Prefer The Leader Who Comes To You
--Ugandan Proverb
--Ugandan Proverb
If you look at almost any apocalyptic or futurist film you will almost always see the same plot, or rather, a familiar script, which will allow the world and its selected survivors to continue on thus insuring the world survives.
We are usually presented with some sort of catastrophe caused by war, a natural phenomenon, or of lives led, en masse, which caused such a great imbalance that people (except the strong ones), where unable to overcome. Various, and seemingly random, people come out from rubble, dusting themselves off and searching for other survivors. We will then be introduced to one man, (it's almost always a man and he is usually White as are most of the survivors). It will be immediately known by the viewer that this man is the leader and has the answers to every ones survival. Normally, without question, everyone follows his instructions. He tells people what to do, how to store food and when it is to be eaten and by whom, when to be in for the night, what animals to watch out for, and how to deal with the dead or dying. He seems to know, before everyone else, what has happened and what to do. He also, if the plot allows, tells people who the enemy is and how to deal with them. The enemy is always someone, somehow different from their group, either physically, intellectually or simply that they have something our survivors want or need. We immediately understand that they are an unwanted group of people that are OK to maim or kill. This leader is usually a lay person, neither a doctor, scientist, or actually qualified to be leading anyone. He is simply the hero in the plot.
As these films progress we often see our hero having to deal with people who are hungrier than others and attempt to steal food. Or that someone has left the lid off the food and spoiled it somehow leaving less for everyone else. There is always a person in the plot that rages against our leader/hero and demands that part of the group leave with him, (again always a man), as he believes he is wiser than the original leader/hero, and a fraction of the original group departs. We always learn what happens to the people who have split from the main group and always they have a bad ending. Sometimes the plot takes us to a manuscript, a book, a hidden thing that will insure, if our characters can find it, that they will survive. Many of these films place the bible as the thing sought or found and here is where I begin.
Before God, or when God was a child, there were gods. Multiple entities that controlled various things. The god of thunder, the gods of fate, the gods of love, etc. and during this time we were children. The world and life was a mystery. We had no real concepts of how the world actually performed or operated and instead we created a fantasy-like world. The earth was flat, divided in two, separated by the Sea, (the Mediterranean), and which was crossed from west to east. Flowing around our flat circular earth, running south to north, was the River Ocean. Where we stood was the center of the world with simple notions filling our heads. Mount Olympus was the home of the gods and in the town of Delphi an oracle was seated. We have lost, through extinction, any knowledge of what religions were practiced in ancient Greece and Rome and what is left we must refer to as their art and poetry for nothing remains that we can be certain can be placed in the category of theology.
These ancient myths, though seemingly obsolete, are with us hundreds of centuries later and form much of the basis of who we are. Our psyche (see Psyche) is explored endlessly when we pen a love letter or sit with a therapist wondering aloud about our lack of love. We as humans, centuries later, are still on a quest and hoping to have Psyche bestow love on us. Mythology, Greek and Roman mythology, are ever present in our everyday lives. We ask 'why?' endlessly. When sudden death occurs, when the newborn baby we cherish grows to have other ideas about the life to be led, when everything was going so well and a change makes it all something else, we are never thinking of the Moirae, but still these sisters are at work. When we punish those that escape from bondage we sever the Achilles tendon knowing that it is the weak spot on the body sure to hobble and prevent further fleeing. We long for inspiration and search for a muse (Muses). We do all the things that were done centuries past. The Iliad and Odyssey tell us so.
We were young in the world and scared when things came out of the sky. Thunder was a voice to be heeded and we lived without the concept guilt. When we were most afraid and alone we talked to ourselves to give ourselves comfort when no one else was around to give us solace. And when we were truly, truly afraid we talked louder and sometimes we felt, (we hoped), as though someone was listening. Other times, when we talked to ourselves suddenly there was a thunderstorm and we were sure it was a sign that indeed someone was listening. Sometimes these things happened to others too and once we learned of the occurrence happening to others, we talked amongst ourselves, and came to decide that it must be some sort of god hearing us, and having an opinion about what we said. We connected the gods to nature and to our behaviour.
