The Mythic Matrix

The Mythic Matrix Philosophy involves formal thinking, and at the dawn of history thinking grew of of stories— out of narratives, out of reflections, out of collected wisdom. You have read three foundation myths that powerfully conditioned the body of thinking that came to take the form of the Western philosophical tradition. The myth of creation from Genesis, Hesiod's "Ages of Humanity" myth, and the myth of Prometheus are not the only ones,but they are certainly among the most important. In addition, you've read selections from the ancient African wisdom tradition, a tradition that has much to contribute to the

emergence of a more globalized philosophical outlook of the 21st century. The commentaries offered here are offered as provisional interpretations, not as definitive readings. There is no single 'true' understanding of myth; what follows is intended as an invitation to develop your own interpretations.

Like God In addition to creating the world, we are told that God created humanity— male and female — in his "image and likeness." Commentators have speculated as to what that might mean for millennia. Surely, something more significant that bipedalism is at issue; indeed, there have been many who have claimed that centering interpretation on any merely human characteristic is an inappropriate anthropomorphism (that is, conceiving God in

human form). Also, one feels that humanity is ill-summarized by the capacity to walk upright. Reason is a more interesting candidate: God and humanity might be said to share that, and so it might be the factor indicated by "image and likeness." Yet for many that too sounds inadequate: for all that reason is important, Aristotle’s definition of humanity as "the rational animal" seems somehow incomplete. There’s still too much left unaddressed. But what of the paramount characteristic and activity of God in the opening chapters of Genesis— the suggestion that God is a creator. "In the beginning, God created. . ." God creates: this entails not just reason but also spontaneity and innovation. God creates and, characteristic of the creative process as opposed to mere fabrication, takes pleasure in his creation. God regularly pauses and

reflects that his creation is "good," and "very good." The intellect, the heart, and even the body is involved in the myth we find in Genesis: God fashions the man from clay. Keeping in mind that there is no definitive or correct interpretation of a metaphor or myth, and that the best test of a given interpretation is not its truth, but its effects. Using this interpretative criterion, then, I propose a useful way of thinking about "image and likeness"— God created us humans in his image and likeness; he created us to be creative. Creativity is at the heart of what we are. We are the animal that uniquely acts on its environment. We change our environment, we mold it, improve it, and (the cautionary element in this interpretation) sometimes disrupt it. All disruptions notwithstanding, our creative acting on our environment has

produced civilization; all missteps, even the very ugly ones, acknowledged, we humans are the species which from our metaphoric beginning in the Garden of Eden, have vastly improved our condition through our creative agency on our environment. Our creativity has enhanced our situation; at regular intervals, our creativity has enhanced our understanding of our situation. This is what we, as a species, do. If you like, it is what God created us to do. Speaking metaphorically, God created us to be creative. And so it is entirely appropriate to persist in this activity, and to frankly acknowledge that the time has come for yet another burst of creativity. Human creativity is unique in the animal kingdom. Animals are not capable of creativity, but only of variance. The difference turns on spontaneity— on selfinitiation. Animals vary their behavior, and

over time that variance may be genetically installed as instinct. But this non-human variance is never more than a response to changing conditions in the external environment. Human creativity, by contrast, is self-initiated, it is spontaneous. We change things, we change the way we do things, just for the simple joy of it. And sometimes, as we know too well, we do it for the sheer hell of it. But let's go back— back to the Beginning.

Genesis begins, appropriately, "In the beginning," with an account of the Creation. It is significant that God speaks the world into existence— "And God said. . . And God said. . ." The world is brought into being through language, and language is the medium of relationship. In the view of Genesis, the highest hope of the human self is a relationship to God. And this has never been easy. For we humans have

a natural tendency, it seems, to allow this or that aspect of the world to come between God and us. That is, we tend to establish our primary relationship to some aspect of the world, rather than to the world’s Creator— God. The human task in life, as Genesis presents it, is to be mindful of the fact that our primary relationship is to God, and that our relationship to the world and anything in the world is always of a secondary order. We are in the world, but not of the world; the world is, as it were, a stage setting for the drama of the relationship between God and humanity. But let’s think a bit more about relationships. There are two general kinds of relationships, personal and impersonal. That is, there are relationships between persons, and there are relationships between beings that are not both persons. A can of beans and the counter

