mythology, words, philosophical moonshine, this is now a technique...I've never felt so creative in my whole life."
Mathieu built a huge "gasper," called "The Pig." The great nations of the Earth waited nervously to learn in which direction it would be turned. One hundred and seventy thousand Albanian gsp units were captured in the disintegration chamber -- a lot of gas. If an implosion could be triggered, it would create a world of matter twice the size of the solar system.
But rather than inflicting dehumanization and destruction, the Gasper became an instrument of liberation. Its contents were released. The huge pearl-white sphere vanished in a maelstrom of exploding color. "For the first time since creation," thought Mathieu, "living men were looking at their ultimate freedom."
In The Gasp, author Romain Gary's morality tale of science the creator and destroyer of humanness, the "real world" has reached its limit. The forgotten purpose of control is rediscovered -- through the negation of control. Rejection of absolute order and predictability is manifested as the most beautiful light in the world. The dominance of matter and structure gives way to infinite human potential.
Such a force cannot be harnessed, objectified and put to purely operational use without horrendous costs. But when this Apollonian order metamorphoses into the formless life energy of Dionysus, humanity catches a glimpse of its godlike potential.
The association of Dionysus with frenzied dancing and excess is an unfortunate, though not accidental, case of stereotyping. In truth a symbol of the life force itself, Dionysus has been equated instead with dissipation and ruin, and condemned as a threat to certainty and precise organization. Emphasizing the threat of chaos, rationalists through the ages have hidden and denied the dionysian potential: an ability to produce inspiration, ecstatic joy, and blessing.
After initially appearing in the Far East, the cult of Dionysus found its way into Greece around 1000 BC. As the myth evolved, Dionysus, representing the force of life in all growing things, became known as the son of Zeus and Semele, daughter of the King of Thebes. The Lord of the Thunderbolt, according to the best known version of the story, had fallen in love with a human woman. At the same time, however, he had earned the rage of his jealous and vengeful wife, Hera. Learning that Semele was pregnant, Hera disguised herself as an old woman and gained the young mortal's confidence. She urged Semele to demand the truth – that is, to be shown the true identity of her lover, realizing that it would mean Semele's death.
As both Zeus and Hera knew, no human could look at the king of the gods in the full blaze of his divinity and survive. Nevertheless, Zeus eventually submitted to his lover's demand. For a moment, before Semele was consumed by the divine fire, she saw Zeus in his glory. The same fire made the unborn Dionysus immortal.
Despite Hera's continuing efforts to destroy the child, he survived under the care of Hermes. Living on a mountainside, he learned the inspirational properties of the vine and the juice of the grape. Persecuted by those who refused to recognize his divinity, he eventually left for Asia, where he learned to use his power. After collecting many followers, he returned home and joined the company of the Olympians.
Another version of the story makes him the son of Zeus and Persephone, who was herself the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. The achetypal maiden, Persephone was the product of a union between air (Zeus) and soil (Demeter), a force of fertility who was ultimately seduced by Gaia (Earth) at the behest of Hades (the underworld) and became his queen in the land of the dead. Before that, however, she was hidden by her mother in a Sicilian cave and discovered by her father, who had disguised himself as a serpent. Offspring of an incestuous union, Dionysus was born and nurtured in the cave until the jealous Hera sent two Titans to destroy him. Pouncing from behind, they tore him into seven parts, boiled them in a cauldron, roasted them, and ate everything except his heart. Athene saved that single organ. Attracted by the scent, Zeus found and killed the cannibals, and, by swallowing the heart himself, gave birth to his own son.
According to Joseph Campbell, this version mirrors the transformation from child to adult, as well as the puberty rites of many cultures. The child is carried across the threshold from dependency on the mother to participation in the nature of the father through physical transformation, intense psychological experience, and reawakening. In Freudian terms, Oedipal impulses of aggression and will to live have been redirected.
Like most myths and rites, these tales are derived from a common base, a cosmic insight of such force that, at certain times in human history, the formal structuring principle of the universe is caught up in it. Rituals and stories are comparable to the formulae of physics, wrote Campbell, "through which the modes of operation of inscrutable cosmic forces become not only accessible to the mind but also susceptible to control."
Mythology is essentially an organization of images conceived as a rendition of the sense of life. It is seen in two ways – thought and experience. As thought it is a primitive prelude to science. As experience it is art.
Next: Dionysus & Apollo
To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey
A small pearl-white sphere bounced before the eyes of the French scientist Marc Mathieu. Within it was the very essence of human life energy. The infinite, encased in a technological package, was about to be put to practical use.
"It so happens," Mathieu explained, "that when we become matter -- all right, when we die -- the energy within us frees itself with a fantastic speed. That's all. We call it speed of ascent. We were able to harness it and to make it work for us. Damning it, so to speak. Locking it in a generator. Or storing it in a tank."
How simple it sounded. Yet even this rational scientist was aware that a strictly realistic strategy for the use of the ultimate power would not suffice. When the approach of science is merely scientific, it often betrays human values. Thus, Mathieu planned to use the captured spirit of humanity -- the Gasp -- to control destructive power. A technological solution would be applied to the arms race and other forms of international hostility. The Gasp, he thought, would serve as a coercive force for peace.