These ancient myths, though seemingly obsolete, are with us hundreds of centuries later and form much of the basis of who we are. Our psyche (see Psyche) is explored endlessly when we pen a love letter or sit with a therapist wondering aloud about our lack of love. We as humans, centuries later, are still on a quest and hoping to have Psyche bestow love on us. Mythology, Greek and Roman mythology, are ever present in our everyday lives. We ask 'why?' endlessly. When sudden death occurs, when the newborn baby we cherish grows to have other ideas about the life to be led, when everything was going so well and a change makes it all something else, we are never thinking of the Moirae, but still these sisters are at work. When we punish those that escape from bondage we sever the Achilles tendon knowing that it is the weak spot on the body sure to hobble and prevent further fleeing. We long for inspiration and search for a muse (Muses). We do all the things that were done centuries past. The Iliad and Odyssey tell us so.
We were young in the world and scared when things came out of the sky. Thunder was a voice to be heeded and we lived without the concept guilt. When we were most afraid and alone we talked to ourselves to give ourselves comfort when no one else was around to give us solace. And when we were truly, truly afraid we talked louder and sometimes we felt, (we hoped), as though someone was listening. Other times, when we talked to ourselves suddenly there was a thunderstorm and we were sure it was a sign that indeed someone was listening. Sometimes these things happened to others too and once we learned of the occurrence happening to others, we talked amongst ourselves, and came to decide that it must be some sort of god hearing us, and having an opinion about what we said. We connected the gods to nature and to our behaviour.
In time those people died but friends, relations, and children in honour of our memory, carried on what we believed in and rightly so., but with enough time passing everything gets lost, faded, or remembered incorrectly. And all we can do is guess or dig up evidence of which we placed educated guesses upon.
Homer (850 BCE, a date greatly estimated because it was prior to any chronological dating system was in place), (a bard, a poet, a writer, a messenger, a prophet, a pseudonym, we do not know), who was simply a guy who could recite things, (oral tradition), travelled around from place to place by foot, or maybe on a donkey, and shared all the news and gossip and ideas of the time, spreading it as far as he could make it on foot, or donkey. Not far, mind you, but further than some villages could make it on their own. He delivered The Weekly News of sorts. And then Homer died and someone else wrote down his stories and placed it in a book years after Homer, (760-710 BCE), and called it The Iliad followed by The Odyssey, a book also known as The Song of Ilium.
The Greeks recognized its importance, the history it held, the people to be remembered, and they referred to it like it was a bible. And it was what people believed in, wanted preserved, and which they thought was an accurate description of the world they lived in. It was written so long ago that it is easy to dismiss its importance. We no longer think thunder comes from a god but rather an electrical occurrence in the atmosphere. We have grown up, become more mature and we live in times of much more scientific proof to ward off our inclination towards irrationality. So when we look at the Iliad today we see something trite, a poem, a documentation of something that may no longer matter. It is never ever seen in a film, such as I have earlier described, as a book to be learned from. But the bible, old and new, and the Quran are books still taken seriously even though much of what is written in them are equally far fetched. As far fetched as Achilles' mother being a nymph and him being invulnerable everywhere except his ankle tendon. That seems ridiculous to us now, yet virgin births do not. We are still breathing the air of these latter sacred texts, but the whiff of believability becomes fainter as time marches on.
Homer (850 BCE, a date greatly estimated because it was prior to any chronological dating system was in place), (a bard, a poet, a writer, a messenger, a prophet, a pseudonym, we do not know), who was simply a guy who could recite things, (oral tradition), travelled around from place to place by foot, or maybe on a donkey, and shared all the news and gossip and ideas of the time, spreading it as far as he could make it on foot, or donkey. Not far, mind you, but further than some villages could make it on their own. He delivered The Weekly News of sorts. And then Homer died and someone else wrote down his stories and placed it in a book years after Homer, (760-710 BCE), and called it The Iliad followed by The Odyssey, a book also known as The Song of Ilium.