on which it sits are in relationship, but since neither is a person, that relationship is not a personal one. And for now such relationships don’t interest us. That the ultimate reality is a Person is one of the most important aspects of the Genesis myth— in fact, this point cannot be overemphasized. For a brief discussion of this vital issue, see this essay by Werner Voss HERE. Let’s consider another relationship, this time between a person and a non-person. For example: you have a relationship with the sun. You are a person, but the sun is not, so your relationship to the sun is an impersonal one. The sun is not a person and does not care one way or another for persons: the sun shines equally on a vile Nazi and on a saint. Another

way of describing this is to say that there are no conditions in a non-personal relationship. The situation is very different in a personal relationship. Persons inevitably, to a degree, care about each other, and so there are always conditions in a personal relationship. Now God in Genesis is conceived as a person — he is depicted as being pleased, or angry, or regretful. And humans are persons. So the human relationship to God will be different than a relation to the sun: specifically, it will be a personal relationship, and there will be terms and conditions stipulated. The terms and conditions between God and humanity become quite complicated throughout the development of the Bible, but in the primal myth of Genesis an elegantly simple portrayal of God’s relation to humanity is presented: And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may freely eat of every tree

of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." Ch.2:16-17 Elegantly simple; outrageously unfair. Why? The man is the ultimate naïf: on the myth's own terms, he knows neither good nor evil— that would require his already having eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He wasn’t "born yesterday," but only because he wasn’t born at all; "yesterday" is as far back as his life-experience extends. No: it isn't fair. Many have pointed out that the situation is a set-up— God didn’t give his creature a chance. But life is like that, isn't it? And Genesis presents us with a myth designed to evoke an understanding of what life, the self, and the human situation is all about. The myth is designed to represent life as experienced— not as we'd like it to be. We next read that a woman (so named because she is "taken out of Man") is brought

into being. The text, like so much good myth, is spare. All we are told is that the man and woman lived together in nakedness, and felt no shame. One interpretation of the situation is that in their primordial state, the man and woman had an uncomplicated relation to sexuality— that, like non-human animals, they were without self-consciousness or scruple in regard to sex. But not for long. In a masterful narrative of seduction, Genesis depicts the subtle serpent questioning the woman, and making a sweeping over-statement of God’s command: "Did God say, 'You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'?" (Ch.3:1) And he slyly allows the woman to correct him, which she promptly does: We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.' Ch.3:2-3

Just that one tree, only that one: the oh-sosubtle serpent allows the woman’s own thinking to center her mind on the tree, the special tree, the tree in the center of the garden. He offers reassurances. And he recedes into the background. Again, the text is spare. We see that the woman is audacious: she is motivated by practicality, by a sense of the beauty of the tree, and— note carefully— by a desire for wisdom: So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. . . Ch.3:6 Chomp. Things are happening fast. She gives the fruit to her husband. Chomp. The first consequence of eating the forbidden fruit is of overwhelming importance— and regularly goes unnoticed in a reading of Genesis. We’re in a rush to get to the sex part— the passage when they suddenly notice that they’re !

naked!— and so we tend to miss the terse and unasserted statement: Then the eyes of both were opened. . . (Ch.3:7) Were they walking around earlier with their eyes closed? Obviously not: the text states that the woman saw that the tree was edible, was beautiful, and a source of wisdom. Then what? In myths throughout the world, eyesight is typically used as a metaphor for consciousness. In eating the fruit, the forbidden fruit, in disobeying God, the man and woman underwent a transition in consciousness. A different consciousness, a more complex consciousness— a conflicted consciousness. And this brings us to the sex part: their revised consciousness was one in which, unlike animals, they were aware of their sexuality. They saw that they were naked. But this isn’t a Greek myth, one in which sexuality is celebrated as a divine Eros. The first

response of the newly sexually aware man and woman was the impulse to hide: to hide their genitals, to hide themselves. God arrives. He is neither amused nor affectionate. Like an irascible traffic-cop, he dispenses penalties in all directions, to the serpent, to the woman, to the man. But he is also reflective: "Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever"— therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden. . . Ch.3:22 God sees the changes that have been wrought in the man and woman through their disobedience, and judges that everlasting life is no longer suitable for them. It is here that we learn that there is another very important tree in the garden— the tree of life, the tree of everlasting life, for as God says, eating of it will allow one to life for ever.