But this final solution also posed a final problem. Since the people who wished to use it hadn't changed, the Gasper became another manipulative tool of negative power. One frightened Pentagon emissary pondered, "What we are faced with here is the possibility -- the probability-of overpull...the living will be emptied of their -- let's say, energy. Instant dehumanization, that is."
"Dehumanization," Mathieu mumbled. "Funny the Pentagon should suddenly start to worry about that."
Despite the dangers, Mathieu continued his research. The only answer to science, he assumed, was more science. And another irony. His purpose was moral awakening, yet his product threatened a genocide of the spirit, formless substance enslaved by form. And control wasn't the end. The next step was fission, the splitting of the Gasp.
"It can be done," thought Mathieu, "therefore it must be done...and I did it...The fission of the gasp has a power of destruction about a billion times stronger than that of the biggest bomb ever built...The gsp is potentially the most dangerous, the most devastating force in all creation, such as it is known and accessible to man. Which is exactly what the world's greatest poets have often said, but now this is no longer mythology, words, philosophical moonshine, this is now a technique...I've never felt so creative in my whole life."
Mathieu built a huge "gasper," called "The Pig." The great nations of the Earth waited nervously to learn in which direction it would be turned. One hundred and seventy thousand Albanian gsp units were captured in the disintegration chamber -- a lot of gas. If an implosion could be triggered, it would create a world of matter twice the size of the solar system.
But rather than inflicting dehumanization and destruction, the Gasper became an instrument of liberation. Its contents were released. The huge pearl-white sphere vanished in a maelstrom of exploding color. "For the first time since creation," thought Mathieu, "living men were looking at their ultimate freedom."
In The Gasp, author Romain Gary's morality tale of science the creator and destroyer of humanness, the "real world" has reached its limit. The forgotten purpose of control is rediscovered -- through the negation of control. Rejection of absolute order and predictability is manifested as the most beautiful light in the world. The dominance of matter and structure gives way to infinite human potential.
Such a force cannot be harnessed, objectified and put to purely operational use without horrendous costs. But when this Apollonian order metamorphoses into the formless life energy of Dionysus, humanity catches a glimpse of its godlike potential.
The association of Dionysus with frenzied dancing and excess is an unfortunate, though not accidental, case of stereotyping. In truth a symbol of the life force itself, Dionysus has been equated instead with dissipation and ruin, and condemned as a threat to certainty and precise organization. Emphasizing the threat of chaos, rationalists through the ages have hidden and denied the dionysian potential: an ability to produce inspiration, ecstatic joy, and blessing.
After initially appearing in the Far East, the cult of Dionysus found its way into Greece around 1000 BC. As the myth evolved, Dionysus, representing the force of life in all growing things, became known as the son of Zeus and Semele, daughter of the King of Thebes. The Lord of the Thunderbolt, according to the best known version of the story, had fallen in love with a human woman. At the same time, however, he had earned the rage of his jealous and vengeful wife, Hera. Learning that Semele was pregnant, Hera disguised herself as an old woman and gained the young mortal's confidence. She urged Semele to demand the truth – that is, to be shown the true identity of her lover, realizing that it would mean Semele's death.
As both Zeus and Hera knew, no human could look at the king of the gods in the full blaze of his divinity and survive. Nevertheless, Zeus eventually submitted to his lover's demand. For a moment, before Semele was consumed by the divine fire, she saw Zeus in his glory. The same fire made the unborn Dionysus immortal.
Despite Hera's continuing efforts to destroy the child, he survived under the care of Hermes. Living on a mountainside, he learned the inspirational properties of the vine and the juice of the grape. Persecuted by those who refused to recognize his divinity, he eventually left for Asia, where he learned to use his power. After collecting many followers, he returned home and joined the company of the Olympians.
Another version of the story makes him the son of Zeus and Persephone, who was herself the daughter of Zeus and Demeter. The achetypal maiden, Persephone was the product of a union between air (Zeus) and soil (Demeter), a force of fertility who was ultimately seduced by Gaia (Earth) at the behest of Hades (the underworld) and became his queen in the land of the dead. Before that, however, she was hidden by her mother in a Sicilian cave and discovered by her father, who had disguised himself as a serpent. Offspring of an incestuous union, Dionysus was born and nurtured in the cave until the jealous Hera sent two Titans to destroy him. Pouncing from behind, they tore him into seven parts, boiled them in a cauldron, roasted them, and ate everything except his heart. Athene saved that single organ. Attracted by the scent, Zeus found and killed the cannibals, and, by swallowing the heart himself, gave birth to his own son.
According to Joseph Campbell, this version mirrors the transformation from child to adult, as well as the puberty rites of many cultures. The child is carried across the threshold from dependency on the mother to participation in the nature of the father through physical transformation, intense psychological experience, and reawakening. In Freudian terms, Oedipal impulses of aggression and will to live have been redirected.
Like most myths and rites, these tales are derived from a common base, a cosmic insight of such force that, at certain times in human history, the formal structuring principle of the universe is caught up in it. Rituals and stories are comparable to the formulae of physics, wrote Campbell, "through which the modes of operation of inscrutable cosmic forces become not only accessible to the mind but also susceptible to control."
Mythology is essentially an organization of images conceived as a rendition of the sense of life. It is seen in two ways – thought and experience. As thought it is a primitive prelude to science. As experience it is art.
Next: Dionysus & Apollo
To read other chapters, go to Prisoners of the Real: An Odyssey
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