The Greeks recognized its importance, the history it held, the people to be remembered, and they referred to it like it was a bible. And it was what people believed in, wanted preserved, and which they thought was an accurate description of the world they lived in. It was written so long ago that it is easy to dismiss its importance. We no longer think thunder comes from a god but rather an electrical occurrence in the atmosphere. We have grown up, become more mature and we live in times of much more scientific proof to ward off our inclination towards irrationality. So when we look at the Iliad today we see something trite, a poem, a documentation of something that may no longer matter. It is never ever seen in a film, such as I have earlier described, as a book to be learned from. But the bible, old and new, and the Quran are books still taken seriously even though much of what is written in them are equally far fetched. As far fetched as Achilles' mother being a nymph and him being invulnerable everywhere except his ankle tendon. That seems ridiculous to us now, yet virgin births do not. We are still breathing the air of these latter sacred texts, but the whiff of believability becomes fainter as time marches on.
What I am forever fascinated with is literature, cycles and canons in the literary sense. I have written elsewhere about literary canons but let me again explain canons to those not familiar. Where we are in history dictates what we create, invent, think about, write about and draw. There are always people in their given time who think outside the box but what they do or create in their specific time gets perfected at another time in history when others build upon the ideas and concepts of another time and new information takes it further. Glyphs to mnemonics, phonetics to speech, tablet to computer with much in between. This is a canon. It moves forward building upon the former. So it is with written texts, even sacred texts. Edgar Allen Poe paved the way for Stephen King, etc. and cycles are simply exactly what they imply: events that go around and come around again: our seasons. Things that have a beginning and an end but which begin again. Some cycles are rapid and we witness them in a day and other cycles we will never know about because they repeat themselves thousands of years after we are dead. I think the reason the Old and New Testament have such a hold on us is that they are from the recent past. In a thousand years they will be thought of like The Iliad or Greek mythology, something quaint and amusing but worthy of examination so that we understand the canon and the book, that will eventually superseded it. But like Greek mythology our sacred texts will remain in the psyche. Perhaps you know of someone who claims no religion, perhaps even growing up freed from religion, yet they use terminology in the everyday that is directly from these sacred texts.
In my beginning years at college I took a philosophy course and one of the things my professor did was to talk about fortune tellers. It may seem an un-likey topic for such a course but he wanted to make a point. If I am a fortune teller and I tell you five things that are going to happen to you, with an educated guess mind you, gleaned from your clothing, the fact that you are even asking for my help, and only one event comes true, you will likely believe that I am gifted because something I said came true. This, he explained is the law of probability and not magic at all. But yet, even with logical deductions, you will always imagine that I was right in predicting something. That is your gullibility and has nothing to do with my remarkable skills. I am bound to get something right. Fortune telling and magic where deeper into the belief systems of the past than they are today.
When I look at the Old Testament I see a book written about the beginning of a new cycle long after that cycle ended. It uses the techniques and relies upon the belief systems in place during a time when it was written. People understood the world they lived in much differently than we do today. Let us not forget that the world we know today will be unrecognizable to future generations as well. We are not the end, we are simply somewhere in a cycle. And all peoples, no matter when they live, did not know where in the cycle they lived. That being so it become understandable why it is so easy for us to fall for doomsayers, prophetic announcements and words designed to make you worry about the hereafter, (your own death), because most people, whether they think of it as so or not, think the end of the world happens with their own death. What I mean by this is, if we truly believe in the end of the world, what is prophesied, a time of no more existence, why in the world do we continue to have children? Why send out our young and precious to a inevitable catastrophic death?
I think the Old Testament is all we need to understand about human nature, the world we live in, what is known about the world, and the techniques used to keep people in line during a particular time in history. But because these sacred texts fit into the canon, they too have been built upon and will continue to be built by generations we can not know. It is surprising how much of the Old Testament sounds familiar, not because of it's so-called prophesies but because of the cyclic nature of existence. What goes around, comes back around. History does repeat itself, in part because we are human and are preoccupied with our own little worlds, and too because life is cyclic.
In this blog entry, a rather long one which I will segment, I will examine the Old Testament from a cyclic standpoint, with an eye on the literary canon and an even keener eye placed on human behaviour. I do not write to discourage the faithful or ridicule any particular religion. I write because, like you, I have ideas and questions about the world I live in. Nothing more, and nothing less.
In this blog entry, a rather long one which I will segment, I will examine the Old Testament from a cyclic standpoint, with an eye on the literary canon and an even keener eye placed on human behaviour. I do not write to discourage the faithful or ridicule any particular religion. I write because, like you, I have ideas and questions about the world I live in. Nothing more, and nothing less.