And note: it was only the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that was forbidden; all the other trees— including the tree of life— were permitted. Damn. But let me call your attention to the beginning of God’s reflections in the passage just cited, the reflections in which he decides to expel the man and woman from the garden. His opening words were: "Behold, the man has become like one of us." This invites reflection. To begin, way back in Ch.1 we are told that when God thought to create humanity— God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness". . . Ch.1 The enigmatic phrase "in our image, after our likeness" has haunted commentators for millennia. Whatever the specific interpretation, it is clear that there are, as it were, two distinct phases through which we humans are in the "image and likeness" of God. When God booted the man and woman

from the garden, it was because, to cite it again: "the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. . ." Ch.3:22 So: knowing good and evil is a second phase of our "likeness" to God, a phase which, taking the myth at face value as presented, God didn’t intend for us. (For our purposes, I’m avoiding psychoanalyzing God’s intentions here.) But prior to this second phase, which has clearly displeased God, there was the human resemblance to him alluded to in Ch.1. What was that resemblance, that "image and likeness"? In fact we have a clue. The clue is found in the character of the only human whose mind we are privy to— the woman’s. While she is portrayed as easy prey to the serpent’s seductions, important aspects of her character are revealed in the process of that seduction. I recall them from the beginning of Ch.3:

. . .the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise. . . She is practical, she is moved by beauty, and she desires wisdom. It was these aspects of her character— hardly contemptible ones, qualities that have been admired ever since humans reflected on what it is to be human— it was just these aspects of her character that led the woman to precipitate what is called "the Fall." How did she come to have these character traits? Well, God made her that way. And this, I propose, is the first phase of the likeness of humanity to God. The irony here is that the two phases of humanity’s resemblance to God are in conflict with each other. It is the very poignancy and integrity of the woman’s psychological makeup (phase one of the human likeness to God) that led to her disobedience and consequent

knowledge of good and evil (phase two of the human likeness to God). The woman is led by her likeness (1) to God to establish her likeness (2) to God. That is, she is led by what God created her to be to offend God. She’s in a trap. Again: it isn’t fair. But again: that’s life— that’s what it is to be human. Conflict and alienation come with the territory. To be human is to be compromised, to be human is to live in unresolvable quandary. Rather than think of this elegant myth as a "Fall," it is more appropriate to think of it as "the myth of the Garden." In doing so, however, we are confronted with a problem. What about obedience? Or more precisely, what about disobedience? Most folks who have encountered this myth have understood the woman's disobedience to God as humanity's primordial disaster. But recall that we're talking about relationship here. In

their primal condition, the man and woman may have been lovely and engaging. But they were children. You've been with children― delightful, to be sure, but one cannot realistically expect to have a mature relationship with them. And typically, children grow to maturity through acts of disobedience. This is not arcane knowledge; it is all-too-familiar to any parent. Indeed, a child that never disobeys is a child in serious developmental trouble. The sheer audacity of the woman in this myth is underappreciated. Worse, that audacity has been identified with evil. ("If only she hadn't. . .") But such an attitude yields religious dispositions that many, here at the beginning of the 21st century, find repugnant. If the woman's audacity, her growth into individuality through disobedience, is disparaged as contrary to God's will, then, so goes the reasoning, perhaps God prizes human obedience above all else. Too often, then, the

appropriate religious disposition is what might be characterized as a spaniel fawning. An uncharitable characterization, perhaps, but you recognize the attitude: an abject spiritual groveling before the divine Majesty. It can be argued that if God had really prized obedience so much, he’d have made his covenant with a dog. Instead, God chose relationship with a wayward biped, one capable of both wonder and stupidity, of baseness and nobility. More: if obedience was so important, it is impossible that the mythichistorical figure of David, as we find him presented in the 1st and 2nd books of Samuel, could hold his place as the special favorite of God. But there's another passage in Genesis, this time from Chapter 32, when Jacob wrestles with a nocturnal visitor― a visitor who turns out to be none other than God himself. It's worth considering: And Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until the

breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched the hollow of his thigh; and Jacob's thigh was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, "Let me go, for the day is breaking." But Jacob said, "I will not let you go, unless you bless me." And he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob." Then he said, "Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed." Do you want a relationship with God? Then get up on your hind legs and be a daughter of Israel, a son of Israel. Be a "striver with God." I know, I know— this isn't what you've heard in church or temple. But many folks here at the opening of the 21st century, many folks like you, dear reader, are not finding

what they need in churches or temples. And so, it would seem, a fresh reading of the ancient myths is in order.

