stupidity

The Greeks, the Christians and Women: We are a tragic species.

~ Roger JG Albert ~ 6 Comments

In Greek myth, humankind started out as exclusively male.  The gods created men, mortal beings, but in the age of gold, their mortality was scarcely given any thought because men always died peacefully, in their sleep, with no pain and suffering and it didn’t end there for them.  After death they became pure spirit ‘daemons’ who are essentially given the task of ‘dispensing wealth to men according to individual merit.’ (Ferry 2014, 146)  That’s not a bad gig, really, not unlike how classical economists see the ‘invisible hand’ of the market.  These were invisible daemons doing the same job.

Pandora is the first woman.  She is Zeus’ creation and is given something by every god.  Of course, she’s drop-dead gorgeous but she also comes with a lot of, let us say, unsavory characteristics.  Without going into detail, Prometheus, the creator of men (males only at this point) has pissed off Zeus because he’s been trying to help his creation with getting on with the job of creating civilization. (What really pissed Zeus off was that Prometheus had stolen fire from Olympus and given it to man so that he could now cook his food…a very civilized thing indeed).  Up to this point, still in the golden age, men are living a pretty cool, decent life.  But because of the internecine pissing contests between the gods, things start going sideways for humans.  It comes to pass that Pandora seduces Epimetheus, Prometheus’ hapless brother at which point all hell breaks loose (which is what Zeus wanted in the first place).  Mankind is cast from the golden age into the age of iron, forced to feed himself, etc., and because of the nasty contents of Pandora’s box (pain, fear, old age, death) doomed to lead a miserable life with nothing but hope for succor. (Hope being the only thing not to escape from Pandora’s box.)

So, the point of all of this is that it’s at this stage in the development of the cosmos that men are now born from sexual intercourse between men and women.  Pandora gives birth to other women and that’s it for man.  Sex is where it’s at now.  We come to be born, as it were, between shit and piss and the rest is history.

What I find interesting here as much as anything is the similarity of this account of the origins of people on this planet with the one offered by Christianity.  The details are obviously very different, but the principles are the same and so are the results. As the story goes, God creates man who is pure and spiritual, living in the Garden of Eden, the golden age.  Almost as an afterthought, God creates woman and she seduces the pretty dumb male and is punished for his stupidity by having to work for a living and by having to put up with woman who is never satisfied and reminds him of death every day.

Because this is the whole point and the tragedy of the relations between the sexes since forever.  Woman is associated with the body, temptation and death.  Men are associated with purity, spirit and life.  Women successfully seduced the stupid men and now we all pay the price of mortality.  How’s that for blaming half the world’s population for what came out of Pandora’s box.  Unfortunately, our world is still driven by these old stupid ideas.   Are we ever going to get over this crap and actually start real human history?  Of course, it’s much more complicated than this, but this is an important dimension of the issue especially when laid next to our incessant warlike behaviour and our drive for puffing ourselves up and smiting our ‘enemies.’  Dumb species we are.  Just plain dumb.  This is not to say that every man is a stupid mysogenist.  The fact is that our cultures are fundamentally mysogenistic.  Individuals can be better than that, but our lives are governed to a great extent by mysogenistic principles and practices. Hard to escape. I know some men and women who have.  For me, that’s grounds for optimism and for what little there is left in Pandora’s Box.  More later (of course).

Deer, deer, me…ultimate ignorance.

~ Roger JG Albert ~ 12 Comments

I need to share with you this entry in The Comox Valley Record’s have your say opinion section (page A22, October 10, 2013) where people spout off about whatever they care to.  “Have an opinion?  Feel strongly about an issue?  Share something special…”  This is the place for you.  So here it is:

 

Over the past few years we personally experienced a total of four accidents with deer at large on the B.C. highways.  The last one which occurred a few months ago fortunately only damaged our vehicle; however, under slightly different circumstances it would have cause the loss of both of our lives and many others.  For these reasons mentioned I am wondering what other people’s thoughts are about animals that cause severe damage to our vehicles and bodily harm.  When I read about cougars attacking humans, I cringe.  We also know that when apple season arrives we can expect bears at our property as it is on the shopping list.  I don’t know what the total yearly damage is by just deer alone, but what I do know is that our damage over a period of seven years is about $6,800 paid by ICBC.  I am thinking of a large fenced wildlife area, maybe like our provincial park up north.  I know my thoughts are out of the box but not so long ago “No Smoking” was an out-of-the-box issue, too.  Maybe it’s worth thinking about, because some of our loved ones might not be as fortunate as we were.  [All the submissions to this opinion section of the paper are unsigned so we have no idea who wrote this.]

 

OK.  Well, where do I start?  Before posting this I made sure I wasn’t really reading a piece from The Onion, the satirical online ‘news magazine,’ but no, it was the Comox Valley Record alright. Then I thought, maybe this is thoroughly tongue-in-cheek.  But it just doesn’t ring true as tongue-in-cheek.  It’s too, ah…sincere.  So, what can we make of this absolutely insane piece?  That may be a harsh judgment, but who in their right mind would produce such a piece of utter nonsense?  Does this person have the right to vote?  If so, no wonder our ‘democracy’ is in such terrible shape.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not outraged by this piece.  But I am slightly bemused and amused by it. 

 

So, let me get this straight whoever wrote this piece.  You want to put all deer, bear, and cougars in a large fenced enclosure so they don’t bother you anymore?  What the hell are ‘deer at large?’  Deer ARE at large.  Deer are not domesticated.  They LIVE out there and have lived out there for much, much, longer than you can imagine. They were around long before roads, ‘properties,’ cities, towns, apple trees, you and your precious vehicle.  Damage to your vehicle?  How do you think the deer felt?  Do you think the deer deliberately set out to damage your vehicle?  Maybe they are suicide deer, like suicide bombers, bent on destroying human civilization.  Just for one second think about all the vehicle collisions that don’t involve ‘wild’ animals but only humans.  Maybe WE need to be put in a large fenced enclosure and let all the other animals run free and unimpeded by our roads and stupid, frightened attitudes. But I don’t really want to get nitpicky here. 

 

What the attitude underlying this piece belies is a profound disconnect with the planet and stunning ignorance of basic ecology.  It is so utterly self and human-centered as to be comical.  However, we have ‘wildlife preserves’ in Africa and large zoos everywhere so it may be just one stupid step further to convince people that this could just work.  Of course we’d have to kill on sight every animal that left the ‘large fenced area,’ but that’s ok as long as they don’t damage our vehicles. 

 

I’m not going to go on about this.  I could, could I ever.  As I said, I’m amused and bemused by this, but I’m also saddened by the arrogance and ignorance displayed by this piece of silliness.  What do you think about it? 

Just for you I’ve posted a picture of a deer at large. I have no idea who took it.  I got it from ‘the web.’  This is a four point buck. There aren’t many four pointers around.  They don’t usually live long enough to get that many points.  We see a few 2 pointers around but I haven’t seen a 4 pointer in a long time.  

 

 Image