GENESIS
In The Beginning, is no different than, Once Upon a Time. I would to write such a phrase if I wasn't there and can only guess and I am relying on hearsay. Too, this segment of the Old Testament doesn't incorporate a time frame, even vaguely so which means the recorder of the story is guessing. What else could one say or write? Fairy tales are meant to be seductive. Fairy tales are for children, the child-like or for those that are illiterate. If my motivation is to keep the new cycle of life intact, healthy and in-line I have to make it interesting, believable and suitable to the ears of what my listeners might believe. This group of listeners do not have the internet and likely can not read and a beginning such as this, enthralls, excites, and make one wide eyed. Anyone who has read to a child will know of the eager facial expressions and wide eyed excitement that children emanate when being read to fables. These stories also entice the illiterate especially if the speaker is presumed wiser, or more educated. As the person placing it into a book of some sorts, hundreds of years after the event, I have to begin somewhere in order to explain a history, now forgotten, to those beginning again. To those that are present after some catastrophe, yet unknown.
We learn of Moses, (b.1391, 1592 or 1571 BCE), who tells of another man named Noah. Noah has been selected to build a big boat that is large enough for two of every known species of animal, make it waterproof, and to gather his family and friends on to the boat because enough water is going to come, - we are told the sky in the form of rain- (previous generations believed that punishment came from the heavens, (the sky), and potentially was the voice of God). We then are told that it rained for forty days and 40 nights (which in tropical climates can be normal). This rain is so heavy that land is not visible. This is the story of Global Warming and the extinction, or what perseveres, of animals that we know in our specific lifetime. The story also insures that only certain people are allowed to continue on to procreate and repopulate, (save) the world. No boat is large enough to hold two of every species, let alone how does one capture and live with ferocious animals for 40 day and nights? It is necessary to suspend logic here but it is an engrossing story nonetheless.
Noah is also informed that when he reaches land his duty is to start populating the earth again. Because it is a cycle and we are humans doing what we know how to do. In the endings of our futuristic films we never get to see how things turned out generations later. But in Genesis we get the very first glimpse into human nature. We are told of temptation and warned to steer clear of even simple things like apples. We learn of jealousy and murder within the family unit. Already we have learned that as humans we are capable of really bad horrible things that even God does not stop us from doing because he has given us free will. And given free will we mangle stuff left, right and centre. Genesis is the script that follows a story where the end of the world is coming and only few people will survive. And those few people have a duty to keep things going. We are told these instructions come from God but as humans we shower ourselves daily with self appointed importance. Noah becomes the hero in our story. Some animals and some people are worthy of survival. This is a theme carried to present day.
EXODUS
What does one do after a global catastophe, when most all is destroyed? One puts guidelines in place for the ones that made it and are in shock. Shocked people usually need someone in command to tell them what to do. Water will have been contaminated and crops ruined or rendered inedible. People will be sick due to a variety of reasons: What caused the catastrophe in the first place? Chemicals? War? Flooding? A volcanic eruption? After a catastrophe, disease will be rampant. It will be impossible to bathe when you wish, so you can't keep clean. Your systems for food preservation may be ruined so food preservation becomes an issue. Any animal that you may have hunted has run for the hills to survive themselves or is running past you running and got away faster. When we use the term natural disaster we think of the earth and what the earth does or does not do we call Acts of God. Your insurance policy still uses this term even if you are an atheist. Exodus is us gathering together, the survivors, the remnants of civilisation, in one place to get instructions from our hero.
LEVITICUS
Once we are all gathered together, a bit more calm, we must receive instructions from our hero of the task at hand. He tells us: We must collect and preserve all the food that is found, identify animals and insects that may hurt us or carry disease, (remember we supposedly brought these same animals with us), and we must dispose of the dead in such a way that more disease is not triggered by rotting flesh. To mark the ocassion a high priest ceremoniously meets with God. We shall call him Pope Number One. Already there are those that wonder aloud why so and so is in charge. There is grumbling in the ranks and people begin to splinter off into groups that are sure they know better. It is human nature to rebel and there will always be those that detest following orders. Still more, there are always those that want nothing more than to be in charge, even if not qualified. Still others simply like to grumble, complain and to mutter never having any solutions themselves. It is all part of our humanness. These perceived or conceptualized faults are human. They are not sinful or bad, they are simply human qualities that have had sin and guilt placed upon them as a form of control. Making you feel guilty is a way to stop you from doing what you are doing. Making you feel shame serves the same purpose and if I can get you to internalize these reactions and feelings I have succeed in getting you to control yourself. We do not think of shame or guilt in the same way that we think of internalized racism or dysphoric body image, but they are the same concepts placed upon different peoples at different times in history, for the same reasons: control. Someone or something is orchestrating control.