Like Iron The Greek poet Hesiod is believed to have lived sometime around 700 BCE— no more precise dates are available. His Works and Days, from which your reading has been selected, often centers attention on the lives and hopes of ordinary people. For all this, Hesiod doesn't much admire or even like the humans with whom he shared the earth. He traces a history of humanity that is a trajectory of decline and degeneration. Neither his message nor his disposition is a sunny one. As an aside, Hesiod's depiction of a generational decline is also found in the myths of India, in which successive ages, or yugas,

trace a course of decline. For both Hesiod and Indian mythology, we are now living in the lowest and most degenerate of times— the Iron Age for Hesiod, the Kali Yuga in the Indian reckoning. In Hesiod's view, both gods and humans have a single source— nature. And yet in the context of nature, it was the gods who brought humans into being. But "human," in Hesiod's story, means something very different at different times. The first and best edition of humanity, a golden race, differed very little from the gods who created them. We are told that they lived without sorrow, that they lived free from grief— even the grief of aging. Yes, death finally came to them, but, we read: "When they died, it was as though they were overcome with sleep. . ." In time the golden race passed away and were replace by another race— this one of silver.

Their nature was a steep decline from the golden race: their lives were dishonorable and offensive to the gods. And depressing to the reader: "A child was brought up at his good mother's side an hundred years, an utter simpleton, playing childishly in his own home. But when they were full grown and were come to the full measure of their prime, they lived only a little time in sorrow because of their foolishness, for they could not keep from sinning and from wronging one another, nor would they serve the immortals. . ." Not a dignified scenario, and we are told that Zeus "was angry and put them away, because they would not give honor to the blessed gods who live on Olympus." Perhaps there were also aesthetic reasons for Zeus's decision to "put them away"— that is, exterminate them. In any case, we will come back to the theme of Zeus and his determination to terminate a

disgusting version of humanity later, when we consider Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound. For now we turn to the next edition of humanity, the third, a bronze race. And again the experiment was not a happy one. From the vice of stupidity that characterized the silver race, we now find a race given to the vice of uncontrolled violence: ". . .it was in no way equal to the silver age, but was terrible and strong. They loved the lamentable works of Ares and deeds of violence; they ate no bread, but were hard of heart like adamant, fearful men." Their violence was their undoing: "These were destroyed by their own hands and passed to the dank house of chill Hades, and left no name. . ." Their lives were, as the British philosopher Thomas Hobbes would later say, nasty, brutish, and short. And utterly without merit.

But now a surprise: a relief from the relentless decline that has marked the human story. We find a fourth race not associated with a metal, but with heroism. These are the great heroes who populate the epics of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, the characters that would come to fill the casts of the great tragedies of Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripides. They were, Hesiod tells us: ". . .nobler and more righteous, a god-like race of hero-men who are called demigods, the race before our own. . .Cadmus at seven-gated Thebes when they fought for the flocks of Oedipus, and some. . .in ships over the great sea gulf to Troy for rich-haired Helen's sake. . ." One senses that the relief provided by this fourth and heroic generation serves merely to accentuate for Hesiod the hateful falling off that we find in the next version of humanity—

the fifth generation, a race of iron. His own words are telling: ". . .would that I were not among the men of the fifth generation, but either had died before or been born afterwards. For now truly is a race of iron, and men never rest from labor and sorrow by day, and from perishing by night; and the gods shall lay sore trouble upon them." Bad times. And the calendar of ages— Gold, Silver, Bronze, Iron— moves at a slow pace; each age lasts thousands of years. That means that the Iron Age that Hesiod so laments includes not only his day but also extends to ours. It is an age that we of the 21st century CE share with Hesiod of the 8th century BCE. And to say it again: bad times. But Hesiod says it best: "The father will not agree with his children, nor the children with their father, nor guest with his host, nor

comrade with comrade; nor will brother be dear to brother as in times before. Men will dishonor their parents as they grow quickly old, and will carp at them, chiding them with bitter words. . .There will be no favor for the man who keeps his oath or for the just or for the good; but rather men will praise the evil-doer and his violent dealing. . .Envy, foul-mouthed, delighting in evil, with scowling face, will go along with wretched men one and all." A dog-eat-dog world, filled with barking and biting. Will this never stop? Yes, according to Hesiod, it will; and shifting from the role of historian to that of prophet he tells us that "Zeus will destroy this race of mortal men also when they come to have gray hair on the temples at their birth." We Iron wretches will meet a similar fate as the degenerate Silver humans: Zeus will destroy us and put an end to the indignity. As to the timing— I trust that someone is fretfully monitoring

human births, looking for the onset of babies born with gray hair on their temples. Now: why have I assigned you to read this grouchy myth? It is important, I think, because it represents a recurring disposition among us humans to look at our fellows with a cynical squint. Are you familiar with the term "curmudgeon"? Dictionary definitions are seldom adequate for academic work, but in this case the Merriam-Webster offers a good one: "Curmudgeon = a crusty, ill-tempered person, usually an old man." Yes: an old man, but old women can play too. All Hesiod's talk about "Men will dishonor their parents as they grow old," that "they will not repay their aged parents"— a lot of this is the resentment that all too often attends old age. Damn kids. They appreciate nothing. Why when I was their age. . .but never mind.

