There was once a small village at
the foot of a great mountain. The folk dwelling there were
strong-willed and worked well together, happily farming the
surrounding land successfully and bringing great prosperity to the
village. One day, a wandering god came to the village and offered his
patronage on seeing their fine produce. The villagers were content
with their lot however, and politely declined the god's offer,
preferring to focus their attention on their farming instead of
worship. This angered the god. In revenge he created a great monster;
a gigantic mis-shapen beast with the body of a bear and the head of a
donkey, representing the god's rage and the stubbornness of the
villagers. The god proclaimed that every month when the moon was full
the beast would descend from the mountain to destroy the labours of
the village, unless an offering of a human child was made. Upon
seeing the beast roaming the mountain and hearing its terrifying
braying on the wind, the villagers took to tying up a child to a tree
at the foot of the mountain every month in order to protect their
farming. And, just as the god declared, every month the beast would
come at full moon and tear the poor child to pieces. The villagers
were able to continue their work without further disturbance, but
from then on the joy was removed from their labour, and their produce
never tasted quite the same again.
This afternoon I
began one of my major projects for 2013; going for a cooked breakfast
with a friend once a week. This is something I will document more in
depth at a different time, but one of the many interesting things
that cropped up in conversation with Stu was thinking about a
literary analysis of social history, and taking that through and
developing ideas around conflict resolution. This lead towards
thinking about mythology, as this is generally the earliest form of
story-telling within societies. Stu began thinking about recent
events in Egypt, and how current Egyptian leader Mohamed Morsi had
been referred to by some quarters as having 'given himself the power
of the pharaoh', in a manner not dissimilar to Akhenaten; this
pharaoh being the one that steered Egyptian society away from
polytheism towards the monotheistic worship of the Aten, or disk of
the sun. The pharaohs were intrinsically linked up with Egyptian
mythology, and so there is a line that can be traced back from the
present to the past. This is something that I believe Stu is going to
be meditating upon in the future.
When thinking of
mythology, my mind automatically leaps to Greek mythology. These were
the stories that captivated me the most when growing up, mainly due
to the myriad of exciting monsters that roamed about the ancient
lands of the Mediterranean. In thinking about being able to trace a
link from Egypt's present to its historical mythologies, I began to
wonder if the same could be done with Greece, and in particular with
its current state of economic trouble. My knowledge of global
politics is, I must admit, relatively poor, so apologies for any
inaccuracies or naivete from this point onwards. In any case, the
Greek myth that most readily springs to mind from what I've read
other people write about it is that of Daedalus and Icarus; the
father and son who attempted to escape captivity with home-made
wings,with the son flying too close to the sun and inadvertently
destroying his wings as a result, and plummeting to his doom. The
myth is usually interpreted as a cautionary tale warning against
over-ambition, with pride coming before a fall, which one could, if
they chose to do so, equate with Greece's spending when it switched
to the Euro near the start of the last decade.
However, looking a
bit closer at the myth can lead us to look a bit closer at the
crisis. In the myth the individual that suffers most is Icarus. In
the crisis, the suffering is done largely by the Greek public. Why
was Icarus put in this precarious position? Ultimately, others were
responsible for him finding himself up in the air. It was King Minos
who had decreed that Daedalus and his family were not to leave Crete
for fear of losing the secret of the Labyrinth. It was Daedalus who
had fled to Crete after murdering his gifted nephew in an act of
jealousy. Poor Icarus was placed in this situation as a consequence
of these two individual's actions, amongst others. If we can expand
the scope of inquiry with the myth, equally it can be done with the
economic crisis, to take in the actions of the Greek government,
private creditors, fellow Eurozone member states and the IMF and
assess their responsibility here.
Again, my knowledge
of Greece's economic situation is relatively limited and so I do not
wish to fumble around clumsily with such an intricate and delicate
subject, but I believe that the literary interrogation of mythology
is something that can be applied to contemporary events. Mythology
has long been utilised in areas such as psychology, where its
reliance on archetypes comes in useful for both explaining particular
tendencies and syndromes and exploring ways of dealing with them. If
they can be used successfully within this sphere then why not
successfully in others, such as conflict resolution?
The story of how Iceland dealt with its own economic crisis had a very mythical edge to it. When a monster is laying waste to a village the solution is more often than not for a hero to be sent out to slay it, rather than trying to ween the beast off humans and onto vegetables. And so, instead of austerely removing food from their own table to feed the monster, the Icelanders worked together to take up their swords and chop the beast up where possible. And they'll all probably live happily ever after.
The story of how Iceland dealt with its own economic crisis had a very mythical edge to it. When a monster is laying waste to a village the solution is more often than not for a hero to be sent out to slay it, rather than trying to ween the beast off humans and onto vegetables. And so, instead of austerely removing food from their own table to feed the monster, the Icelanders worked together to take up their swords and chop the beast up where possible. And they'll all probably live happily ever after.
Many years passed, and the village
sent many of its children off to their death at the foot of the
mountain. One day though, a parent had had enough. Angered by this
way of living in fear, she began confronting the mayor of the village
and ordering him to organise for a party to climb the mountain and
kill the beast. Eventually, after weeks of protestation, the mayor
relented and decreed that a group of armed villagers be sent up the
mountain to the monster's lair. The climb was treacherous; harsh
winds lashed against the brave souls who had volunteered to make the
climb, and icy rain raked fiercely across their faces. All the while
they could hear the braying of the beast getting louder as they drew
closer and closer to where it had made its home. Finally, the party
reached a vast opening in the mountainside around which was scattered
the skeletal remains of dismembered limbs. It was the lair of the
beast. Waiting until night-fall, when the monster was slumbering, the
party rushed into the cave bearing torches and swords, hacking the
creature to pieces. The god witnessed this, and being impressed by
the villagers' bravery, decided to leave them be. Peace and
prosperity finally returned to the village, and from that day onwards
the produce of the village became famed as the most delicious in all
the land.
