Objectivist Versions of Myths and Legends

[BaalChatzaf]

I propose a game. Retell the various myths and legends from an Objectivist p.o.v. I will start, even though I am not an Objectivist.

1. The legend of Icarus.

Icarus not only flies close to the sun but he breaks the speed and altitude records.

2. Adam and the Tree of Knowledge.

Adam takes up Eve's offer and gains knowledge. He knows so much that he immediately raids the tree of everlasting life. Having achieved Immortality, Adam kicks God's ass out of the Garden.

3. The Ring of Gyges

The wearer of the ring finds that when he is invisible he is also blind. Transparent retinas do not absorb photons which pass clean through without interacting with the rhodopsin molecules of the rods and cones. The wearer of the Ring decides that the Ring is worthless and he heaves it.

4. The Sorcerer's Apprentice

The Apprentice discovers his mistake and gets broom production down pat. He succeeds in the automaton production industry and introduces new models that his Master never thought of. He goes on to invent an atmospheric electrical generator that violates several laws of thermodynamics.

5. Noah and the Flood.

After getting the Word from the Lord, Noah builds a submarine instead of a rudderless ark with no keel. He also does not take aboard any rats, mice or cockroaches. Instead of going to Armenia to lodge on top of Mt. Ararat, he heads to Florida. When the Flood subsides the world is a better place than our world is.

O.K. Your turn.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

Satire is not my long or any suit. I also need to go to bed. But I have a question: How many Ba'als are needed to destroy Objectivism? Too many, for that would require infinite mass.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

Satire is not my long or any suit. I also need to go to bed. But I have a question: How many Ba'als are needed to destroy Objectivism? Too many, for that would require infinite mass.

--Brant

Thos Ba'al does not want to destroy Objectivism. This Ba'al wants to help Objectivism to be better than it is. This Ba'al wants to purge Objectivism of its defects and errors. Reason needs all the help it can get these days.

This Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited October 19, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[syrakusos]

Personally, I do not see any reason to change The Garden of Eden or other stories out of context, fitting them to a procrustean bed. If you don't like that story, then just stop telling it. Hacking up other people's yarns is of limited value.

You have to ask: What is myth? What purposes to myths serve? To what extent is modern fiction (or non-fiction) mythic?

My wife collects movie versions of Pride and Prejudice -- surely a nice middle class myth.

Myths change over time. The forms we know today are the ones set down in print at some time or other. Many of the Greek myths as known today came from Edith Hamilton's Mythology, a standard, popular work. She attributes her sources, often Roman. If you dig into a classical dictionary or encyclopedia you will see, for instance, that there are two different Orion myths. We have some scraps from Hesiod and Homer and so on, but those were just versions of common stories. Other versions are known.

If you want to retell any story, you can. Take Icarus (Ikaros). In some stories, Dadaelus built the labyrinth -- and also the platform on which the princess met the bull to create the minotaur. Thus, they were imprisoned on the tower. Also, digging deeper, Dadaelus is a redoubling of DAEL = cut. Da-Daelus was the master cutter, the master craftsman, and much is attributed to him. You could tell all kinds of stories, how he invented the sail or how seeing men sail clumsily, blown about by chance winds, he invented the rudder. You could have him be carried away by his own hubris, melt his wings and die and then have young Icarus take on the role of a flying messenger to kings and upon his death, he was taken to Olympus. You can retell any story any way you want when it is you sitting at the campfire with the tribe.

I raised my daughter, Selene, on Greek myths. But I understood that Herakles was not just strong, but also smart. He figured things out before he applied his great strength. I told her about Prometheus and his stupid brother Epimetheus. (Where's all the claws? I gave them to the lions. .... So, Prometheus gave man reason.) You can tell the stories any way you want.

That said, there are many so-called myths for our time. Watch the 1940 movie Young Tom Edison, or read The Autobiography of Ben Franklin. Do you know the story of "Kettering and the Electric Starter"? In fact, the book Kill Devil Hill by Harry Combs (about the Wright Brothers) is mythic. Many biographies exist about Charles Lindbergh. I think that A. Scott Berg's is admirable in bringing the man to life on his own terms, but Lindbergh wrote his own books, as well, and if you assimilate them, you can retell the story to your own audience.

Edited October 19, 2007 by Michael E. Marotta

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Retelling ancient myths in modern form is one of the most powerful forms of literary art and, if it is done with a minimum of competence and a fresh style, it is a manner of assuring that the fiction (or even non-fiction) piece will be taken seriously. It makes people think and recognize at the same time.

Ancient myths evolved as one of mankind's first art forms. Their power comes from illustrating universal truths in concrete form. Centuries and centuries of looking at these universal truths in the same concrete manner has become part of our present-day "image language" to coin a phrase. It permeates great writing down the ages.

So it makes perfect sense to me for a person who is challenging a universal truth to change the myth that illustrates it. I believe that is the reason Rand changed the ending of ancient myths (Robin Hood, Atlantis, Phaëthon, etc.). Rand also used ancient myths to illustrate new concretes in her non-fiction, as in her essay "Apollo and Dionysus" to represent reason and whim in the Apollo 11 moon landing rocket launch and the Woodstock rock festival.

Notice that this is the reason Bob's attempt at humor falls a bit flat and sounds like light mocking (he got the wrong universal truths mixed up, so there is no comic point of intersecting planes on any but the most superficial level). For instance, he claims this is from an Objectivist point of view (as humor):

Icarus not only flies close to the sun but he breaks the speed and altitude records.