But again: why have I burdened you with this kvetching? What is to be learned here? I propose the Hesiod's myth of humanity as being in an Iron Age, that we are Iron people, is a harmful one. Myths, too, can be dangerous. Remember, the Iron Age is not something we all voted for in a misguided moment, it is something we are born to— the hateful tendencies that characterize the Iron Age are taken to be innate to the human condition. That's just how we are, and we might as well face it. Such a disparaging view of humanity, of the human self, if widely accepted, can subvert the possibility of the broad social cooperation that is necessary for a healthy community. More, it serves to make people uniquely susceptible to manipulation. In his book Information Inequality, social critic Herbert Schiller reflects on the tacit view of human

nature being promoted in the news/entertainment media: ". . .a growing number of radio and television broadcasters, reviewers, and writers for the most influential papers, magazines, and novels selected for big promotions, films given the blockbuster production budgets, and social theories popularized in the media exhibit a marked preference for detailing the flaws, imperfections, and antisocial behavior of human beings. . .A mean and dark view of human nature, one that emphasizes its rigidity and inherent defects, underpins a current unwillingness to entertain even minimally the prospect of social cooperation and human solidarity." It is entirely plausible to argue that, however inadvertently, our image-mediated culture is generating a myth, a myth that is the psychological descendant of Hesiod's myth, a myth that powerfully conditions our sense of

who we are and what our potentials are. A sullen view of human nature, one that emphasizes corruption, serves to subvert the capacity to call existing social patterns to account. It undermines the capacity for trust. It generates a view of life alluded to above: a dog-eat-dog world, filled with barking and biting. In such a psychological ambience, individuals are rendered eminently manageable. Personal opinions and feelings are expertly and scientifically manipulated— through desires that are commercially induced, through alarms engineered by political action committees, through assuagements of loneliness and alienation by corporate public relations campaigns that assure us that, after all, we are family. But perhaps I'm getting carried away. Is there really nothing that can be done? Certainly: we can engage myths like those

posed overtly by Hesiod, and covertly by our late 20th century media culture. And we engage disturbing myths like those of Hesiod by thinking them through, by critically assessing for ourselves what (if anything) is right and what (if anything) is wrong about them. Note that taking myths seriously does not require being grim: we humans are often most serious when we are at play. Yes, the myth raises serious issues— but let yourself play with it.

Like Wow Aeschylus lived from 525 to 456 BCE. He is believed to have fought in the decisive naval battle at Salamis in 480 BCE, a battle in which Athenian forces defeated, through superior strategy, a much larger Persian fleet under the command of Xerxes. Aeschylus was in many ways a lucky man: he lived in happy times, at the zenith of Athenian culture, at a time when Athens was an acknowledged

wonder of the world. In addition, Aeschylus himself was a genius and was publicly recognized as such.

Prometheus Bound was written in 462 BCE. It was a revolutionary work, a broadside assault on traditional Greek religion. The hero— and Aeschylus means us to see him as the good guy— is Prometheus. The villain is the personification of the traditional Greek religion that is under attack in the play: the king of the gods— Zeus. Zeus is portrayed in the drama as having power, but neither virtue nor insight. Throughout the dialogue, that is, throughout all the lines of Prometheus that you've read, he's chained to a rock in punishment for his defiance of Zeus. He is doomed to stay chained there for ages. It won't be boring for him, however, because at irregular intervals a giant eagle descends to eat out his liver— a liver which then miraculously regrows itself,

so that the ritual can occur again. And again, etc. But why is this happening? That brings us to the reason I assigned this myth. Recall in Hesiod's myth of the various ages of humanity that Zeus destroyed the feebleminded Silver race. Recall further that he had plans in the works to do the same to our contemptible version of humanity: the Iron race will be destroyed by Zeus, Hesiod tells us with dark satisfaction, when babies are born with gray hair on their temples. In the variant of the myth told by Aeschylus, Zeus had already attempted our extermination. As in Hesiod, Zeus, the king of the gods, is not our friend. Prometheus speaks to the Chorus— a Chorus, you might like to know, comprised not of humans or gods but rational and kindly sea-birds. And Prometheus tells them:

