Another wonderful, insightful, informative article Patrick! Your writing style is inspiring, very impressive! I feel uncomfortable using words like "very" thinking about it. At any rate, I know we like to think of history as a set of events progressing unimpeded throughout time. But here we need to think of two types of history, just as we must consider different types of fire:
–Fire: Prometheus did not steal any fire. He stole it from Hephaestus, who worked metals. The fire he stole was that of Metallurgy, which also helped found the first civilization. The gods did not want us to have it because, well, look what he did with it. A few short years after the invention, there were standing armies and wars of expansion. This fire has little to do with normal fire – it can only be found in volcanoes and our hands are too flawed to master it.
–History I is all that has happened before and outside of civilization. It occurred in harmony with nature where all creatures, including humans, were part of a greater whole.
–History II began about 5-10,000 years ago. It was built on the backs of Intensive agriculture, metallurgy, astronomy, the blood of the neighbors of these first civilizing peoples, and the backs of the animals we domesticated to serve our whims. This arm of History has little or nothing to do with History I, just as it has little to do with Earth and life upon it.
Any and all attempts to work together to find solutions to our fire-born problems, noble as it sounds, will fail because we will ALWAYS choose civilization over Nature. A comfy lifestyle over health, harmony, peace and love. We do not know what we want or why we should want it, which means we will accomplish nothing as long as we live this way. Sorry, this got black fast but the truths about civilization are accepted by no civilized person, and I get frustrated knowing what we are blindly headed for.
I forgot: you included the well-known supposed positive aspects of Prometheus and his theft. This reminds me: we civilized humans have no idea why Prometheus should be punished for his actions, or why we should not be granted fire, just as we are ignorant of understanding why we should not be privileged enough to know the difference between good and evil, just as we cannot understand why Cain really killed his non-farming brother, just as we cannot understand why God called us, or better, his own chosen people "foreigners" in Leviticus, etc etc.
Another wonderful, insightful, informative article Patrick! Your writing style is inspiring, very impressive! I feel uncomfortable using words like "very" thinking about it. At any rate, I know we like to think of history as a set of events progressing unimpeded throughout time. But here we need to think of two types of history, just as we must consider different types of fire:
–Fire: Prometheus did not steal any fire. He stole it from Hephaestus, who worked metals. The fire he stole was that of Metallurgy, which also helped found the first civilization. The gods did not want us to have it because, well, look what he did with it. A few short years after the invention, there were standing armies and wars of expansion. This fire has little to do with normal fire – it can only be found in volcanoes and our hands are too flawed to master it.
–History I is all that has happened before and outside of civilization. It occurred in harmony with nature where all creatures, including humans, were part of a greater whole.
–History II began about 5-10,000 years ago. It was built on the backs of Intensive agriculture, metallurgy, astronomy, the blood of the neighbors of these first civilizing peoples, and the backs of the animals we domesticated to serve our whims. This arm of History has little or nothing to do with History I, just as it has little to do with Earth and life upon it.
Any and all attempts to work together to find solutions to our fire-born problems, noble as it sounds, will fail because we will ALWAYS choose civilization over Nature. A comfy lifestyle over health, harmony, peace and love. We do not know what we want or why we should want it, which means we will accomplish nothing as long as we live this way. Sorry, this got black fast but the truths about civilization are accepted by no civilized person, and I get frustrated knowing what we are blindly headed for.
Was the second word in the opening sentence meant to be 'our'?
Thanks!
I forgot: you included the well-known supposed positive aspects of Prometheus and his theft. This reminds me: we civilized humans have no idea why Prometheus should be punished for his actions, or why we should not be granted fire, just as we are ignorant of understanding why we should not be privileged enough to know the difference between good and evil, just as we cannot understand why Cain really killed his non-farming brother, just as we cannot understand why God called us, or better, his own chosen people "foreigners" in Leviticus, etc etc.