The problem is that Objectivism is not really concerned with breaking speed and altitude records, but more with the spirit and mental operations that lead and enable mankind to break them. Thus a more humorous example would have been something like:

Icarus not only flew close to the sun, but he soared so fast and high that he yanked the tail of Apollo's horse and brought the sun back to earth to light the nights of mankind.

That is more in the Objectivist domain. This example could be used for simple good-spirited humor or mocking Rand/Objectivism, depending on the context and intent of the author.

Now if a reporter is writing an article on a person who, in reality, managed to break some speed and altitude record, he could say something like the following:

John Flyer has made an important step in mankind's reach for the stars. All those who went previously have been like Icarus, whose wax wings were melted by the sun's heat as he fell to the earth. But John Flyer has now given real wings to the human mind and spirit. He is Icarus come home for a safe landing.

This alters the myth while giving poetic power and a strong image to an achievement.

In both cases, the intersecting planes of meaning are on much deeper levels than in Bob's example. That deeper level is the one Rand and all good writers inhabit.

Michael

[Barbara Branden]

Frank O'Connor spoke of a painting of Icarus he wanted to do -- but his Icarus is not destroyed. Instead of burning up as he comes close to the sun, he continues to rise triumphantly, and the flames have no power to stop his ascent.

As I think of Ayn Rand on the 50th anniversary of Atlas Shrugged, I think that she was Frank's Icarus. The flames burned her, but they did not have the power to stop her ascent.

Barbara

[BaalChatzaf]

Frank O'Connor spoke of a painting of Icarus he wanted to do -- but his Icarus is not destroyed. Instead of burning up as he comes close to the sun, he continues to rise triumphantly, and the flames have no power to stop his ascent.

As I think of Ayn Rand on the 50th anniversary of Atlas Shrugged, I think that she was Frank's Icarus. The flames burned her, but they did not have the power to stop her ascent.

Barbara

Yes. I think you have the right tone here. Can you do an equally good job with the myth of the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life? You have a better feel for Objectivist nuance than I do.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Dragonfly]

Icarus perished while he ignored the "laws of physics" (as these exist in the context of the story). However, his father Daedalus succeeded, while he understood that to command Nature you have to obey it. His behavior was rational, that of Icarus not. From the viewpoint of a rational philosophy Icarus deserved to fail. In contrast, just to ascend for the sake of ascending, regardless the consequences, is more in the spirit of a Wagnerian philosophy: it is the world of Isolde's Liebestod and Götterdämmerung. I prefer the rational variant over the melodramatic pose. If Objectivists claim to be rational, they should condemn Icarus's whim-worshiping behavior.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Barbara,

That was one beautiful image. Thank you.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Icarus perished while he ignored the "laws of physics" (as these exist in the context of the story). However, his father Daedalus succeeded, while he understood that to command Nature you have to obey it. His behavior was rational, that of Icarus not. From the viewpoint of a rational philosophy Icarus deserved to fail. In contrast, just to ascend for the sake of ascending, regardless the consequences, is more in the spirit of a Wagnerian philosophy: it is the world of Isolde's Liebestod and Götterdämmerung. I prefer the rational variant over the melodramatic pose. If Objectivists claim to be rational, they should condemn Icarus's whim-worshiping behavior.

A successful Icarus would be operating consistently with the laws of nature. You may as well propose to condemn Burt Rutan and Kelley Johnson (both aeronautical geniuses). Icarus would "deserve" to fail only if he could not generate enough lift or to control his direction. That is why the Freres Wright deserved to succeed and Samuel Langley "deserved" to fail.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Dragonfly]

A successful Icarus would be operating consistently with the laws of nature. You may as well propose to condemn Burt Rutan and Kelley Johnson (both aeronautical geniuses). Icarus would "deserve" to fail only if he could not generate enough lift or to control his direction. That is why the Freres Wright deserved to succeed and Samuel Langley "deserved" to fail.

Of course you shouldn't judge this story according to our current knowledge of physics, in that case Icarus and Daedalus would never have gotten off the ground in the first place, with their wings and wax. In this story we should suspend disbelief and accept the "physics" in that story. And then Daedalus was in fact a genial engineer who didn't fuck with the laws of physics, and he was successful, so you may compare him with the Wright brothers. But Icarus didn't behave rationally, he ignored the laws of "physics" and followed his feelings (like John Kennedy jr.), with the inevitable result. Daedalus was the real hero, Icarus was a fool. Unfortunately fools are often more popular than heroes.

Edited October 20, 2007 by Dragonfly

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

You guys tickle me. The ancient myth of Icarus doesn't obey the laws of physics by the dude flying with wax wings, but it is supposed to obey these laws with heat.

Right.

I suggest checking a premise or two and mulling over whether ancient myths are supposed to obey the laws of physics, or if they are supposed to be symbolic of universal truths.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

You guys tickle me. The ancient myth of Icarus doesn't obey the laws of physics by the dude flying with wax wings, but it is supposed to obey these laws with heat.

The human powered planes -Gossamer Albatross- and -MIT Daedalus 88- are made of the same stuff as the point on your pencil, namely graphite.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

The human powered planes -Gossamer Albatross- and -MIT Daedalus 88- are made of the same stuff as the point on your pencil, namely graphite.

Bob,

So you are saying that graphite works for flying with bird feathers and wax?

Michael