But to the unhappy breed of humanity he gave no heed, intending to exterminate the race and create a new version. Against these plans none stood save I: I dared to oppose Zeus. I rescued men from shattering destruction that would have carried them to the house of Hades; and therefore I am tortured on this rock. .. Got it? Prometheus is our friend, Zeus is our enemy. But now we learn that Prometheus did far more than save us from extermination. Indeed, he made us what we are. More pointedly, it was Prometheus that transformed the beasts that Zeus want to destroy into. . .into Athenians!— the wonder of the ancient world. What's fascinating from the standpoint of the history of ideas is that Aeschylus gives us a proto- evolutionary account of the emergence of humanity. Let's use the word

"evolution" carefully. In popular discourse, evolution means ascent— a movement from lower to higher, from worse to better, etc. In our present discussion, this is fine: it's obviously the course of development that Aeschylus had in mind when he mythically portrays human origins. You should be aware, however, that not every evolutionist sees evolution as an ascent: most prominently, Darwin stoutly denied that evolution has a "direction." He said famously "If an amoeba is as well-adapted as we are, who is to say we are 'higher' creatures?" Fine. Let's put Darwin back in his box now, and return to Aeschylus and his myth of human ascent. When we hear Prometheus's account of the original state of humanity, we can almost sympathize with Zeus's uncharitable designs for them: ". . .hear what troubles there were among men, how I found them witless and gave

them the use of their wits and made them masters of their minds. . .For men at first had eyes but saw to no purpose; they had ears but did not hear. Like the shapes of dreams they dragged through their long lives and handled all things in bewilderment and confusion. They did not know of building houses with bricks to face the sun; they did not know how to work in wood. They lived like swarming ants in holes in the ground, in the sunless caves of the earth." If folks know anything at all of Prometheus, it's that he defied the gods by giving ancient humanity the gift of fire. And Aeschylus includes that in his telling of the myth; but it's clear that in his version Prometheus did far more than hand us a torch. In Prometheus Bound, fire is a metaphor that carries several meanings. Fire is, on the most obvious level, the basis of

material technology: it is how warm ourselves, cook food, and develop the means to build machinery for work and transportation. The fire of Prometheus is also the basis of medicine: ". . .in the former times if a man fell sick he had no defense against the sickness, neither healing food nor drink, nor unguent; but through the lack of drugs men wasted away, until I showed them the blending of mild simples wherewith they drive out all manner of diseases." Promethean fire also provided humanity with the arts of astronomy and prophecy. But most important, Prometheus's gift was the means by which the dismal wretches who "like the shapes of dreams...dragged through their long lives and handled all things in bewilderment and confusion"— it was the means by which these were transformed into Athenians. And this last is most significant: Promethean

fire, like the opened eyes of the Genesis myth, signals the emergence of a new kind of consciousness. And, as in Genesis, this new consciousness is a consequence of disobedience and offense. This new consciousness is a consciousness governed by reason— and reason is another way to understand what Promethean fire is. In Aeschylus's view, reason gave human beings the capacity to take their destiny into their own hands. To have reason, to be rational, was to no longer need the gods, to be rational was to follow Prometheus in being an affront to the gods. In Genesis the development of human consciousness as we know it remains a "Fall"— a disconnection from a good God practicing what might today be called "tough love." In Prometheus Bound, by contrast, the ruler god Zeus is portrayed as a dishonorable despot; the disobedience of Prometheus is not a "Fall," but a righteous rebellion.

More: where in the Genesis myth, the new humans were expelled in disgrace, we might say for Aeschylus the new humans— now empowered with fire— were launched. Not expelled, but freed. The gift of Prometheus is the capacity for humans to make themselves. It is a mandate for a "can-do" optimism. We can solve every problem, attain to any height. Wow! It's great to be human. Let me repeat myself: Wow! Yes!! Yes. Ok, fine. But there's another side to this coin. The good times for Aeschylus's Athens, alas, were transitory. In the generation after he lived, Athens saw defeat and humiliation: there was a disastrous war against Sparta, the Peloponnesian War, that was waged and lost; there was a plague that ravaged the city during the war; there was political intrigue that sapped the elan from any remaining civic spirit. The original Whiz-kids of the world found

themselves in a position from which, no doubt, Hesiod's myth of decline made far more sense than the Promethean optimism of Aeschylus. The lesson here might be this: we human are all-too-prone to the facile and dangerous inference that, because we have done so much, we can therefore do anything. We hear the word "Promethean" used as a disapproving epithet in connection with recent disasters like the Chernobyl meltdown and the Challenger explosion. We hear the term invoked as a cautionary note in the face of plans for DNA research, cloning, and eugenics.