LAWS
Our survivors have settled in with the new program but there are those that keep coming up with ways to do things their way. There are also those, upon meeting new people, who simply see a great opportunity to explore behavious otherwise curbed by former peers or family members that may not have made it to this new beginning. Ten commandments are laid out and the first three demand that you obey the guy in charge who speaks for another guy who is invisible; he comes first. And because he is invisible to the illiterate and frightened they are made fearful because they will never, ever know when he will show up, what he will look like (maybe a monster), or what he will do. Everyone is left on edge. These commandments were necessary because soon after arrival there were already people eyeing their neighbours wives, chickens, houses, and possessions. They were stealing stuff that didn't belong to them. Already we had those with more than others and who felt left out over the division of wealth. Sex being the purpose of life, the insurance of longevity, was to be curbed too. I find it interesting that wives, presumably people already having lost their virginity, are of more concern than virgins or young unmarried girls. Were wives, like chickens, a form of property? Were wives, like Helen of Troy, obtained through kidnapping? I don't know, I just find it curious. But here we have set, down in stone, (a euphemism we use today), a set of laws designed to insure order. All of these commandment are either actual laws today or moral obligations we place upon ourselves and others. If adultery can be proven today, in some places it is grounds for divorce. But the commandments today, except for stealing are not punishable in any form. You may get your assed kicked if you are found in bed with my wife, or husband, but it usually goes no further.
NUMBERS
We began with a handful of people easy to direct but now we have so many a census is needed and taken. I do not know what questions were asked in this early census, whether race or religion, address or the like was included. It seems more likely that it read something like Joe, Son of Harris, (one day to be Harrison), farmer, one child. If you look at American slave records a first name is given an approximate age, and maybe, if lucky, the names of related family members. Street address and details as such, would not have been included. But a census was planned,implemented and used for some purpose most likely used for similar purposes as today. And once again there is a celebration performed which gives thanks to a life no longer in bondage. Bondage can mean actual slavery or a subjugation under a person or force. A force can be unseen entity and again, if I get you to internalize fear, punishment and the like, I can get you to obey an unseen entity that you come to believe has the power to harm you if disobeyed. And so it goes for the grumblers and disobedient a plague is sent: Punishment for disobedience. Spies are sent to the promised land and only two return with any sort of good news. And the grumblers grumble louder and a fraction of the main group parts ways and wander elsewhere for a full forty years. War ensues between the I have's and the I want what you have's.
I will continue with the remaining Old Testament exploring each chapter and examining its impact then and how it is used today always examining the canon, cycles and we, the mere humans.
NUMBERS
We began with a handful of people easy to direct but now we have so many a census is needed and taken. I do not know what questions were asked in this early census, whether race or religion, address or the like was included. It seems more likely that it read something like Joe, Son of Harris, (one day to be Harrison), farmer, one child. If you look at American slave records a first name is given an approximate age, and maybe, if lucky, the names of related family members. Street address and details as such, would not have been included. But a census was planned,implemented and used for some purpose most likely used for similar purposes as today. And once again there is a celebration performed which gives thanks to a life no longer in bondage. Bondage can mean actual slavery or a subjugation under a person or force. A force can be unseen entity and again, if I get you to internalize fear, punishment and the like, I can get you to obey an unseen entity that you come to believe has the power to harm you if disobeyed. And so it goes for the grumblers and disobedient a plague is sent: Punishment for disobedience. Spies are sent to the promised land and only two return with any sort of good news. And the grumblers grumble louder and a fraction of the main group parts ways and wander elsewhere for a full forty years. War ensues between the I have's and the I want what you have's.
I will continue with the remaining Old Testament exploring each chapter and examining its impact then and how it is used today always examining the canon, cycles and we, the mere humans.
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