For many, the name of Prometheus is a byword for incautious over-reaching; and they soberly point out that the prospect of liver surgery implemented by an eagle is not an attractive one. For others, "Prometheus!" is a clarion-call to, as the announcer says, "boldly go where no man has gone before."

Where, then, lies the appropriate disposition to being human?— You aren't going to look to me for an answer to that, are you?

THE AFRICAN WISDOM TRADITIONS Thinking about the self is often just that— thinking. That's why the discipline of philosophy is often seen as the appropriate mode for approaching the big, vital issues of life. Philosophy is fine, thinking is fine. But there are liabilities: thinking can become bound up with theory. And again, there's nothing wrong with theory. But we think, we philosophize, we theorize, only with part of ourselves. When we philosophize, when we

think and theorize, we have access to understanding only a part of life. So it follows that there's more to the self than can be accessed through theory— through philosophy. Before we theorize, we live. Next week we will turn to Plato, arguably the most influential philosopher in the Western tradition. As we'll see, Plato thought his way to theories whereby he rejected his own body as alien to his true self, in which he likened life as we experience it to an existence of dingy imprisonment. Such theories would have been unthinkable to the African mind. It isn't that African sages didn't develop theories, they did. But their theories were always rigorously subordinated to life— African wisdom is organically embedded, embedded in culture, embedded in nature. African culture did not produce a formal philosophical tradition in the way that Europe, India, and China did. This does not mean that a sophisticated understanding of the self did

not evolve. In his book African Philosophy: Myth and Reality, the African philosopher Paulin J. Hountondji insists that it is a mistake to try to force African wisdom thought into non-African molds. He says: "...today's African philosophers must reorient their discourse. They must write first and foremost for an African public, no longer for a nonAfrican public. That will be enough to stop them from purring on about Luba ontology, Dogon metaphysics, etc, simply because such themes do not interest their fellow countrymen but were aimed formerly at satisfying the Western craving for exoticism." (p.52) Hountondji continues by saying that the teaching transmitted through poignant tales and wisdom sayings of tribal shamanic figures possess a dignity independent of the religious

and philosophical traditions of Europe and India. Their primal wisdom teaching, he says, "...is infinitely closer to poetry than to philosophy....Every thinker is not a philosopher. This point must be made clearly so that we can rid ourselves of the common illusion once and for all..." (p.82) Now the wisdom tradition of Africa is not merely a bush phenomenon; it is not restricted to villages and backwaters— you know, how farm-folk think. Organically grounded wisdom thinking is evident in the most ancient and exalted manifestations of African culture. I refer now to Egypt, one of the so-called "cradles of civilization". The earliest Egyptian dynasty is called the "Old Kingdom." Indeed, very old: it dates from 2575 BCE to 2130 BCE. Those of you with calculators handy will see that this dynasty began some 4,500 years ago. We can

say words like "four thousand five hundred years ago," but I suggest that we are psychologically incapable of authentically conceiving such a span of time. But speak of it we must, and here we go. His name was Ptah-hotep. He was not himself a pharaoh but was, the story has it, an advisor to the pharaoh Izezi, who reigned from 2388 - 2356 BCE. It is noteworthy that we know his name: ancient Egyptian history typically records only the names of pharaohs. In addition to his name, a collection of his sayings have survived over the millennia. Ptahhotep is considered one of the great sages of early antiquity. Isn't it odd that (in all probability, dear reader) you haven't heard of him? The text ascribed to him, The Instruction of Ptah-hotep, includes passages that some scholars believe were included at a later date. For our purposes: we don't care precise date.

We are interested in the fact that this stuff is really old. The Instructions have been treasured over the millennia because they are much more than official counsel to the throne. Ptahhotep's advice can be read as that, yes, but it can equally be read as a father's advice to a child— any father, aristocratic or commoner, wealthy or poor. These are wisdom sayings. Yet in them wisdom is seated squarely in the context of life; wisdom is valued not as a fancy hat to strut about in, but for its practical (always practical) applications in life. Look at the first saying: "Don't be proud of your knowledge, Consult the ignorant and the wise; the limits of art are not reached, no artist's skills are perfect..." Wisdom is not a place where one "arrives", it is an art, a never-ending quest and discipline

in which a person engages throughout life. Indeed, the thought that you have "arrived" is dangerous; it betokens arrogance and a serious lack of perceptiveness. Ptah-hotep uses a word that is important for our discussion of the self, the word ka. Ka is a complex concept, and I won't be able to do it justice here. Aside: The hieroglyph for ka is unforgettable: a stylized representation of human upper arms extended straight out from the body and parallel to the ground, the lower arms at a 90° angle upward— it always reminds me of a football official signaling a touchdown. Here it is:

Ka is an essential aspect of the self; it is a unique vital force that makes the individual what she or he is; the ka is the core reality of a person that can, in times of danger, act as a protecting spirit. And lots more. How does one discover the nature of one's own ka? Thinking is useful, of course. But more important, we read in saying #11: "Follow your heart as long as you live, do no more than is required, do not shorten the time of "follow-theheart." Trimming its moment offends the ka."

Ka, then, is realized more through the heart than through the head. You will know that you

are in touch with your ka not through this or that theory, but through results the develop in your life. Ptah-hotep tells us: "One plans the morrow but knows not what will be, the [right] ka is the ka by which one is sustained. If praiseworthy deeds are done, friends will say, Welcome!" #22 An important key to wisdom, for Ptah-hotep, is restraint and self-control. Above all, restrain that unattractive human tendency to swagger and gloat during times of good fortune. The problem with such behavior isn't that it's not nice, but that it's not smart. "If you plow and there's growth in the field, and god lets it prosper in your hand, do not boast at your neighbors' side, one has great respect for the silent man: man of character is man of wealth." #9 Likewise with quarreling:

"A quarreler is a mindless person, if he is known as an aggressor the hostile man will have trouble in the neighborhood." #31 To repeat: being irascible isn't not nice, it's not smart. Who wants trouble with the neighbors? That's no way to live well. And living well is the entire point of life; that’s the "wisdom" of the African wisdom tradition. Recall that I suggested above that the enduring appeal of Ptah-hotep turns on the fact that what he says is addressed to people at all stations. Are you a pharaoh, a ruler? "Punish firmly, chastise soundly, Then repression of crime becomes an example; punishment except for crime turns the complainer into an enemy." #36 No sentimentality here: to slack on punishment encourages crime; to punish

unjustly is to create dangerous enemies. That's for rulers. But are you at the other end of the social spectrum— are you poor? "If you are poor, serve a man of worth, that all your conduct may be well with the god. Do not recall if he once was poor, don't be arrogant toward him for knowing his former state; respect him for what has accrued to him, for wealth does not come by itself." #9 "Hell, I remember that creep from our highschool days. Drunken skirt-chaser. Damn. He gets a little luck, and look at him take on airs." Almost invariably this is a stupid assessment, one that ascribes to "luck" the prominent position of a former school-mate. "Wealth does not come by itself." Those who luck into fortune usually don't keep it very

long; maintaining prominence demands discipline and hard work. Turning now to the collection of Swahili proverbs, we find the same canny perceptiveness so prized by Ptah-hotep. I won't say much about the proverbs— most are as accessible as they are enjoyable. I will invite your attention to one set, however:

Ancestry He who leaves his ancestry is rash. One who leaves his ancestry is never a hero. He who leaves his own people is a liar. No doubt that, in its time, this was sound advice. One's ancestry is one's people, those to whom one belongs. Certainly, keeping to one's own was a survival strategy that was effective for thousands of years. But conditions of survival change, and a behavior that in one age confers a survival

advantage may, in other age, constitute a survival liability. Uncritical loyalty to ancestry in the modern world is one way in which tribalism manifests itself. And tribalism is a particularly dangerous form of loyalty. Such loyalty can be practiced upon by propagandists to precipitate disasters like the genocides in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia. Ancestry is backward looking; however useful such cultural loyalties were in the past, a consideration of prospects for the future suggests that they may have outlived their usefulness. A commentator from Ghana recently lamented the price of tribalism in 21st century Africa— read it HERE. But what do you think? The Book of the Philosophers is a collection of wisdom sayings, probably dating from the 5th century CE. The sayings were assembled around the year 1515 by a Christian monk

known as Abba Mika'el (Father Michael). Although seated in the Christian tradition, these rich sayings clearly represent the African disposition toward an organic approach to wisdom. There is, for example, this exquisite psychological insight: "If I tell lies, I fear God; if I tell the truth, I fear you." And a canny insight into the eccentricities of class distinctions: "If a wealthy man eats a snake, people will think it is for medical reasons. If a poor man eats a snake, people will think it is because of hunger."